Bicycle Built for Two (2 page)

“Integrity?” Alex gaped at his friend. “Are
you insinuating—”

”No!” Again, Gil passed a hand over his
eyes, as though he wanted to clear them of fog. “You’re still full
of integrity and honor. You always have been. But you used to care
about other people, as well. You used to possess a gentle nature
and a sense of fun. You used to possess a sense of good will and
tolerance for those less fortunate than you.”

“Fortunate!” Alex knew that his anger was
justified at last. He bridled. “Good fortune had nothing to do with
my success, Gil. You know that as well as I do.”

Another sigh leaked out of his friend’s
mouth. “I do know it. You’ve worked damned hard, and your success
has been well-earned. But, dash it, Alex, you’re . . .” He
hesitated again, as if he didn’t want to create a rift in their
friendship. “Damn it, Alex, you’re losing your humanity!”

Alex fought a sneer and lost. “My humanity?
Are you suggesting I’m wrong in wanting only wholesome and morally
sound displays and educational entertainments at this fair,
Gil?”

Gil slumped. “No. I’m not suggesting that.
I’m only suggesting that your heart might be hardening with your
success, old man. I hear that happens to people’s arteries. They
get hard as the people get old, and their circulation stops. I
don’t want your heart to get so hard around the edges that you
can’t see the good in people of all walks of life, Alex. You used
to be the most open-handed and open-hearted of men.” Gil shrugged.
“That’s all.”

“I see. In other words, I’m turning into
Ebenezer Scrooge before your very eyes, is that it?”

Gil ran a hand through his hair, then
clapped his derby upon it. “Now I’ve offended you. I’m sorry,
Alex.”

“Not at all,” Alex said, offended to his
toenails. He drew his gold watch from his pocket and glanced at it
for show. “But I see I must be going now, old man. Give my best to
Suzanne.”

And he stalked off. Reflected in a window,
he saw Gil staring morosely after him.

# # #

Kate Finney absently rubbed the
black-and-blue marks on her throat as she contemplated the various
jars, bottles, and boxes set out on the dressing table in Madame
Esmeralda’s Fortune-Telling booth. The bruises hurt awfully, and
Kate wasn’t sure her windpipe hadn’t been permanently damaged. The
problem now, however, was how best to hide the bruises her father’s
fingers had made on her throat so that they wouldn’t distract the
people who entered Madame’s booth to get their fortune’s told. Kate
grinned when she thought about a fortune teller who’d been unable
to foresee an attack by her own father. The grin didn’t last
long.

“You ought to see a doctor, Kate,” Madame
said around a mouthful of bread and cheese.

“Can’t afford it,” said Kate. She tried to
accompany the words with a careless laugh, but it hurt so much to
talk, she quit on the laugh.

Madame huffed and snorted, two things she
did when disgusted or upset. Kate was used to it. She absolutely
adored the feisty old Rumanian Gypsy lady who’d taught her how to
read palms and crystal balls and the Tarot cards. As far as Kate
could tell, neither one of them believed for a minute that a body
could tell the future by gazing at any of those things, but that
didn’t stop either lady from making as much money as possible
purveying the dark arts.

Whatever it took; that’s the way Kate had
learned to deal with life. And if it took misleading a gullible
public, so be it. Far be it from Kate Finney to balk at the chance
to earn a buck or two. Especially not now that her mother’s health
was in such a catastrophic state.

“Ma needs medical attention more than me,”
she added when Madame looked as if she were going to pursue the
subject. “You know that.”

“Fah. You’re every bit as important as your
mother, Kate Finney. If your health suffers, your mother will
suffer, too.”

“Stop it,” Kate demanded, only partially in
jest. “You’re making my blood run cold.”

“Huh. That girl should have killed that man
when she had the chance.” After this semi-enigmatic comment, Madame
stuffed another bit of bread and cheese into her mouth and followed
the bite with one of the hot peppers she loved so well.

Kate understood Madame’s intent. She sighed
and picked up a pot of light-colored facial paint as she thought
about Belle Monroe. Belle had come into her booth as Kate’s father
was in the process of strangling Kate, and had battered him with
her parasol. “She tried. She might have, too, if her umbrella
hadn’t broken.” It still made her grin to think of that most proper
of all proper southern ladies, Miss Belle Monroe, trying to stab
Kate’s drunken father with her broken parasol. “Too bad, that.”

