High Heels And Holidays Part 14

"No, don't do that. The way I'm figuring it, you're not going to let me out of your sight anyway, not until we find the killer, so we might as well do something fun. I'll go change, and grab my ice skates. Fifteen minutes? Then we can walk over to Rockefeller Center. I've ... I've got all this energy I don't know what to do with."

Alex tipped up her chin, smiling down at her. "Energy. Is that what it is we're feeling? Shall we explore that notion?"

"Alex, don't-"

But he did. He did, and she was glad.

Chapter Fifteen.

"You seem rather well pleased with yourself this evening, Saint Just," Sterling remarked as they waited in the foyer for both Socks and Maggie. "Almost inordinately so, actually."

Saint Just realized he had been smiling for what would appear to be no good reason, and took a moment to lightly scratch at his cheek while he composed his features into one of only gentle amus.e.m.e.nt rather than lingering ... was the word joy? Odd. He was accustomed to his life being neatly divided, each area separate from the other. But now thoughts of Maggie seemed to have infiltrated all those neat little boxes, scrambling them inside his head. Pleasurably. "The meeting with Bernice and the others was fairly fruitful, Sterling, as a matter of fact. How long did Socks say he would be?"

"Well, he didn't, actually. He just made me promise not to leave before he got back. He loves skating, he told me. And Maggie?"

When he'd left her, Saint Just knew, she was still lying in bed, her chin in her hand as she watched him dress as she apologized for writing him with a dueling scar on his shoulder-the scar she'd earlier kissed, as he recalled the thing. Then, being Maggie, she'd asked if it bothered him during damp weather, and he'd remembered how living inside her mind had often entailed being very light on his feet, in order to avoid the tumbling ma.s.s of her constant and diverse thoughts. "I'm sure she'll be down shortly, Sterling. Are you quite positive you know how to skate?"

"Maggie said so in The Case Of The Overdue Duke, Saint Just, if you'll recall, on page two hundred and twelve, to be exact-something about me enjoying skating in my youth-so I imagine I'm fairly proficient. It's so nice that we can do anything that she wrote we can do, although I still wish she'd deigned to gift me with more hair and less belly." Sterling frowned. "I don't recall that she ever wrote that you skate, Saint Just. Perhaps it's a talent you don't possess?"

Saint Just smiled, not worried, as he had never questioned his own abilities. He was, after all, Saint Just. "I imagine I'll pick it up fairly quickly, my friend, don't fret about me. I am evolving, if you'll recall. We both are. I can remember a time you would have taken to your bed for days, after the sort of adventure you had this morning."

"That? It was nothing, Saint Just. Having so successfully foiled the robbers, I do believe I'm almost invigorated by the experience. And my eye is only red and Socks doesn't think it will turn psychedelic, whatever that means. Ah, and here he is now. Oh my, doesn't he look ... natty?"

"He most certainly does look ... something," Saint Just said, watching as Socks hurried into the foyer. He was dressed all in black from head to foot in what appeared to be dancer's leggings and a form-fitting, long-sleeved pullover, a long white silk scarf wound around his neck, his hair covered in a skull-hugging black cap, a pair of black skates bound together by the laces and positioned over his left shoulder. "Is this then the traditional skating wear, my friend?"

"Who says I'm going to skate, Alex?" Socks said, winking at him. "The object of this game is to look like you belong while everyone else is looking at you."

"Ah, what you would call a dating opportunity, yes? I think I understand. Although don't you think that outfit might be a trifle ... blatant?"

"If blatant means what I think it does, Alex, then d.a.m.n right it is. That's the whole point. Or don't you believe in truth in advertising? Hi, Maggie."

"Socks," Maggie said, slipping her arm through Sterling's, which put Sterling directly between herself and Saint Just. So much for any fears that she might become a clinging vine-not that he could remember having any objection to that possibility. "Sorry I'm late. Are we all set to go?"

"I would suppose so," Saint Just told her, deftly removing her knotted-together skates from her shoulder and placing them over his own. "And you're sure skates are sold at the skating rink?"

"Pretty sure. I know there are rentals. Oh, it's colder out here than I thought. Socks, are you warm enough?"

