On Thin Ice

by Susan Andersen

  Last night his voice had risen up from the floor and the theme had been, “Why I Fell in Love with You.” They were in a new town now, and in accordance with her wishes Mick had seen to it that the room they shared contained two beds. But it seemed to make little difference to the sense of intimacy that permeated their hotel room like a musky perfume, because night after night his voice crossed the small space that separated them and wrapped itself around her, wormed its way inside her, did its damnedest to seduce her.

  “But I sure wasn’t prepared for you,” it was saying now, and against her better judgment Sasha rolled onto her side to face him. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t make out more than a dim outline of wide shoulders in the dark; his voice drew her in.

  “God, I wasn’t prepared for you,” Mick repeated hoarsely. “You weren’t at all what I was expecting, and you got to me. First, with your looks and your laugh and your skating. Then all of you: your sweetness and your sense of humor. Your integrity. It all just sort of crawled into my gut, grabbed hold, and wouldn’t let loose.”

  “Yeah, right,” Sasha snapped with patent sarcasm. “I bowled you over so much you tapped my phone and stole my underwear.” Then she could have kicked herself for breaking the bitter silence she’d been stonily maintaining.

  For Mick it was the first tiny bit of encouragement he’d encountered. He’d been talking himself hoarse for three nights straight, but she hadn’t before given so much as one indication she’d heard a word he was saying. And this was the first time she didn’t have her back stiffly turned his way.

  Words had always been his most productive tool, but when it came to gauging their effectiveness during the past several nights he was completely in the dark. Now, when it mattered more than it ever had in his life, he feared his best asset was failing him dismally.

  “I was afraid I was allowing myself to be led around by my dick,” he admitted in a low voice. “All the preliminary evidence stated you had to be guilty. But because you’re so pretty, I thought it was causing me to make excuses for why you didn’t seem to fit the profile.” He took a deep breath and lay there for a moment, his cheek resting on the biceps of his updrawn arm, straining to see her. His night vision was pretty good, but still she was little more than a shadowy outline. “And the panties . . . Sasha, I didn’t set out to take them. They just kinda . . . ended up in my pocket.”

  Silence.

  “I know you seem to envision me performing all sorts of sick rituals with the damn things, but the truth is I took them on impulse and I didn’t subject them to any perverted usage.”

  She didn’t respond and Mick moved restlessly for a moment before he forced himself to stillness. “Okay.” He exhaled a resigned sigh. “So, eventually I figured out that it wasn’t just my hormones talking, that you really weren’t what I kept telling myself you must be. But heroin had hit the streets when Morrison was still in jail; junkies had died, and if it wasn’t his old partner passing the same shit that had been missing ever since his arrest, then who was it?” He paused, hoping she’d respond, but again she held her silence. “I requested a list of anyone currently employed by the Follies who was also around back in Miller and Morrison’s amateur circuit days.”

  She had a hundred questions, demands, sarcastic one-liners, but she bit down on her tongue to keep from uttering any of them. He was just trying to soften her up for some reason known only to himself, and she was not going to fall for it.

  She turned her back on him and stared with burning eyes at the faint chink of light coming in through a minute gap in the draperies.

  Shit! Mick rammed his hand through his hair. He wanted to get out of this frigging lonely bed and climb into hers; he wanted to force her to deal with him; he wanted to make her talk. Instead, he took several deep breaths to calm himself. Finally, he said in a voice made low and raspy with restraint, “I’m an excellent liar, darlin’—have been all my life. I can’t deny it comes in real handy in my line of work. But the minute I said I love you, I quit telling lies. And I’ll never lie to you again. I swear that to you on my mother’s life.”

  “What the hell’s the deal with you and Vinicor?” Lon demanded out of the blue, and his voice was so loud and cantankerous in the vast, empty arena it echoed.

  Sasha looked up from unlacing her skates. “I thought you came along with me because you wanted to skate, Lonnie.”

