The Crasher (38 page)

Turning to face him, she said hopelessly again, “Oh, Johnny.”

“Oh, Ginny, darling little giant of a girl.” There were no more quick, sweet kisses. He was kissing her as if he’d been longing
to kiss her for months, their mouths, tongues at first meeting softly, then fiercely, crazily, the fever building, tenderness
going fast.

The blush crepe bridesmaid dress was only half unzipped before she was out of it, the lamp throwing rosy shadows over her
pale skin, her tiny breasts with such delicate nipples.“Ginny…” He groaned. “Ginnnnny….” It was the last word spoken as they
discovered each other.

She heard a clock chime one, two, wondering for a panic-filled second where she was. Johnny opened his eyes at the same time,
stroked her hair, lifted her up from the living room floor, carrying her across his shoulder, into his bedroom, as light and
spare and modern as the living room was dark and cluttered and antique.

He lay her down on the white bed as carefully as if she were a piece of porcelain. He clicked on the light and straddled
her thighs, looking down, inspecting her. “Taking inventory,” he called it later. Their breathing quickened; the steep, sweet
climb began again.

When next she heard the chimes, there were five, and he was smiling down at her. “Hello, sleepyhead.”

She was too full of happiness to speak, frightened that any word would be the wrong word. He shifted his arm to wrap it more
firmly around her. “Ginny, Ginny, Ginny… what am I going to do about you?”

“You don’t have to do anything,” she whispered. “Talk to me… tell me about you…”

It had been painful to listen to him talk about his life that Sunday evening of several weeks back, when she’d yearned so
much for him, feeling so close and yet so far. Now, as he whispered about his sense of failure, of never measuring up to his
Goliath of a father, it was the most natural thing in the world to murmur comfort, to nuzzle her face against his, to sweet-kiss
his neck, his chin, his shoulder.

“When I was a kid of five or six I added to family history the day Dad won his first Pulitzer. ‘I’m tired of your awards,
Daddy,’ was apparently my response to the news. I’m told he thought it was very funny, but somehow I doubt it. Pulitzer, Polk,
Overseas Press Club… there have always been so many, all related as far as I’m concerned to moments of painful growing up.”

Johnny felt her shiver, pulled the coverlet up, drew her closer. He went on dreamily, “I can still remember the yellow telegram
on the white tablecloth in the thatched cottage in Wiltshire, England, where he’d put Mother and me while he covered Europe.
I can still remember how nervous my mother looked as she opened the telegram, although it was addressed to him, announcing
yet another triumph. As usual he wasn’t home, but he’d promised he’d make it for my birthday, my eleventh, and I rode my bike
to meet him with the news at the train station, but also as usual he never turned up, and riding back I was so angry I fell
off and broke my arm.”

His chest heaved in an almost silent sigh. “Another time, I
forget when, we were living in Cairo and my mother waited and waited for him to arrive and a huge wooden plaque, his most
recent award, came home instead. It was the first time I ever saw her lose her cool. She was so angry she threw it out the
window… I spent my youth acting as a buffer between my parents, Ginny… between my long-suffering mother, who won the prize
for long-distance sulking over the phone, and my celebrated usually absent father…” His voice trailed off, his face almost
on her breast, he was falling asleep and so was she.

Brilliant shards of light hurt her eyes. It was morning. She could hear water running, smell coffee brewing. Johnny. She caressed
the word in her mind. Her Johnny.

He poked his head around the door, his hair wet, close to his head, a few tendrils curling up. He looked young, happy, relaxed.
“Good, you’re awake. Thank God, it’s Sunday. I’m going down the block to get some bagels. Okay? If you behave I might even
spring for some carrot juice.”

While he was gone Ginny showered and looked in his closet for something to wear to breakfast. A pale gray heavy knit sweater
appealed to her, but it was too rough on the skin. She settled for one of his denim shirts, leaving the top buttons undone,
not at all sorry, because of her height, it barely covered her behind.