"I think he believes he's hot, actually," Saint Just whispered in her ear as she pa.s.sed by him and onto the street while he held open the door.

Maggie grinned at him. "You're so s.e.xy when you're modern. Oh, and let's take a cab, all right? It seems we're getting a later start than I'd imagined."

"And you can't imagine why," Saint Just said before asking Socks if he might attempt to hail a cab for them.

"Yeah, Socks," Maggie called out gleefully. "Do a couple of high kicks-that ought to stop traffic."

"Everybody's a comedian," Socks grumbled as he headed for the curb, then put two fingers into the corners of his mouth and let go with a shrill, piercing whistle as he held his right hand high in the air.

Ten seconds later, they were in a nice warm cab and heading for Rockefeller Center.

As was, or so it appeared, the rest of the civilized world.

"We'll have to stand on line if we want to skate," Maggie told them as they piled out of the cab. Then she frowned. "For about a week. Jeez."

"It moves fast, Maggie. The tourists never last long. They just want to be able to tell their lodge buddies back home that they ice-skated at Rockefeller Center. We'll hold a place for you while you find skates for Alex. Sterling can rent a pair when we pay for the rink time-you're paying that, right?" Socks suggested, and then he grabbed Sterling's arm and led him to the end of the long, snaking line.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Maggie asked as Saint Just, his hand at the small of her back, steered them through the crowds of tourists who stopped without notice or a thought to where they were standing when they spotted anything that took their interest. "Buying skates, I mean."

"To be truthful, I believe I'd rather steel myself to the idea of renting a pair, as the thought of locating an establishment where I can purchase a pair without having to queue up for the privilege is rather off-putting." He smiled down into her face. "Does that make me a sn.o.b with questionable standards in hygiene?"

"No," Maggie said, grinning at him. "They use sprays-disinfectants-in the skates after each wearing. I doubt your feet will turn black and fall off. Besides, we may never get on the ice. You did see that line, right? Let's just go up top and watch for now, okay? Count noses, maybe? If I remember it right, only a hundred and fifty skaters are allowed on the ice at one time."

Saint Just took one last look at the line, to see that at least ten more people had joined it, standing behind Socks and Sterling. "The queue is approximately fifty people. Very well, let's take a small tour."

"Would you like me to tell you about Rockefeller Center? I can do that, you know. Most tourists don't really understand all of it. For instance, my mother insists on calling it Rocker-feller Center, not that I correct her-I don't have a death wish. Anyway, John D. Rockefeller sponsored the whole thing, and it is a big thing. It's not just the area where the rink is, where the tree is-it's actually an entire complex, stretching between Forty-eighth and Fifty-first Streets. There are fourteen or more buildings, including Radio City, of course. But it's mostly offices. It's the center of broadcasting, stuff like that. And ... well, that's it, that's all I've got."

"Then, please, allow me to expound a bit more, all right? You neglected to mention the art, both that of the buildings themselves, which are mostly in the Art Deco style, as well as the statue of Atlas, and Prometheus here, of course," he said, gesturing toward the large, rec.u.mbent statue that was one of the main focal points of the area.

"You already know all of this? You know about golden boy? I never knew who he was supposed to be, other than a huge golden man smack in the middle of the central fountain. Prometheus, you said? Man, and I live here."

"I live here now, Maggie. It is a man's responsibility to know his surroundings. And Prometheus is arguably the most tragic of the ancient Greek G.o.ds. You are aware that he angered Zeus by sneaking gifts to the mere mortals Zeus disdained? Fire, woodworking, numbers, the alphabet, healing drugs-on and on and on."

"Zeus didn't want us to have that stuff?"

She was such an attentive pupil ... he'd simply ignore her way of lumping many things together as stuff. Thankfully, when she wrote, she was much more articulate. "Indeed no, Maggie. And, when he found out what Prometheus had done, he ordered the G.o.d shackled to the side of a crag high in, I believe, the Caucasus mountains. Every day Zeus's own eagle would tear at Prometheus's flesh-paying particular attention to the poor fellow's liver, for reasons I don't know-and every night that flesh would heal so that it could all begin again the next morning. This went on for centuries, I understand."

