Passion's Promise (26 page)

"Not very well. I was here as a child, and once about ten years ago for a party. But I didn't see very much. We had dinner someplace Polynesian, and stayed at a hotel on Nob Hill. I remember the cable car, and that's about it. I was out here with Edward and Totie."

"That doesn't sound like much fun. Jesus, you don't know this town at all."

"Nope. But now I've seen the Ritz, and you can show me the rest." She hugged his arm and they exchanged a peaceful smile.

Vanessi's was crowded, even at ten. Artists, writers, newspaper people, an after-theater crowd, politicians, and debutantes. It was jammed with a fair sampling of everything there was in town. And Luke had been right. The pasta was great She had gnocchi, and he had fettuccine, and for dessert they shared an unforgettable zabaglione.

She sat back with her espresso and took a lazy look around.

"You know, it kind of reminds me of Gino's, in New York, only better."

"Everything in San Francisco is better. I'm in love with this town."

She smiled at him and took a sip of the hot coffee.

"The only trouble is that the whole city goes dead at midnight."

"Tonight I think I might too. Christ, it's already two-thirty in the morning, my time."

"Are you beat, babe?" He looked almost worried. She was so small and looked so fragile. But he knew she was a lot tougher than she looked. He had already glimpsed that.

"No. I'm just relaxed. And happy. And content. And that bed at the Ritz is like falling asleep on a cloud."

"Yeah. Isn't it though?" He reached across the table and took her hand, and then she saw him glance at something over her shoulder with knit brows. She turned around to see what it was. It was only a table of men.

"People you know?"

"In a way." His whole face had hardened, and his hand had seemed to lose interest in hers. It was a group of five men, with short, well-trimmed hair, double-knit suits, and light ties. They looked faintly like gangsters.

"Who are they?" She turned to face him again.

"Pigs." He said it matter of factly.

"Police?"

He nodded. "Yeah, special detail investigators, assigned to digging up trouble for people like me."

"Don't be so paranoid. They're just having dinner here, Luke. Like we are."

"Yeah. I guess so." But they had dampened his mood, and shortly after, they left.

"Luke . . . you have nothing to hide. Do you?" They were walking down Broadway now, past the barkers at all the topless bars. But the table of cops still weighed on their minds.

"No. But that guy who was sitting at the end of the table has been on my ass since I got into town. I'm getting sick of it."

"He wasn't following you tonight. He was having dinner with his friends." The group of policemen had shown no interest in their table. "Wasn't he?" Now she was worried too. Very.

"I don't know, Mama. I just don't like their trip. A pig is a pig ... is a pig." He licked one end of a cigar, lit it, and looked down at her face. "And I'm a sonofabitch to throw my bad vibes on you. I just don't like cops, baby. That's the name of the game. And let's face it, I've been  playing heavy games with the strike at San Quentin. Seven guards were killed during the three weeks."

For a moment, he wondered if he had been wrong to stick around.

They wandered into porn bookstores, watched tourists on the street, and finally ambled onto Grant Avenue, cluttered with coffeehouses and poets, but the police stayed on their minds, however little they showed it to each other. And Luke was once again aware of being tailed.

Kezia tried to lighten his mood by playing tourist.

"It looks rather like SoHo, only more funky somehow. You can tell it's been around for a while."

"Yeah, it has. It's the old Italian neighborhood, and there are a lot of Chinese. And kids, and artists. It's a good scene." He bought her an ice cream cone, and they took a cab to the Ritz. It was four in the morning for Kezia by then, and in the arms of her lover she slept like a child. Something troubled her only faintly as she drifted off to sleep—something about police . . . and Luke . . . and spaghetti. They were trying to take away his spaghetti . . . or ... she couldn't figure it out. She was too tired. And much, much too happy.

She had fallen asleep as he watched her, a smile on his face as he stroked the long black hair that rippled past her naked shoulders and down her back. She looked so beautiful to him. And he was already so goddamn in love with her.

How was he ever going to tell her? He slipped quietly out of bed after she fell asleep, and went to look at the view. He had blown it, blown all his own rules. What a fucking stupid thing to do. He had no right to someone like Kezia. He had no right to anyone until he knew. But he had wanted her, had to have her—as an ego trip at first because of who she was. And now? Now it was all different. He needed her.

