"She'll murder you," Socks said, shaking his head as the two of them headed back through the maze that was the basement of any building of any age in Manhattan, heading for the stairs.
"Yes. I'm shaking in my shoes at the prospect of her righteous anger, Socks. But let's think about this, shall we? A dead rat and some execrable poetry. All the makings of a one-off prank, don't you think? A disgruntled reader, most likely. As Maggie is wont to say, everyone's a critic. This particular critic simply had access to a dead rat. Now that he's vented his spleen, said what he had to say, that should be the end of it."
"And if it isn't?"
Saint Just stripped off the thin gloves and tossed them in a nearby empty bucket that didn't seem to have a purpose, so he gave it one: waste can. "If it isn't, we'll know soon enough. In any event, we will all—you, Sterling, and myself—stay very close to Maggie for the next three weeks, until she and Sterling and myself adjourn to New Jersey to celebrate Christmas with her family. If there are no more rats, and nothing untoward occurs, we can then probably safely conclude that this particular rat had no siblings."
"She's still going to murder you," Socks said, grinning. "Maggie doesn't like secrets. Hey, you didn't say—did you see how the guy signed the note?"
"No, I didn't." Saint Just stopped beneath yet another bare bulb and held up the note inside its plastic covering. "I don't see ... oh, there it is. N ... e ... Nevus? What in bloody blazes is that supposed to mean? Nevus? A nevus is a—"
"A mole," Socks said brightly. "I looked it up. A bit of skin pigmentation or birthmark."
Saint Just tucked the plastic bag back into his pants pocket. "And you still think we should take any of this seriously, Socks?"
"No, I suppose not. Anyone who'd call himself a nevus has got to be a little crazy."
Saint Just stopped, turned around, looked at Socks. "Well, thank you, my friend. Now, for the first time, I do believe I'm a trifle worried. Yes, we'll all stay very close to Maggie, won't we?"
"And you'll talk to the lieutenant? You know, like without telling Maggie?"
"Possibly. Although I doubt there would be much of anything he could do unless the threat becomes more specific. I'll think on it, Socks."
"I saw him the other night," Socks offered carefully as they continued their way through the rabbit warren, Saint Just pausing only to pick up his sword cane, which he'd retrieved from his condo and brought downstairs with him. He felt naked without his sword cane, which was Maggie's fault, because that's how she'd made him.
"You saw the left –tenant? And why does that sound so ominous, Socks?"
"Well, he wasn't alone."
One corner of Saint Just's mouth curved upward. "Really, Mr. Jackson. Feel free to expand on that most intriguing statement, if you please?"
Socks looked to his left and right, as if expecting Maggie to be hiding behind one of the stacks of boxes. "I'm not one to gossip ..."
"No. Definitely not, Socks. You are the soul of discretion and I commend you for that. Indeed, I am in awe of your powers of circumspection. And now that we have that out of the way—please go on."
The doorman grinned. "A blonde, and hanging on his arm like she couldn't navigate without him, you know? They were coming up out of the subway just as my friend and I were going down. We looked at each other, and then pretended we didn't see each other—you know how it is. But, man, did he look guilty. Do you think Maggie will be upset?"
"Only if she believes it wasn't her idea that she and the left –tenant stop seeing each other as anything but friends."
"You want to run that one by me one more time, Dr. Phil?"
Saint Just smiled. "Please, don't attempt to compare me with a rank amateur. It's simple enough, Socks. If Maggie stopped seeing Wendell as a beau, which I do believe she has already decided to do, that would be fine with her, as she's already realized that she thinks of him as a good friend, but no more. But for him to stop seeking her attention in favor of some other female before she can make that clear to him, let him down gently, as I believe it's called? No, then she'll decide she's just managed to allow what could have been the man of her maidenly dreams slip through her fingers. It's all in the timing, my friend, so we will not mention that you saw Wendell with another woman."
Socks shook his head. "Women. It's times like these that make me so glad I'm gay."
Saint Just chuckled, then frowned as he lifted a finger to his mouth, warning Socks to silence. "Someone's approaching."
