Mom! Come back!
But it was too late. Alex was gone, her loving gaze replaced by the curious stares of three black strangers, kids not much older than Robbie.
He was lying on his back, sprawled across some rhododendron bushes. Their springy branches must have broken his fall. When he tried to move, the pain in his left leg was agonizing. With some help he found he was able to stand.
“You must be seriously high, bro.” The oldest boy shook his head admiringly. “What’d you think, you was Superman or somethin’?”
His friends laughed loudly.
“You do realize you’re buck naked? Or maybe I’m Superman? Maybe I got some of that Kryptonite shit, X-ray vision goin’ on.”
More laughter.
“P-please,” Robbie stammered. “Help me. The cops…they’ll be down here any second. One of you give me your pants.”
The boys looked at one another.
“Say what? We ain’t giving you our goddamn pants.”
Robbie thought for a moment, then started pulling at the little finger of his left hand.
“Here. Take this.” He pressed a solid-gold signet ring into the oldest boy’s hand. It had once belonged to Robbie’s great-great-grandfather, Jamie McGregor, and it bore the symbol of two fighting rams: Kruger-Brent’s crest. “It’s gold. It’s worth five hundred bucks at least.”
The boy looked at the ring.
“Jackson, give Clark Kent here your pants.”
Jackson looked outraged. “Screw you! I ain’t giving him my goddamn pants.”
“I said take ’em off! Now! Here come the cops, man.”
A pair of uniformed police were rushing out of Gianni’s building with flashlights. Robbie thought: They’re looking for a body.
The black kid slipped out of his jeans like a snake shedding its skin.
Robbie watched him sprint into the darkness, the Carl Lewis of Westchester County. Seeing three black figures disappearing across the scrubland, the cops gave chase. It gave Robbie a few valuable seconds in which to make his move.
He pulled on the pants. They were huge. Yanking the belt onto its tightest notch, he could just about keep them up. Slowly, he began to walk. The pain in his leg was getting worse. Shutting out everything else, he focused his mind on Lexi and his mother. He couldn’t go to prison. He had to get away. Humming softly to the sound track playing in his head-Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor-he limped on into the darkness.
By the time Robbie got home, it was six in the morning.
Dawn had already broken over the West Village. In doorways, the homeless were starting to stir, bags of rattling bones trying to shake off the combined effects of sleep and booze and move on before the first police patrols arrived. Robbie watched them. Not for the first time he thought how ironic it was that only a few feet of brick separated these hopeless hulks of human refuse from people like him: the richest of the rich. Those bums must think he had it all. What would they say if they knew how often he lay awake at night, in feather-bedded comfort, dreaming of blowing his brains out?
He had no key. That had been in his pants, along with the ecstasy. Limping down to the basement, he punched a six-digit number into the keypad by the service door, which clicked open obligingly. Welcome home.
He wondered what was going on back in Yonkers. Had the cops caught up with his three black buddies? Unlikely. But that didn’t mean he was out of the woods. Maureen Swanson might have spilled the beans, told the police who he was and where to find him.
Whatever. If she had, there was nothing he could do about it now.
Creeping up the kitchen stairs to the entryway, he was relieved to find the house silent and in darkness. He’d almost reached the top of the main staircase when a voice rang out behind him.
“I’m in the study, Robert.”
Shit.
Robbie’s heart sank, dread pooling in the pit of his stomach.
Please, please let him not have been drinking.
Peter sat on the red brocade couch. He was talking to his wife.
You know how difficult they are at this age, darling. I haven’t been firm enough with him in the past, that’s the problem. But it’s never too late to change.
Alex was agreeing with him. Standing by the window, in the green Halston dress he’d bought her for their tenth anniversary, she nodded encouragement. Where would he be without her? Her love and support meant everything to him. They gave him the strength he needed.
If it were just the trouble at school, I could forgive him. Even the drugs. But there’s Lexi to think about. He’s a terrible influence on her, Alex. He’s trying to take her away from me. I mean, I can’t allow that, can I?
Alex shook her head: Of course you can’t, darling. But let’s not waste all night talking about Robert. Do you like my dress?