  “That’s right, I did. And we’ve skated.” He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably beneath the weight of her protracted, level-eyed stare, but then met her gaze head-on. “That doesn’t stop me being curious, though. I don’t get this relationship of yours at all. You wouldn’t tell me anything the other night—”

  “Shouldn’t that have been your first clue?”

  “—And everyone’s talking about the way—”

  “My God,” she interrupted with some bitterness. “Everyone’s talking about Sasha Miller. Big news flash.”

  “Come on, Saush; you gotta admit the relationship is odd. The two of you barely speak to each other in public these days; yet he watches you skate every night like a hemophiliac watches his last pint of blood, and you’re still living together.”

  She stilled, her hand on the towel around her neck arrested in mid-pull. “He watches me skate?”

  Lon snorted skeptically. “Right. Like you’re not aware. What is it, anyway, some sort of esoteric foreplay?”

  “I wasn’t aware, Lon.” Her hands gripped the towel tightly. “Tell me how he watches me.”

  “Jesus, what are we . . . in junior high school? You’re dodgin’ the question here. Why are you still living with that jerk?”

  Knowing he wasn’t going to satisfy her curiosity about Mick, she sat up smartly and looked him straight in the eye. “Why are you still selling drugs when you told me you’d quit that for good?” she shot back.

  Lon went very still. “What? I’m not selling.” But he couldn’t quite hold her gaze.

  “Preparing to then.” Sasha shrugged the semantics aside. His look of incredulousness was just a shade too overdone to be plausible and it made her lose patience. “Don’t insult my intelligence, Lonnie. I’ve learned the hard way to know when you’re up to something, and either you’re selling or you’re getting ready to sell. It’s sure as hell one or the other.” She tugged off her skates, wiped them off, and put them in their case. Wiggling her feet into flats, she ignored him for a few moments in the interests of getting a pressing feeling of betrayal under control. Dammit. She’d thought she could be cool about this, but it was a losing proposition. Ultimately she gave up the effort and straightened, facing him head-on. “Damn you to everlasting hell, Lon Morrison. You gave me your word.”

  “Yeah, and I haven’t broken it yet, either,” he retorted hotly.

  Rising to her feet, chin thrust up at a belligerent angle, she stood nose to nose with him. “Do you deny you’ve been planning to?”

  “So maybe the thought’s crossed my mind. But thinking ain’t doing, sweet thing.”

  She stared up at him furiously for a few silent moments. Then her gaze grew thoughtful and she abruptly inquired, “Who got you started selling this stuff anyway?”

  He was patently unprepared for the question and took a step back. “Huh?”

  “What part of the question don’t you understand, Lon?” she demanded testily, then with strained patience clarified, “Originally someone must have approached you to feel you out on it. Who was it?”

  “Uh, no one you’d know.”

  She knew he was lying; he didn’t even have the grace to do a halfway decent job of it. “I see,” she said through her teeth. “You were on the fast track to a promising career, but a complete stranger managed to see past the successful facade to a guy who was hungry for more. And having made that determination, he looked you up on the off-chance you’d like to make yourself a little fast cash.”

  “Something like that, yeah.” Lon shrugged.

  “Uh-huh. And is that same stranger encouraging yo
u to get back into it now?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Who is it, Lon?” When he stared at her stonily, maintaining his silence, she wanted to cry. “Is your drug connection more important than your future, then? Is that what it finally comes down to? God, Lonnie, don’t you know you won’t get away with it a second time? You’ll end up back in jail as a two-time offender, and when you get out next time, there’ll be no one left waiting for you.”

  He held her gaze with a lack of expression that made her long to smack him. She continued to talk instead, for in the past Lon had been known to dig his heels in during a quarrel, only to go off and give serious consideration to the other side of the argument once he’d cooled down. She could only hope that would be the case in this instance.

  “I love you,” she told him softly. “But people died because of what you did. Somehow I’ve always managed to ignore the truth of that in the past, but I can’t do it anymore, Lon.” She faced him squarely, took a deep breath, and reiterated, “Addicts died expressly because of a drug that you supplied them with. Perhaps they weren’t the most productive citizens in the world, but they sure didn’t deserve that. And who’s to say more won’t die if you start supplying it all over again?”

