Silver Dreams (7 page)

"Where did you...how did you...?" Intelligent words failed him.

Elizabeth wasted no time stating her reason for being there. "I have to talk to you, Max. Where did you go when you left Flanagan's today?"

A few seconds passed before he responded, but it was enough time to bring the old Max back, confident and self assured. He gave her a crooked smile and leaned against the door jamb. "You've answered a question with another question, Betsy. Bad form."

"I'm not the least bit worried about my form, Max."

His gaze scanned the length of her. "And so you shouldn't be. Your form looks quite all right to me."

Max's comment became embarrassingly clear when Elizabeth felt his slow perusal of her dinner dress, which was totally inappropriate for street wear. Her cape had fallen loose at her shoulders and exposed the scooped neckline of the gown, a flattering look for dining, but one that was much too suggestive for a lady visiting a gentleman's residence. But then Elizabeth well knew that being at Max's flat in the first place was definitely out of bounds for a young woman of her background.

She clutched the yoke of the cape to her chest as a warm flush crept up her neck. "Did you hear my question?" she challenged.

"Yes, certainly," he answered. "As well as the pounding on my door. So did half of my neighbors." 

He inclined his head, and Elizabeth followed the cue. Looking down the hallway, she was astounded to see several heads poking out of half open doorways.

"Obviously you don't live in a flat, Betsy," he whispered. "If you did, you'd know that your business quickly becomes everyone's business if you don't practice a bit of tact. My neighbors are used to hearing my typewriter at all hours of the night, but apparently the sound of your bully fist and lilting voice was something of an aberration." 

He stepped into his apartment, allowing her room to enter. "Perhaps you'd better come in.”

Elizabeth brushed past him and turned around in the center of the room, half expecting to see Max following close on her heels. He wasn't. He shut the door quietly and immediately began picking up the clutter which covered nearly every piece of furniture. A small dining table was littered with papers and pens. Two chairs sat back to back with rope stretched between them. Hanging from the line were several damp male undergarments. Elizabeth had obviously caught Max on laundry day, a fact which did nothing to ease the warmth suffusing her face.

She averted her gaze from the unmentionables and looked at Max's desk which held his typewriter and a mound of writing tablets. Shelves on either side of the desk were crammed with books in no particular order. Some were standing upright, while most were leaning willy-nilly, the result of a thoughtless hand shoving them into the closest available slot.

The chairs in the sitting area were littered with more paper and magazines, but it was these pieces of furniture that Max was attacking by scooping all the items into his arms and depositing them on a bed which occupied one corner of the room. The bed was neatly made, a fact which surprised Elizabeth considering the condition of the rest of the living quarters. She noticed, too, that the suits of clothing in the open wardrobe were hung in meticulous order according to type of garment.

The term "organized chaos" came to Elizabeth's mind as she hastily scanned the nooks and crannies of Max's apartment. She avoided watching Max, finding it much easier to look at Max's
possessions
than to actually look at the man himself. With steadily increasing anxiety, she became aware of the incredulity of her situation.

Good God, Elizabeth, what are you doing here? she wondered, fighting down a mounting panic. As she listened to Max scurry around, her nervous gaze settled on the closed door. It took all her willpower to resist racing headlong for the exit, blurting out a humble plea for Max to forget she'd ever come, and returning to the security of the waiting cab. No, she told herself. You're here for a reason, a very important reason, and you've got to see it through.

"There, that's better," Max said coming up behind her. "It's hot in here. Can I take your cloak?"  

He was right. Despite the open windows, it was terribly warm for October. Elizabeth felt dizzy. She let him remove her cape, but she took it out of his hands and placed it over her lap as soon as she sat down. Max sat opposite her, well back in his chair and watched her with a guarded alertness that she found quite unsettling.

"Now, what do you want to know?" he asked.

She took a deep breath. "You said you were going to Delancey Street today. I want to know why. What story were you covering?"

She knew she had no right to ask him such questions, and at first it seemed like he might refuse to answer her, but after a long moment he expelled a breath, leaned forward and settled an earnest blue-gray gaze on her.

"I went to Delancey Street to visit the establishment of a Miss Dixie Lee, a lady who's been in business in that neighborhood for a long time. I don't need to tell you what business Miss Dixie's in, but yesterday she had a raid in her place, and today I was there to hear all about it in the lady's own words. That, in itself, is a reporter's dream, but I had the added bonus of discovering that one of New York's most pedigreed young gentlemen was involved up to his eyeballs in a bookmaking scheme in one of Miss Lee's upstairs 'meeting rooms.'"