He loved her. He wanted to give her something of himself . . . even if only the last golden hours before sunset. Moments like that don't come every day, at most they come once in a lifetime. But now he knew he would have to tell her. The question was, how?

"Lucas, you're a beast!" She groaned as she turned over in bed. "For God's sake, it's still dark."

"It's not dark, it's just foggy. And breakfast in this joint is at seven."

"I'll go without."

"No, you won't. We have things to do."

"Lucas . . . please . . ." He watched her struggle out of sleep. His hair was combed, his teeth were brushed, his eyes were bright. He had been up since five. He had a lot on his mind.

"Kezia, if you don't get off your ass, I'll keep you on it all day. And then you'll be sorry!" He ran his hand smoothly from her breast to her belly.

"Who says I'll be sorry?"

"Don't tempt me. But come on, babe. I want to show you the town."

"In the middle of the night? Can't it wait a few hours?"

"It's seven-fifteen."

"Oh God, I'm dying."

And then, laughing at her, he picked her up out of bed, and deposited her in the bathtub of warm water he had run while she slept.

"I figured you wouldn't be up to a shower this morning."

"Lucas, I love you." The hot water lulled her gently, as she lay looking sleepily into his eyes. "You spoil me. No wonder I love you."

"I figured there had to be a reason. And don't take too long. They close the kitchen at eight, and I want some food in my stomach before I drag you around town."

"Drag me, eh?" She closed her eyes and sank deeper into the tub. It was an ancient bathtub that stood high off the floor on gold-leaf claw feet. It would have been large enough for both of them.

They breakfasted on pancakes and fried eggs and bacon. And for the first morning in years, Kezia didn't even bother to read the paper. She was on holiday, and she didn't give a damn what the world had to say. "The world" would only complain, and she was not in the mood for complaints. She felt too good to be bothered with that.

"So where are you taking me, Lucas?"

"Back to bed."

"What? You got me up, just to go back to bed?" She looked incensed and he laughed.

"Later. Later. First, we take a look at the town."

He drove her through Golden Gate Park and they walked around its lakes and kissed in hidden corners under still-flowering trees. Everything was still green and in bloom. The rusty look of the East in November was
so
different, and so much less romantic. They had tea in the Japanese Garden, and then drove out to the beach before driving back through the Presidio to look out over the bay. She was having a ball: Fisherman's Wharf, Ghiradelli Square, The Cannery. . . . They ate fresh crab and shrimp at the stands at the wharf, and reveled in the noise of Italian vendors.

They watched old men playing boccie in Aquatic Park, and she smiled watching one very old man teach his grandson how to play. Tradition. Luke smiled too, watching her. She had a way of seeing things that he had never thought of before. She always had a sense of history, of what had come before and what would come later. It was something to which he'd never given much thought. He lived with his feet firmly planted in
now.
It was an exchange they gave to each other. She gave him a sense of her past, and he taught her to live where she was.

As the fog lifted, they left their borrowed car down at the wharf, and took the cable car to Union Square. It made her laugh as they rolled down the hills. For the first time in her life she felt like a tourist.

Usually she moved across a regulated map between familiar houses in cities she had known all her life, from the homes of old friends to the homes of other old friends, wherever she was, the world over. From one familiar world to another. But with Luke being a tourist was fun. Everything was. And he loved the way she enjoyed what he showed her. It was a fun town to show—pretty, and easy, and not too crowded at that time of year. The rugged natural beauty of the bay and the hills made a pleasing contrast to the architectural treasures of the town: skyscrapers all politely herded downtown, the gingerbread Victorians nestled in Pacific Heights, and the small colorful shops of Union Street.

They drove over the Golden Gate Bridge just because she wanted to see it "up close," and she was enchanted.

"What a handsome piece of work, isn't ft, Luke?" Her eyes scanned far above to its spires piercing the fog.

"So are you."

They dined that night at one of the Italian restaurants on Grant Avenue. A place with four tables for eight, where you sat next to strangers, and made friends as you shared soup and broke bread. She talked to everyone at their table; this was new to her too. Luke grinned as he watched her. What would they have said if they had known she was Kezia Saint Martin? The idea made him laugh more. Because they wouldn't have known. They were plumbers and students, bus drivers and their wives. Kezia Saint Who?

