"Drink?" asked the waiter without preamble.
Temple thought she should be careful not to order anything too heady. But she wanted something warming, and exotic. She almost wished this were a touristy Oriental place, where she could order a Tokyo Typhoon with three kinds of rum and two kinds of liqueur, which came flaming with skewered fruit and a combustible paper umbrella.
"Gin, scotch, vodka, wine or beer," the waiter clarified with impatience.
Max was waiting for her.
"A martini," she decided. The quintessential New York drink. "With an onion."
"No onions," the waiter pronounced with the same absolute indifference at being found lacking that all service people in New York share.
Temple shrugged good-naturedly and waited to see what exotica Max would come up with.
"Scotch on the rocks." He was not asked if he preferred something other than the house brand. Temple was sure that he did.
They had to hunch across the tiny table to hear each other because of the racket. The slight wooden chairs threatened to tip over under the burden of their heavy outerwear. Despite the crowding and the din of many voices percolating into the air, the restaurant seemed chilly. They kept their coats over their shoulders. Besides, where would they have put them?
Temple gazed around happily. She had expected a slick, upscale restaurant with "decor" and a wine list and "nouveau" plates of next-to-nothing in the food department. This was infinitely better. It felt like ducking into a neighborhood restaurant on Lyndale Avenue in Minneapolis, where they had met and courted, if people still called it that.
Their drinks only came after the table of six near them got their entrees, and then the waiter lingered, pencil poised, hungry for their food order. And there was a wine list. A wrinkled half-page listing surprisingly pricey by-the-glass offerings.
Temple asked for the shrimp alia something or other, a pasta dish.
Max requested the chicken Parmesan and was firmly told that he would much prefer something other of the chef's invention. He shrugged.
"That's so rude," Temple whispered across the foot of space separating them. "Who does he think he Is?"
"The chef."
"The chef?"
"And the owner."
"He wait! tables and tool
"Not simultaneously."
"And for this we have to pay eight dollars for a glass of wine we never heard of before?"
"It's sure to be excellent."
"Sure!"
Temple toyed with the short stem of her wide mouthed martini glass. The martini glass's very silhouette had been an icon of sophistication since the twenties. A dozen Art Deco graphics featuring its rigorous sculptural form, so geometric, flipped through her mind. And no onion, just the usual salty green olive. New York City, where they seemingly had everything, was the one place where they made a point of not giving it to you.
Max was reading her Midwestern mind, and laughing at her.
"It's called chutzpah, and it was invented here."
"Like the martini?"
"Not like the martini. Not in a bar. On the street and out the window and up your avenue."
Temple lifted her precariously filled glass in a toast. "To the unexpected joys of not getting what you want."
"I hope not," Max muttered into his scotch.
"Is it safe to tell me what kind of a deal you worked out with the network? Gosh, it sounds like you toil for CBS or something."
"Not a bad cover. Well, I saw Uncle Walter," he added with elaborate caution.
"The gray eminence."
"Retired, but still active. Our founder. He was quite sympathetic to my ultimate goal, and thought it possible, even though it's never been done before."
"Leaving the network."
"Not alive."
Temple winced and chugalugged gin as smooth as French perfume, and about as pungent. "God, Max--You're not kidding, are you?"
His eyes glittered across the table, bright as swords. "I never kid. We agree that the only way is to clear up these casino deaths. Mine, and your friend's."
"He's got a name."
"Matt. Sort of flat and predictable, isn't it?"
"Rather like Michael. An archangel. I'd think you two would have something in common."
"Yes, but she's a bone of contention. A rag and a bone to pick and a hank of red hair of contention."
"I hate that expression."
"Good. Now we're off the subject of the late Father Devine."
"He's not dead."
"To hear you tell it, he is, or weren't you being absolutely frank?"
"I was, and he isn't. Can we talk about. . . Uncle?" She giggled, thanks to the martini. "Remember that old show that's on in reruns, like Mary Tyler Moore. The Man from Uncle. That's what we can call you. The man from Uncle Walter."
"Glad you're enjoying yourself." Max picked up the table knife, which was oddly oversize, like all the silverware. He cut along the padded white tablecloth, a phantom incision with a dull blade, but precise nevertheless.
"Uncle suggested that it may be necessary to work with... Matt. No full disclosure, of course. And he agreed that you will have to be kept informed, might even turn up something on your own, as a liaison between myself and Matt."
"Me, in the middle? And no full disclosure for me either, right?"
He nodded. "Can't be. Trust me."
"Ah, you must be working for the government, after all. In Max we trust."
His warm fingertips touched her cold ones on the foot of the martini glass. "Look into my eyes. What do you see?"
"They're so different. That color. You don't look like yourself."
"Sometimes the truth is less attractive than the illusion."
"It's not that blue doesn't become you ... it hasn't become you yet. Do you know what I mean?"
His fingers tightened on hers. "That I'm a stranger, again. I'm trying to be as honest as the laws of survival allow me."
"If things are as dire as you say, then you shouldn't have anything to do with me, for my own sake."
"That's true. That's why I want you to keep going to the mat with Father Matt. Get good at self-defense, Temple. Take it seriously. I suggest a pistol range too."
