Maggy's Child Read Free

nice,” Sarah chided with a quick glance at Maggy.
    “I know it. Lucky for me both you and Maggy already know I’m not a nice person.” Buffy glanced at Maggy’s still-white face. “I’m sorry, Maggy. I didn’t mean anything, you know.”
    “I know.” Buffy’s real consternation penetrated the cold shock that held Maggy in thrall, and she managed a smile. “It’s okay. I’m not offended.”
    “He looks like a thug. A divinely sexy thug. Just looking at him was enough to give me the shivers.” Reassured, Buffy returned to the subject of Nick with a vengeance. She hitched herself up on the bar stool behind her, crossing her slim legs and leaning avidly toward Maggy. “So tell me all about him. Did he really grow up in the projects?”
    The words so did I sprang of their own volition to Maggy’s lips, but fortunately a distraction kept them from ever being uttered.
    With a nerve-jangling crash of chords the band left the tiny stage, and an announcer jumped up to grab the microphone.
    “Ladies and gentlemen, or whatever y’all want to call yourselves, this here is amateur night at the Little Brown Cow. Any of you gals out there in the audience, this is your chance to strut your stuff and earn a little money at the same time. Our regulars know how this works. We get a bunch of gals to volunteer, and they get up here and start dancin’. You wanna strip, do a little bump and grind, that’s fine, we don’t object. Do we, boys?”
    A majority of the men in the place clapped and yahooed vociferous approval.
    The announcer resumed. “Every few minutes, we’ll eliminate a gal by having the audience clap for their favorites. Whichever gal’s left shakin’ it at the end wins two hundred dollars! Now how’s that sound? Where’s our volunteers?”
    Women were laughing and squealing as some headed for and others were pushed protesting toward the stage.
    Maggy, still feeling wildly disoriented, seized the opportunity with silent gratitude and glanced at Sarah. “I can’t stand this. I’ve got to get out of here.”
    “I’m with you,” Sarah said with feeling, turning away from the spectacle to head for the door.
    “But what about your sexy friend? If we leave, we’ll miss him,” Buffy wailed as the other two started to wriggle their way through the crush of bodies swarming to surround the stage.
    Maggy heard, but pretended not to. Booming music as the dance contest started drowned out any other protest Buffy might have made as she slithered off the bar stool and followed them.
    Once outside, Maggy drew in great gulps of cold night air. It was early April, and they’d been having an unseasonably warm spell, but it was almost midnight and the temperature had dropped almost thirty degrees since sundown. Behind her, the sounds of ribald revelry swelled and then were abruptly cut off as Sarah and Buffy stepped out onto the cracked sidewalk and the bar’s double doors swung shut behind them.
    Tipton was waiting in the Rolls under a lone street-lamp. Seconds after Maggy spotted it, the sleek navy car purred toward her.
    “Don’t bother to get out, Tipton,” Maggy said as the car stopped and the driver’s door started to open. The door continued to open as if she had not spoken. Tipton got out and reached back to open the rear door without aword, his pale face wooden. He was a small, neat man in his late forties, as bald as an egg beneath his uniform cap. A shaggy, grizzled moustache adorned his upper lip. He was Lyle’s man all the way, and as such Maggy counted him as her enemy. Tipton was Lyle’s spy, and the reason he drove her when she went out was simple: so he could report back to his boss where she had been. Maggy pretended not to be aware of this—to admit that she knew and yet was unable to do anything about it would be to destroy what little dignity she had left—just as she pretended to believe that Tipton had not heard her request that he not get out. She knew that in any confrontation