"That's fine." He stroked her hair. "Turn it off now."
"He'll shift targets. Didn't get his points today." When her voice thickened, he turned so she could curl against him. "It's gonna be soon."
Roarke thought she was right. But the target wouldn't be her, not for now. For now she was curled up warm against him, and asleep.
• • •
Patrick Murray was drunker than usual. In the normal scheme of things, he avoided sobriety but didn't care to stumble or piss on his hands. But tonight, when the Mermaid Club closed its doors at three in the morning, he had done both, more than once.
His wife had left him. Again.
He loved his Loretta with a rare passion, but could admit he too often loved a cozy bottle of Jamison's more. He'd met his darling at that very club five years before. She'd been naked as the wind and swimming like a fish in the aquatic floor show the club was renowned for, but it had been—for Pat—love at first sight.
He thought of it now as he tripped over the chair he'd been about to upend on the table directly in front of him. Too many pulls of whiskey blurred his vision and hampered him in his maintenance duties. It was his lot in life to mop up the spilled liquor and bodily fluids, to scour the toilets and sinks, to be sure the privacy rooms were aired so they didn't smell like someone else's come the following day.
He'd hired on at the club to do just that five years and two months before, and had been struck by Cupid's arrow when he'd seen Loretta execute a watery pirouette in the show tank.
Her skin, the color of barrel-aged scotch, had gleamed so wet. Her twisty curls of ebony hair had flowed through the virulently dyed blue water. Her eyes behind their protective lenses had gleamed a brilliant lavender.
Pat righted himself, and the chair, before reaching in his pocket for the mini bottle of whiskey. He drained it in a swallow, and though he wobbled, he tucked it neatly in the nearest recycle slot.
He'd been twenty-seven when he'd first set eyes on the magnificent Loretta, and it had been only his second day in America. He'd been forced to leave Ireland in a hurry, due to a bit of a brushup with the law and a certain disagreement over some gambling debts. But he'd found his destiny in the city of New York.
Five years later, he was scraping the same floor clean of unmentionable substances, pocketing the loose credits dropped by patrons who were often more drunk than Pat himself, and mourning, once again, the loss of his Loretta.
He had to admit she didn't have much tolerance for a man who liked his liquor by the quart.
She was what some would call the giant economy size. At five-ten and two hundred fiery pounds, she made nearly two of Patrick Murray. He was a compact man who'd once had dreams of jockeying thoroughbreds on the flat, but he'd tended to miss too many morning exercise rounds due to the inconvenience of a splitting head. He was barely five-five, no more than a hundred and twenty pounds even after a dip in the aquatic show floor tank.
His hair was orange as a fresh carrot, his face splattered with a sandblast of freckles of the same hue. And Loretta had often told him it was his sad and boyish blue eyes that had won over her heart.
He'd paid her for sex the first time, naturally. After all, it was her living. The second time he'd paid her fee he'd asked if perhaps she might enjoy a piece of pie and a bit of conversation.
She'd charged him for that as well, for the two hours spent, but he hadn't minded. And the third time he'd brought her a two-pound box of near-chocolates and she'd given him the sex for nothing.
A few weeks later they'd been married. He'd stayed almost sober for three months. Then the wagon had tipped, he'd fallen off, and Loretta had lowered the boom.
So it had been, on and off that wagon, for five years. He'd promised her he'd take the cure—the sweat box and shots down at the East Side Substance Abuse Clinic. And he'd meant to. But he'd gotten a little drunk and gone off to the track instead.
He still loved the horses.
Now she was talking divorce, and his heart was broken. Pat leaned on his string mop and sighed at the glinting waters of the empty tank.
Loretta had done two shows tonight. She was a career woman, and he respected that. He'd gotten over his initial discomfort when she'd insisted on keeping her sex license up to date. Sex paid better than sweeping, even better than entertainment, and they sometimes talked of buying a place in the suburbs.
She hadn't spoken to him that evening, no matter how he'd tried to draw her out. When the show ended, she'd climbed down the ladder, wrapped herself in the striped robe he'd given her for her last birthday, and swished off with the other water beauties.
She'd locked him out of their apartment, out of her life, and, he was afraid, out of her heart.
When the buzzer sounded from the delivery entrance, he shook his head sadly. "Where'd the time go?" he wondered. "Morning already."
He made his bleary way into the back, fumbled twice with the code before getting it right, and hauled open the steel-enforced door. He puzzled a moment, standing framed there, with the security light beeping and the black-coated figure smiling in at him.
"It's still dark, isn't it?" Pat said.
"It's always darkest before the dawn, so they say." He stepped forward, offering a gloved hand. "Do you remember me, Paddy?"
"Do I know you? Are you from home?" Pat took the offered hand and never even felt the slight pinch as he pitched forward.