The Man For Maggie. Frances Housden
recesses of Max’s mind, but it fitted the pair of sheer, black-nylon covered ankles to a tee. The ones playing hide and seek with his libido through the long slit in the back of Maggie’s coat. Each glimpse made his breath catch softly, miniature versions of the drawn-out hitch in his breathing when he’d first spied her across the room beside Jo. He’d never been an ankle man, until now, but he’d always been a quick study.
Max watched her walk away, head high, shoulders straight, as if she didn’t give a damn. Each movement, from the tilt of her head and the slippery sheen of her black hair sliding over her upturned collar, to the firm click of her slender-heeled shoes on the tiles, were lies. A demonstration of body language lying through its teeth.
He knew it.
She knew it.
It wasn’t what had been said earlier. It was the denial that they’d had anything to say. The subtext had been deafening from the moment he’d seen her slender body surge across the table toward Jo. Passion and energy etched every line. Sparks bursting from that energy had lit a fuse inside him, and he’d known straight off it was too late to douse it. Max prayed the fuse was a long one, and a slow burner. He’d need all the time he could get to garner his defenses. From the moment he’d heard her name—maybe even before, when lust had driven him across the room, and Jo’s presence had eased the inevitability of their meeting—he’d known this was one situation that could blow up in his face.
The double glass doors, with their dull, fingerprint-yellow brass handles, swung on their hinges after her exit. But relief didn’t come as quickly as the doors shuddered to a halt. Max turned back to Jo and picked up her empty glass from the table. “Same again, you said?” He didn’t wait for her nod or the question shaping her eyebrows. He needed a moment to himself and his thoughts, and he’d get them at the bar while he ordered Jo a beer and himself a whiskey. A double.
Maggie Kovacs. Her father had been the one whose plane had crashed, but she’d been the one who’d hit the headlines.
He remembered the sergeant on the case, if you could call it a case—more like a retrieval job for the police divers, with a mop-up by the air-accident inspector.
Until Maggie had reached the scene.
To hear Sergeant Gorman tell it, she’d been out of her tree. Gorman was a bluff, red-faced character who looked as if he’d be more at home on top of a tractor than riding in a cop car. Still, it took all types. The man was retired now, and Max reasoned he’d only been handed the Kovacs case to get him out from behind his desk. The rest had been a bonus. The guy was probably still raising a few laughs at Maggie’s expense.
Maggie.
Sometimes prejudice got in the way of reality. Where were the hoop earrings and spangled head scarf? The “cross my palm with silver, mister?” Maggie didn’t look anything like the advertisements with their 0900 numbers littering the tabloids and women’s magazines. Madam Zelda and the likes, who’d read your fortune from cards, or your future from the vibes singing down the phone line, and charge you $3.95 a minute for the privilege. For a while there he’d almost let them get away with annihilating his future. They’d certainly robbed him of a fortune—and his marriage. It was something he’d never forgive or forget. Like the day he’d opened the final demand from the phone company, and felt the bottom drop out of his world.
He downed his first whiskey while they poured Jo’s beer, and was into his second before he reached the table. The heat entered his stomach and had spread to his veins by the time he sat down. He caught Jo’s glance and knew she’d be speculating about the second drink. Usually he nursed one glassful till the ice melted and the whiskey was as hot inside the glass as when it hit his tonsils.
“So…” he sighed. “Good-looking woman, Maggie. Catching up on old times, were you?” He tossed back another mouthful of the desperate man’s anesthetic and waited for Jo’s reply. The bombshell wasn’t unexpected; he just wasn’t ready for it to go off this soon.
“She came to see me about a murder. Three of them, to be precise.”
“Cut the crap, Jo. Next you’re going to tell me she dreamed them!”
“She’s psychic.”
“Then you’re going to tell me you believe in all this mumbo jumbo.” Max took another swallow. The effects of the anesthetic were wearing off quickly. He’d known Jo for five years now. Worked with her on and off for three of them. She was a good cop, with a quick, keen mind. She never flinched, even when things were at their hairiest. But believing in this psychic twaddle had to be a female thing.
“For heaven’s sake! This is a new age, Max. Sooner or later you’ll have to give in and open your mind to the possibilities. Hell, I like my job too much to put it on the block, but I’ve known Maggie all my life. You I’ve only known long enough to learn how hard you can dig in your heels.”
“I’m not interested in a rundown on her dreams. I’m not a shrink. Tell her to try the yellow pages.” He’d had enough on his plate with three unsolved murders in as many months. Not even a fool could deny they were connected, and he was no fool. Which was a good reason for staying away from anything that smacked of paranormal. Now if only he could convince his libido of the same thing where Maggie was concerned, he might be a damn sight nearer to suppressing the urge to get up and follow her out the door.
“Well, don’t get your Jockeys in a twist. It just so happens she doesn’t want to speak to you, either.” An edge of satisfaction colored Jo’s voice as she tossed the ball back at him.
“So what was this tonight? A social call, or is she after a little more publicity to keep the punters rolling in?” At the base of his skull a pain throbbed, and he wondered who he was really trying to hurt—Jo, Maggie or himself? “You thinking of flagging the police and taking up marketing, Jo?” The steel in his voice would have made a wiser woman back off. Not Jo.
“Okay, Max. Let it all hang out, spill your guts,” she retorted.
Jo’s breasts heaved under her blue chambray shirt and spread the zipper edging of her leather jacket farther apart. Boy, she was angry with him! Max had never seen her this mad before. How much would it take to make her blow her stack? There was a calm, calculating part of his brain that thought maybe this was a good thing. Cruel, but good. Good for him.
He’d been thinking for a while now that maybe Jo was getting too fond of him. And he wasn’t the only one to notice, judging by a few of the comments written on the men’s room walls. The only thing to cut that out would be to make the place unisex.
At one stage he’d toyed with the idea of getting her a sideways promotion out of Central. A word in the right ear was all it would take. But was it fair to nix a good cop’s career, just because she thought the sun shone on his sorry behind?
“I knew who she was the moment you said her name,” Max growled. “Maggie’s reputation precedes her. If you’d been here fifteen months ago you’d know to keep away from her, unless you actually want your credibility as a cop to go down the drain.” He swallowed the last mouthful in his glass. Who was he trying to remind, Jo or himself? His divorce was six months old, and the only relationships he’d had in the last two and a half years had been the types that pass in the night. A quick tumble in the sheets and a few more weeks relief were all he got out of them. One look at Maggie and he could tell that wouldn’t be enough.
“Just because I haven’t seen her in three years doesn’t mean we haven’t been in touch. I can read, and not just the rubbish Gorman let slip and the media blew all out of proportion. Maggie wrote me about it, about the crank calls and the lies. I was trying to persuade her to tell you about the dreams when you arrived.”
“Good one! You’d send her to me when you know my opinion of these fakers.”
“I thought if you saw her face-to-face—”
“It takes more than a pretty face to bowl me over.”
“Tell me about it. I know it never worked for me.”
“Don’t