Genuine Lies (10 page)

He had made a trio of films with Eve, brilliant, fiery films that had provoked a flood of rumors about the fire offscreen. But Victor Flannigan was married to a devout Catholic. Rumors about Eve and him still buzzed from time to time, but neither added the fuel of comment to the flames.

Julia heard the sound of their merged laughter, and knew she was listening to lovers.

Her first thought was to turn quickly and start back to the guest house. Journalist she might be, but she couldn’t intrude on so obviously private a moment. The voices were coming closer. Going on instinct, Julia backed off the path and into the shadows to let them pass.

“Have you ever known me to be ignorant about what I was doing?” Eve asked him. She had her arm through his, her head inclined toward his broad shoulder. From the shadows Julie realized she’d never seen Eve look more beautiful or more happy.

“Yes.” He stopped and took Eve’s face in his hands. He was only a few inches taller than she, but built like a bull, a solid wall of muscle and bulk. His white hair was a mane of silver in the moonlight. “I imagine I’m the only one who could say that and stay alive.”

“Vic, darling Vic.” Eve stared into the face she had known and loved half of her life. Looking at him now, seeing the age, remembering the youth made tears back up in her throat. “Don’t worry about me. I have my reasons for the book. When it’s finished …” She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, needing badly to feel that strong pump of life from his pulse. “You and I will curl up by the fire and read it to each other.”

“Why bring it all back, Eve?”

“Because it’s time. It wasn’t all bad. In fact”—she laughed and pressed her cheek to his —“since I decided to do it, it’s made me think, remember, reevaluate. I’ve realized how much pleasure there is in just living.”

He captured her hands to bring them to his lips. “Nothing in my life has given me more than you. I’ll always wish—”

“No.” Shaking her head, she cut him off. Julia could see the glint of tears in Eve’s eyes. “Don’t wish. We’ve had what we’ve had. I wouldn’t change it.”

“Not even the drunken brawls?”

She laughed. “Not one. In fact, sometimes it pisses me off that you let Betty Ford dry you out. You were the sexiest drunk I’ve ever known.”

“Remember the time I stole Gene Kelly’s car?”

“It was Spencer Tracy’s, God love him.”

“Ah, well, we’re all Irishmen. You and I drove to Vegas and called him.”

“It was more to the point what he called us.” She pressed close, absorbing the scents that were part of him. Tobacco,
peppermint, and the piney aftershave he’d used for decades. “Such good times, Victor.”

“That they were.” He pulled away from her, searching her face, finding it fascinating, as always. Was he the only one, he wondered, who knew her weaknesses, those soft spots she hid from a hungry world? “I don’t want you hurt, Eve. What you’re doing will make a lot of people—a lot of spiteful people—unhappy.”

He saw the glitter in her eyes as she smiled. “You were the only one who ever called me a tough old broad and got away with it. Have you forgotten?”

“No.” His voice roughened. “But you’re
my
tough old broad, Eve.”

“Trust me.”

“You, yes. But this writer is a different story.”

“You’d like her.” She leaned against him, shutting her eyes. “She’s got class and integrity shouting from her pores. She’s the right choice, Vic. Strong enough to finish what she starts, proud enough to do a good job of it. I believe I will like seeing my life through her eyes.”

He ran his hand up and down her back and felt the embers start to glow. With her, desire had never aged or paled. “I know better than to try to talk you out of anything once you’ve made up your mind. Christ knows I gave it my best shot before you married Rory Winthrop.”

Her laugh was soft, seductive, as were the fingers she trailed over the back of his neck. “And you’re still jealous that I tried to tell myself I could love him the way I love you.”

He felt the pang, but it was only part jealousy. “I had no right to hold you back, Eve. Then or now.”

“You never held me back.” She gripped what she’d always wanted and could never completely have. “That’s why no one’s ever mattered but you.”

His mouth took hers as it had thousands of times, with a lightness and a passion and a quiet despair. “God, I love you, Eve.” He laughed when he felt himself harden like iron. “Even ten years ago I’d have had you on your back here and now. These days I need a bed.”

“Then come to mine.” Hand in hand they hurried off together.

Julia stayed in the shadows for a long time. It wasn’t embarrassment she felt, nor was it the tingle of learning a secret. There were tears on her cheeks, the kind that fell when she listened to a particularly beautiful piece of music, or watched a perfect sunset.

That had been love. Enduring, fulfilling, generous. And she realized what she felt beyond the beauty was envy. There was no one to walk in a moonlit garden with her. No one to make her voice take on that musky edge. No one.

Alone, she walked back to the house to spend a restless night in an empty bed.

The corner booth at Denny’s was a far cry from a power breakfast spot, but at least Drake was sure he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. Anyone who mattered. Over his second cup of coffee he ordered a short stack with ham and eggs on the side. He always ate when he was nervous. Delrickio was late.

Drake laced his cup of coffee with three packs of sugar and checked his Rolex for the third time in five minutes. He tried not to sweat.

If he had dared to risk leaving the table, he would have run into the men’s room to check his hair. He passed a careful hand over it to be sure every strand was in place. His fingers walked over the knot of his tie, finding the silk firmly in place. He brushed fussily at the sleeves of the Uomo jacket. His hammered-gold cuff links winked against the crisp ivory linen of his monogrammed shirt.

Image was everything. For the meeting with Delrickio he needed to appear cool, confident, collected. Inside, he was a little boy with jelly knees being led out to the woodshed.

