Now or Never (23 page)

“Unh-unh. This is peanuts, chickenfeed,
nada
. Just you wait til I get you on that dance floor. Which, by the way, is about the size of the table where you ate dinner. It’s hip-to-hip out there, Malone. You’re gonna love it.”

“I wonder.”

“It’s more fun than a lonely bed at the Ritz-Carlton.”

“How would you know?”

He thought about it. “You’re right. I don’t. I’ve never slept at the Ritz—alone or with anyone else.”

“Now that you’ve relieved my mind on that score, could we turn that down just a touch.”

He grinned at her. “You want something smoochier? ‘Moon River’ again?”

She laughed; he was so silly, she could have hugged him. “I’m not sure that Salsa Annie’s is a good trade for Jordan’s Farm. I hated to leave.”

“I had to practically drag you out of there. Fallen for it, have you?”

“It was a wonderful party.”

“Want to make a date for her sixty-sixth?” When she laughed, he said, “By the way, Mom meant it when she said she loved the present. And she meant what else she said too.”

Mal had given his mother a beautiful dark-blue suede photograph album. Miffy had thanked her with a kiss and said, “My dear, I shall save it for my grandchildren’s pictures. When I’m lucky enough to have any, that is.” And she had looked meaningfuly at the two of them.

“I tried to head her off,” Harry apologized, “but she’s single-minded on the subject. Mothers get that way.”

“Not mine.”

He gripped her hand tighter, but this time he did not ask any questions. He wasn’t about to spoil the mood.

They were driving through town. When they got to the street with Annie’s, he told the limo driver to let them out at the corner.

“I’d never live it down,” he explained when she looked questioningly at him. “The tough homicide cop arriving at a funky hole-in-the-wall club in a limo.”

“Just like a movie starlet,” she added with a smirk, and he laughed.

A battered steel door, painted a flaking chili-red, was set flat into the wall of an old warehouse. A few guys lounged outside, smoking. Some gave Harry a friendly high-five as he walked by, but a couple of others slid quickly away into the shadows. Harry’s eyes followed them, but tonight he was definitely off-duty. And besides he was enjoying himself too much to worry about small-time drug dealers. He would leave them to the guys working the graveyard shift.

When he opened the door, a wall of sound hit them. He took a deep breath, eyes closed, absorbing it. “Great, isn’t it,” he said in Mal’s ear. She just looked at him, eyebrows raised in amazement.

The band numbered at least a dozen, with electric bass and guitar, plus horns, flutes, fiddles, and a piano player
revving them on with a terrific underlay of rhythmic Latino melody. A long-legged Cuban girl in a tiny green satin skirt that just about covered her busy hips, and an even briefer satin top, belted out the song in Spanish, dancing up a storm as the trumpets counterpointed the rhythm. The whole place vibrated with vitality. Harry put his arm around her and drew her onto the floor.

“But I don’t know how to do this,” she protested.

“Just hold on to me, Malone and I’ll show you,” he said, sweeping her to him.

Rossetti watched from the balcony at the far end. “Will ya just look at that, Vanessa,” he said. “If it isn’t the Prof—and with a date. Jeez,” he added, stunned. “The Prof’s wearing a tux. And she looks like an ad for Armani.” They hung over the rail, staring. “And I’ll be darned if the date isn’t Ms. Mallory Malone,” he added, grinning. “The Prof sure knows how to keep a secret. We’ve caught our workaholic, too-busy-to-date Jordan red-handed.”

“Just like you were Sherlock Holmes and he was Moriarty,” Vanessa added, grinning.

Rossetti glared exasperatedly at her. “Did you ever hear the old saying about being too smart for your own good?” He grabbed her hand and hurried her down the stairs.

“Where are we going?” she gasped, clutching the metal banister, trying to keep up with him in her high heels.

“We’re gonna say hello to the detective and his friend.” He pulled her onto the dance floor, edging closer to Harry.

Harry was smiling into Mal’s eyes, holding her at arm’s length. “Like this,” he said, demonstrating. She bit her lip, concentrating as she tried to follow him.

“I think you need Latin blood for this,” she muttered, throwing her head back and abandoning herself to the music.

“You’re lookin’ good, Malone,” Harry yelled over the
wall of sound. “Only thing is, you’re supposed to be doing that in close proximity to me.”

