The petite, effeminate Emile Lafonde had been blessed with the
personality of a scorpion, and he was the bane of Danny’s existence. Emile was
a monster, and this was the third time in two weeks that Danny had been late.
The odds were not stacking up in his favor. “Wish me luck,” he said, and swung
through the doors into the dining room.
Emile saw him instantly. The little man stiffened, drew himself
up to his full five-three, and picked his way distastefully through the maze of
tables. Hoping to avoid him, Danny snatched up a tablecloth and a pair of
place settings and began to set up the nearest empty table. But Emile was not
to be deterred. “Ah, Mr. Fiore,” he said to Danny’s back. “You decided to
grace us with your presence.”
“I put in my time.” It killed him, having to kowtow to the little
asshole, but he didn’t relish the idea of going home and explaining to Casey
why he no longer had a job.
“You are an embarrassment to this establishment.” The
maitre
d’
sniffed and rubbed his hands together, as if trying to rid them of the
very essence of Daniel Fiore. “This is the last time, Mr. Fiore. Next time
you can’t be bothered to arrive on time, don’t bother coming at all.”
It was amazing how Emile’s accent dissipated in direct proportion
to his escalating anger. Rumor said that he’d been born and raised in Detroit,
and had been no closer to Europe than a travel brochure or two. But because it
was his ass on the line, Danny capitulated. “Yes, sir, Mr. Lafonde,” he said
stiffly. “It won’t happen again.”
Emile spun on his heel and stalked back to his station. “Prick,”
Danny said to his back. Across the room, Leon caught his eye and they
exchanged a quick, irreverent grin. Then the dining room began to fill, and he
no longer had time to think about Emile.
The Montpelier was one of the most exclusive hotels in Manhattan, catering
to the rich and the super-rich, and it was not uncommon to see well-known
politicians, best-selling authors, and stars of stage and screen dining there.
The men wore Armani suits and the women reeked of diamonds and Chanel No. 5,
and although the cynical side of him thought it was bullshit, he was still hick
enough to be impressed when John Travolta or Teddy Kennedy walked in.
Tonight, there were no celebrities, just the usual upper-crust
types who looked through him as though he were invisible. At least the men
looked through him. The women were another story. Most of them had hungry
eyes, and they watched him with a ferocity that was as frightening as it was
comical. He was used to it by now and paid them little attention. Although
they looked and smelled heavenly, underneath the surface most of them were
middle-aged and desperate. Not a one could hold a candle to his wife. Why go
out for hamburger when you had sirloin at home?
But the babe in the black dress had him intrigued. She was tall
and elegant, strikingly understated in pearls and a simple black number that
had probably set her back half a grand. Her sleek blond hair fell past those
elegant shoulders, and her makeup was subtle and artfully applied. Probably
pushing forty, she looked about twenty-seven. And she’d been watching him ever
since Emile had seated her.
He refilled her water glass, and she studied him, sharp eyes
missing nothing, including the gold ring on his finger. “Hello, gorgeous,” she
purred. “What’s your name?”
“Sigmund,” he said dryly. “Sigmund Freud.”
Their eyes met, and he felt that tiny flash of recognition, that
acknowledgment that they found each other sexually attractive. Ancient and
rusty instincts creaked to life inside him. In a previous lifetime, he’d spent
many an hour dallying with women such as this one. It had been one hell of a
turn-on, back in those days, the way women looked at him, the way they touched
him, and as often as not, he’d been the aggressor. The challenge of the
pursuit, the inevitable acquiescence of the woman, had been as exciting to him
as the sex itself.
And then he’d met Casey, and he’d been transformed overnight into
that most foreign of creatures, the monogamous male. Not that he was dead. He
still looked at women, still found them attractive. But that was as far as it
ever went, because he was a married man, crazy in love with his wife, and in
four years of marriage, he’d been unfailingly faithful.