I love it. You know I do. You look so beautiful.
For you, Peter. I look beautiful for you.
“Dad?”
Peter looked up. Alex had gone. The room swayed gently, like a ship. Everything was tinted with a sepia haze. It was like being inside an old photograph of the Titanic. Disaster had not yet struck, but it was imminent.
Peter Templeton waited for his son’s twin faces to merge into one before he spoke.
“Where have you been all night?”
Robbie shifted mutely from foot to foot.
“I asked you a question.”
“With a girl.”
It wasn’t a lie. Not technically.
“Which girl? Where?”
There was so much anger in Peter’s voice, Robbie found himself shivering.
“In Yonkers. We took a train,” said Robbie, deftly answering the second question but not the first. It wouldn’t help anyone to drag Maureen Swanson’s name into this. “Listen, Dad, I’m sorry about what happened at school today. Really. I don’t know why I do these things. Sometimes I…”
“Sometimes you what?”
Peter’s rage was growing. He didn’t want to hear apologies or explanations. He wanted Robert to admit his guilt. To acknowledge that he deserved to be punished. Punished for monopolizing Alex’s affection. Punished for turning Lexi against him.
“Sometimes I just can’t handle it.” For the second time that day, Robbie started to cry.
Don’t blubber, for Christ’s sake. Be a man. You’ve brought this on yourself.
Behind a red brocade cushion, out of view, Peter Templeton’s hand tightened around the gun.
When he took the Glock out of the safe a few hours earlier, he’d been fantasizing about killing himself. A bottle and a half of Scotch had robbed him of all rational thought and left him bitter and broken. He had failed. As a man, a husband, a father. The gun felt comforting in his hand. An escape. But then Alex had appeared; dear, sweet Alex. Peter stuffed the pistol under the cushion so as not to scare her.
Now he reached for it again. The cool metal pressed against his palm.
Robert had come home.
Robert needed to be punished.
Peter only half heard what the boy was saying.
“I’m not the same as the other kids. I don’t fit in at St. Bede’s. I don’t fit in anywhere. Maybe it’s because I miss Mom so much. Maybe…”
Robbie let the sentence trail away. Peter had tossed the cushion aside. He had a gun in his hand and was waving it around wildly, like a conductor’s baton.
He said: “Please. Go on. This is interesting.”
Cold fear gripped Robbie by the throat. He held his breath.
“Perhaps when you’re done, you can explain to me why it is that my daughter doesn’t want to know me anymore. Why you thought you had the right to steal Lexi from me.”
Robbie was shaking so violently he didn’t trust himself to speak. He’d seen his father drunk a thousand times, but until today Peter had never been violent. Maybe the slap he’d given Robbie in the office earlier had unleashed some inner monster? Like a shark who gets a taste of blood, then plunges into a feeding frenzy.
Robbie chose his next words carefully.
“Lexi has nothing to do with this.”
It was exactly the wrong thing to say. When Peter responded, his voice was a roar. “Don’t tell me Lexi has nothing to do with this! Don’t you dare! She has everything to do with this. You’re stealing her away from me, just like you stole your mother.”
He fired a single shot at the ceiling above Robbie’s head. Bits of plaster rained down onto the boy’s shoulders.
Adrenaline pumped through Robbie’s veins like rock music.
He’s not just drunk. He’s deranged. He’s going to shoot me.
Killing himself was one thing. Being killed, especially by his own father, was quite another. Robbie realized in that instant with searing clarity that he did not really want to die. He was fifteen years old. He wanted to live. All he had to do now was figure out how.
The window to the street was behind him. If he turned and ran, his father could put a bullet in his back. There was no escape. His only hope was to try to reason with him.
“Dad, I never stole Mom from you. She loved you. She loved us both.”
“Don’t you tell me how your mother felt about me! You know nothing.” Peter pointed the gun directly at Robbie’s chest. “Alex and I were fine until you came along.”
“Dad, please…”
The low whistle in Peter’s head was growing louder and louder, like a boiling kettle. He clutched his temples. The room swayed again.
I’m drunk. What the hell am I doing?