She was safe. With him, and with them. That pleased him; he knew that she needed a place where she could play, without fear of reporters and gossip. She had blossomed in the brief time since she'd flown into town. She needed that kind of peace and release. He was glad it was something he could give her.

They stopped for a drink at a place called Perry's on Union Street, before going home. It reminded her a bit of P. I.'s in New York. And they decided to walk home from there. It was a pleasant walk over the kills, dotted with small parks along the way. The foghorns were bleating at the edge of the bay, and she kept stride beside him, holding his hand.

"God, Luke. I'd love to live here."

"It's a good place. And you don't even know ft yet"

"Not even after today?"

"That's just the tourist stuff. Tomorrow we see the real thing."

They spent the next day driving north on the coast Stin-son Beach, Inverness, Point Reyes. It was a rugged coastline that looked much like Big Sur farther south. Waves crashing against the cliffs, gulls and hawks soaring high, long expanses of hills, and sudden sweeps of beaches, unpopulated and seeming almost to be touched by the hand of God. Kezia knew what Luke had meant. This was a far cry from the wharf. This was real, and incredibly beautiful, not merely diverting.

They had an early dinner in a Chinese restaurant on Grant Avenue, and Kezia was in high spirits. They were seated in a little booth with a curtain drawn over the doorway and you could hear giggles and murmurs in other booths, and beyond, the clatter of dishes and the tinkling sound of Chinese spoken by the waiters. Kezia loved it, and it was a restaurant Luke knew well, one of his favorite hangouts in town.

He had been there the night before she arrived, to tie up the loose ends about the strike at San Quen-tin.

It was an odd thing, talking about dead men and inmates over fried wonton. It seemed immoral somehow, when he gave it much thought, but mostly he didn't. They had learned to accept what they lived with. The realities of men in prison, and the cost of changing that system. It cost some men their lives. Luke and his friends were the generals, the inmates were the soldiers, the prison administrators the enemy. It was all very simple. "You're not listening to me, Lucas." "Hm?" He looked up to see Kezia watching him with a smile.

"Something wrong, darling?"

"Are you kidding? How could there be?" She was watching his eyes, and he pushed thoughts of San Quentin from his mind, but something was bothering him. A sense of foreboding, of ... something. He didn't know what. "I love you, Kezia. It was a beautiful day." He wanted to chase the painful thoughts away, but it was getting harder to do.

"Yes, it was. You must be tired from all that driving though."

"We'll get a good night's sleep tonight." He chuckled at the thought and leaned forward for a kiss.

It wasn't until they left that he saw the same face he had seen too often during the weeks he'd spent in San Francisco. As he looked around and saw the man darting back into one of the booths with a newspaper under bis arm, it was suddenly too much for him. "Wait for me up front." "What?"

"Go on. I have some business to take care of." She looked suddenly surprised, and frightened by the expression on his face. Something had happened to him; it was as if a dam had broken, or like the moment before an explosion . . . like ... it was frightening to watch.

"Goon, dammit!" He gave her a firm shove toward the front of the restaurant and headed quicklv back toward the booth he had seen the man enter. It took him only a moment to reach it, and he pulled back the aged, fading curtain with such force that it tore at the top. "Okay, sweetheart, you've had it." The man looked up from his newspaper with an overdone expression of unknowing surprise, but his eyes were wary and quick.

"Yes?" He was graying at the temples but he looked almost as solid as Luke. He sat poised in his seat, like a tiger ready to pounce. "Get up."

"What? Look, mister . . ."

"I said get up, motherfucker, or didn't you hear me?" Luke's voice was as sweet and smooth as honey but the look on his face was terrifying, and as he spoke, he lifted the man from his seat with a hand on each lapel of his ugly plaid double-knit sportcoat. "Now what is it exactly that you want?" Luke's voice was barely more than a whisper. "I'm here for dinner, Mack, and I suggest you lay off right now. Want me to call the cops?" The man's eyes were menacing and his hands were starting to come up slowly and with well-trained precision.