The woman laid a manicured hand on his sleeve. “I’m from out of
town,” she said, “and I don’t know anybody in New York.” Those slender fingers
worked their way up his arm to his bicep. “I bet you could show me a few of
the local hot spots.”
“I’m married,” he said.
“So? Why should we let a little thing like that stop us?”
“I’m afraid that my wife would take a dim view of that
philosophy.”
“Yes,” she said, “I imagine she would. Not that I blame her. If
you belonged to me, I’d keep you locked up.”
Emile was watching him with narrowed eyes. Pretending he had an
urgent errand in the kitchen, Danny swung through the doors and out of Emile’s
sight. He set down the water pitcher and kept going, out the back door and
into the alley beyond.
He lit a cigarette and leaned against the building. It was a
clear, cool night, and between skyscrapers he caught a glimpse of starlight,
something as rare in New York as faithful husbands. It was the first time in
four years of marriage that he’d actually been tempted, and the urge took him
by surprise. So did the guilt that assailed him, guilt that was totally
unwarranted. No court in the land would convict him on the basis of a few
moments of libidinous fantasizing.
He finished the cigarette. Tossing the butt on the ground, he
went back to the dining room and busied himself clearing dirty dishes from a
table where two middle-aged couples had just finished dissecting the newest
Broadway show. Picking up the tray, he swung away from the table, and nearly
collided with the blonde.
Her eyes were brown, and she was just a few inches short of his
six-four. In her hand, she held a folded greenback.
“This,” she said, tucking it into his hip pocket, “is for you.”
Her hand lingered, and through black cotton he could feel her heat. She
sashayed back across the dining room in that tight black dress, pausing in the
doorway to look back at him, and sweat pooled beneath his arms.
He carried the tray to the kitchen and turned it over to Rory, the
dishwasher. Behind Rory’s back, he reached into his pocket and withdrew the
bill and something else, something solid. Heart thumping, he unfolded the
hundred-dollar bill and gawked at the room key she’d tucked inside.
Jesus Christ Almighty.
For four hours, that greenback burned a hole in his pocket. There
was no way he could keep her money and retain a shred of pride. He thought
about leaving the whole kit and caboodle in an envelope at the front desk, but
could imagine the raised eyebrows if he handed the desk clerk a room key and a
C note and asked him to give them to the anonymous lady in Room 508. His wife,
who worked the morning shift, would hear about it before breakfast tomorrow.
There was only one thing he could do. He was going to have to
return the damn money in person.
When his shift ended, he took the back elevator to the fifth
floor, avoiding the lobby and any chance of being recognized. When the
elevator doors whispered open, he looked right and left before stepping out.
If he got caught up here, his ass would be in a sling.
It was past eleven, and his footsteps fell silently, muffled by
the plush carpeting. Behind closed doors, he heard hushed conversation, an
occasional burst of laughter, the drone of a television. He stopped before the
door to her room, feeling like he was about to face his own execution. Knocked
briskly, then waited, hands in his pockets, rehearsing what he would say.
I
believe I have something that belongs to you.
Cool and sophisticated, with
just the right amount of charm. He would let her down easy. He’d always been
good at turning women down without making it seem like a rejection. Inside his
pocket, he turned the key over and over in his hand, traced its jagged edge
with his thumb.
He heard her fumbling with the lock, and he closed his fist over
the key as the door swung inward. Opened his mouth to speak, and the words
died in his throat. She wore a filmy, diaphanous nightgown that didn’t even
attempt to hide the slender hips and the firm, high breasts beneath. As the
husband in him warred with the man who’d resided there longer, the key in his
hand sliced through tender flesh and drew blood. “Hello, lover,” she said.
“I’ve been waiting.”
And Daniel Fiore the man stepped through the door, leaving Daniel
Fiore the husband outside in the hall.
***
At this time of night, he could almost think of this dump as
home. Darkness went a long way toward making it tolerable. So did the fact
that Freddie Wong had recently broken down and paid for an exterminator. The
night sounds of the city drifted through the open window and mingled with Rob’s
soft snoring. Casey had left the night light on for him in the kitchen. The
clock read 2:10, and he wondered if she was asleep.
