Siren Queen(17)

“Come on, CK, you know better than this. I told you. After your birthday, this winter, we’ll go up to Oberlin Wolfe’s office, you and me…”

I pouted and turned the radio up again. Dora Franklin’s brassy voice declared she would never love another man in black, the horns practically crying for her.

“I don’t want to wait,” I whined. “Everyone else already sees me as grown, why don’t you?”

“Christ, it’s not what I see or don’t see, it’s the law, ain’t it? You wanna be one more changeling that they drug up in the morning and down in the evening? You don’t.”

“I just want to know when,” I pressed as if he hadn’t told me the answer on Baker Street. “I want to be a star, Jacko…”

My body crawled with spider legs as he looked at me up and down. He was weighing something in his own mind. How far could he go? What could he get away with? Stars were good girls, but anyone who thought they came up without some dark fingerprints on white silk slips and some foxing around the edges was a fool. Jacko wasn’t a fool.

“You’re going to be a star, CK, didn’t I promise?” he said, coming up to stand in front of me. “You’re going to gleam up in the sky.”

“You did,” I said, ducking my head bashfully. “You know, you hear awful things about girls who want to be stars. People that make them promises.”

“I mean what I say, CK,” he rumbled. “I’m not going to be one of those guys who strings you along for two-bit gigs that end up on the cutting room floor.”

No, he had other plans for me, and I knew that if I accused him of that, he would tell me that I should be grateful. Other girls might have been.

“Tell me what it’s going to be like when I’m a star,” I whispered dreamily, taking his hands in mine. It kept them away from my body for the moment, but their touch, hard as horn despite the lack of callousing, made me shiver.

“You? You’re going to go right to the top, CK,” he said, swallowing a little. “Mansion up in Bel-Air, wearing fur every winter and Egyptian cotton every summer. You’ll be painted a mile high up on the movie screens, staring into the eyes of Hal Fosse or Brock Williams, right? People will look at you and get fireworks where their hearts should be and diamonds in their eyes.”

“Tell me more,” I said encouragingly, and he nodded, eyes lidded and strangely unfocused.

“Variety will write you up. Dottie Wendt will interview you at the Knick, and she’ll hang on your every word as you tell her about your childhood in Paris, the finishing school in Algiers, the man without a name who broke your heart in Florence. Men will want you, girls will want to slit you up the front and wear your skin … God, you’re so beautiful.”

His hands twitched, and my heart jumped. I walled off my panic behind brick and stone. I could hear it clawing at the mortar, breaking fingernails and bloodying fingertips, but it couldn’t reach me. I wouldn’t let it. I held Jacko Dewalt still instead.

“You’ll leave Su Tong Lin in the dirt, no one will care about her crying maids or her Shanghai courtesan anymore. They’ll be watching you instead, watching you on the screen as you kiss the boys, sneak them the keys to your father’s lair, die for them and rise just in time for your next premiere. You’ll live a hundred lives in front of the unblinking eye, and you’ll be perfect.”

He pulled his hands away from mine, sliding them up my arms. His eyes were wide, and he looked as dazed as I felt. Somehow that was worse. When he was like this, he might do anything. He might curse himself later, but that was later.

He drew me to him, hands not hurting but firm enough to remind me that they could. I leaned back but kept my face as still as stone. Every minute mattered, every second, every …

A crash echoed through the silent house, breaking the moment into a thousand pieces as something no doubt priceless shattered on the shiny tile.

“What the hell—”

Jacko started for the back of the house, his study, where the crash had come from, but the spell was broken and I didn’t have to pretend. I threw my arms around his waist and dug in my heels. He was so surprised by my attack that he stumbled.

“Goddamn you, get off,” he snarled. “There’s someone in the damn house.”

There was, and I had to keep him away from her for as long as I could. I clung on to him so hard that we both toppled over. We hit the tile with a meaty thump, him on top of me, but he scrambled away. I lunged after him desperately, filling my hands with the wool of his sweater and hauling back hard. It was good Scottish wool, it didn’t give. I kept him on the ground for another moment before it occurred to him to turn on me.

“Get the hell off, damn it,” Jacko roared. His fist drew back, but he must have believed what he said about my future because it landed as an open-handed slap. I saw stars, but my hands stayed clenched. The second one caught me high on the cheekbone, the edge of his hand grazing the corner of my eye. The pain of that blow made me loosen my hold, and it was enough for him to scramble up. He stepped on my hand carelessly, making me gasp, but then he was thundering to the back of the house.

I staggered up to my feet, holding my injured hand tight to leach away the pain. The blows left me dizzy, but it was already clearing up. I stumbled back to the study as the radio blared Lou Ryan to the strangely still air.