Wiseguys In Love (24 page)

Lisa was holding her ears with her hands, trying to insulate herself from the horrible blast from the car in the next lane.

“There're a lot of assholes in this world,” Tony muttered.

A man in a red sedan in front of the black Jaguar got out of his car, and they watched him walk back over and slam on the guy's window.

Morris looked up at him, gave him the finger, and went back to the horn.

The driver of the sedan began screaming into the car, and Michael watched Tony unlock his door.

“No—” Lisa's chest tensed.

The car ahead began to roll slowly forward.

“But—”

“Look, we're beginning to move,” she added quickly, pointing to the car in front of them.

Tony sat back down fully in his seat and began to inch along the highway, and she relaxed.

Twenty-five minutes later, they inched their way past the Sonders' house as security waved them on. Michael looked back in time to see the Jaguar roll up to the front gate and unroll the window. He passed a piece of paper to a guard and the gates opened, allowing the Jaguar and several limousines to slide inside.

*   *   *

Henry sat in the back of the cab, carefully. The seat was burning hot from the sun and the new tuxedo he'd just bought felt itchy from all the sizing, and smelled of it. It was pearl gray, a color that almost exactly matched his skin shade at this point. He'd bought a brush and run it through his hair, which was now greasy, and he put it back into a ponytail. He looked at his face in the rearview mirror of the cab. He needed a sauna and a rubdown, and a shave. He noticed that his cheeks were sunken and realized that he was losing weight rapidly. He should go to a gym.…

Mother. She was going to get a piece of his mind. Who the hell was she to treat him like this? She was the one who'd insisted he take this lousy job. She was the one who'd threatened to cut off his trust if he didn't. So why the hell should he have to go to some eccentric old fart's funeral? He barely knew Grandfather Foster. The man never came out of this kind of odd greenhouse he'd built. A hundred and seven degrees and humid as hell, and this loon was always sitting in the center of it, bundled up in blankets, like Nanook of the North.

“Hurry up!” he barked at the back of the driver's head.

Let his sister get dragged off to these things. She loved them. Tiffany had always been an ass-kisser. Always there when Mother sneezed. He glared out the window at the beach.

All right, she wanted to play it like this, he'd play it like this. What exactly would he do?

He sat up on the seat as the idea came into his head. He felt the corners of his lips curl up in a grin. A scene. The one thing that would make his mother's skin crawl. A nice big, screaming, embarrassing scene in front of all her society friends.

The cab pulled up to the large front gates of the house he'd remembered playing in as a child.

He'd actually always hated the Sonders. They were assholes. Most people were assholes. That's why they weren't permitted to all the places he hung out.

Morris. That scuzzy little bastard. Threatening
him.
Another person he'd settle with. He should be happy just supplying him, a leading New York magazine publisher.

If there was one thing he'd learned from his family, it was this: The rich don't pay for anything.

Hell, Henry's family was one of the 2 percent of this country who owned 90 percent of the wealth, and his father had to pay only one hundred dollars in taxes last year.

A guard rapped on the window and Henry rolled it down.

“Wedding invite, sir?”

He grumbled, dug into his pocket, then handed the man a crumpled, ripped invite. The gates opened and Henry pulled in.

*   *   *

Tony grabbed at his necktie and pulled on the knot to loosen it around his collar. He flexed his thigh muscles, trying to get some kind of circulation back in them.

Michael sat in the backseat, staring out at the road from the shoulder onto which they had pulled. He kept going over things, deals he could offer Tony to offer Solly to get him off the hook, deals to stop the hunt for Lisa's boss.

Lisa sat rigidly still every time Tony looked over at her. There was the strong smell of after-shave, which added to her fear of him. Even when she wasn't looking directly at him, even when she was trying to block him out of her mind, the scent refused to allow it. She looked over at him. He had an odd expression on his face that she couldn't quite read. She didn't like it at all. And she'd just noticed that his nose seemed to point at her even when he was looking straight ahead.

