Laura Resnick - The Misfortune Cookie

I smiled and kissed Max’s cheek in greeting, then suddenly shivered.

“You’re soaked!” he said in alarm. “Here, let me take your coat. Come sit by the gas fire. Shall I make some hot tea?”

“Yes to all of that,” I said gratefully, feeling pleased that, for the first time in longer than I could remember, things were going according to plan.

I settled into a comfortable chair near the gas fire, which was glowing warmly. Nelli lay down beside me and panted happily for a while, then decided to take a little nap. Nelli spent much of her time resting up for any possible future confrontation with Evil.

Max bustled around, filling the electric kettle, setting it to boil, and brewing a pot of tea. Before pouring me a cup, he arranged an assortment of cookies on a plate; he maintained a small refreshments station here that was usually stocked with goodies. Nearby, there was a large, careworn walnut table with books, papers, an abacus, writing implements, and other paraphernalia on it.

The shop had old hardwood floors, a broad-beamed ceiling, dusky-rose walls, and rows and rows of tall bookcases overflowing with books about the occult, printed in various languages. Some of the volumes were modern paperbacks, many were old hardback volumes, and a few were rare leather-bound books of considerable value. Downstairs, where only trusted friends and colleagues were invited, was Max’s private laboratory. It was the place where Nelli had first come into being in canine form.

My empty stomach rumbled in eager reaction as I bit into a cookie. I sighed with pleasure, glad to relax in comfortable, familiar surroundings while Max chatted amiably. I realized from his cheerful demeanor and easy small talk that he had no idea what had happened at Bella Stella. The police bust was in the news, of course, but Max seldom followed current events. So his not knowing about it mostly meant that Lucky hadn’t been in contact with him. Which didn’t surprise me. Although the two men were friends, due to having confronted Evil together on various occasions, I hadn’t really thought Lucky would come to my companion for help in this matter. He wouldn’t risk turning Max (who’d had his own problems with the NYPD) into an unwitting accomplice or accessory by going to earth here.

So I broke the news about Bella Stella to Max. My account omitted most of what had happened between me and Lopez; it was too painful and embarrassing to go into. Especially with someone like Max. He was a man of the world, but he was also a gentleman of the old school. Very old, in fact.

Although he didn’t look a day over seventy, Max’s true age was closer to three and a half centuries, due to having unwittingly consumed a mysterious alchemical potion in his younger days, way back in the seventeenth century. It hadn’t made him immortal, but it had unnaturally slowed his aging process. The secret of that life-prolonging potion had died with the mage who’d administered it to Max as a cure for a feverish illness. I knew that Max, mostly due to the exhortations of the Magnum Collegium, had searched for the secret to his longevity for some time—before finally deciding not to waste any more of his long life in trying to figure out why it was so long.

Anyhow, although he recognized the nature of my interest in Lopez and, after centuries of living an eventful life (albeit a celibate one for quite some time), certainly wouldn’t be shocked to learn we had slept together . . . I wouldn’t be comfortable talking about it with him. And I certainly didn’t feel like discussing the humiliations that had followed. So, in describing the events of New Year’s, I left out all the . . . well, all the juicy bits.

Max was distressed to learn that Lucky was probably in hiding now, sympathetic about my loss of employment, horrified to learn I had been arrested (I mostly glossed over the reason for it), and relieved that the NYPD had released me without a stain on my character.

“And how is Detective Lopez?” Max asked with concern. “Considering his fondness for you, closing down your place of employment and imprisoning your employer, with whom I gather you have a very cordial relationship, must have been a severe trial of conscience for him.”

“I’m not sure Lopez has as much conscience as we thought,” I said sourly, finishing the cookie I was consuming and reaching for another.

“You know him better than I do, of course,” said Max, “but he has consistently seemed to me a person of honor and integrity, as well as intelligence, perseverance, and courage. Though perhaps a little rigid and judgmental.”

Since that was a pretty accurate description—or so I had always thought, anyhow—I wondered for the first time if Lopez had wound up favoring his duty over his libido. Maybe he decided he had to choose between me and his job, and his job won. Was that why he hadn’t called—because deciding to shut down Bella Stella meant dumping me?

“He should have at least told me,” I muttered. “Just not calling? There’s no excuse for that!”

“Pardon?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing. Um, are there any more cookies?”

“Yes, of course.” Max rose from his chair, paused to turn on some more lights now that it was dark outside, and investigated his refreshments cupboard.

My cheeks burned every time I thought of the night Lopez had spent in my bed—every time I thought of the passionate, mind-blowing, intimate sex we’d shared. I hadn’t held back anything; I didn’t think he had, either. Heat gushed through me whenever I remembered those hours, despite all the water under the bridge since then. Most painful of all was my memory of his sleepy, affectionate departure for work at dawn on Christmas Day. I had been so relaxed and open with him, just assuming everything between us would be fine from now on, despite the rocky path our relationship had always been on before.

Right, I thought now with heavy self-derision. Because sex always makes everything else just fine between two people. Gosh, everyone knows that, Esther.

What an idiot I was.

Max set a fresh plate of cookies in front of me as he said, “Since you had occasion to observe Detective Lopez during the events you have described, I feel compelled to ask if you noticed any . . . interesting phenomena?”

“You mean things exploding or catching fire?” I willed myself not to think about sex as I said those words. “No. Nothing like that. It was all very . . . mundane.” Well, in Max’s sense of the word, anyhow: non-mystical.

“Hmm. Did he seem to be under stress at any point during the proceedings?”

At various points in the “proceedings,” I thought Lopez had seemed like his head might explode. So I said, “Yes, at times. Why?”

“Well, one possibility for the incidents that you and I have previously discussed is that they are coincidence. After all, mathematically, coincidences are more common and more probable than most people suppose. But the other possibility, of course, is that Detective Lopez possesses mystical power of which he is unaware,” said Max. “In which case, I theorize that extreme stress triggers these interesting events. His emotions and his focus become powerful enough for him to affect matter and energy, though it’s not conscious and he doesn’t realize it’s happening.”

When we were all trapped in a pitch-dark church with a murderer who was prepared to turn me into the next victim, electric light had suddenly been generated by the sabotaged system at the exact moment that Lopez (very loudly) wished for it. When Lopez was in an underground tunnel with a killer who was (literally) about to rip off another cop’s head, suddenly there was a huge, fiery explosion that Lopez and the other cops survived while the killer perished. When a villain had tried to escape from Lopez by holding a gun to my head, he’d been foiled by an exploding shower of fiery light inside Fenster & Co. And on one occasion, when Lopez and I were having a particularly volatile evening, my bed had burst into flames—while we were on it together.