Danielle Steel - Passion's Promise

“The ‘K’ is for Kate.” Her favorite aunt’s name.

“Kate. Sensible name. Kate Miller. Kate Sensible Miller.” He grinned at her, lit another cigarette, and she felt as though he were laughing at her, but not unkindly. The look in his eyes reminded her again of her father. In odd ways they were similar … something about the way he laughed … about the uncompromising way he looked at her, as though he knew all her secrets, and was only waiting for her to give them up, to see if she would, as though she were a child playing a game and he knew it. But what could this man possibly know? Nothing. Except that she was there to interview him, and her first name was Kate.

“Okay, lady, let’s order breakfast and get to work.” The fun and games were over.

“Fine, Mr. Johns, I’m ready if you are.” She pulled out the pad with the scribbled notes from the evening before, drew a pen from her bag, and sat back in her chair.

He rambled on for two hours, talking at length, and with surprising openness, about his six years in prison. About what it was like to live under the indeterminate sentence, which he explained to her: a California phenomenon which condemned men to sentences of “five years to life” or “three to life,” leaving the term served to be determined by the parole board or the prison authorities. Even the sentencing judge had no control over the length of time a man spent in prison. Once committed to the claws of the indeterminate sentence, a man could languish in prison literally for life, and a lot of men did, forgotten, lost, long past rehabilitation or the hope of freedom until they no longer cared when they might be set free. There came a time when it didn’t matter anymore.

“But me,” he said with a lopsided grin, “they couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I was the ultimate pain in the ass. Nobody loves an organizer.” He had organized other prisoners into committees for better working conditions, fairer hearings, decent visiting conditions with their wives, broader opportunities for study. He had, at one time, been spokesman for them all.

He told her too of what had gotten him sent to prison, and spoke of it with surprisingly little emotion. ‘Twenty-eight years old, and still stupid. Looking for trouble, I guess, and bored with the life I had. I was piss-eyed drunk and it was New Year’s Eve, and well … you know the rest. Armed robbery, not too cool to say the least. I held up a liquor store with a gun that didn’t even shoot, and got away with two cases of bourbon, a case of champagne, and a hundred bucks. I didn’t really want the hundred but they handed it to me, so I took it. I just wanted the hooch to have a good time with my buddies. I went home and partied my ass off. Till I got hauled off to jail, a little after midnight…. Happy New Year!” He grinned sheepishly and then his face grew serious. “It sounds funny now, but it wasn’t. You break a lot of hearts when you do something like that.”

It seemed all wrong to Kezia. Admittedly it was an outrageous thing to do. But six years and his wife’s life for three cases of liquor? Her stomach turned over slowly as her mind flashed back to scenes of La Grenouille and Lutèce and Maxim’s and Annabel’s. Hundred-dollar lunches and fortunes spent on rivers of wine and champagne. But then, at those exalted watering holes, no one ordered his champagne with a shotgun.

Luke passed gracefully over his youth in Kansas. An uneventful period, when his worst problems were his size and his curiosity about life, both of which were out of proportion with his age and his “station in life.” Despite Simpson’s warning that Luke might be closed to personal probing, Kezia found him open and easy to talk to. By the end of the morning, she felt as though she knew all about him, and she had long since stopped taking notes. It was easier to hear the soul of the man just by listening—the political views, the interests, the causes, the experiences, the men he respected and those he abhorred. She would recapture it all later from memory with more depth.

What surprised her most was his lack of bitterness. He was determined, angry, pushy, arrogant, and tough. But he was also passionate in his beliefs, and compassionate about the people he cared about. And he liked to laugh. The baritone laughter rang out often in the small living room in his suite, as she questioned him and he regaled her with stories of years long since past. It was well after eleven before he stretched and rose from his chair.

“I hate to say this, Kate, but we’re going to have to stop. I’m addressing another group at noon, and I have a few things to take care of first. Can I interest you in another speech? You’re a good audience. Or do you have to get back to New York?” He circled the room, putting papers and pens in his pockets, and looked over his shoulder at her with the look one reserves for a friend.

“Both really. I should get back. But I’d like to hear you talk. What’s the group?”

“Psychiatrists. The subject is a firsthand report on the psychological effects of being in prison. And they’ll probably want to hear how real the threat of psychosurgery in prison is. They always ask about that.”

“You mean like frontal lobotomies?”

He nodded.

“Is there a lot of that?” She was momentarily stunned.

“Even a little ‘of that’ is too much. But I don’t think it happens often. Maybe occasionally. Lobotomies, shock treatment, a lot of ugly shit.”

She nodded somberly and looked at her watch.

“I’ll go pick up my things and meet you there.”

“Are you staying at a hotel around here?”

“No, my agent got me someone’s apartment.”

“That’s convenient.”

“Very.”

“Want a ride?” He said it easily as they walked toward the door.

“I … no … thanks, Luke. I’ve got a few other stops to make on the way. I’ll meet you at your speech.”

He didn’t press the point, but nodded absently as they waited for the elevator. “I’ll be interested to see this piece when it comes out.”

“I’ll have my agent send you tear sheets as soon as we get them.”

He left her in front of the hotel and she walked to the corner and hailed a cab. It was a nice day to walk, and if she had had more time, she would have walked all the way back to the apartment on Lake Shore Drive. It was a warm autumn day with a bright sky overhead, and when she reached the apartment building, she could see sailboats skimming over the lake.

The ghostly apartment echoed her footsteps as she ran up the stairs for her suitcase, pulled the dust sheet over the tidily made bed, and pulled down the shade. She laughed, wondering what Luke would have said if he’d seen it. It didn’t fit the image of Kate. Something told her he would not have approved. Or maybe he would have been amused, and together they might have pulled the sheets from all the furniture, lit the fire, and she could have played honky-tonk on the grand piano downstairs—put a little life in the place. Funny to think of doing something like that with Luke. But he looked like a good man to have fun with, to giggle at and tease and chortle with and chase. She liked him, and he had no idea who she was. It was a safe, happy feeling, and the makings of the article already felt good in her head.

Luke’s speech was interesting, and the group was receptive. She made a few notes, and nibbled absently at the steak on her plate. Luke was sitting at a long, flower-strewn table at the front of the room, and she had been seated nearby. He looked over at her now and then, with mischievous laughter in the emerald green eyes. Once, silently raising his glass toward her, he winked. It made her want to laugh in the midst of the psychiatrists’ general sobriety. She felt as though she knew Luke better than anyone there, maybe even better than anyone else. He had shared so much of his story with her all morning; he had given her the peek into the inner sanctum that Simpson had prophesied she’d never get. It was a shame she could not reciprocate.