Sweet, suffering Jesus. How the hell was he going to face Casey?
He hadn’t meant for it to happen. There’d been nothing meaningful
about the act. It had been brief and hard and violent, undiluted by emotion,
the slaking of pure animal drives. When it was over, the woman lay trembling
on the carpet, one slender arm thrown across her face, and he lay looking at
her, chest heaving, not sure which of them he was more disgusted with. He’d
gone into her bathroom and washed himself and made an attempt to straighten his
clothes. When he returned, she was slumped against the foot of the bed, still
naked, a lit cigarette in her hand.
“Wow,” she said.
He had pulled the hundred from his pocket and held it out toward
her and released it. It fluttered slowly to the carpet, and those elegant
eyebrows lifted in puzzlement. “What’s this?” she said.
“I may be a son of a bitch,” he said, “but I’m not a whore.”
He’d hit the nearest bar and pounded down Budweisers until he ran
out of money and excuses. How the hell could he explain to Casey why he’d been
unfaithful when he didn’t understand it himself? Casey thought he’d hung the
moon. If she ever found out what he’d done, she would leave him.
She would leave him
.
He stumbled in the darkness to the bathroom and locked the door
and vomited. The booze didn’t feel much different coming up than it had going
down. He flushed the toilet and turned on the shower and stripped.
There was a soft knock on the door. “Danny?”
Every muscle in his body went on alert. “I’m taking a shower,” he
said.
Was it something in his voice that made her hesitate? “It’s
late,” she said through the door. “I expected you hours ago.”
He wet his lips. “I stopped off for a few drinks before I came
home.” It was the truth. Just not all of it.
She hesitated again. “Is everything all right?”
“I’m a little hammered, that’s all. Go on back to bed. I’ll be
along in a few minutes.”
His trusting wife did what he asked, leaving him feeling like a
life form lower than raw sewage. He adjusted the water temperature to scalding
and scrubbed himself violently in an attempt to remove the smell, the taste,
the memory of the woman from his body. When he was done, he stood wet and
naked in front of the lavatory and brushed his teeth until his gums bled,
wanting to hurt, to punish himself for betraying her trust. He caught sight of
himself in the mirror and turned away in disgust, unable to face the accusation
in his own eyes.
By the time he crawled into bed, Casey had gone back to sleep. He
lay stiff as a California redwood, feeling sullied and dirty, afraid that if he
touched her, some of that dirt would rub off. Still asleep, she found him,
pressing soft, round breasts close against his back, her damp heat radiating
outward, into and through his resistant body. The coppery taste of fear
flooded his mouth, a fear not unlike that he’d known in Nam. Then, it had been
fear of death. Now, it was fear that he would lose this woman, and as a
result, he would cease to exist.
In the end, wasn’t it the same thing?
***
It was raining outside the coffee shop, a driving rain that gushed
in the gutters and flooded the storm drains. Cars passed with headlights on,
their illumination bouncing off gleaming surfaces, while businessmen and
secretaries scurried, huddling beneath umbrellas, sidestepping puddles.
Danny looked like hell this morning. Of course, Rob mused as he
sipped his coffee, even hell was relative. In spite of the rainslicked hair,
the bloodshot eyes he’d hidden behind mirrored sunglasses and the whisker
stubble he hadn’t bothered to hide, Danny still looked better than Rob had ever
looked in his twenty-four years. He wondered what it would be like to be
blessed with the face and the physique of a Greek god, but he didn’t expect to
ever know.
When Danny had offered to spring for coffee and bagels, he hadn’t
given it a second thought. They often had breakfast together when Casey was
working the early shift. Their hectic schedules usually overlapped, so when
they could grab a few minutes together, they did. It helped keep the lines of
communication open. But this morning, there was zero communication. Danny had
paid for their breakfast and then sat staring out the window, and it was his
silence that told Rob something was eating at him.