Sweet Liar

by Jude Deveraux

  As though Maxie didn’t have enough trouble, what with hours of rehearsals every day, co-workers who were cool to her at best and hostile at worst, and the growing annoyance of always having to look utterly perfect for Doc, there was Michael Ransome. He had been hired by Jubilee to dance with the girlfriends of the gangsters who were too fat or too lazy or just plain too tired to dance with them themselves.

  Michael Ransome was indeed a problem to Maxie, for all the girls were in love with him. It wasn’t just that he was handsome, nor was it just that he had eyes that only opened halfway—bedroom eyes the girls called them. Nor was it his cleft chin and eyes the color of a stormy sea, somewhere between blue and gray, or his thick, wavy dark blond hair or his lips, full and sensual. No, what made all the girls love Michael Ransome was his manner, which was honey. Hot honey. Hot, liquid, sweet honey. All Michael had to do was look at a woman and he could sense what she needed—then he gave it to her. He could be gentle and seductive or rough and demanding. He was whatever any woman had dreamed of in a man, and he had been known to seduce a woman without so much as uttering a word. All he had to do was look at her over a chilled glass of champagne with those slow, lazy eyes and women began to feel warm—so warm that they often felt the need to remove pieces of clothing. Sometimes the women whispered to each other that if a woman could somehow resist Mike’s eyes she would never be able to resist his voice. It was deep and smooth and languid. He’d touch a woman’s hand, lift it by her fingertips to his lips, all the while looking at her with that special, shaded gaze, then bring her palm to his lips, those full, sculptured lips, and he’d whisper, “I love you.”

  Never once had Michael failed with a woman. He got what he wanted from any woman and afterward she said, “Thank you.”

  But then Michael Ransome met Maxie.

  The first time Mike came into the dressing room—what did it matter if he saw them without their clothes on since he’d been to bed with each of them—after Maxie started singing at the club, he gave her his second-best come-on. After all, why waste his energy when anyone who could sing with the lust that Maxie did had to be one hot number?

  Instead of the easy conquest he expected, to his consternation, without uttering one word to him, Maxie dumped a full box of face powder over his head. At first neither Mike nor the girls could believe what had happened. Nobody turned Mike down. Going to bed with Mike was a sort of initiation to the club.

  When they finally did realize what Maxie had done, it would be hard to decide who was more angry, the girls or Mike. For months after the powder-dumping incident, Maxie had to endure spiteful little things perpetrated by the women: makeup missing, one shoe not where she’d left it, a smudge on her dress. Maxie endured it all, never complained, never said anything to any of the women, but was always cordial and polite.

  Harder to endure than the women’s spitefulness were the snips that Michael Ransome took at her. He was truly angry that she’d turned him down and done it so publicly. After trying two more times to seduce her, he let the whole club know that she was frigid, calling her names like Ice Princess and telling people she thought she was too good to be in a nightclub. He harassed her without end.

  It was Lila, the lead dancer, who told Mike to lay off and that she was getting sick of hearing his bellyaching and she was beginning to admire Maxie’s fortitude and the way she carried herself. And it was Lila who first invited Maxie to go shopping with her and the girls, asking Maxie if she’d help them choose dresses that weren’t so gaudy. Maxie was a little leery of what the women had planned for her, but she went and she had a wonderful time. When the women found out that Maxie wasn’t so much aloof as she was shy, Lila guessed that the poor kid had never had a chance to learn how to make friends.

  After that the women began to accept Maxie into their group, inviting her places and accepting Maxie’s invitations.

  But Mike kept badgering Maxie, still so angry at her that he intensified his efforts to get a reaction out of her—but he didn’t succeed. When Lila told him to lay off and slammed the dressing room door in his face, Mike was angry enough to kill.

  Then one night Michael’s life changed forever. An hour after he left the club he realized he’d forgotten his wallet, having left it in his tux at the club. Annoyed with himself, he went back to the club to find it locked and dark. Knowing that a second-story bathroom window’s lock was broken, he piled garbage cans on top of each other in a precarious stack and climbed in the window.