“I should say.”

But wishing her father dead didn’t pay the
rent. Or the medical bills. Kate knew her mother would get better
if only she could keep away from Kate’s father. The doctor said
there was no hope, that Hazel Finney had consumption in an advanced
state, but Kate didn’t buy it. Hell’s bells, Kate herself had
beaten tough odds. Who was the doc to tell her that her mother
couldn’t?

Besides all that, the
thought of her mother’s possible death made Kate want to curl up
and sob. No, sir. Kate was going to fight her mother’s tuberculosis
tooth and nail. And she
was
going to get her mother better one of these days,
even if she had to take her out West, where lots of lung patients
were going these days. Heck, Kate could work out there as well as
she could here. She had faith in herself. Anyhow, the notion of
singing or slinging beer in a wild, western saloon made her
chuckle.

The chuckle only aggravated the pain, so
hung it up and concentrated on covering the bruises without killing
herself in the process. “Ow.” She winced when her fingers smoothed
greasepaint over the livid bruises on her throat.

“I cursed him, you know,” said Madame in a
matter-of-fact tone of voice.

“Beg pardon?” Kate paused with her fingers
on the rim of the paint pot.

“I cursed him.” Madame took another bite of
hot pepper.

“Pa?”

“Umph.” Madame, chewing, nodded.

Kate caught her eyes in the mirror and
grinned. “Yeah? Thanks, Madame. I appreciate it.” Getting back to
her job, she murmured, “Only wish stuff like that really
worked.”

Madame shrugged. “Sometimes it does.”

Kate’s gaze snapped back to the reflection
of Madame in the mirror. Every now and then, Madame’s voice would
take on an odd, mysterious timbre. When she spoke thus, Kate was
never quite sure whether or not to believe her. According to
Madame, she’d taught Kate only the rudiments of the Gypsy’s panoply
of mystical arts. Such things as Madame believed to be out of
Kate’s realm of comfort, she’d discreetly kept to herself. “Say,
Madame, can you really curse a guy?”

But Madame only smiled at her and broke off
another piece of bread. Kate sighed, knowing she’d get no further
information from that source. Madame never opened up and spilled
her guts unless she darned well wanted to.

The door of the booth opened, and Kate
muttered, “Nuts.” She’d been hoping to get her bruises covered
before she had to face any clients.

“I’ll see who it is.” Madame stood up,
dusted crumbs from her brightly colored skirt, and slipped through
the curtains to the front part of the booth.

Kate hurried with her makeup job. She had to
get herself presentable now, because she wouldn’t have time to do
so later. Pretty soon she’d have to leave Madame’s and go to her
other job, which was dancing as a stand-in for Little Egypt.
Although she probably made more money dancing, Kate preferred
telling fortunes.

She’d learned when she was a tiny child to
present a front of bravado to the world. That’s the main reason
she, among all the girls who’d auditioned for the position, had
been selected to dance: because she looked uninhibited. Inside,
where no one could see, she didn’t enjoy exposing so much of her
body to public view. Doing so made her feel cheap, and she didn’t
like the feeling. She’d been fighting the image of a cheap slum
girl all her life. It also opened her up to comments and rude
suggestions from the gaggle of stage-door Johnnies who always
flocked around the Egyptian Hall, lurking in wait for poor
unsuspecting dancers.

They hadn’t reckoned on Kate Finney when
they’d commenced lurking. Kate hadn’t been gullible since she was a
baby, and she suspected pretty much everyone of pretty much
anything. Especially men. She didn’t trust your average man farther
than she could throw him. So far, she’d had no trouble ridding
herself of hangers-on.

Long ago she’d decided that she’d do
anything, except things she found morally repugnant, in order to
help her mother. “Ah, gee, Ma, please don’t die.” The words slipped
through her lips in spite of the pain in her throat, and they were
as close to a prayer as Kate ever got.

“I’ll see if she’s available.”

Madame’s words penetrated
the curtain to Kate’s ears, and Kate’s fingers stilled as they
reached to put the lid on the pot of makeup. She tilted her head
and looked into the mirror, wondering if Madame had meant herself,
Kate Finney
. Am I available for
what
?

The curtain parted, and Madame, casting a
glance back at the booth, slipped in. She jerked a thumb over her
shoulder. “Man. Says he needs to talk to you.”