A few moments later Maggie popped her head around the corner of a pillar, holding a shovel in what some might consider a threatening manner. She sighed, and put down the shovel, the look in her green eyes daring him to mention the makeshift weapon against Things That Go Bump in the Cellars. "Alex? I thought I heard someone talking. What are you doing down here?"
"Maggie, my dear," Saint Just said smoothly, inclining his head in acknowledgement of her presence. "One could reasonably ask the same of you. I was assisting Socks here with something he had to carry downstairs for Mr. O'Hara. You?"
"You carried something down here? Performed manual labor? Why can't I get a mental picture of that?" Maggie said, turning back the way she'd come, Saint Just and Socks exchanging "whew!" glances before they followed her. "But I'm glad you're here. I was upstairs, just sort of looking for something to do."
"Something such as unpacking your suitcases?"
"Yeah, right. My favorite thing," Maggie said, stopping in front of one of the many wire storage cages that lined the walls. "Anyway, I was looking around, and I suddenly realized that it's December, and we're not going to be here for Christmas unless we have a blizzard and they close the New Jersey Turnpike—which has never happened, even though I've prayed for it every year. I usually put up my Christmas decorations over the Thanksgiving weekend, so I can enjoy them longer, but we went straight to England from Jersey this year and now the condo looks naked, you know? So ... who's going to help me get all of these boxes upstairs?"
Saint Just peered through the wire of the cage, at the stack of boxes that seemed to be three deep and reach to the rafters. "Your holiday decorations are in those boxes? All of those boxes?"
"Yes, most of them anyway. And you love manual labor, right, Alex?"
Socks shrugged. "I'll go get the dolly, and we can use the freight elevator."
"Thank you, Socks," Maggie said as she slipped a key into the lock that hung on the door, then stepped inside the storage area. "My mother hates Christmas, you know. The Grouch Who Stole Christmas, every damn year," she told Saint Just, who was still mentally counting boxes.
"So, naturally, you adore the holiday to the top of your bent, correct?"
Maggie's grin was deliciously wicked. "You know me so well. Oh, Alex, you're going to love New York during the holidays. The tree at Rockefeller Center, the office party drunks ice skating nearby, the department store windows. Barneys is always so out there. Oh, that reminds me. I've got to get to Bloomie's for a cinnamon broom. I get one there every year—it's a tradition. I love the smell of cinnamon. And cookies. We're going to make lots of cookies."
She lifted up two fairly flat cardboard boxes and handed them to Saint Just. "You see, I've just decided something. Bernie's already got next year's hardcover in-house, so I'm just not going to worry about writing again until after the new year. You've been here for months now, Alex, you and Sterling, and I've never really shown you New York. So that's what we're going to do." She added a third cardboard box to the two Saint Just was holding. "Right after we decorate the living crap out of my condo. Come on, Alex, smile. It's Christmas!"
Chapter Two
Maggie stood in the middle of her living room, wondering why she'd thought it was such a good idea to start this when she was probably still suffering from jet lag. It looked as if Christmas had just burped all over the room.
"What's this?" Sterling Balder asked, sitting cross-legged in the middle of a multitude of open boxes, and holding up yet another, to him, unfamiliar or
nament. He looked so cute and cuddly, with a string of golden garland around his neck, and a Santa Claus hat on his nearly bald head.
Sterling was the child Maggie had always tried to believe she could be, the adult she would have grown up to be if her childhood had been different. Sweet. Kind. Loving. Trusting. When she'd conjured him up, she'd thought it had been, as they said during the Regency Era, "out of whole cloth," that he was a total figment of her imagination. But that hadn't been true, as she'd discovered to her amazement and slight embarrassment once Sterling had shown up in the flesh. Sterling was her good self. Which, of course, left Saint Just to be her not so good self, although she tried not to think about that too much.
"Plastic mistletoe, Sterling," she said, taking it from him. "And it goes in the garbage because it's really ugly. I wanted to buy real mistletoe, but the berries or the leaves are poisonous, someone said, and I couldn't take the chance that Napoleon or Wellington wouldn't take a bite."