  She’d briefly considered telling him about Mick’s involvement, which in essence would give Lon fair warning that the consequences of his actions could be dire and swift. But in the end she held her tongue. She wasn’t his keeper. If his word to her meant so little, then she failed to see where it was her responsibility to make him aware of the repercussions. He had to know, if he chose to resume selling, that the heroin he’d be passing was tainted and therefore likely to kill again.

  She was so tired of slogging through the morass of everybody’s pretenses. They all played her false. Mick pretended he wasn’t really an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration and that he loved her. Lon pretended he was going to give up this high-risk venture into drug sales. Both of them lied. Everyone seemed to have a hidden agenda and it was clear that she wasn’t a high priority for any of them.

  She gathered up her jacket, shrugged it on, and reached for her skate case and purse, slinging straps over her shoulder and gripping handles in her hands. “It’s not too difficult to see that laying my reputation on the line for you—and what the hell’s gonna become of it if you get caught selling again—doesn’t enter into the equation,” she said coolly and headed for the exit, bags banging off of hip and knee. Stopping at the exterior door, she turned back with one hand on the bar then pushed it open. “But maybe you’ll consider this. I’ve still got a soft spot on my head from having a blade that had no business doing so come off my skate. Amy Nitkey got struck by a hit-and-run driver while wearing my coat. You didn’t by any chance tell your ‘stranger’ that you’d given me your word you wouldn’t sell again, did you?”

  Neither expecting nor waiting for an answer, she shoved through the door.

  Sitting cross-legged next to the bed on Connie’s hotel room floor, Sasha attended to the boots of her skates. Using an alcohol-soaked cotton ball she scrubbed at the spots that marred them. “From now on,” she said grimly, “I depend on no one but myself.”

  “And me,” Connie said. “You can depend on me.”

  “Yes. And you.” Sasha looked up. “But not on Mick or Lonnie.” She returned her attention to the clean leather, eyeing it critically. “Good enough. Hand me the polish, will you?”

  Connie passed over a bottle of white polish and held her peace as Sasha carefully applied a fresh coat to her skate, laying it on with smooth, even strokes. Saush had burst in on her fifteen minutes ago, up in arms and jittery as a cat. For lack of a better idea Connie had set her to caring for her skates. It was the first thing to pop to mind when she’d seen the extent of sheer undirected energy that had set her friend to pacing a restless, agitated circuit through the room while she filled her in, with clipped, furious sentences, on her afternoon.

  When both boots were done and Sasha was waiting for them to dry before applying a second coat, Connie inquired gently, “Are you absolutely certain you can’t depend on Mick?”

  “These days I’m not absolutely certain of my own name,” was the glum reply. Sasha applied the second coat. “Everything’s so upside down. He talks to me every night from his bed, Connie, and according to him it’s everything he always wanted to say but couldn’t say before. But is that the truth, or is it more blarney from his silver tongue? He says he loves me. And, God forgive me, I believe him at the moment he’s saying it.”

  Her hand stilled over the boot and she tipped her head back to stare up at Connie on the bed above her. “But is that because I actually hear the ring of sincerity in his voice or just because I desperately want to?” Replacing the swab in the polish bottle, she silently handed it up to her friend to tighten the cap. Her eyes lowered once more to the skate that was turned upside down over her fist. “I’m all screwed up,” she admitted.

  Connie passed her the black polish. “Careful, it’s open,” she warned. When her friend simply held the container in her hand and sat staring at it, she said, “You’ve got good instincts, Saush. What do they advise you to do?”

  Sasha snorted. “They’re horny. Who can trust anything they recommend?” Carefully she put black polish on the soles and heels of first one boot, then the other to waterproof them.

  “So they want to trust him, huh?”

  “They want to marry him and have his babies. I’m never trusting another man as long as I live.”

  “It sounds as if he was right about Lon using his promise to you as an excuse to hold off this partner who wants him to start selling again.”

  Sasha made a noncommittal noise.