Exploring the roomy, beautiful apartment, she padded around into a large, brightly lit kitchen where, below a television mounted
on the wall, Johnny had already set the breakfast table with cutlery, glasses and coffee mugs. Through a swinging door was
a small formal dining area, with round, dark green, almost black malachite table and high-backed, elegant blackwood chairs;
concealed by a handsome Japanese screen, the dining area led directly into the living room.

The peach-colored drapes were still drawn, the soft lamps still lit on the polished tables. Ginny wrapped her arms around
herself, shutting her eyes, savoring the memory of the night before.

On an antique desk in the corner she saw a large silver
framed photograph. Although she’d never studied his face, she knew it had to be Quentin Peet. There was a slight resemblance
to Johnny, but there was also something formidable in this face, or was it better described as a look of leadership that Johnny
didn’t have?

On the desk a couple of invitations spilled out of opened envelopes. Ginny picked them up idly. One was to a private screening
of a new movie, followed by supper at Le Madri. The other looked like a slim book of heavy cream-colored paper with a red-ink
sketch of a noble lion on the cover. Was this the Literary Lions invitation? She opened it excitedly.

“A Literary Evening at the Library honoring literary friends of the Research Libraries of the New York Public Library,” she
read. On the next page, side by side, were two lists of names, one under the heading “The Lions,” the other under “The Patrons,”
both columns in alphabetical order. Ginny casually scanned the list of Lions, finding, as she’d expected, Quentin Peet’s name.

She grimaced as she found a name she was not expecting on the patrons’ list—none other than the dreaded Svank. No wonder Poppy
wanted a new dress for the “Library do.”

Just reading Svank’s name was enough to bring the black pit of fear and despair back, along with the now unavoidable knowledge
that Alex was using her, involving her in something that could only end in disaster.

Should she confide in Johnny? No, it was too soon, or was it? After the events of the past few hours she could trust him,
couldn’t she? Trust him to look after her, yes, but he would have to tell the police. And perhaps he’d even feel this was
the story he’d been looking for, the big one to put him on the map, a story that would surely lead to Svank and who knew what
else?

Nothing had changed. There was nothing she could do—yet—until she heard from Alex. She would give him another month, she told
herself. By then she would have met Johnny’s father at the Library do, as Poppy called it. There was no one in the world who
had more influence than Quentin Peet, no
one who knew more about tracking somebody down and solving problems. She would pretend she’d only just found the jewels and
tell both father and son without mentioning Alex’s name. They would know what to do. Yes, that was the answer. She would give
Alex one more month. If he hadn’t come to her rescue by then, the Peets would. A rush of relief came just from making this
decision.

She heard the door open. The invitation still in her hand, she turned to greet Johnny, glowing with love, waving it as she
said, “I can’t wait for this event, Johnny, darling. I’ll design something special to look like a literary heroine to meet
your famous father.”

Before she finished the sentence, she knew she should never have said it. Johnny scowled and walked past her into the dining
area and on into the kitchen. Before she reached him, he’d switched on the television and was pouring himself a cup of coffee,
the brown paper bag he’d been carrying, thrown down on the counter.

“What’s wrong, Johnny?”

At first she didn’t think he was going to answer. Tim Russert’s voice on
Meet the Press
filled the kitchen. Then, “Ginny, I told you once before not to push your luck. After all I mistakenly told you no more than
a few hours ago, I’m surprised you keep on pushing it.”

It was impossible to reconcile this tight-lipped stranger with the sweet, loving man who, his arms wrapped around her, had
confided in her some of his childhood memories.

Ginny stared at him uncomprehending. It wasn’t as if his father and he were sworn enemies or never saw each other or talked
on the telephone. That wasn’t the case. He’d told her so in a dozen different ways.

“My father told me at lunch…” she’d heard him say; or “I’ve got to rush, meeting my old man…” And how many times had she read:
“John Q. Peet, the columnist, seen here attending one of the many book parties given to celebrate the latest book by his illustrious
father, et cetera, et cetera…”

“What’s going on, Johnny? I don’t get it,” she said angrily.
Silent, he kept on sipping his coffee, staring at the TV.