  After he had his wallet, as he was leaving the club, he thought he heard something. Walking down a corridor, he saw a dim light shining from under the women’s dressing room door. Silently pushing the door open, he looked in to see Maxie sitting at the table crying, but she was crying in that way that he and the other kids in the orphanage had cried: silently, as though, if they were discovered, they would be punished.

  Without a conscious thought, he did what he’d always wished someone had done for him: He went to her, knelt beside her, and took her in his arms. After an initial moment of Maxie’s fighting him, she calmed down and clung to him—and Mike clung to her. Had someone told him that the reason he bedded all the women was because he wanted to be close to them, that he wanted them to love him, he would have laughed, for he liked to think of himself as utterly independent, needing no one. He liked to think he was a love ’em and leave ’em guy, and he knew that’s what the women thought of him. Not one of them was ever serious about a too-handsome dancer in a bar.

  When Maxie couldn’t seem to stop crying, Mike carried her to the beat-up old couch along one wall, moving a jumble of sequined and rhinestoned garments and torn netting, to sit with her and hold her.

  It was the most natural thing in the world when they started kissing. Months of anger at each other quickly turned to passion as they began fumbling with each other’s clothes, then tearing at them. They made love on the couch once, twice, three times, not talking to each other, afraid that words would break the spell, afraid that each would become what they didn’t want. Mike was afraid Maxie would turn into all the other women, afraid she’d say, “That was swell, Mike, but I need to get back to my old man now.” Maxie was afraid that she was just another one of Mike’s girls.

  It was nearly daylight when Maxie first spoke. Tired, sated, she lay in Mike’s arms and knew she never wanted to leave this place where she felt safe for the first time in her life. “If Doc finds out, he’ll kill both of us.”

  It took Mike a few minutes to calm his racing heart, for her words indicated that she intended to continue seeing him. “We will keep it a secret,” he said, and Maxie nodded, for she sensed that he knew about secrets as well as she did.

  Over the next months she and Mike met clandestinely in a cold-water flat that was a breeding pen for cockroaches and rats. They made love, yes, but they also talked, telling each other all about their lives, for the first time each having a friend to confide in.

  At the club they did their best to keep their growing love for each other a secret. They said all the right things. Mike still called Maxie an icy bitch; he still sneered at her, and Maxie still stuck her nose in the air when he was around.

  But they didn’t fool the women. For one thing, Mike quit making passes at everything in skirts, even behaving himself on the dance floor. For another thing, there was that look in Mike’s eyes. Where once he’d looked at Maxie with eyes that glittered with anger, they now glittered with love. Not lust, love.

  Knowing that the women saw what was going on, one night Maxie tried her best to make them think that she and Mike still hated each other by tossing a glass of champagne in his face.

  Mike ruined everything by grabbing Maxie’s shoulders and kissing her hard on the mouth, and the girls recognized a familiar gesture when they saw one. When Mike walked out of the dressing room, there was silence until Lila said, “Honey, you oughta be real careful with a man like Doc.”

  Maxie could only nod.

  35

  12 May 1928
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  Maxie was sure she’d never been so happy in her life as she was tonight. Everything about Jubilee’s club was especially beautiful, from the mirrored ball overhead that flickered flattering lights across people’s faces to the people themselves. Tonight the club seemed to be full of Doc’s men and even their crude manners couldn’t dull Maxie’s happiness.

  It was difficult to sing the blues, difficult to sing about your man leaving you and no longer loving you when she knew that tonight she was leaving the city with Michael. Her bags were packed and ready, waiting for the last show to be over, then she and Mike were slipping away, going to the Midwest somewhere or to California, anywhere that was far enough away from Doc and his type.

  As she sang, she saw Mike waltzing some woman with hair the color and texture of straw across the dance floor, her arm about his wide shoulders, her gum popping in his ear. As he passed Maxie, he winked at her, then rolled his eyes skyward. The song of misery that Maxie was singing became a caressing love song.