As tough as those beatings had been, they were nothing
compared to what would happen to him if he didn’t pull off this meeting. At least when his mother had been finished with him, he’d still been alive.

His mother’s credo had been spare the rod, spoil the child, and she had wielded that rod while religious fervor glazed her eyes.

Delrickio’s credo ran more along the lines of business is business, and he would slice off small vital parts of Drake’s body with the same casual skill as a man paring his nails.

Drake was checking his watch for the fourth time when Delrickio arrived. “You drink too much coffee.” He smiled as he took his seat. “It’s bad for your health.”

Michael Delrickio was nearing sixty and took his cholesterol count as seriously as he took the business he had inherited from his father. As a result, he was both rich and robust. His olive skin was pampered by weekly facials and contrasted dramatically with steel-gray hair and a lush mustache. His hands were smooth, with the long, tapering fingers of a violinist. The only jewelry he wore was a gold wedding band. He had a thin, aesthetic face only marginally lined, and deep, rich brown eyes that could smile indulgently at his grandchildren, weep over a soaring aria, or show no expression at all when he was ordering a hit.

Business rarely tapped Delrickio’s emotions.

He was fond of Drake, in an avuncular fashion, though he considered Drake a fool. It was that fondness that had caused Delrickio to meet with him personally rather than send someone less fastidious to rearrange Drake’s pretty face.

Delrickio waved for a waitress. The restaurant was crowded, noisy with whiny children and the clatter of cutlery, but he got prompt service. Power covered him as neatly as his Italian suit.

“Grapefruit juice,” he said in his faintly Bostonian accent. “A bowl of melon balls, very cold, and whole wheat toast, dry. So,” he began when the waitress walked away. “You are well?”

“Yes.” Drake felt his armpits dampen. “And you?”

“Healthy as a horse.” Delrickio leaned back and patted
his flat belly. “My Maria still makes the best linguini in the state, but I cut down on my portions, eat only a salad for lunch and go to the gym three times a week. My cholesterol’s a hundred seventy.”

“That’s wonderful, Mr. Delrickio.”

“This is your only body.”

Drake didn’t want his only body carved like a turkey. “Your family?”

“Wonderful.” Always the doting papa, he smiled. “Angelina gave me a new grandson last week. Now I have fourteen grandchildren.” It made him misty-eyed. “This is a man’s immortality. And you, Drake, you should be married to a nice girl, making babies. It would center your life.” He leaned forward, an earnest, concerned father about to impart sage advice. “It’s one thing to fuck beautiful women. A man must be a man, after all. But family, there’s nothing to replace it.”

Drake managed a smile as he lifted his cup. “I’m still looking.”

“When you stop thinking with your dick and think with your heart, you’ll find.” He let out a sigh as their meal was served, then lifted a brow at Drake’s and tallied the grams of fat. “Now …” Nearly wincing at the syrup Drake puddled over his pancakes, Delrickio dantily forked a melon ball. “You’re prepared to pay off your debt.”

The bite of ham stuck in Drake’s throat. As he fought to swallow it, he felt a thin line of sweat trickle down his side. “As you know, I’ve had a little downswing. Right now I’m experiencing a temporary cash-flow problem.” He soaked his pancakes with more syrup while Delrickio solemnly ate his fruit. “I am prepared to give you ten percent, as good faith.”

“Ten percent.” Mouth pursed, Delrickio spread a thimbleful of strawberry jam on his toast. “And the other ninety thousand?”

Ninety thousand. The two words rang like hammer blows inside Drake’s skull. “As soon as things break for me. All I need is one winner.”

Delrickio dabbed his lips with his napkin. “So you’ve said before.”

“I realize that, but this time—”

Delrickio had only to lift a hand to cut off Drake’s hurried explanations. “I have an affection for you, Drake, so I’ll tell you gambling is a fool’s game. For me, it is part of my business, but it disturbs me to see you risk your … your health on point spreads.”

“I’m going to make it up on the Super Bowl.” Drake began to eat quickly, struggling to fill the hole fear left in his gut. “I need only a week.”

“And if you lose?”

“I won’t.” A desperate smile, sweat streaming down his back.

Delrickio went on eating. A bite of melon, a bite of toast, a sip of juice. At the table beside them, a woman settled a toddler into a high chair. Delrickio winked at the child, then returned to the routine—melon, toast, juice. Drake felt the eggs congeal in his stomach.

“Your aunt is well?”

“Eve?” Drake licked his lips. He knew, as few did, that Delrickio and his aunt had had a brief, torrid affair. Drake had never been sure if he could count that in his favor. “She’s fine.”

“I hear she’d decided to publish her memoirs.”

“Yes.” Though his stomach protested, Drake drank more coffee. “That is, she’s brought in a writer from the East to do her authorized bio.”

“A young woman.”

“Julia Summers. She seems competent.”

“And how much does your aunt plan to make public?”

Drake felt a little wave of relief at the turn in the conversation. He slathered butter on a piece of toast. “Who knows? With Eve it depends on the mood of the moment.”

“But you’ll find out.”

The tone had Drake pausing, his knife still in the air. “She doesn’t talk to me about that sort of thing.”

“You’ll find out,” Delrickio repeated. “And you’ll have your week. A favor for a favor.” Delrickio smiled. “That’s how it is between friends. And family.”

•   •   •

It made her feel young to dive into the pool. The evening with Victor had made her glow like a girl again. Eve had awakened later than usual, and with a blinding headache. But the medication, and now the cool, clear water, made the pain tolerable.