"What do you want? A mini-Molina?"
"I want you as tough on the outside as you are on the inside. If we're to be together, you'll have to be."
"Together?"
"That's another thing I've tried to work out. We can't... live together as we did before, but we can come darn close. I want it back, Temple. I want back everything we had before I had to leave. I'd never had that before, and I don't want to give it up."
She sighed, and gazed at her half-empty martini glass. Or half-full, as the popular philosophy insisted on looking at it. The gin had slightly blurred the edges of her senses and sensibilities. A murmur of voices around, the warmth of the encroaching tables and chairs and sagging coats made Temple feel both oddly safe and oddly removed. Was this Max's immoral proposal? Clandestine cohabitation instead of openly living together, as before? Yet he was offering her more honesty in the truly closed portion of his life and past, where danger intersected desire at a perilous angle.
"I told you I was faithful all the months that I was gone," he said softly. Yet his voice carried all the way to her heart.
"You don't seem to doubt that, and I thank you. But I have to admit that it wasn't as difficult for me to be true as for most men. I've lived whole stretches as celibate as a priest, an honest priest anyway. Too dangerous, for me and for the woman. Why do you think James Bond has his Bond girls, a new one for every novel? They don't last, Temple. And in real life, Bond wouldn't either. And if he did, he wouldn't keep seducing some pathetically gorgeous girl to her inevitable end. When I broke the rules and took you with me to Las Vegas, it was because what happened between us was so true and powerful, I finally couldn't say no. I'm weary of being on the edge alone. I want a partner. I've had it with performing solo. In my magic act, in my life
and in my secret profession. You're involved, whether you wish it or not, whether you still love me or not. We might as well make it semiofficial, and fight for what we both want. If we still both want it."
His eyes were searching hers, not the hypnotic green eyes of a cat, but the clear blue eyes he was born with. Changeling, she thought, how will I ever know the real colors of you?
During the silence of that searching moment, the waiter-cum-chef appeared beside Temple, wafting heavy pasta dishes in front of them both. Steam curled up in waves, like heat from a chill wet street. It was a curtain, a tissue of illusion between them, but it would soon cool and dissipate. Did anyone really want to see too clearly?
The magician of the menu announced a roller coaster of Italian syllables, the name of each creation.
Temple sampled her dish, surprised by the perfect yet elusive taste. "And yours?" she asked Max.
"As sublime as he said. Chefs are the most eccentric of geniuses."
"No, just temperamental. We aren't used to that, so we think it's eccentric. Tell me about your life . . . before."
They concentrated on eating, while Max doled out details between bites. It added up to a lifestyle Temple could only imagine.
"The first eight years, when I was young and foolish, it was like living in a computer-game world designed just for me. I was like the Little Prince to them, in peril, but also invaluable. I traveled in Europe, free of charge. My interest in magic was heaven-sent for my new role. I saw and studied with the best magicians the Continent had to offer I traveled off-Continent, eastward. I was taught . . . everything I wanted to know and a great deal that I didn't know enough to want to know."
That was when Temple's expression had grown skeptical.
"Yes, even that. I had my Mata Haris. I was a blank slate, possessed by guilt and vengeance. They shaped me into a perfect weapon."
"Did you kill people?"
"The whole point was to keep people from being killed. I saved hundreds, I know, from bomb plots and hijackings and more personal mayhem. What I learned and passed on might have resulted in people's deaths. But these were people who'd be facing death penalties if they were caught."
"Should you be talking about this here?" The table was so tiny that their faces practically met over their empty plates, but still, Temple thought.
"Too noisy, too small. Besides, I'm wearing a powerful listening device; I'd hear anyone who said anything suspicious, or who was suspiciously quiet. Instead they're all discussing the best preschool in Manhattan and their post-Christmas cruise. Hardly matters of international interest."
"You're wired?"
"I'm used to listening in two directions at once."
"I guess. Tell more about the Mata Haris."
Max couldn't keep from grinning. "Pretty heady for a teenager. It took my mind off my dead cousin and the pretty colleen who had divided us. I had a field day, and then AIDS began creeping in from Africa, and I grew up and discovered that I was a kind of plague carrier myself, and lonely besides. The glamour was gone. I was no longer coddled, but expected to earn back the investment in me. It wasn't a game, after all, but life and death. My life and death too. I was cut off from everything I had known, my family, my country, my culture. I became what was necessary, a magical mystery machine, remote from everything and everybody, playing a role. Those were my monkish years, and a good thing too, or I'd have never passed those Minnesota AIDS tests."
Temple shivered. "What a weird, empty, excessive life."
"They sent me to the U.S. on sabbatical, figuring I was about to crack from the strain. I did, but not in the way they were worried about."
"I was the crack?"
He nodded. "Want dessert?"
"No, I couldn't--"
"We'll share," he decreed.
Max was very good at decreeing, the Little Prince grown up.
The surly chef appeared to collect their plates and promised to return with "some" dessert. Of some sort.
Temple threw up her hands. "I'm beginning to think mystery menus are natural."
"Only in New York. What else do you want to know?"
"More about the Mata Hari types."