"Well, aren't you fun? You know, Alex, in your spare time, you ought to think about being a tour guide here. Just a great big barrel of laughs for the good folk visiting here from Des Moines." Maggie made a face. "Poor guy. He looks a lot better here. Imagine being in torment for centuries."

Saint Just merely nodded, for now was not the time to bring up the possibilities for his own future. He was, after all, as Maggie had made him. He and Sterling had already realized that Sterling would not gain or lose weight, no matter how he tried. A small thing, perhaps, but even small things can prove a point.

He and Sterling would not age unless Maggie wrote them as aging. They would not die, unless Maggie killed them. They were her creation.

Saint Just did not, however, believe he would be like Prometheus, living forever in agony-and life would be agony once Maggie was not here with him. No, Maggie would age, eventually fly free of this mortal coil, and Sterling and Saint Just would depart along with her.

Unless they evolved, which was Saint Just's all-consuming project, each of them becoming more his own man, his own creation-thus more in control of their own destiny. Neither would be immortal, of course, but, Saint Just often wondered, how much would he change, would his thinking change, if he were to know that he was suddenly vulnerable to all the various vagaries of mortal life as was his dearest Maggie. Would he so easily thrust himself into dangerous situations, if he were no longer a.s.sured of a happy outcome?

When he'd discussed the entire thing with Sterling, his friend had made allusions to a puppet named Pinocchio becoming a real boy, a happy ending that seemed to satisfy Sterling but did little to ease Saint Just's mind on the subject.

"Alex? You look a million miles away all of a sudden. What's wrong?"

Saint Just smiled at her. "Nothing, my dear. It would appear the shops are open this evening."

"Oh, goody. First stop, the truffle shop over there, where the trumpeting angels are-see them? I love the truffle shop. Wait until you see it. It's small, but always decorated so nicely-for the tourists, I suppose. But at Christmas it's spectacular. We'll have to stand in line there, too, but that's all right, because you always have to wait in line for chocolate this good. It's a rule of chocolate, I think. But don't tell Steve, because when I took him in there and there was a crowd, he flashed his gold s.h.i.+eld to get waited on right away. Imagine that one, Alex. Steve, being pushy. Anyway, now he stops there all the time-well, on payday."

"You're rambling, Maggie. May I say perhaps even babbling," Saint Just told her as they sidestepped a frazzled-looking couple, each carrying a screaming toddler. "We're having an enjoyable evening, remember?"

"Yeah. Right. Maybe that's because I'm nervous. Or maybe it's because I'm definitely nervous." She looked up at him again, sighed in a rather theatrical way. "I can't help myself. I have to say it. We can't keep doing this, Alex."

"Doing? Doing what?"

Maggie rolled her eyes. "Oh, cute. You know darn well what we're doing. Did. We can't keep doing it, okay?"

"Because ... ?"

She stopped to wait while he opened the door to the crowded shop. "Because we don't know what we're doing, that's because."

"I beg your pardon, madam," Saint Just told her, finding himself rather willing to amuse himself at her expense. "I've been laboring under a misapprehension? I'm not an exemplary lover? Perhaps if you were to be more ... specific with your complaints?"

Maggie winced. "Would you for crying out loud keep your voice down?" she muttered from between clenched teeth.

But he kept on, enjoying her embarra.s.sment, his mind happily away from Prometheus ... and Pinocchio. "But I'm serious, my dear. Perhaps if you were to tell me precisely where I've failed? Is it something with the technique? My kisses, perhaps? Are they lacking?"

"I'm going to kill you," Maggie said, grabbing his arm and all but dragging him back to the narrow pedestrian plaza. "And I really wanted a truffle. Look, here's the thing. You're a romantic hero, the kind where the Doubleday Book Club puts an explicit s.e.x warning at the end of the book blurb in the catalog. Yet you've been here for a while now, and nothing's been happening for you, right? We won't get into my lack of love life because it's embarra.s.sing."

"I'll a.s.sume you're trying to make a point here?"