“Uh-oh, there goes our contract again.” She was in his arms, gripped confidently close to him. She could feel his hard body against hers. “Does this get any better?” she murmured, nestling closer.

“It could do.” He liked the way she fitted against him, the movement of her hips under that slinky slide of gossamer. In fact, he liked her a whole lot….

“What d’ya say, Prof? Enjoying yourself tonight?”

Harry groaned. He lifted his head from where it had been grooved against Mal’s and looked into her eyes. “Detective Rossetti,” he said exasperatedly.

“He thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes,” Vanessa added.

“Hi, Vanessa.” Harry turned reluctantly, his arm still around Mal’s waist.

“We interrupt somethin’?” Rossetti glanced innocently at the two of them. They looked hot and happy, and her hair was mussed.

“Mallory Malone, meet Detective Carlo Rossetti. And this is Vanessa, who will be twenty-one in a few weeks’ time.”

“You’re invited to the party,” Vanessa said. Then: “Oh wow, you’re
that
Mallory Malone. Hey, you’re great.”

Mal smiled. “Thanks. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Good to meet you too.” Rossetti shook her hand. “You guys absconded from the Ritz tonight or what?” he asked, eyeing their smart getup.

Mal laughed. “We left the limo at the corner. We didn’t want to look like movie starlets.”

“No chance of that,” Rossetti said gallantly. “You’re a bona fide star. Of course, I can’t say the same for the Prof.”

“Why does he call you the Prof?” Mal asked Harry.

“The Harvard law thing,” Rossetti told her. “You get it?” She nodded, laughing.

“If you must know, Rossetti, we’ve just come from my mother’s birthday fiesta,” Harry said.

“You took her home to meet your mom already? Nice going, Prof.”

Harry groaned. He clutched Mal to him, hiding her. “Good night, detective.”

“Good night, Prof.” Rossetti was laughing as he swept Vanessa into the dance.

“See you at my party,” Vanessa called over her shoulder.

“Come on,” Harry said to Mal, leading her to the door.

“Where are we going?”

“On to the next event. You haven’t forgotten our itinerary, have you?”

They walked back to the limo, and Harry gave the driver the address.

“Another club?” Mal took a compact out of her tiny gold bag and powdered her nose.

“Wait and see.” He watched, fascinated, as she applied her lipstick. Her mouth looked red and juicy. It seemed to be sending him a little message:
Lick me
…. With a sigh of regret, he contented himself with holding her hand until the limo dropped them off, ten minutes later, outside a more discreet-looking club on Brookline.

“You know how to play billiards?” Harry asked as he pushed open the door.

“A little.”

He grinned. “This is really your night for learning, isn’t it. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Inside it was furnished like a classy English library. There was a bar and pool tables with shaded lights slung low over them, and like Annie’s, it was crowded.

They knew Harry there. He got a table and chalked up her cue. “Okay, now watch,” he said, demonstrating how
to hold the cue, how to slide it between her fingers, how to measure up the ball.

“Okay.”

He placed the cue ball and the red and told her where to stand. “Go for it,” he said, stepping back, watching her.

Mal leaned over the table and took careful aim. The gossamer dress slid up over her beautiful butt as she moved. Harry shifted his eyes regretfully away from temptation.

The red glanced off the white and rolled gently into the side pocket. She looked up at him and winked. “S’easy, Prof.”

He sighed. “In my mother’s day you would have let the gentleman win. Made him feel good, soothe his masculine ego.”

She grinned. “I’m more the salt-on-wounds type. Set ’em up, Prof.”

He looked suspiciously at her. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve played this game before.”

“Probably because I used to work in a place like this. Once upon a time. Many moons ago. Though it didn’t look exactly like this,” she added, remembering with a shudder the bleak little pool hall with the fluorescent lights and the hollow-eyed men coughing cigarette smoke into their beer.

She lifted one eyebrow and threw him a challenging look. “Bet you fifty I can beat you.”

“You’re on. I have the feeling I may regret this.”

She proved him right, and half an hour later he handed over the fifty.

“I’d tuck it down the front of my dress in true barhall style,” she said, “but as you may have noticed, the neckline is too low for that.”

“I did notice, and I might add that it was worth the fifty just to see you lean across the table in that dress.”