At that moment, she felt the tips of Michael's fingers brush the back of her neck as he leaned forward on the backseat. As they touched her, the zinging pulses that went through her body seemed overwhelmingly large for the lightness of the touch. Short memories of the night before went through her like small thunderbolts going through her legs, making the muscles on the tops of her thighs twitch and a tightness start deep in her pelvis. She felt her breathing becoming shallower and shallower, and her eyes began to close as the memories of him being all around her, the softness of his tongue as he explored her mouth, and the shaking—he shook—overtook her, making the car melt away for a moment.

Tony coughed and she snapped back to alertness, and Michael's hand quickly pulled away. Her body now felt stiff and scared. She looked around at Michael, wondering whether touching the back of her neck had set off the same pulses in him. Or was it only her?

What was she thinking? This man had kidnapped her. Then the terrible thought reoccurred to her. God, maybe she was one of those crazies who liked that kind of thing?

She ran it over in her mind. She had certainly never asked anyone to tie her up and stick a gun in her face before going to bed. She hadn't slept with that many men, to tell the truth. She'd had a boyfriend in high school, there were two guys before Andrew, and then there was Andrew, and she had been faithful to him for almost five years.

When had she first had thoughts about Michael? What could possibly have attracted her to him?

Her eyes looked at him. He was sitting on the seat, looking …

That was it. That was when she knew he was safe. He had looked embarrassed by all this.

Then she had the odd thought about what it would be like to spend her life with Michael, away from all this. There was a twitching in her as she thought of Michael in Michigan. She would march into the newspaper office and get a job. Look, she would say, I have four years of experience on
Smug.
I can proofread; I can write blurbs; I know what to do.

And Michael would go to school and find a career. And they would go to dinners with people, and live in a big house, and they would go to PTA and lodge meetings. And she would not be stuck getting humiliated day after day by this jerk of a man, coming home to listen to her answering machine, praying Andrew would show some human compassion and call.

And no one in Bliss would ever even imagine this life. No one would know about him or how they met, and it would be a secret that would bind them together.

“How did you meet Michael?”

“He kidnapped me with a gun, because he was with the Mafia and was ordered to kill my boss.” She could see the faces twist up confused at that, and then, as they giggled at the absurd idea, he would wink at her.

It made her chest tingle. There was something erotic about having this dark secret that they would look back on from a safe distance. It was dangerous. She was still in grave jeopardy; they still had to stop Tony. She felt a zinging in her pelvis again, and she suppressed a smile, because this was the first time in several years she'd felt excitement in her life.

Two nights ago, she'd sat, weeping by the front door, wondering when her life was going to change.

She really felt alive. And yes, she had been kidnapped, and yes, she had killed a man—in self-defense, she thought quickly—and yes, she had made passionate love to this man, because it might have been her last night on earth, and yes, she was still in the clutches of this robotic killer. Her eyes slid over to Tony. But strangely, somehow it seemed as though things were finally looking up in her life.

The sensation of a full bladder finally was persisting so much that she couldn't ignore it any longer.

She squirmed in her seat.

“I have to find a bathroom,” she announced.

Tony grunted. He started up the car again and headed off for a restaurant up the road a bit.

Michael got out with Lisa and they walked over to the place that looked closed. They walked inside in silence and closed the door.

Behind the bar, a bartender was pouring ice into an ice bin. He stared up at them.

“We're closed.”

“I know. You have a bathroom the lady can use?” Michael asked.

The man nodded toward a long hallway they were standing in front of and went back to pouring the ice.

“You okay?” Michael asked quickly.

“As long as there are no parking meters delivered to my building.”

They both chuckled, and Lisa exhaled, realizing that this was the first time in a long time she'd made a joke.

“I better go back out,” Michael said, and turned quickly.