Elizabeth clasped her hands under the cloak to keep them from trembling. "Do you know the name of this man?"

"I do. His name is Ross Sheridan. He's the son of Winston Sheridan, the editor of the
Courier News
and the man who happens to be your boss...and, if my sources check out in the morning, also your father."

"Then you’ve figured out that Ross is my brother." 

Max nodded.

"So, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to write the story, Betsy."

Elizabeth shot forward in her chair, and the cape fell to the floor. "But you can't!"

Max's eyebrows raised in a cocky arch as if to say, "Oh, yes, I can."  But he didn't speak. He just continued to stare at her.

"What I mean, Max," she continued more calmly, "is
please
don't write about Ross. You can't imagine how this will affect him."

"He's a big boy. He'll get over it...just like he got himself into it."

"But you don't know him. He's had so many problems..."

"And now he's got another one. But I have a hunch his daddy or the lawyers will help him."

"That's another thing you don't realize. My father will be devastated. His reputation is very important to him. He'll never live this down."

"Ah, come on, Betsy...I think Winnie Sheridan will be able to overcome the stigma of having his first born get his nose a little dirty over on Delancey Street."

Elizabeth's temper began to boil. "You don't know anything about my family and how we feel!" she exclaimed. "You don't have any idea how this will hurt my father."

Max clasped his hands between his knees and regarded her with unflinching calm. "Aren't you talking to the wrong guy about hurting your father? I think someone besides me has already done a bang-up job of that."

How could Max be so insensitive?  Was this the same man who bullied Frankie Galbotto into paying for Paddy O'Toole's hospital bills?  Elizabeth decided to use that very story to shame Max into keeping silent about Ross.

"Are you saying that you'd hide the name of a despicable, known criminal like Frankie Galbotto and print the name of Ross Sheridan, an upstanding member of this community?"

"You know why I kept Galbotto's name secret, Betsy, and I'd write that story the same way again. There wasn't a sentence in that story that wasn't true. Writing the news is what I do. And to be honest, right now, Ross Sheridan is almost as newsworthy as Frankie Galbotto in this town. As for the gaping differences that you think exist between your brother and Galbotto, do something for me. Ask your brother who hired him to collect that dough. I think you'll recognize the name."

"What?" Max's implication was ridiculous. It had to be a lie. "You're suggesting that my brother is mixed up with that hoodlum?" 

Max shrugged his shoulders, further infuriating her. "That's preposterous!"

"Just ask him. Maybe he'll tell you the truth. Maybe not."

Elizabeth saw the semblance of her happy home slipping away. There had to be some way to get to Max. He had a heart. She'd seen it that afternoon, and she'd find it again now.

"Max, please," she said, leaning so close to him that their knees practically touched. "Don't write this story. Or at least write it from a different slant. I know I don't have any right to ask. I mean, we hardly know each other, but I thought we were becoming friends..."

"It's hard to have friends in this business, Betsy."

"But he's my brother. What if it were your brother who'd been caught in Miss Lee's bedroom?"

He stood up and peered down at her. "If it were my brother and it were the truth, I'd print the story."

Elizabeth felt her will to fight slipping away. If Max would smear his own brother’s name across a headline, then there was no way to save her family from his poisoned pen. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, and she swallowed hard. She stood and grabbed her cape from the floor. When she looked at Max again, his eyes were softer, kinder. Maybe he was relenting. It was worth one more try. "Max..."

"Look, Betsy, you're a good kid to care so much about your brother. But maybe you ought to let him fight his own battles."

A good kid!  Max Cassidy had just reduced her efforts to the misguided intentions of a silly child. Elizabeth didn't know what came over her, but suddenly she lashed out at Max's chest with her fist.

He caught her wrist and looked down at her with that same implacable gaze, but underneath the cold blue of his eyes, there burned something else...maybe, hopefully, a shimmering of humanity she'd been afraid wasn't there. It wasn't enough for him to change his mind, she held no illusions about that, but for one wild, crazy moment, Elizabeth felt like the earth was spinning, drawing her toward him. It would only have taken a gentle breeze to push her against his chest and for his arms go around her.

"I'm sorry, Betsy," he whispered hoarsely.

Don't be fooled by him, she told herself. This man is not your friend, even though you want to believe that he could be.

"You're not sorry, Max!" she accused. "You don't care about anything but your story."

"I care about the truth."

"And that's why you write for the
Detective Gazette
?"  She glared at him even though she flinched inwardly at the bitter tone of her voice. "You need integrity to write for a
real
newspaper."