“Sexist pig,” she said, linking
her arm in his. “What next, Prof?”

“Oh, I think maybe, a nightcap.”

The limo dropped them in Louisburg Square. She stared, astonished, at the magnificent old house. “This is where you live?”

“Only on the lower floors. The other apartments are rented out.”

He opened the door, and she stepped past him into the hall. The mountain bike was propped against the wall, and his helmet sat on a beautiful eighteenth-century console table. There was a pair of Rollerblades underneath, and a dog’s chewbone in the center of the dark green Persian rug.

“It looks like home,” she said approvingly, as he showed her into the living room. “Seriously, Harry, it’s beautiful. Even with the Nautilus in here, this room still manages to capture the graciousness of another era.”

“Thank you, Malone. Just make yourself at home. What can I fix you?”

“Coffee, please.”

She peeked curiously into his bedroom. It was minimalist, in bronze tones, with a hard-looking Jacobean four-poster, a couple of night tables, an old chair, a chewed rug, and not much else.

“Squeeze ate the rug when he was a pup,” Harry called from the kitchen. “He was sick for a week. Never chewed anything he wasn’t meant to again.”

The bathroom was like a time warp. “How do you function in here?” she wondered, looking for counter space.

“Very well, thank you.” He switched on the coffee machine. “It works for me.”

“Mmmm.” She wandered into the kitchen. “Would you just look at this?” She marveled at the high-tech steel and granite. “You never told me you could cook.”

“I can’t—it’s all for show. I always meant to learn. One day I’ll take that trip to cooking school in Tuscany, see how I’d make out as a chef.”

“I can bet you right now. Not good.”

She leaned against the granite counter, arms crossed over her chest, looking at him. “I’ve had a great time tonight, Harry. Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure,
ma’am.”
He gave a courtly little bow.

“Mal,” she corrected him.

“And not a day over thirty-five.”

She laughed and pummeled him in the chest. “Oh God, you’re the pits, Harry Jordan. I was being serious.”

“I know you were.” He caught her to him, cupped her face in his hand. They looked searchingly at each other for a long moment.

“What about the verbal contract?” she whispered.

“This is a supplementary clause,” he said. And then he kissed her.

It was a tender kiss, trembling as a teenager’s. His lips were warm, hers soft, parting as he banded his arms around her.

She forgot about breathing—it didn’t seem to matter. All she wanted was his mouth on hers. She laced her hands through his thick curling hair, and tilted her head back, feeling his fingers on her skin. She was lost in it, drinking him in.

He took his mouth away, and she gasped for air. “I promise I didn’t mean to do that,” he said shakily, still holding her.

“Me neither.” She thought if he let go of her, she would simply slide to the floor.

“Coffee?”

She nodded, big-eyed, breathless. He helped her onto a stool at the kitchen counter and poured coffee into two plain white mugs. “How about a sandwich?”

She began to laugh, helplessly. “Oh, detective,” she groaned, “how did you know it’s exactly what I want?”

He grinned back at her. “Extrasensory perception.” He took two jars out of the refrigerator. “Mayo or mustard on your turkey?”

“Both,” she said, still laughing.

S
UZIE KICKED OFF HER SHOES
as she walked into the bathroom. She brushed her teeth, rinsed her mouth, and washed her face. She held the cold washcloth to her throbbing head; it felt soothing and she decided to fix an ice pack.

She padded slowly back into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was an older model, without an automatic ice-maker, and the ice-cube tray was empty. She sighed—she must have forgotten to fill it last time she used it.

Then she remembered the two-pound bag of frozen peas she had bought a couple of months ago when she had sprained an ankle. It had worked as good as any expensive ice pack because it was flexible. She could wrap it in a pillowcase and put it on her head.

Carrying the bag of frozen peas, she trailed into the bedroom. The pills were making her feel even woozier—the head nurse had told her they would make her sleepy. “You’ll probably sleep most of the day,” he had said. Suzie had felt relieved because, sleeping, she wouldn’t have these flashing lights in front of her eyes, and hopefully the crushing pain would go away.

But if she were sleeping, she would miss her meeting with her sister. She glanced doubtfully at the clock. It was very late, but she knew Terry would still be out on the
town with her fiancé. So she decided to call and leave a message on her machine.

She put down the frozen peas and began unbuttoning her nurse’s white overall.