“If that’s supposed to be a compliment-”
“We both see things the way they really are. We take the cards we’re dealt, and if it means sliding an extra ace up the sleeve to get what we want, then damn it, we do it. We don’t play by somebody else’s rules.”
“That’s not the way I see myself,” she said, sounding defensive, a measure of doubt creeping into her voice.
“A leopard can’t change her spots,” he said with a smirk.
“I didn’t cheat in college or law school,” she said angrily. “I worked like hell in the appellate clerkship. I’m proud of my accomplishments. I’m proud of who I am.”
“Dean’s list doesn’t mean shit in the real world, Lisa. You got good grades? Big fucking deal. I got MBAs from Harvard making my coffee. Sometimes I wonder where you get off. I mean, Christ, I remember where you came from. I remember the bartender. I remember the bruises.”
She remembered, too. Crockett was the day-shift bouncer and occasional bartender, a ponytailed bodybuilder with a hot temper and delusions that he was the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. She’d moved in with him a week after the one-way journey south from Bodega Bay, and he’d gotten her the phony ID and the job at the Tiki Club. She gave Crockett her tips, but they were never enough to pay for his hash and steroids.
“Some guys I know are having a party tonight,” he told her one day as she was leaving for the club.
“What guys?” she asked.
“Businessmen from out of town. They got a room at the Ramada by the airport.”
“So you want to go?”
“Not me! Ain’t my ass they wanna see.”
“I don’t do private parties. Sheila told me-”
“Sheila don’t know shit. Who’d pay to see her saggy tits? This is four hundred plus tips.”
Lisa was shaking her head when he grabbed her, his huge hands digging into the flesh of her upper arms. She tried to twist away, but he held on, pressing harder, slamming her into the wall but never letting go, using his size and strength just as her father had done to imprison her and break her will.
“I put a roof over your head,” Crockett said. “I get you a job. I protect your ass from guys who’d slice you up and eat you for breakfast. You fucking owe me!”
Thinking back now, here it was again.
Max, Crockett, dear old Dad. How many men do I owe?
She went to the motel that night, carrying a boom box, getting paid up front, then stripping for three drunken salesmen, all the time palming a miniature can of Mace, a trick Sheila had taught her. One of the scumbags, a paunchy forty-five-year-old wearing a wedding band, lunged for her. She sidestepped him, and when the other two tried to tackle her, she sprayed one squarely in his open, dumb mouth and kneed the other in the groin, a direct shot that sent him tumbling to the floor, vomiting.
The first man took a wild swing at her and missed. Lisa turned to run for the door, but he tripped her, then dragged her to the floor, clawing at her thong, drawing blood from her hip with his fingernails. He was about her father’s age, and those memories, so fresh then, came racing back, filling her with fear. She had vowed it would never happen again.
I’d kill a man before I’d let him…
She was on her back with the man above her when she worked an arm free and hit him with a blast of the Mace. He howled and toppled backward, his hands tearing at his eyes. Lisa scrambled to her feet, picked up a table lamp, and bashed it across his forehead, quieting him. Adrenaline pumping, she made it out of the motel room with her backpack and money but left the boom box behind.
“Dumb bitch!” Crockett yelled when she got home, backhanding her across the face, cursing her a second time when he counted the money, discovering the roll of bills was really a single twenty on top with nineteen two- dollar bills underneath. “Stupid jailbait bitch!”
Three nights later, Max Wanaker rode up to the Tiki on his white horse or was it a white limo? Whatever his flaws, Lisa now knew he had rescued her. She had been one step away from the streets. Cocktail waitress, stripper… hooker was not far behind. Max seemed to know everything in those days. He saw right through the Dermablend makeup she used to cover the bruises.
“Who did this to you?” he had asked.
“My boyfriend, but he didn’t mean to hurt me.”
“Where can I find him?” Max asked.
Even now, she could remember his voice. Grim and determined.
Where can I find him?
It would be that simple. No further explanation needed. She knew Max wouldn’t do it himself. The soft hands and manicured nails did not belong to a thug. But he knew people, had dealt with the Teamsters. In Max’s world, everything could be arranged. She saw the bartender only once more. He was trying to get up Russian Hill on crutches.
Yes, Max, I owe you, but maybe that makes me resent you even more.
“Sometimes you really piss me off,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, backing off, sounding sincere. “You know how I feel about you…”
How? Say it!
How many times had he said the three magic words? Twice, she recalled, once after too much champagne and once when he thought he’d lost her.
In fact, you did lose me, Max. I was tired of sneaking in and out of hotels.
She had just started law school and felt like she was getting somewhere. So why was she stuck in this nowhere relationship? She wanted her independence, and Max was surprisingly understanding. He gave her time and space. He was secure enough to let her go, telling her he hoped she would return.
It was the best time of her life. She found Tony Kingston, or rather, he had found her. Discovered the baby- sitter had grown up. Lisa had taken care of Greg, Tony’s son, since she was twelve, helping around the house, admiring the photos of the handsome naval aviator in his spiffy flightsuit. Tony had never been married, and when the child’s mother-Tony’s teenage girlfriend-took off, he was left with a son to raise. Lisa remembered her adolescent excitement when Tony came home on leave, duffel bag slung over a shoulder.
So strong and decent, so unlike my own father.
She learned enough psychology to know Tony was the father she had never had. But he was so much more, too. Tony didn’t rescue her as Max had done; he treated her as an equal, something Max never did. Tony was everything. And then, suddenly, he was gone.
Just as Max had hoped, she came back. He told her she had changed, that he liked the old Lisa better. The old Lisa is dead, she said. He didn’t ask who she had been with, and she never told. The past and the future both remained unspoken.
Now, pacing in the apartment overlooking the park, he said, “I’d leave Jill for you in a second if you’d ask me to…”
She let the bait dangle. Ten years ago, she prayed to hear those words. Now, they left her confused and troubled.
“God, Lisa, I love you. I always have.”
Whoa! What did he say? And why now?
“Do you love me, Max, or do you just need me more?”
“When the case is over, I’m going to ask Jill for a divorce and we can get married.”
“Max, please…”
“Okay, I won’t pressure you. But you’re right about one thing. I need your help. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t. Hell, I’m begging you. This is even more important than you know.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t. Not now.”
She thought about it. Hard as it was for Max to say it, he did love her. She never doubted it. And he had helped her when no one else cared whether she slept under a bridge or went hungry. Now he was asking her to