She grabbed him by the arm and spun him around suddenly, catching him off guard. She gave him a long hard kiss, then turned and walked quickly down the hallway.

She'd always wanted to do that to someone.

He stared after her, finally getting his breath back. He quickly walked over to the men's room. He stood staring at the machine on the wall. After a moment, he dug into his wallet and shoved several coins into it. Two small boxes slid down the chute and into the bin. He grabbed them, took the foil-wrapped condoms out of them, shakily put them inside his wallet, and tossed the boxes. He walked back out quickly, putting his wallet into his jacket.

It was just … with all these diseases out there, who knew? And of course he knew Lisa would be fine, but who knew about that lowlife she'd been living with?

The feel of sheets and her body against his the night before flashed through his mind and made his skin tingle. He'd been having these flashes all day, being with her in the car, and he'd finally had to touch her, if only to brush the back of her neck. Michael stopped in the hallway. He had to get a grip on himself. He was not some breathless schoolboy who'd been kissed for the first time.

But it was very difficult being so near to her and not being able to touch her. If he could just keep his mind off the night before—the sound of her moaning as he'd kissed the side of her neck when he was on top of her flooded his mind.

A small smile came over him as he opened the door to the restaurant.

It was—good—needing something like that again.

He exhaled and walked back outside. He glanced at Tony's face in the car, and wiped the smile off his face.

“Got to stretch my legs,” he called over to the car.

It was even hotter than he'd thought. He walked over to the restaurant's deck, overlooking the beach, and leaned down. It smelled of salt water, with a tang of dying shellfish and the perfumed smell of suntan lotion.

He could feel his shirt begin to stick to him under the jacket.

Tony came up next to him and leaned over in silence. They watched people sunning themselves on towels, walking up and down, splashing in the water. In the corner, a volleyball game was in hot play.

“You think I should get married?” Tony's voice breezed by.

Michael stared over to him.

“What made you think of that?”

“I dunno. Maybe being around Michigan these past few days. It ain't easy, meetin' women, you know?”

“Yeah. Who you thinking of marrying? Angela?”

“Naw, she ain't right.… I dunno, someone don't want to talk too much.”

Michael turned around and stared at the building, leaning his elbows on the rail. The stretch across his chest felt good.

“Maybe you should write to one of the agencies, you know, sends women over from Sicily.…”

He grunted and stared over at Michael.

“I don't mean
can't
talk, fahcrissake. I mean someone don't wanna talk.”

“They
can
talk, Tony, just not in English.”

“Naw, I get enough of that shit from my grandmother.”

Michael shrugged and straightened up. He looked over at Tony, who was leaning on the rail and frowning, as he rubbed his clasped hands together.

“Tony, what about getting me off the hook?”

“What?”

“What I asked you in Forlini's last night. Getting me off the hook with Solly?”

Tony shook his head.

“Solly ain't so happy right now, Mikey. You saw him last night. Look, you do this guy for Aunt Rosa and maybe we can do something—”

“No. Don't you understand? I don't want to make my bones, Jesus!”

“You don't gotta raise your voice, here. Look, it ain't so bad. Solly takes good care of you. Look at what I got. I got a nice car, got good clothes, I got money.” His voice stopped as Lisa came out of the restaurant.

They both watched her in silence.

“So what do you think about me gettin' married?”

*   *   *

A ten-tier lilac-colored wedding cake festooned with gardenias sat on a white linen table fifteen feet long. Twenty thousand white and rare silver-purple roses had been entwined into a thick garland, which hung around a long tent made of yards and yards of the same shade of lilac silk. The tent wrapped around three sides of the huge garden, enclosing the wedding area, overlooking the beach.

Folding chairs, cushioned with satin lilac pillows, were lined into thirty rows of ten on each side of a center aisle. A lilac silk carpet, specially woven in China for the occasion, ran the distance of the aisle. Another gracefully draped garland of gardenias ran up the aisle of seats along the inside and outside, creating pews.