A Taste of Love and Evil

by Barbara Monajem

  But he wouldn’t want that. He was disgusted with her, even if he was explaining himself. She had to leave because her calm was dispelling rapidly, fading like his chest had under her hands. She put an olive cotton wrap over her dress and tied it in front. “Would you please call the cab?”

  He just stood there.

  She couldn’t afford tender feelings, but she could give practical advice, right? “I’m sorry your rescue died, but it’s not your fault if you didn’t hear your phone. Maybe it just didn’t ring. That happens with cell phones. Titania’s call today didn’t ring, either. It went straight to message.” That sounded reasonable and down-to-earth. She scrounged for something else. “Are all your rescues so last-minute? It seems mighty inefficient.” Damn. That was practically a dis.

  Maybe he was already so miserable it didn’t matter, because he didn’t appear to take it amiss. “Most of them run more smoothly. The last-minute rescues are unusual.”

  “Cindy was one of those, right? One of the successful ones. Maybe you should dwell on those instead.” That was good advice. The kind she gave herself.

  “I can’t ignore my fuckups,” Jack said. “I didn’t hear my phone because someone—I assume one of Titania’s friends—put it in silent mode.”

  “What?” Rose made a face while she zipped up the suitcase. “Why?”

  “Because I was stupid enough to say I was expecting an important call and might have to leave the party early. Titania must have signaled to one of them to silence the phone.”

  No wonder he’d been upset. And yet…“That’s horrible, but how does it make the rescue’s death your fault?”

  “I should have noticed that it upset Titania if even a fraction of my attention went to someone else. That she couldn’t tolerate that I might consider leaving. I’d already begun to wonder what I’d gotten myself in for. I wasn’t thinking straight because…” Pause. “No, I wasn’t thinking at all.”

  Rose made a dismissive noise. He really needed to get over the accounting thing if he was ever going to be happy. With someone else. “Nobody’s perfect. You would have answered the call if you’d heard the phone ring.” She slung her handbag over her shoulder. “Now, how about you give me the cab company’s number and I’ll call it myself.” She got out her cell.

  Jack’s voice was pure anguish. “I forgot, Rose. I know sometimes calls don’t get through, but even if the phone didn’t ring, I should have remembered to check for messages and to call Gil. I forgot everything.” He paused. “And this was after I learned she’d conned me into stealing some earrings from Violet’s car. It was after I’d been to a couple of parties where she’d shown her cruel and malicious side. Still I’d come back for more, because I couldn’t resist the sex.”

  He really did feel responsible. Rose’s hands itched to pull him close. Her arms ached to hold him, to rock him as he had rocked her earlier today. Her mouth quivered as she stifled words of love and solace. She schooled her expression to disinterested patience. “Okay, so maybe it was partly your fault, but it’s over, and it doesn’t matter anymore. Believe me, I know. I may have gotten hysterical a few times today, but if I let everything I thought was my fault get to me, I would have killed myself long since. Like you said, you win some, you lose some. Let it go.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Jack said. “I can’t afford—”

  “You can’t afford to let one bad experience screw up your whole life,” Rose snapped. Just as she refused to let one rejection destroy her. She opened her phone and scrolled for Vi’s number. “Maybe Vi will send me a cab.”

  At last, Jack was back in the present. “You don’t need a cab. Take the minivan out there.” He picked up the little envelope he’d retrieved from the floor and extracted the keys. He held them out.

  Rose shook her head. “No, it’s not worth the bother of bringing it back.”

  “I don’t want it back. It’s yours to keep.”

  What the hell? Rage spiraled, and her fangs bucked. She’d felt sorry for him. She’d wanted to encourage and reassure him, and he’d slapped her in the face. Even though he didn’t love her, she’d thought they’d felt something together, something different. But it had just been sex. Sex he didn’t even want to repeat. Shock and misery ravaged her, curling her fingers into claws. But oh, no. She wouldn’t lose it this time. Jack had just proven he was like every other guy, if he was a little better about maintaining reciprocity.