"Yes, I am. We're both ... available to each other. Proximity, you know? It was only natural that at some point we'd ... get together. But it doesn't mean anything."

"There you go again," Saint Just said, shaking his head in mock despair. "If you'll excuse me, I believe I feel a need to go find a woods somewhere and tiptoe inside to fall on my sword."

Maggie rubbed her mittened fingers against her temples. "I should write you a note. I do much better writing this stuff down. And it's not that you aren't good. I mean, h.e.l.l, you're perfect. I wrote you, remember? I sort of have an in on what women want, what they like ... what I like. So you're a great lover. I just don't know that this is going anywhere, if it even can go anywhere-you know, that whole poof thing-so maybe we just oughta slow things down for a while, that's all I'm saying."

Saint Just stepped closer and ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek. "Is that what you want, Maggie? What you really want?"

She looked up at him at last, her eyes wide. "Are you nuts? No, of course that's not what I want. You're the freaking perfect hero, remember? What kind of m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t do you think I am? I'm pointing out possible reasons for what happened earlier ... and the first time. I'm just ... I'm simply trying to be adult here."

Saint Just smiled. "And you're being very, very adult, my dear. I commend you. And you've had your say, so that I am forewarned and will protect my heart, I promise." Then he leaned closer, whispered in her ear. "Of course, it's also only fair to say that it already may be too late for that last small bit."

Maggie stepped back, her mouth opening and closing rather like a fish-but he adored her, so he believed she looked quite delightful. "I ... you ... we're slowing down, Alex. You evolve, and I'll go on a hunt for my brain, and we'll ... well, we'll just ... you know. Let's go watch the ice-skaters for a while."

Believing they had taken this particular conversation as far as it could go without possibly sending Maggie into spasms, Saint Just agreed. They found a place at the railing and looked down at the rink and the people crowding the surface. He tried to understand the concept, but it was proving difficult.

"Everyone is going in the same direction. Round, and round, with nothing to look at but the back of the person in front of you. They look rather like lemmings heading for the sea, except there's nothing but that endless oval, is there? Who's leading?"

"n.o.body's leading, silly. Everyone's just skating, that's all. If they don't all go in the same direction there'll be pileups, and it won't be pretty. Oh, wait, look at that guy."

Saint Just looked where Maggie was pointing, to see a young man in suit and topcoat, skating backward. Unnecessarily, he said, "He's going backward."

"He's plowed, that's what he is. Drunk as a skunk," Maggie said as the businessman bucked traffic in a rather wobbly reverse. "Oh! Down he goes. One ... two ... three ... four-and he's up. And he's ... skating backward! He's too drunk to go forward. That's hysterical-oh, he knocked into somebody. That poor girl, he really knocked her down hard, didn't he? Uh-oh, the boyfriend approaches. This should be interesting ..."

Saint Just watched and waited. He didn't have to wait very long.

"That's ... that's Steve. Alex? That's Steve. Steve and a ... Steve and a blonde." Maggie blinked furiously, leaned over the railing. "Velcro blonde. Look at her-she's all over him. He ... didn't he say he had to work tonight?"

"I believe he said he had something to do," Saint Just said, watching Maggie's face for her reaction.

"A date. He had a date. He's probably had a bunch of dates, unless the blonde gets that chummy right out of the gate. Well, huh." Maggie looked up at Saint Just. "Why don't you look as surprised as I feel?"

Saint Just put his palm to his chest. "Shall I say that I am aghast, agog?" He tipped his head slightly. "Would you wish me to call him out? I would, of course, as your every wish is my command. Although perhaps I should first point out that you and I have been more than ... dating."

Maggie made a face. "Good point, d.a.m.n it. And you know what? I'm relieved. Really. I mean, I love Steve, he's a doll. But ... but it wasn't going anywhere, was it? Not with you around. The first time in my life I meet a guy I could really like, and my imaginary hero shows up to mess with my mind. I mean, what are the odds?"

"Probably not quite as high as the good left-tenant would have liked to believe," Saint Just said as he waved to the man, then gestured toward the side of the rink. "I think he's seen us. Ah, yes, he has, and now he's pointing to a spot over there and leaving the ice. Shall we join him?"