Kate lifted an eyebrow and reached for a
damp towel with which to clean her hands. “What’s he want?”

Madame shrugged and headed to the small table
where the remains of her bread, peppers, and cheese lay.

Understanding that she’d get no further
elucidation from Madame, Kate checked quickly in the mirror to make
sure her bruises were as invisible as she could make them—not
very—grabbed a bright red-and-green-striped scarf and wound it
around her throat to cover what the makeup didn’t, snatched up her
multi-colored shawl and flung it over her shoulder, and headed for
the curtain. As soon as she saw who awaited her, she stopped in her
tracks. “I’ve seen you,” she blurted out before she could stop
herself.

The tall, elegantly clad young man turned,
frowning. Kate’s heart pounded out a threatening beat in her
chest.

The man said, “Have you?” He finally removed
his hat, and Kate realized he ought to have done so sooner. Her
heart thudded faster when she understood that he hadn’t done so
because he didn’t consider Madame or Kate Finney worthy of polite,
gentlemanly gestures. Kate didn’t, either, for that matter, but
she’d die before she admitted it.

“Yes. Around. Here at the
Exposition.” She gestured vaguely, then straightened her spine.
Blast it,
nobody
could treat Kate Finney like dirt and get away with it. “Did
you have some business to discuss with me?”

“Yes, if you’re Miss Kate Finney.”

“I am.” He was being deliberately rude, or
Kate missed her guess. Because she’d made it a policy not to take
guff from anybody, even rich men, she snapped, “And you are?”

The bastard bowed. Kate, recognizing the
irony intended by the gesture which should have been gentlemanly
but wasn’t, didn’t open her mouth, but stared, hoping she appeared
as rude as he.

“Alex English,” he said, straightening. “I
am a member of the Agricultural Forum at the Exposition.”

Kate’s frown didn’t abate. “Oh. In other
words, you’re a farmer.” She gave the last word a slight special
emphasis and curled her lip.

He didn’t like that. Kate was pleased.

“More than a farmer, Miss Finney. I am one
of the directors of the fair.” He walked farther into the
booth.

The blasted man was tall and
broad-shouldered, he had pretty blond hair that waved like Kate
wished her own hair would do, and he took up too darned much space.
Kate, who was short and slight of build, wished she’d spent more
time cultivating her mystical-Gypsy presentation. If she couldn’t
out-bulk him, she might have out-mystified him if she’d practiced
more. She said, “Yeah?” in as insolent a tone as she could summon.
She wished her throat didn’t ache so badly; it was difficult to be
insolent when she could hardly talk.

Alex glanced around the booth, as insolent
as Kate. Kate wished Belle Monroe would come back and hit him, as
she’d hit Kate’s father. “So. This is where you perpetrate your
trade, is it?”

Perpetrate your
trade
? Kate continued to stare at Alex,
thinking what an ass he was. It was too bad, too, because he was a
fairly good-looking man. Unfortunately, he was also a stuffed
shirt. “This is where Madame Esmeralda and I tell fortunes,” she
corrected.

“Same thing.” Alex waved a hand at the
mystical hangings on the wall. “Do these symbols mean
anything?”

Kate watched as his gaze went from a picture
of the Hanged Man to the Three of Cups to the Emperor. Kate had
asked Madame to remove the picture of the Devil, because she didn’t
want any clergymen taking umbrage, and Madame had done so. Now Kate
was particularly glad that Madame was such an easy-going
spiritualist. And she also wasn’t sure how to answer Alex’s
question, mainly because she didn’t know why he’d asked it. Her
sense of self-preservation was a finely honed instrument, and she
smelled a rat here.

Instead of answering him, therefore, she
said, “Why do you ask?”

“Curious. That’s all.”

“I doubt it.”

His smile held no amusement. “Do you mind if
I sit, Miss Finney?”

“That depends. You want your fortune
told?”

“No.” He said the word gently, as if he were
humoring a lunatic.

“Then state your business, please. I have
work to do.”

“Yes. Well, that’s the difficulty, you
see.”

Oh, Lord. Kate felt it
coming. He was going to kick her out, because of her damned bastard
of a father. As if the lousy son of a bitch was
her
fault. Because her knees felt
shaky, she pulled out a chair and sat herself down in it. “Sit down
and get to the point,” she commanded sharply.