Three Fates

jerked a thumb toward Tia’s bedroom. “They’re in there.”
    “Who?” Visions of Anita Gaye or one of her muscle men burst in his brain. Cleo had to leap in front of him.
    “Jesus, Slick, open your ears.”
    He heard it then, the quick, strangled cry that could mean only one thing. When dumbfounded curiosity sent him a few steps closer, he caught the unmistakable sounds of a mattress squeaking.
    “Well, Christ.” He dragged a hand through his hair and had to swallow a laugh. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?” He whispered it, finding himself grinning back at Cleo. “I can’t just stand out here listening to my brother going at it with Tia. It’s mortifying.”
    “Yeah. Mortifying.” Snickering, she all but pressed her ear to the bedroom door. “I think they’ve got a ways to go yet. Unless your brother’s one of those get on, get in, get off, get out sort of guys.”
    “I wouldn’t have any way of knowing. And I’d as soon not find out. We’ll go up on the roof for a bit.”
    “Go, Tia!” Cleo murmured as they headed toward the front door. She managed to hold off the laughter until they were safely in the elevator, heading up.
    “Do you think they heard us?”
    “I don’t think they’d have heard a nuclear blast.” Cleo caught her breath and walked out with him to take the steps to the roof. She walked into the sunlight, dropped into a chair and kicked out her long legs.
    Then felt her mood dip again when Gideon opened her purse. The moment of shared amusement was over, and it was back to business.
    He pulled out the Fate, held it up so it glinted and gleamed. “Not much of a thing,” he commented. “Pretty enough, and canny, too, when you take a moment to examine the details. You’ve let it get tarnished.”
    “It was a lot worse before. It’s still only one of them.”
    His gaze shifted, studied the sun flash on her dark glasses. “It’s one Anita doesn’t have, and we do. The middle one, the one who measures. How long will this life be? she might think. Fifty years, five, eighty-nine and three-quarters ? And what will be the measure of this life in deed? Do you ever think of that?”
    “No. Thinking about it doesn’t change it.”
    “Doesn’t it?” He turned the statue over in his hand. “I think it does. Thinking about it, pondering over what you’ll do, what you won’t, those are layers to a life.”
    “And while you’re thinking about it, you get run over by a bus, and so what?”
    He leaned back against the wall, studying her as she sat among pots of flowers, pots of greenery. “Is that why you didn’t tell me you had it? Because it’s nothing more than a means to an end to you? Without any meaning at all?”
    “You plan to sell it, don’t you?”
    “We do. But it’s not just money I’m holding in my hand. Now more than ever it’s not.”
    “I’m not going to talk about Mikey.” Her voice went thin and quivered before she clamped down and steadied it. “And I’m not going to apologize again for playing it the way I did. You got what you wanted out of me, and some heat in the sheets besides. You’ve got no complaints.”
    He stood, Fate curled in his hand. “And what did you get, Cleo?”
    “I got the hell out of Prague.” She leaped to her feet. “I got home, and I’ve got the potential for enough money to keep the wolf from my throat for a good long time. Because whatever you think, I’m not looking to whore myself so some guy will pave the way for me. I stripped, okay, but I didn’t turn tricks. And I’m not stupid enough to let some guy fuck me over and leave me broke and stranded again like I was after Sidney.”
    “Who’s Sidney?”
    “Just another bastard in the perpetual lineup I seem to attract. Can’t blame him, though, since I was the one who was stupid. He came on to me, and I fell for it. Told me how he was part owner of this theater in Prague, how they were putting together a show and looking for a dancer—an American dancer who could choreograph and was willing to invest. What he wanted was a patsy, and some free nooky. With me, he got two-for-one.”
    She tucked her thumbs in her front pockets because what she wanted to do was hug herself, hard, and rock. “He wanted to get back to Europe, and I was his ticket. I sprang for the freight because what the hell. I wanted to try something new. I wasn’t making a name for myself here, so I’d make one over there. The more bullshit he pumped out, the more I