Sweet Liar (44 page)

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.

M
axie 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.

It would be difficult to describe Maxie's feelings at the time. She didn't feel terror as she would have thought, only a dull heaviness, because she knew that her life was over. A man like Doc wouldn't allow himself to be cuckolded without punishing the perpetrator, and she had no doubt that he knew about her and Michael. Maybe it's what she deserved, she thought, because she had agreed to his rules and she had broken them.

Silently, he stepped into the room behind her and locked the door with a big key that she hadn't known existed. Wanting to be brave, wanting to face death with her shoulders high, Maxie turned to him, her back to the long, garishly lit cosmetic counter and faced him as he took a seat across from her

“How did you find out?”

With a little smile that made Maxie shiver, he shrugged, obviously not planning to enlighten her.

He's enjoying this, she thought, looking at him. My God! he's enjoying this! Nothing else in life gives him pleasure or excitement, not sex, not food, not people who love him, nothing pleases him but this, knowing that he is going to kill someone—having absolute, life-and-death control over another human being.

Knowing that now she had nothing more to lose, she said, “Why did you kill Joe?”

Again Doc shrugged. “He was too clumsy and he was of no more use to me.”

“As I am of no more use to you?”

“Exactly.”

Taking a deep breath, her hands behind her, she braced her body against the edge of the countertop and felt Joe's blood drying on the front of her dress, stiff and loathsome. “You'd better get it over with. The girls' act is almost finished and they'll be in here soon.”

Doc's smile widened. “No they won't.”

It was as though the blood suddenly drained from Maxie's body, and her first thought was of Michael. She didn't know what Doc had planned, but she knew it involved Mike.

Without thinking what she was doing, she lunged for Doc. He was little and scrawny, but he was strong, and with one backhand slap, he knocked her to the floor.

Slowly, painfully sitting up, blood coming from the corner of her mouth, she looked up at him. “Kill me,” she whispered. “Do it now.”

Still smiling, Doc said softly. “Not yet. You're going to die more than once tonight.”

At first Maxie thought he meant he was going to torture her, but in the next moment she heard the first blasts of the machine guns and the accompanying screams. In terror, at first uncomprehending, Maxie bolted for the door, meaning to go to Michael, but the door was locked. For a moment tearing at the knob, pulling frantically on it, she turned to Doc. “Give me the key,” she screamed, barely able to hear herself over the sound of the machine guns and the screams of both men and women coming from the ballroom floor. “If you have any mercy in you, give me the key!”

But Doc just sat there with that enigmatic little smile, watching her, as though he were fascinated with her actions, as though he were a scientist observing a very interesting species of animal.