This was crazy. She wasn’t going to accept the drawbridge going up. She tried to put her arms around him, but he hunched away.
“Don’t you understand, Ginny, I keep my private life separate—totally separate—from my father. I made that promise to myself
when my marriage broke up. I’m never going to give him the opportunity to say ‘I told you so’ again.”

She knew she was flushing, for all she knew from her bare behind to her eyebrows. “Thanks a lot. Has it crossed your mind
your father might approve of me? Might think I’m a worthy…”

“Don’t say another word,” Johnny yelled.

The invitation was still in her hand. Ginny smacked it down on the kitchen table. “So you’re not going to take me to meet
your father?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re sick,” she screamed.

“Maybe so. I call it self-preservation.” As suddenly as she’d triggered his black mood, it was gone. He stood up, pinning
her to the wall, his hands tight beneath her naked bottom. “Be patient, Ginny. I know this situation better than you, wouldn’t
you agree.”

“No, I would not. You’re—” His mouth stopped her. She tried to wrest herself out of his arms, but as he began to caress her
body, kiss her mouth, her neck, her anger disappeared fast. She was too much in love with him not to respond. As he opened
the rest of the buttons on the shirt and his mouth reached her nipples, they began to slither down the wall, wanting each
other so much that neither noticed the cold of the tiled floor.

She didn’t refer to the invitation again or certainly to his father. Johnny tried to make amends when he said sometime during
the long, lazy, delirious Sunday, “There are some interesting things coming up, Ginny, things we’ll go to together, maybe
even a short trip—and others you’ll go to alone, things we’ll plan a strategy for—to cover for the book.”

“Yes, Johnny,” she said sweetly.

There was one thing she would be planning a strategy for, strictly for herself. The big night at the library. If Johnny was
not willing to take her, she would have to take herself—as surely she was experienced enough to do.

She had to meet his father sooner than later, and the Literary Lions evening would be the perfect opportunity. She would prove
to Johnny there would be no reason for the great Quentin Peet to say “I told you so” about the folly of their relationship.

Equally important, if by then she still had the jewels in her possession, with no word from Alex, she would put her new plan
into action. She would “discover” the jewels as if for the first time, and cry to both Peet senior and junior for help.

If everything went as well as she hoped, the “Library do” could be the last crash of her life.

It would certainly be the most important.

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda
was the name of a new play opening soon in a neighborhood theater on West Twenty-second. Ads for it were everywhere. Pasted
on trees, poles, and stuck on graffiti-covered walls, they exclaimed the play was about “the sick insane world of gambling”;
but every time Ginny saw the title, she thought the same thing: How perfectly it summed up her relationship with Johnny.

As she said dolefully to Esme on the phone, “You’re back from your honeymoon. I’m back where I started with Johnny.”

At least that’s how she felt most days, dwelling with despair (as opposed to regret) on what she thought of as “the wedding
weekend,” torturing herself with the knowledge that despite all the warning signals, she’d ended up as just another notch
on Johnny’s well-notched belt.

To begin with, after he’d dropped her back at the loft that Sunday night, it had taken four painfully slow, count-the-minutes
days before she’d heard from him again, and when he’d called, every molecule of her had strained to hear a different, intimate
note in his voice. Yet he hadn’t sounded different at all.

Friendly, warm, casual, “Hi, Ginny, when can we get together
to go over some things? I’d like to book you for…” Same voice, the same kind of words, “booking” her, as opposed to asking
her for a date—or, as she told Esme in her best Tallulah Bankhead voice, “asking for my hand in marriage.”

She didn’t tell Esme that the first time she saw him after the weekend, miserable wretch that she was, when he’d opened the
door (to his office on West Seventy-seventh, not his home upstairs), she’d dived straight into his arms, although they’d scarcely
been outstretched. Had there been a fierce new look of love (she told herself she’d have even settled for lust) on his face?

Frankly, no, although she’d had scant time to do a study. While they were still standing awkwardly together in the doorway,
Quentin Peet himself had phoned, announcing he was back in town unexpectedly, and suggesting a quick drink.