  When at long last it came time for Maxie’s break, with Lila and the girls coming on stage next, Maxie could hardly contain her excitement through the introductions.

  As she was rushing toward the dressing room, in the darkened hallway, Jubilee stepped in front of her. “You oughtn’t to give yourself away like that, kid,” he said softly, and she knew he meant her singing and the way she had been smiling at Mike all through the evening.

  Maxie was glad for the darkness to hide her blush. She felt bad for not telling Jubilee that she was leaving tonight, but she and Mike had agreed that their leaving had to be kept secret, and that meant telling no one, no good-byes to anyone.

  Pretending she had no idea what Jubilee meant, Maxie went past him and headed for the dressing room, but Mike caught her in a shadow, pulling her into a dark doorway and kissing her as though his life depended on her.

  “Mike,” she said, trying to think, but his hands were all over her. “Mike, we can’t be seen.”

  Tenderly, he put his hands on her cheeks and kissed her gently. “How’s my kid?”

  “Healthy,” she answered. “Secure and happy, just as her mother is.”

  He kissed her again. “Just like his old man.”

  Quietly they laughed together over her calling the baby she carried “her” and Mike referring to it as a male.

  Using what strength she had, Maxie pulled away from him. “Three more hours,” she said. “In just three more hours we’ll be off.” Suddenly she was frightened, for it seemed that every person in her life had abandoned her. “Mike, you aren’t—? I mean—”

  Mike put his fingertips on her lips. “Am I playing with your affections? Have I impregnated you and now plan to abandon you to raise my kid on your own? The answer is yes, I want to spend the rest of my life waltzing brainless women around a floor, and I love spending my evenings with gangsters. Such stimulating conversation. ‘Hey, Big Nose,’ ” he mocked. “ ‘How many you kill today? Only three? I got me four. You owe me ten bucks.’ ”

  Maxie giggled. “Mike, you’re awful. Now, go on and get out of here before someone sees us.”

  After another lingering kiss, he left her to go back to the dance floor while Maxie went into the empty communal dressing room to check her hair and makeup before she went on stage again.

  A lipstick tube in her hand, she glanced into the mirror and at first didn’t believe what she saw. A little boy about nine years old had silently pushed open the door and was standing there, tears slowly running down his cheeks.

  Maxie turned to him. “What’s wrong?” There was concern in her voice, true, but there was also fear; there was always fear about a place that was peopled with men like Doc.

  “Somebody shot my daddy,” he said softly.

  Without another word, eyes wide, Maxie got up, went to the child, and offered him her hand. Taking it, the boy led her into Jubilee’s office.

  At first Maxie didn’t see the man lying on the floor because he was partially hidden between the desk and a half-open closet door. It was Half Hand Joe, the man who followed Doc everywhere. At Maxie’s first horrified glance he looked to be dead, for there was a bullet hole in the side of his head, an almost bloodless, neat hole at the edge of a forehead that already had several scars on it. But then Joe’s eyelids fluttered.

  Kneeling, Maxie went to him and gently pulled his head onto her lap.

  “Joe,” she whispered, stroking his hair back from his forehead. Already she could feel the blood from the wound on the back of his head seeping into her dress.

  Opening his eyes, Joe glanced at her, but then his eyes went to his son standing at his feet and silently crying. Maxie hadn’t thought of Joe as having children; in fact she hadn’t thought much of Joe one way or the other, as he was just a shadow that followed Doc, never saying anything, seeming to be content to be near his master.

  “Take…care of him…for me,” Joe whispered, looking at his son.

  “Be quiet,” Maxie said. “I’ll get a doctor.”

  “No!” Joe said, then closed his eyes and for a moment she thought he was dead, but he opened them again. “Listen…” he said. “Must tell.”

  “Yes,” Maxie whispered, leaning forward. Even she knew that with a wound like his he wasn’t going to need a doctor.

  “Doc killed me.”

  This statement was beyond the belief of Maxie, for if there was anyone Doc cared about it was this man. “No, he couldn’t have.”

