Jokers Wild

"I don't know."

"You're lucky," she said. She kissed him good-bye. Her mouth was soft and sweet and almost enough to change his mind.

Chapter Twenty-five

6:00 a.m.

After Jack left, Bagabond was left to stare at her transformation. The mirror revealed an attractive woman in her midthirties who tried to smile, but gingerly, as though her face might crack. She turned away. The suits had been barely tolerable, and only because she saw them as protective color. This dress revealed too much of someone she didn't know. For a moment, she considered changing into the dirty, torn clothing she had worn for so long. This new persona frightened her.

The black and the calico cats came up to her in response to her broadcast of pain. The calico leaped into her lap and licked her under the chin while the black rubbed his back against her calf. They questioned her about the sending. Bagabond tried to explain. She sent a picture of Paul to them both. Neither cat was impressed by the human they saw. Even Bagabond's emotional shadings of the face she remembered were not enough. The black looked up at her and imagined Paul's throat torn out. It was the simplest solution to him. If something a

The calico sent a scene of Bagabond, back in her normal dress, sitting on the floor of Jack's home and playing with the kittens. Bagabond stroked the calico, but blocked out the sight of the familiar group. The black snarled and placed his huge paws on Bagabond's knees. He stared into her eyes and she knew his anger and frustration.

Bagabond looked back at the mirror and saw a girl in a beaded leather headband and a tie-dyed T-shirt. The younger woman seemed to smile at her in encouragement. Bagabond reached out to touch the girl's hand, wondering if she could ever have been so young and happy. As she touched the glass, the image changed to herself, teal dress, mascara, and blush.

Examining herself again, Bagabond thought she saw something of the girl's eyes still in hers.

The shrill ring of the phone broke her reverie. Dumping the calico onto the floor, she wondered if this was more bad news for Jack. But the voice at the other end was Rosemary's. "Suza

"No." Bagabond sat down on the floor beside the phone. "Can you meet me at home? I mean, the penthouse?"

"Why? "

"I just feel as if…" Rosemary's voice grew thin for a moment. "I guess I want to tell my father what I'm doing. Maybe it's why I held on to the place. But I don't want to go there alone. Please, Suza

"Why me?"

Rosemary hesitated. "Suza

"That's not new." Bagabond clenched her jaw and her hand tightened on the phone.

"Suza

"All right. But I have an appointment at seven." Bagabond closed her eyes in disgust at her need for Rosemary's approval. "Thanks. I'll meet you there." Rosemary hung up. Bagabond looked down at the cats.

"I don't think this night is ever going to end."

She pulled on the long, open, ankle-length black sweater Jack had insisted she get. The black and calico accompanied her to the door. Bagabond mentally told them both to stay. The cats responded with yowls of anger, but backed away from the door. Closing the door, Bagabond knew the black was using another exit to follow her.

At the subway station, she held the door of the car so the cat could enter. The black was not happy he had been spotted, but was glad he would not have to chase the train or find an other route. He panted as he lay at her feet. For him, now, it had been a long run.

She got off at 96th Street, abruptly aware of how few people had been on the subway. The crowds really had given up. She went upstairs to the street. Two blocks down Central Park West, Rosemary waited on a bus bench. Her eyes widened as she saw Bagabond's dress, but she did not comment.

"Let's go in." Bagabond was impatient to get this done. She suddenly felt the gray cat watching her from the park across the street. She looked up, but saw nothing in the trees.

"I suppose I'm ready." Rosemary hesitated before pulling open one of the heavy glass doors.

"Signorina, you'd better be." Trailed by the black, Bagabond followed her in.

The doorman was no longer a Gambione man. He was young, and Bagabond noticed he was studying a book on contract law. Rosemary showed him her key and signed in, as Rosa Maria Gambione, on the guest register.

In the elevator, she used another key to send the car to the penthouse.

"I haven't been here in five years." Rosemary looked up at the ceiling of the car.

"Are you sure you want Rosa-Maria to return?" Bagabond reached out to touch the other woman's shoulder. "You were desperate to leave all this behind. Your father, the Family, all of it. You wanted to atone for what he did. Now you want to be like him?"

"No!" Rosemary glared at Bagabond for an instant before she lowered her head. "Suza

"Why?" Bagabond barely kept her balance in the high heels as the elevator jerked to a halt. "Let them be destroyed. They deserve it. They're criminals."

Rosemary stepped out into the hallway. "It looks wrong without the men. There were always guards here for my father."

"You want to live that way?"

Rosemary unlocked the double oak doors, then turned and was framed against the darkness behind. "Suza

Bagabond was skeptical. "You could destroy yourself instead. "

"It's worth the risk." Rosemary pushed the doors open wide and walked in. "I believe that."

Behind her, Bagabond watched the new head of the Gambione Family walk down the dark entry. She murmured to herself and the. black, "I know you do, God help you."

Rosemary showed Bagabond the apartment, telling her of the happy things that had happened there. There were some: the holidays, family gatherings, birthdays. The last room they entered was the library. Books lined the black walnut walls and heavy draperies seemed to absorb most of the light. Despite the oppressive atmosphere, Rosemary laughed.

At Bagabond's look, she explained. "It's awful. All these books? My father bought them by the yard. He didn't care what they were, so long as they had leather bindings and looked impressive. I used to sneak in and read some of them. There was Hawthorne and Poe and Emerson. It was fun." She looked at Bagabond defensively. "It wasn't always bad to live here."

Ru

Bagabond walked out of the room feeling as though she had seen a ghost. Back in the elevator, she knelt and stroked the black until he purred at her. Then she stood and pulled the sweater more tightly around her.

Outside, the sun was up and traffic had increased on the streets until the horns and diesel fumes made it clear the day had begun. The gray still watched from the park. She was un able to pick up the animal's emotions without effort. She left him his privacy. Bagabond patted the black's head and sent him across to the park to see his son.

She stepped to the curb to hail a cab to take her downtown to the restaurant.

As the taxi wove through the thickening morning traffic, Bagabond started attempting to think of good conversational gambits. Nothing she remembered from the sixties somehow seemed appropriate.