  “And you have to be happy knowing Lon has been trying to avoid selling.”

  That snapped Sasha’s head up in a hurry. “Didn’t you listen to a word I said, Connie? He stonewalled me this afternoon. I gave him every opportunity to tell me he’d give this mad idea up and he didn’t say a word.” She glared up at her friend. “That as good as told me he’s going to do what he damn well wants to do . . . and to hell with me.”

  “You backed him into a corner.”

  Sasha stared at her, her jaw agape. “So it’s my fault?”

  “No, it’s a male thing.” At Sasha’s impatient movement, Connie leaned forward and said seriously, “Listen, Saush, I’ve got four brothers; I know what I’m talking about here. There’s this male-ego-pride thing that drives men. If you demand they do something that needs to be done, nine times out of ten they’ll wait for enough time to elapse so they can feel they’re doing it of their own free will. Even when they plan to comply with whatever it is you want them to do. And God help us if we ‘nag,’ because then they feel they have to wait even longer.” She deepened her voice. “Ain’t no woman gonna pussy-whip me.” Her voice resumed its normal pitch. “I’m telling you, kid, the male ego is a wondrous thing.”

  “Yeah, well, you can make all the excuses for Lon you want. As I’ve already said, I’m depending on myself from now on. Period.”

  “In a way it’s too bad you can’t bring Mick and Lon together.”

  That startled an involuntary little huff of unamused laughter out of Sasha. “Oh, God, I can see that.” She tested the heels of her boots. “I think these are dry but do you have a newspaper or something I can lay them on?”

  Connie hopped up and went over to the table. She was back in moments with an empty department store bag, which she handed to Sasha. “I’m serious, Saush. Lon hasn’t actually done anything illegal yet and he’s the only person who knows who this other guy is. If Mick had that information not only could he better protect you, he could save Lon from making the biggest mistake of his life.”

  “Why are you so damned concerned with Lonnie all of a sudden? I thought you said he was a no-class jerk.”

  “Yeah. He is.” And politically incorrect as it was, she had to stifle a little pulse of sexual yearning every time she ran across him.
There was something so bone-deep unhappy, so reckless and restless about him, that it just sort of . . . got to her. That day in the cafeteria he had disgusted her. Yet, if she were to be honest, she’d have to admit he had also excited an impulse deep inside that she didn’t care to contemplate. He’d . . . But she was getting off track here. After a brief hesitation to gather her thoughts, Connie said gently, “But he’s also your oldest friend.” And she knew very well that counted for a lot in Sasha’s book.

  Sasha pulled her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins, clutching herself tightly. “I’m so angry, Connie,” she admitted in a low, intense voice. “With both of them. God, I’m so angry!”

  “I know you are.” Connie slid off the bed to sit on the floor next to her friend, wrapping an arm around her stiff shoulders.

  “All my life, I took it,” Sasha said bitterly. “Year after year, I was lied to and I just let it roll off me. Lonnie nearly destroyed my career along with his own, but I picked myself up and rebuilt it from scratch. And I forgave him, because I knew he hadn’t deliberately set out to hurt me, that I probably hadn’t really even entered into it at all. But maybe that’s the problem.” She turned her head to look at Connie. “I don’t seem to enter into anyone’s considerations, ever, and I’m so sick of it.”

  Connie stroked her hair and remained silent. The pressure of a resentment contained for far too long built and it boiled, and finally Sasha burst out, “Why is my job to save Lonnie from himself? Because of him I may be in danger and I don’t even know from whom. Why doesn’t he save me for once? And Mick? Good old highly sexed, fast-talking Mick? Do you have any idea how it felt to read that report that gave all my old enemies in Kells Crossing yet another opportunity to agree on what a slut I am? He might charm me right out of my panties, and he could probably convince me that black is actually white without running short of breath.” She looked at her friend and Connie saw the bitter resolution in Sasha’s gray eyes. “But no matter how much I want to believe him when he whispers it in the night, he’ll never convince me he loves me when he can turn right around and commission something like that to be done.”