He glanced at the window, willing Alex to be there. He needed her advice, now more than ever. But she was gone.
“Daddy, stop it! Stop shouting!”
Lexi appeared in the doorway clutching her favorite soft toy, a stuffed white rabbit.
The noise in Peter’s head was unbearable.
He said: “It’s all right, sweetheart. Come here.”
Robbie watched his little sister take a trusting step toward the couch. Without thinking, Peter turned around to face Lexi. The gun was now pointing in her direction.
Robbie had to save Lexi. Instinct took over. He let out a primal, savage scream, running at his father like a maddened bull.
Peter glanced up. The expression on Robbie’s face was curiously frozen, like a videotape on pause. The fear was gone. It had been replaced by something else. Determination perhaps? Or hatred? Peter wasn’t sure.
He heard the housekeeper’s voice.
“No!”
Mrs. Carter had had a terrible night. She hadn’t slept a wink, lying awake next to her husband, Mike, tossing and turning with guilt. She should never have left Mr. Templeton alone with those kids. He was in no fit state to take care of them. By five o’clock, she could take it no longer. Leaving a snoring Mike in bed, she pulled on yesterday’s clothes without even taking a shower and hurried across town. As she slipped her key into the front door, she heard a loud bang. Heart pounding, she followed the raised voices in the direction of the study. She burst in just in time to see her employer aiming a shiny black pistol directly at his four-year-old daughter’s head.
Peter needed to think, but he couldn’t. The whistling in his head was so loud he wanted to cry. Suddenly he was crying. He opened his eyes and looked at Lexi’s face.
She’s so like Alex.
A second shot rang out.
The whistling stopped.
FIVE
MAX WEBSTER TOOK THE SHINY RED PACKAGE FROM HIS mother and turned it over excitedly in his hands.
It was heavy. Something solid. He decided it was probably not a toy, despite the childish wrapping paper and jauntily scribbled HAPPY BIRTHDAY in gold glitter across the top.
“What is it?”
Eve Blackwell smiled at her son, her eyes dancing with anticipation.
“Open it and find out.”
It was Max’s eighth birthday. A striking child, with a predatory, aquiline nose, ink-black eyes to match his hair, and cheekbones most fashion models would have killed for, there was something both feminine and adult about him. Max had none of the fat-cheeked innocence of his friends. Max was knowing. He was lean. He was wild. If other little boys were puppies, Max Webster was a cougar in their midst, as dangerous as he was beautiful.
Less than an hour ago, the Fifth Avenue penthouse Max shared with his parents had been crammed to bursting with fat-cheeked, eight-year-old puppies, all eager to ingratiate themselves with their famous classmate. The party had been Max’s father’s idea.
Keith Webster said: “The boy needs friends, Eve. He needs to socialize. It’s not normal for a kid his age to spend every minute of his free time with his mother.”
Eve did not object. She simply retired to her bedroom for the duration, locking the door. The party went ahead, and Max was inundated with presents: Transformers and Skalectrix and Hornby train sets and Action Men galore. Everybody ate a lot of cake and s’mores and drank Coke till it came shooting out of their noses in frothy black torrents. Keith Webster took pictures.
Afterward Keith Webster asked his son: “So, sport, d’you have a good time?” His face beamed with love and pride.
Max nodded. Sure, Dad. It was great.
Max waited for Keith Webster to leave. Sunday night was Keith’s regular softball game. He and some of the other surgeons from the hospital had gotten a team together to help relieve the stress of their life-and-death jobs. As soon as Max heard the click of the front door, he went in search of his mother.
“Are they gone?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. It’s just us now. I’m sorry it took so long.”
Eve unlocked her bedroom door. Dressed in a chocolate silk kimono-style robe that fell open at the front to reveal matching lace underwear, she pulled her son close. At eight, Max was still a fairly short child. The top of his dark, gypsy head reached just above Eve’s navel. Pressing his cheek against her smooth, flat stomach, she felt him inhaling her scent, a mixture of Eve’s own feral smell and the Chanel perfume she had worn since girlhood.
All Max did was breathe. But Eve could feel the adoration in his small, compact body. A familiar rush of power made her flesh tingle.