  She wouldn’t cry; she’d learned how to play the cool, collected whore. Even Lou, who’d been good to her, had made it clear that business was business. When she’d come to really care for him, he’d been amused. She put her nose in the air. “Payment for services rendered? Sure, why not?” She took the keys. “I’ve done better in the past, but I guess I didn’t do enough to merit the Porsche.”

  His face darkened. He put his back to the door. “It’s nothing to do with payment, and you know it. You want the Porsche? It’s yours.”

  “If that’s not payment, then what is it?” The tips of her fangs popped out. “Get out of my way.” She shivered at the déjà vu, but this would not end in a hot, no-holds-barred kiss.

  “Not until we settle this.”

  How dared he? “It’s already settled. You don’t want me anymore, but you feel guilty so you’re paying me off. Which is fine with me, of course, but why let it bother you? I’m used to callous men who only want sex. You’re lucky I’m not like Titania. At least only one vamp is out for your blood.” She snickered. “Ooh, bad joke.”

  He winced.

  And then it hit her. Thunked her straight in the gut. “She didn’t dump you, did she?”

  He didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to.

  “Vampires almost always do the dumping, but in this case, you dumped her. And you let people believe she dumped you, whether from consideration—which is totally wasted on that slut—or self-preservation.”

  Jack sighed. “Some of both, I guess.”

  “She doesn’t really want you back,” Rose suddenly realized. “Judging by everything you and Vi have said about her, Titania would never put up with being dumped. She wants you dead. That’s why she was so furious at Biff. She wants to kill you herself.”

  Safe Juma might be, but she knew it was only for a moment or two. For that random cop on some other errand to notice Gil’s SUV and come tearing after it, Grandma must have already raised a huge stink.

  No way she could risk going to Violet’s place. Like any other adult, Violet was in cahoots with the cops. Juma shucked the suit jacket—Gil was right about that—and the paisley tie as well, and delved into the large compartment of her backpack for the only other long-sleeved item she had, a short jacket of beaded pink silk. She rolled the first jacket, stuffed it in the backpack along with the ties, and crept out from behind the bushes.

  Cautiously she made her way to the street, which was now jammed with traffic. To the right, a block or so down, the blue flashers of a cop car told her where Gil was trapped. Juma went left and slipped into the early-evening crowds. Clubs were beginning to open, but they would never let her in. She moved uneasily down the sidewalk, trying to match her pace to others, hoping for a group of girls her own age to trail behind. She wandered into a clothing shop behind a couple, pawed through a rack of designer jeans, and tried calling Jack. No answer, but as his message came on, the saleslady showed up, glowering the way salespeople always do at hesitant, furtive teens. Juma scowled back, clapped the phone shut, and left the store.

  She made the rounds of a souvenir shop and scuttled past a club and a bar. Next came a funky little Cajun restaurant. She steered past a busboy stacking the empty tables and chairs of the outdoor area, closed now as the evening chill set in, and hovered by the doorway, pretending to read the menu.

  What warned her of danger she didn’t know, but just as she opened the phone to call Jack again, something made her look around. Across the street, Stevie came out of a sex shop with a voluptuous woman dressed in purple, with long, wil
d black hair. The woman talked on a cell phone while Stevie ogled her cleavage. He probably couldn’t tear his eyes away, but just in case, Juma ducked into the restaurant ahead of the busboy with his stack of chairs. She shot a glance back out the door. The woman shut her cell, and she and Stevie went back into the shop. Ick.

  Juma chose a table near the rear of the half-full restaurant, partly concealed by an urn draped in fake ivy, with a view of the front door. The busboy folded the table umbrellas, came back inside for a chain, and secured the umbrellas to the wall outside. Juma scanned the menu without really looking. The busboy hovered by the sidewalk, speaking to a group of gesturing passersby.

  The waiter, a jaded-looking old dude, showed up. Juma ordered a bowl of gumbo and took a trip to the restroom to try Jack again, but Gil’s battery was at NO CHARGE, and before she could look up Jack’s number to try again from another phone, the cell died right before her eyes.