As if on cue, Napoleon, one of the pair of Persian cats Maggie had figured writers should have, appeared out of nowhere to launch itself at the ball of plastic leaves and white berries. Maggie raised it out of the cat's reach, and Napoleon landed in the middle of a string of fairy lights that became instantly tangled—after Maggie had spent the last half hour untangling them.
"Napper, knock it off," she ordered, and the cat gave her a look that probably should not be translated from Cat to Human if said cat still wants a nightly pinch of catnip from said human, and walked off in a huff, dignity intact except for the loop of lights caught on its tail.
The tree was already assembled and decorated, thanks to Sterling's assistance, but there was still so much ... so much stuff to be spread out through the condo. The bad part was that Maggie was rapidly running out of enthusiasm, and gas, considering the fact that less than twenty-four hours ago she had been bimbo diving in a rain-swollen lake for a murder suspect. "Sterling? You want some of this for your place?"
"Oh, could I? We have nothing, you understand, and I'm afraid everything will look quite naked after this. Well, not precisely naked. I shouldn't have said that. Do you suppose Saint Just will allow a tree?"
"Allow, Sterling? It's your condo, too, you know."
Sterling's smile was indulgent. "Now, Maggie, we both know that's not true. Saint Just labors long and hard posing for Fragrances By Pierre to earn the funds required in order to keep us in such marvelous style, and all of that. I am only in residence thanks to his generous spirit."
Maggie snorted. "Yeah, right. Alex would be lost without you, Sterling. And you know what? He wouldn't want to hear you say you're there on sufferance. You're his best friend."
Sterling shook his head. "No, Maggie. You are his best friend. I am in the way of a boon companion. Indeed, there are times when I believe Saint Just sees me as a somewhat dim child he must protect, and all of that. But I am as you made me, Maggie, and I'm perfectly happy with that. Although I do sometimes wish you hadn't chosen to make me so sadly lacking in hair. Especially now, as it is sometimes so very cold outside."
"I'm sorry, Sterling, sweetie," Maggie said, unwrapping one of the three Wise Men and placing him in the nativity arrangement that she always set up on the credenza beside the front door. "But, as Rogaine wasn't invented back in the eighteen-hundreds, I'm afraid you're stuck with wearing a hat. We'll get you a nice knit cap when we're out shopping, okay? Maybe one that comes with earflaps? You'd look terrific in earflaps. Oh, damn, there goes the phone. No, don't get it, Sterling. We'll let the machine pick up."
As if in suspended animation, Sterling sat and Maggie stood, both of them unmoving, staring at the phone as it rang five times before the click of the answering machine could be heard.
"Margaret? Margaret, are you there?"
Maggie went down on her haunches, wincing, as if physically hiding herself from her mother's voice.
"Margaret, I just saw the newspaper, and read about your latest embarrassment. I can scarcely believe it! It wasn't enough to make a spectacle of yourself in New York? Now you have to go international with your ridiculousness? And with that sweet little girl who is the spokesperson for Boffo Transmissions? Why, there must be at least a dozen outlets in our area of New Jersey alone. What? Oh, wait, your father is bellowing something from the kitchen. What now, Evan?"
Maggie and Sterling exchanged glances, Maggie rolling her eyes almost in apology.
"Margaret? Your father says there are fifteen Boffo Transmissions in southern New Jersey alone—as if the man had nothing better to do than count them, which he doesn't. But that's not the point. You have no consideration for us, do you? You write those filthy books, and now you're on the news every other time I turn around, consorting with lowlifes and murderers. I have to go to the supermarket at five o'clock, when no one else is there, I'm so embarrassed."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing new there. Shame, shame on Margaret. Get to the point," Maggie grumbled, wondering how many sessions with Dr. Bob it would take before she could do more than hide and grumble.
"But to get to the point of this call ..."
Maggie's eyes popped open wide. "Wow. That's almost spooky," she said as Sterling giggled.
"I know I said you and your strange friends could stay here at Christmas, but that was before your brother decided to bring some of his friends with him. I'm sure if you call now you'll be able to get rooms somewhere in town. The prices will be outrageous, but you're such a big-shot author now, I'm sure that's no problem for you. And your brother did buy us this house—I thank God every day for Tate, I swear it. You can see why he has to come first."