“Come, sit down on Mommy’s bed. You can have your special present now.”
Max watched, delighted, as his mother retrieved the package from her glove drawer. This was what he’d been waiting for. Not some asinine party with a bunch of kids from school who’d only come over in the first place because they wanted to gawk at his mom. As if Max would ever let that happen!
He thought again about Keith Webster. His father. How he loathed him.
So, sport, d’you have fun?
Fun? With you?
Max longed for the day when Keith Webster would be gone. Then he would have his beautiful mommy all to himself. Then he could finally stop pretending.
With trembling hands, he tore at the wrapping paper. Inside he saw a glint of black metal. A train?
“Do you like it?”
Eve’s voice was husky, barely a whisper. Max gazed at her face. With the outside world, his mother always went to great lengths to hide herself. But not with him. Max was special. He got to see the real Eve Blackwell, scars and all. He loved her so much it sometimes made him weep.
“Mom!” He gasped. “Is it…real?”
“Of course it’s real. And very old. It’s been in my family for a long, long time.”
Lovingly, Max stroked the gun’s trigger, his childish fingers caressing, exploring. Such power. And it was all his.
Eve said: “You’re almost a grown man now, Max. You’re too old for toys. Keith doesn’t understand that, but I do.”
Eve Blackwell always referred to her husband by his Christian name in front of their son, never as Dad or Daddy. In the early days, Keith had complained about it.
“I wish you’d drop the whole first-name thing. It’s creepy. Max doesn’t call you Eve.”
But Keith’s sporadic efforts to int
roduce the d-word into his son’s vocabulary always petered out after a few weeks.
Eve would insist: “It’s not me, darling, it’s Max. Besides, I don’t see that it’s such a big deal. It’s just one of his little quirks. The more you go on about it, the more he’ll dig his heels in. You know what children are like.”
“Does Keith know you’ve given it to me?” Max asked, still mesmerized by the gun. It was perfect. Like his mother.
Eve smiled. “No. It’s our secret. I’ll keep it in the safe for you so as not to arouse his suspicions. You may take it out whenever you wish. Just ask me and I’ll get it for you.”
A shocking thought suddenly occurred to Max.
“It isn’t Uncle Peter’s gun, is it? The one he…you know. When I was little?”
Four years earlier, Max’s uncle, Dr. Peter Templeton, had almost shot his children in a drunken rage. No one was sure whether he’d intended to kill himself, or Lexi, or Robert. Peter himself was too drunk to remember. All anyone knew was that the housekeeper had arrived at the Templeton brownstone early one morning to the sound of shots, that she’d wrestled the gun from Uncle Peter’s hands, and that in the process she’d been shot in the arm.
The woman had been paid off, of course. Max overheard Keith saying that the check was “in the millions,” but evidently the money had been well spent: the story never made its way into the press. From that day on, Max’s uncle Peter had not touched a drop of liquor. The gun he used had mysteriously disappeared.
Eve shook her head.
“No, darling. It’s not Uncle Peter’s gun. It’s far more special than that. This gun once belonged to my grandfather, David Blackwell. Your great-grandfather.”
Max’s eight-year-old chest swelled with pride. He loved to hear his mother tell stories about her family. His family.
Max’s earliest memories were of his mother’s deep, sensuous voice lulling him to sleep with tales of his great-great-grandfather Jamie McGregor and the thrilling empire that he founded. Max’s first word was mama, his second Kruger and his third Brent. While other boys dreamed about dinosaurs and Superman, Max’s subconscious glittered with the stolen diamonds on which Jamie McGregor had built his fortune. My fortune. Max Webster had no need for fairy tales, of wronged princesses and dragons and gingerbread castles. His mother was the wronged princess. Eve had had her kingdom stolen from her and been imprisoned by his evil father in her penthouse tower. He, Max, was Eve’s avenging knight. Kruger-Brent was their castle. As for the dragons to be slain, there were too many to count. Everyone Max knew was an enemy, from the despicable Keith, to the boys at school who made fun of his mother, to his Templeton cousins, Robert and Lexi.
Mistress of the Game Page 6