  Weakly, Joe held up his mutilated hand. “Useless to him. Bad shot. Stupid.”

  Holding his head, feeling the warmth of his life’s blood seeping onto her dress, Maxie still couldn’t believe what he was saying. Joe started fumbling at his coat lapel and Maxie realized that he wanted something from his pocket. Reaching inside for him, she pulled out a zippered canvas bag, the kind the bank gives you to carry money.

  “I knew…” Joe said. “I knew was coming. I took…money. Money marked. Don’t spend.”

  Holding the bag, Maxie nodded. “No, of course I won’t spend it.”

  “Help my boy.” For a moment, Joe tried to lift himself, and his eyes were brilliant with their intensity. “Swear.”

  “Yes,” Maxie said, and she could feel the tears running down her face. “I swear I’ll take care of him.”

  Joe lay back down, his strength almost gone. “Doc doesn’t know…about boy. Boy a secret. Money a secret.”

  “I’ll keep your secrets,” Maxie said. “All of them.” In the next minute she knew that Joe was dead.

  Tenderly, she lay him back on the floor, and turning to the little boy, she took him in her arms and held him for a moment while he cried, “I want my daddy.”

  By some instinct, Maxie knew that she didn’t have time to comfort the child. Doc had said he wasn’t coming to the club tonight, that he had other business to attend to and couldn’t make it, and his absence was why she and Mike had chosen tonight to make their getaway. But now the hairs on the back of Maxie’s neck were rising because she sensed that something horrible was going to happen. Something had made Doc lie to her and made him kill a man who had been his friend and bodyguard.

  Abruptly, she pulled away from the child and stood. Time was at a premium now; she knew that as well as she’d ever known anything in her life. She had to take care of this child, then get to Mike and both of them had to get out of this club. If she and Mike were going to get away, they weren’t going to be able to wait until after the last show, they were going to have to leave now.

  Pulling the child behind her, Joe’s canvas pouch in her hand, Maxie went back to the dressing room. There, secreted under what looked to be a pile of clothes, was her fat little traveling purse, filled with things she’d need for the coming journey, and hidden in the lining was an inch-thick stack of hundred-dollar bills, all the money she’d been able to save from years of waitressing and singing. She didn’t hesitate as she took the money from the purse and wrapped it in one of Lila’s rayon blouses that was hanging on the back of
a chair.

  “Who is your mother?” she asked the child, trying not to convey to him the sense of panic that was building within her, but not succeeding.

  The child had no idea what she meant. His mother was his mother and no one else.

  Maxie took the child’s chin in her hands, maybe a little harder than she meant to. “Tell me the truth: Is your mother a good mother?” Maxie had had too much experience with bad mothers to trust a woman just because she had the near-holy title of “mother” attached to her.

  Again, the child didn’t understand her.

  Exasperated, Maxie said, “Does she beat you? Is your house clean? Do a lot of men spend the night in bed with her?”

  The boy’s tears started again. “She doesn’t hit me and she’s always cleaning and only my dad sleeps in the bed with her.”

  Feeling guilty and wanting to comfort the boy, Maxie knew she couldn’t. Like bile rising in her throat, she knew that time was running out and she had to get to Mike and get out of this club.

  She thrust the bundle of money into the boy’s hands. It was everything she and Mike had, and she had no idea what she and Mike were going to use to travel on or to set up housekeeping with, but she couldn’t think of that now. Right now she knew that the most important thing in the world was to get her and Mike out of here alive.

  “Give this to your mother,” she ordered. “And tell her to get out of New York. Now run as fast as you can. Tell her she has to leave tonight.”

  After a few red-eyed blinks at her, the boy scurried out of the dressing room and ran out the back door of the club. For a moment, just a tiny moment, Maxie stood and watched him leave before she turned back to the dressing room.

  But she didn’t enter the room, because Doc was standing there, and in his hand was a pistol with a very large opening in the end of the barrel. Without saying a word, he motioned her into the dressing room.