"And yet you are the soul of discretion on one lone ex-priest."
"I don't have exotic bedroom habits."
"You remember."
"That is not your problem, Max. My memory."
"No. My problem is what it always was, the moment I decided that the IRA had to pay for my cousin's death." He absently moved the empty drinking glasses aside, though that would no doubt infuriate the waiter/chef. "You know those two thugs who accosted you? The ones whose rap sheets I brought up on the computer at Gandalf's house?"
She nodded.
"I've been trying to track them down. They were known around Vegas, but they haven't been seen since. My out-of-state sources come up blank. I don't think they'll ever hurt anyone again."
"They're dead?"
"And buried out in the Mojave, I'd bet. Whatever is going on in Las Vegas, someone wants a lid kept on it, at any cost. Do you feel safer?"
"That those men are dead?" Temple looked around, but no one was wearing a spy trench coat. "I don't think so. I don't need them dead. I hope you didn't--"
"No. Execution is not my specialty. Information is."
"Max, that's, ummph, so cold."
He nodded.
An entity appeared between them, naming, and landed as softly as a chocolate UFO on the tabletop. Drizzles of white chocolate and raspberry sauce latticed the central core of white-and-dark-chocolate-checkerboarded cheesecake.
"I can't believe," Temple said, "that we're going to eat this exquisite gazebo of chocolate and discuss what we're discussing."
"We're not." Max's clenched fist on the table relaxed suddenly. Temple hadn't noticed it before, but as his fingers parted she spied a small black-velvet box beneath them.
"You said no magic." Her tone was accusatory, but just barely.
"No magic. I had it in my coat pocket and brought it out while you were distracted by Mata Haris."
Well, what woman, no matter how thoroughly modern, no matter how un-Mata Hari-like, is going to ignore a small square jewelry box?
Temple's icy fingers edged it to her side of the tiny table, then she pressed the catch so the lid flipped up.
The lighting in this nameless (to her) restaurant left as much to be desired as the specifics of the menu, if not the skills of the chef.
Still, a ring is a ring and hard to mistake. But it was not just a ring. It was a free-form flow of pink gold guarding a low-profile opal of incredible fire and subtlety. Diamonds stood guard, flashing their own more obvious fire.
"Max, this is exquisite, but what is it?"
He understood that she wasn't asking about the ring's components, but its meaning, to him, to her.
"A friendship ring?" Mischievous. "A pre-engagement ring?" Testing. "A what-the-hell, it's-gorgeous, I'll-grab-it-and-let-the-guy-think-what-he-likes ring?" Cynical. "It's my ring, to you. I hope you like it. I hope you'll wear it. I hope it means we have a future." Bottom line.
Temple lifted it off the small velvet tab that held it upright. Although made like lace molded from hot lava, it was a strong, solid design, broader than she would think a small hand could carry off. The dying light of the cheesecake (or whatever) flambe made it into a glimmering raw vein of ore: fugitive, elusive, like Max himself.
She lifted it between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. Which finger should she try it on? There was only one; even recognizing that was a commitment she hardly dared think about.
She slid the band over the first knuckle of her third finger, left hand.
It fit like magic. Not too tight or too loose. A Cinderella shoe of a ring. She would expect nothing less from Max. She showed him her hand, which he took, his face a textbook picture of anxious concentration. He hadn't been sure it would fit (though he knew better), he hadn't been sure she would like it (though he hoped so). He certa
inly hadn't been sure she would wear it.
He glanced up, and in this dim restaurant, his eyes were light, but of no color, as water nullifies the hue of whatever it reflects into a translucent memory.
"Will you come home with me tonight, Temple?"
She never even thought to ask where home was.
Chapter 38
Encore! Encore!
"It reminds me of the Algonquin," she observed as they moved past the cozy lobby to the old-fashioned front desk with its pigeonholes of room keys behind the clerk.
"So would a lot of small hotels of this age in New York," Max said. "This one is quieter than the Algonquin."
He asked for the room key, standing on her left, her bare, beringed hand in his, as it had been since they had left the restaurant in a cab.
Temple's fingers weren't cold any more, heated in the furnace of Max's grasp. He took the room key and its old-fashioned wooden plaque in his left hand as smoothly as if it had been his dominant right; eerily flexible, Max Kinsella, and in moments they were huddled before the gingerbread brass grille of the elevator, waiting for the single car to waft them upward.
"Still cold?" he asked, bending his head so she could hear him.
"Not exactly," Temple answered with admirable understatement.
The elevator grille, and then the doors, opened. A wizened old man in a uniform, a hunchback, a wizard, opened the grille tor them.
Max filled the small elevator like a giant, and their separate and entwining emotions suffused it like an aphrodisiac, Max crushed her into a long, tortuous kiss against the back wall. The old man's neck was too stiff to turn and see, but Temple sensed him smiling into closed wooden doors.
Max thrust a tip into his hand as they left the car. Temple had never heard of anyone doing that, but the operator said "Thank you, sir and missus. Merry Christmas to you too," right out of Dickens's A Christmas Carol.
"Poor man thinks we're married," Temple said, feeling fraudulent and anxious to get reality on record.
2Golden garland Page 33