"Yeah. Why should this year be any different," Maggie told Sterling, who was looking at her in that sad, sympathetic way, as if she was a puppy who had just showed up on his doorstep, hungry, and wet to the bone from a cold rain. "Shouldn't the computer chip have filled up by now? I've got to get a cheaper machine."
Alicia Kelly's voice dropped to a near whisper. "I'm in the other room now, away from him. One more thing, Margaret. I wouldn't discuss this with Tate, of course—he's much too sensitive for such news. Erin is never available, and Maureen is already sneaking way too many of those little pink pills she thinks I don't see her taking. Girl goes around grinning like a loon most days, over nothing. But at least you aren't sensitive. You're like a duck—water rolls right off your back. You get that from your father's side. So I'm telling you, mostly because I have to tell someone, and because things may be more than a bit strained while you're here and I need someone to shield Tate from any unpleasantness. Margaret, your father is having an affair. There, I've said it. Now, since you're the only one he seems to tolerate, I also expect you to have a firm talking-to with him when you get here. Her name is Carol and she works at the best jewelry shop here in town. He's been seen with her twice in the last week, right out in the open, and I will—"
The answering machine clicked off, its memory full.
"Maggie?" Sterling reached over to touch her arm. "Maggie—your mouth is open, Maggie. Are you all right? You're not going to swoon or anything, are you, as I don't think we have any feathers we can burn under your nose."
Maggie blinked several times, and then shook her head as if that might help clear it. "My father. My father is having an affair? That's impossible. Mom'd kill him." She looked at Sterling without really seeing him. "She sounded upset though, didn't she? Almost cowed, and Mom's never cowed. And she wants me to talk to him? A firm talking-to with him? What the hell am I supposed to say to him? Attaboy probably won't really do it, huh? Man. My father. Having an affair. I didn't think he had it in him. What was the woman's name?"
"Um, Carol. Do you want me to fetch Saint Just, Maggie?"
"No, why would I want that?" Maggie asked, wishing she didn't want Sterling to do just that. "I'm fine. Honestly. My father is having an affair, that's all." She bent her head and pressed her hands to her ears. "Ohhhh, why did she have to tell me? How am I going to look at him? Look at either of them? And she can te
ll me because I'm not sensitive? How can somebody give birth to somebody and then not understand that somebody at all?"
"I'll just go get Saint Just," Sterling said nervously, getting to his feet and escaping from the condo to his own, directly across the hall.
Maggie was placing the Baby Jesus in the manger with exaggerated care just as Alex entered the condo without knocking, one eyebrow raised slightly as he looked at her from the doorway. "Are you all right? Sterling seems to think you might be on the verge of a small come apart, or at least that's how he phrased the thing."
"I'm fine, Alex," she told him tightly. "I told Sterling I was fine, and I am. My father's having an affair. Good for him, huh? And I'm fine with it. I've been wondering for years why the two of them never got a divorce. I mean, it would take a saint to live with my mother, and Daddy just proved he's no saint, not if he's having an affair. Maybe it's not the first affair? Maybe he's just been pretending to be a milquetoast all these years, all ground down under Mom's heel, but he's had this secret life nobody knew about, and he's had a string of Carols. Dozens of them. Little chippies, my mom would call them. But I'm fine with it. Really. Just fine with it. What's not to be fine, anyway? Their kids are all grown and gone. It wouldn't be as if they were breaking up some happy family—we've never been the Cleavers in the first place. So—so what? No skin off my nose, right? Oh, damn it!" she ended just before the third Wise Man hit the far wall with a bang and fell to the floor in three pieces.
"Yes, you're obviously fine," Alex said, pulling her into his arms.
She slid her own arms around his waist and buried her head in his shoulder, giving in to the need to hold on, to be held. But she didn't cry. There was no point in it, was there? Did that make her insensitive, or just practical?
"My father goes bowling three nights a week, Alex," she whined into his shirtfront. "He doesn't slink around to sleazy motel rooms with little chippies. Oh, how am I going to go there for Christmas and act as if nothing's wrong? You know—hi, Dad, anyone new? I can't do that."
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