Liar's Game Read Online Free

escorted her out to her car. We talked and headed beyond the Brenda’s Talk of the Town and the Chinese dry cleaners, strolled down on the far side of Ralph’s grocery store. Dana stopped in front of a dark-colored Infiniti Q45. Her ride was ten years old.
    She looked disturbed. “Full moon.”
    “Full moons means romantic.”
    She shook her head, her mood changing, becoming dark and distant. “Drama. A full moon is a flashlight so everybody can see your drama.”
    I opened her door, peeped inside before I let her get in. No child seat, no sign of those cheap throwaway toys that come inside a Happy Meal. No man’s belongings. No leftover cologne scent.
    Dana kept the door between us, that subtle yet straightforward move a woman does when she’s letting a man know that she ain’t in it for the kissing. Her lips, full and dark with color. All evening, every time they opened and closed, my mouth watered. She tossed her purse over to the passenger seat; it turned over and some of the woman stuff she had inside spilled across the seat.
    Makeup. Pager. Checkbook. A coal black stun gun.
    That caught my eye.
    She followed my eyes to the stun gun and said, “I was mugged on the subway.”
    “Mugged?”
    “Got jacked for my little old purse. Damn near fell in front of a freakin’ subway train and got run over.” She cleared her throat like she was trying to cough the memory out of her system, then picked up her urban assault weapon, let it rest in her lap, in ready position. “I was almost run over by a train, but this guy caught me before I fell.”
    “Good thing he caught you.”
    Her tone turned flat. “Good thing, yeah. Bad thing too.”
    She fired up the engine; it purred like a newborn kitten.
    She took my digits, gave me her red-white-blue business card. Her office was near the golf courses in white-bred Westchester. The card had her smiling face on the front, an office number, pager number, web site, e-mail address, but she didn’t give up the home number. That made me question whether she really lived alone. Or was single. I’ve been on a few dates with sisters, and when we made it back to their crib, a boyfriend or a husband that they’d forgotten all about was waiting in the parking lot. Not a good way to end a night.
    It’s all part of that dating game. You lie about this, I lie about that, you don’t tell me this, I don’t tell you that, we date a while, have sex, some lies come out, we mention the unmentioned, we realize how incompatible we are after about six months of fun in the sun, then bygones.
    I offered, “Wanna hit Roscoe’s for some chicken, maybe coffee?”
    “My girlfriend in New York said Roscoe’s stole the idea from Well’s Chicken and Waffles on Seventh Avenue in Harlem.”
    “Never heard that. Never heard of Well’s, actually.”
    “Said Roscoe stole everything but the recipe.”
    “Is that fact or fiction?”
    “Well, my fact is this: I support my people back in Harlem.”
    She gave me a firm good-bye handshake, then drove away.
    Three tears in a bucket, motherfuck it.
    I headed three parking spaces over to my old 300ZX. A ride that needed a set of new tires and new fuel injectors. With the layoffs, I’d been cutting corners. Aerospace had been as steady as a two-legged table during an earthquake.
    When I came down a moment ago, I hadn’t looked out across the lot, had been too focused on the woman from New York. Her friend, Gerri, was standing between an Eddie Bauer and a Range Rover, under the full moon, living in the broken shadows with Jefferson. His arms were wrapped around her like he was her protector. They were kissing and I heard their sound. Moans and groans that come from hardness and wetness. Her slim arms up around his shoulders, intense tongue dancing like high school kids.
    I watched them until heat warmed my groin and envy burned in my lungs.
    Yep, once again I’d wasted half the night and too much money on the wrong woman. I tossed Dana’s ReMax business