"Yeah, why not," Maggie said, doing a pretty good imitation of dragging her feet as they made their way to the edge of the crowd. "Am I smiling? I suppose I should be smiling. Smiling, and cheerful, and delighted to meet the blonde and-this is ridiculous. He's the one who should feel embarra.s.sed, not me. Right?"

"Feel free to cling to me like a limpet if it will help your disposition at all. Oh, and you have my permission to address me as darling. Or, if you wish, we could change our minds and give him the cut direct, depressing his intentions quite effectively, or at least it would with someone more sensitive-which the good left-tenant is not. He confided in me, only a few short weeks ago, that he enjoys professional wrestling exhibitions on television. Imagine that? I would have told you sooner, but I wanted you to see the light, as it were, on your own."

"Bite me ... darling," Maggie said, but allowed Saint Just to put his hand on her lower back as Wendell and his female companion, the former nearly tripping over his untied shoelaces, approached them.

"Maggie ... Alex-hi!" Wendell said, much too cheerfully, Saint Just would have told him. "How about that-meeting you guys here, huh? I mean, who would have thought that-"

"Not you, obviously," Saint Just drawled, turning his attention to the young lady. "Left-tenant, if you would be so kind as to introduce us to your friend?"

"What? Oh, right, right. Christine Munch-Maggie Kelly and Alex Blakely."

Realizing that this would be the extent of Wendell's introduction, Saint Just took it upon himself to take Miss Munch's extended hand and bow over it, saying, "Charmed, I'm sure."

Christine Munch giggled and then pressed her cheek against Wendell's sleeve.

Just the sort of female the good left-tenant needed. Saint Just felt much better. "Ah, Miss Munch, what a delightful laugh. A whisper of springtime on this chilly December evening. Oh, I just realized that Wendell here has been a bit remiss-haven't you, left-tenant? Miss Munch, this dear woman is indeed Maggie Kelly, but she is also Cleo Dooley, a very famous author."

"Alex, for cripes sakes ..."

"An author? Wow, no, Steve didn't tell me." Christine's smile faded and she shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't read. Well, I know how-I just don't do it. Sorry. Does anyone really have time for that anymore? Oh, but I'm sure you're very good."

"Oh, yes, I'm excellent." Maggie gave Saint Just a closed-mouth smile accompanied by raised eyebrows, all combining to form a silent I told you not to do this stuff because it always come back to bite you.

"Um ... Maggie?"

She looked at Wendell. "Yes, Steve?"

"About ... this," he began, and Saint Just longed to box the lummox's ears, for it was clear that the good left-tenant was about to open his mouth and insert both of his feet. He wasn't certain, but he believed the modern-day parlance was that, when it came to the ways of women, Steve Wendell was a schmuck.

"Wendell," Saint Just broke in quickly because he was, at the bottom of it, a good-hearted man. "Maggie and I are so delighted to meet Miss Munch. We've been fretting about you, you know, leading a lonely bachelor life. Have you two been seeing each other long?"

"Since just before Thanksgiving," Christine Munch said happily. "He rescued me in the subway when some kid tried to grab my purse." She looked up at Steve, her huge blue eyes innocent and uncomprehending of any tension. "My knight in s.h.i.+ning armor."

"Gag me ..." Maggie whispered out of the corner of her mouth, then said brightly, "Well, then, that explains it, doesn't it? Alex and I left town on Thanksgiving, didn't we, darling?"

Years of training, most probably employed to keep an unmoved, steely expression when dealing with felons, stood Wendell in good stead, except for a momentary flaring of his nostrils as he looked at Saint Just before the virtual penny, as it were, dropped, and he seemed to realize that he'd just had a very lucky escape.

"Does anyone want to go get some coffee?" he asked in a tone that seemed hopeful that no one would. "If not, I just want to tell you that Bernie called me on my cell earlier to tell me about this Scott Imhoff fellow. The celebrity stalker? I checked him out, and it's not him. He's been in lockup for a month now." He grinned. "You'll never guess who he was after this time-our mutual friend, Holly Spivak."