  She returned to her table. She couldn’t go back to Jack’s for fear of being caught. She couldn’t try other friends in town for the same reason. Her only hope was Rose, but what good was Rose against Grandma?

  The busboy returned wide-eyed and hurried into the kitchen. Outside, the whap-whap of a helicopter mingled with the sounds of traffic. A reporter with a microphone and a notebook scurried by in a suit and pumps, with a TV cameraman loping behind her.

  When Juma’s waiter arrived with the gumbo she asked him, “What’s going on out there?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing blown up into something, knowing the media. Maybe they got sick of hovering over the Impractical Cat, harassing Dufray. There oughta be a law.”

  “What did the busboy find out?” Juma tried to look innocently eager. “He came in a minute ago looking like he was bursting with juicy news. And a TV reporter just went by!”

  “You don’t want to know,” the waiter said in a fatherly voice.

  “Yes, I do. I’m not a baby.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, you are,” the waiter replied. “I’ve had about enough of kids coming here for dirty stories about what goes on in the Threshold.”

  Huh? “What’s eating you, mister? I’m not interested in any stupid club. I’m just wondering what’s going on out there. I’ll see it on the news anyway, so what’s your problem?”

  He sighed. “Something about a guy kidnapping kids to be sex slaves.”

  “Oh, no!” Juma half rose from her seat, got a hold of herself, and sat back down. What could she do?

  “Don’t have a cow, kiddo. They caught the guy.”

  I know! But if she ran out there and gave herself up, it wouldn’t get Gil out of jail. Once Grandma got her claws into someone, it took lawyers and money and endless time to get free. Juma would be locked in her room again, maybe for weeks, and meanwhile, Gil, as a suspected sex offender, might be beaten up or even killed in jail. And in Bayou Gavotte, the underworld might get him first.

  “But what if he didn’t do it?” She realized she was wailing. Get a grip, Juma.

  The waiter gave her a look. “You’re a strange one, taking the bad guy’s side.”

  Juma improvised in a hurry. “I’m a teenager. I’m always being wrongfully accused, so you bet I side with the underdog.” Okay, this was working. Steer the guy away from your screwup. “You know the nondiscrimination signs in schools? It says they don’t discriminate because of age. Bullshit. If you’re a kid, you’re scum.” Just to make sure, she added, “Not that I’m for seeing true pedophiles go free.”

  The waiter chuckled and left her to her food.

  She was halfway through her gumbo when she heard the tapping. After a jolt of fear, she told herself not to be stupid and took another spoonful. The waiter, who had just passed Juma in the direction of the kitchen, said in a wooden voice, “Mrs. Loveday, what a pleasant surprise. Long time, no see.”

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Juma choked on the soup. Her heartbeat ramped up. Impossible. There were plenty of Lovedays in the world.

  Tap. Grandma never came to Bayou Gavotte. Tap, tap. For sure, nobody here knew her. Even if they did, she wouldn’t come in through the back door.

  “Give me a table by the window,” Grandma said, as if she were the queen and the waiter were dirt. “My granddaughter’s been kidnapped by a sex slaver. The police are taking their goddamn time looking into things. They have no consideration for a terrified, grieving old woman!”

  The waiter, like every other adult, would buy this sob story, just like they bought the cane, which she didn’t need at all, except to clout Juma with now and then.

  Grandma continued, “I snagged one of those reporters that are milling in the streets. They listened to me.”

  Juma slunk down in her chair behind the urn as her grandmother clacked past on her nasty rhinestone-studded heels, tapping her cane ominously with every step, carrying a huge pink tote out of which poked a sharp, black nose. Poopsie! Crap! Grabbing her backpack, Juma took off at warp speed down the restroom hall to the sound of Poopsie’s frenzied barking and the waiter’s protests.

  “Mrs. Loveday, I’m sorry about your granddaughter, but health rules prohibit pets inside the restaurant.” Poopsie was cut off in midyap, and, by the sound of it, ducked whimpering into the basket.

  “Have some sympathy, you boor!” Grandma shouted. “What pet? You’re imagining things. Get me a wet cappuccino and make it snappy.”

  Juma found the back door and pushed it open. She hurried into a small, empty yard lit by a solitary yellow bulb. On one side was a brick wall, on the other a rickety wooden fence covered with ivy. A Dumpster sat just beyond. She stumbled over the lid of a trash can, righted herself, and crept carefully to the end of the yard. Peering up and down the alley, Juma saw there was no way she could go left; that would bring her back to the melee on the street. The alley yawned long, dark, and unwelcoming to the right. The yard next door was in darkness, except for a thin streak of light from a partly open back door.

  The helicopter whap-whapped closer again, its searchlight heading straight for the alley. Juma ran at a crouch into the next yard and squeezed down between the fence and the Dumpster, covering the pink of her jacket with her backpack, pulling a mass of ivy over her head. The helicopter didn’t linger, but she would never make it down that entire alley in shiny pink clothing. She stood, dug out her suit jacket, and had it half on when a floodlight came on in the restaurant yard.

  Grandma! She ducked, but not fast enough. But it wasn’t Grandma, just the waiter, looking mighty pissed.

  Oh, crap, she hadn’t paid for her food. She scrounged in the pocket of her jeans for Gil’s twenty. “I’m sorry,” she said, leaning over the fence. “I forgot about paying. Keep the change.” When the waiter took the money but didn’t leave, she added, “Thanks for the meal and the great service. I’ve got to go.”

  “You’re Mrs. Loveday’s granddaughter, aren’t you?”

  Juma’s chest tightened. She squeaked, “What are you talking about?”

  “No other reason I can see why you’d take off the minute she walked in. You had money to pay me, so that can’t be it. The dog recognized you, right?”

  “Look, mister…”

  “I’m not saying she’s a sweet old lady or anything, in fact she’s one hell of a bitch, but she really is worried about you, kid. She even shed a tear or two just now. Better come inside and set her mind at rest.”

  “Never.” Juma yanked the suit jacket on. “I hope she cries until she shrivels up and dies. You know what? I’d rather die than be locked up by Grandma again. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.” She put the backpack on and all at once figured out where she was: in the yard of the Threshold, with an open door inviting her and no security guard in sight. “Don’t believe me?” she taunted, passing the Dumpster and heading for the door. “Just watch.”

  “Hey!” The guy went ballistic. “Don’t go in there! That’s the last place you wanna go, kid. I won’t tell your grandma you’re here.”

  But Juma didn’t dare b
elieve him. Maybe she’d met a few good adults, but she had no reason to believe this was one of them. She marched firmly toward a fate worse than death. Anything was better than Grandma.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rose looked pissed off—and also sexy as hell, which was killing him. “She wants to do the job herself, just like with me,” she said. “She wants to take revenge on you herself.”

  Jack couldn’t lie, so he temporized. “Maybe. Forewarned is forearmed, however, and—”

  Rose muttered something that sounded like idiotic male. “You should have told me. Does Constantine know?”

  “He may have figured it out—and it has nothing to do with you.” This was getting old. Not only that, his mind had stuck several sentences back, when his prick had decided to join the party again. Why couldn’t he just stay in control? He put on his best soothing voice. “I care about you. I’m trying to protect you, Rose. I’m trying to keep you out of—”

  “I can protect myself!” she raged. “I’ve taken care of myself all my life, and I don’t intend to start depending on someone else. Not only that, this is my fight as much as yours, and I refuse to pander to your rescue complex when you don’t even want me anymore.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re the one who’s all tarted up to find another guy.” Why else would she be dressed up like that? He felt like an idiot, standing with two sets of car keys in his hands and a burgeoning hard-on.

  Rose’s fangs slotted full down. “Tarted up? I’ll show you tarted up!”

  His eyes followed her chest as it rose and fell. Her nipples hardened through the fabric, and for a distracted but hopeful second he thought she might jump him. But no. He didn’t want that, remember? Not now. He couldn’t afford it right now.