Fifth Ave 01 - Fifth Avenue (23 page)

The man standing beside the black leather sling was naked save for the executioner’s hood he wore.
 
He was tall and grossly overweight, his back and chest covered with coarse dark hair.
 
A single latex glove was stretched up his right arm.
 
It glistened with lubricant.

Harold nodded at the man as he approached.
 
As he settled himself into the sling, thoughts of Helen, George and Leana shot through his mind.
 
He thought of his three kids, of his life at Redman International.
 
And then he winced as the man began pressing inside of him.

He began to perspire.
 
His eyes watered.
 
He felt a sudden flash of guilt and was about to stop this when the man held a coke inhaler to his nostril.

Harold met the man’s gaze and breathed in deeply.
 
There was a medicinal rush and he nearly gagged.
 
He hadn’t snorted cocaine since the night of the party--just moments before he danced with Leana.
 
The fact that she had noticed a change in him and suspected something was still too difficult and terrifying for him to believe.
 
If anyone learned of his other life, Harold wasn’t sure what he would do.

He took another hit off the inhaler.
 
And another.
 
He felt no pain now, only a sweet, gray, misty bliss.
 
This wasn’t just coke.
 
It was laced with something else.
 
Harold welcomed it.
 
He started to float.

He focused on the man standing above him and saw only his dark eyes framed by the black hood.
 
Harold thought they were the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.
 
He tried lifting a hand to remove the hood, but in spite of the floating sensation, his arm was oddly heavy and he could lift it only a few inches from the sling.

And so he just closed his eyes.
 
He was sailing now, his body on a higher plain.
 
He had waited four weeks for this, four long weeks, and he was pleased to be here, happy to have spent the money.
 
It was all worth it.

*
 
*
 
*

“How’d you like me to ram my cock up your ass?”

Standing at the rear of the dimly lit room, his back to one of the metal cages, Vincent Spocatti turned away from Harold Baines only long enough to look at the woman standing beside him.
 
She was tall, fit and attractive.
 
In this light, her hair was red and it curled around the tips of her naked breasts.

“It’ll make you scream.”

He was aware of the woman’s hand moving between her legs.
 
Spocatti looked down and saw the enormous dildo jutting from the harness around her waist.
 
It was black and slick with lubricant and God knows what else.
 
Her hand stroked it in time with the music.

“You’ve got rhythm,” he said.

“I’ve got more than that.”

“Talent?”

“I’ve been told that.”

“Too bad I need to pass,” he said, running a finger along his lower lip.
 
“I like a brown mouth.”

“No worries,” she said.
 
“I’m not into that, anyway."

Though she was trying for the gutter, the tone of her voice carried with it a whiff of privilege and sophistication.
 
He wondered who she was when she wasn’t just the pretty woman with the fake cock.
 
He nodded toward Harold, who was writhing, peaking.
 
“I think my friend over there would love to have a piece of you.”
 

The woman squinted through the flickering red light.
 
When she saw Harold, recognition flashed on her face and her hand stopped caressing the rubber penis.
 
She stared at Harold.

“Your friend is an asshole,” she said.
 
“Two months ago, he pissed in my mouth after I told him not to.”

Spocatti felt a spark.
 
“Just the piss?”

“That’s enough.
 
It crosses a line.
 
It’s not for me.”

“We all have our limits.
 
How long ago was this?”

The woman shrugged.
 
“I don’t know. Two months ago?”

“How often does he come here?”

“
Here
?”
 
She looked at him quizzically.
 
“This is our first time here.”
 
She tilted her head.
 
“Are you new to this?”

Spocatti admitted he was.

“We move around a lot,” she said.
 
“Have they told you that?”

“Not yet,” he said.
 
“The other group I belong to has one specific place they meet.”
 
He let a beat of silence pass.
 
“How often have you seen him in places like this?”

“You make our club sound like a disease.”

“That’s not what I meant--”

“Are you a cop?”

“No,” Spocatti said.
 
“I’m definitely not a cop.”

“You’d have to tell me if you were.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“Then why all the questions?
 
What is this?
 
A fucking inquisition?”

He was about to speak when she held up a hand.
 
“Never mind,” she said.
 
“I don’t want to know.”
 
She removed the dildo from her vagina and pointed it at Harold Baines. “I’ve been a member of this club for years--and so has he.”

She turned to leave.
 
“If you don’t mind, I’m going find somebody who came here to fuck, not talk.”

As she walked away, Spocatti glanced with bemusement around the room, seeing things he’d only heard about, only read about, but had never actually seen.
 
The thought that these people, these members of New York society, had paid actual money to come here was laughable to him.

To gain entrance, all Vincent had to do was show the doorman his gun.

He returned his attention to Harold Baines.
 
The man was moaning now, his head lolling from side to side.
 
Spocatti checked his watch and wondered how much longer Baines would be.
 
He hoped not too much longer.
 
Vincent wanted to tell Louis Ryan everything by nightfall.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The young man who worked for Redman Place glanced down at the three cardboard boxes stacked in the entryway of Celina’s apartment.
 
He picked up two, calculated their weight to be around sixty pounds apiece, looked at the rest of the boxes and then looked back at her.
 
“He came back from Redman International an hour ago.
 
I just finished helping him carry a bunch of boxes up to his apartment?”

Curiosity flickered in Celina’s eyes.
 
What would Eric be doing at Redman International on a Sunday?
 
“How many boxes?”

“Eight?”

“Do you know what was in them?”

The young man shrugged.
 
“Office supplies?”

“Office supplies?”

“Maybe not.
 
I don’t know.
 
I only caught a glimpse.”
 
He looked at his watch.
 
“Look, Miss Redman, if I’m going to deliver these boxes to him, I should probably get going.
 
My break’s over in another ten minutes.”

Celina turned to the table beside her and reached for her purse.
 
She removed a $50 bill, glanced at him, and then removed another.
 
“Don’t worry about being late,” she said. “You work in receiving here, don’t you?
 
I’ll phone Jake and tell him to give you the rest of the day off--with pay.”
 
She handed him the money.
 
“And this is for you.
 
Thanks for the information, Dan.
 
I appreciate it.”

“My pleasure.”
 
And he was gone with the first of Eric’s belongings.

She moved through her apartment.
 
Every room, every corridor, was quiet and mysterious and changed.
 
Her home seemed foreign to her now.
 
The rooms were weirdly bare.
 
Although she had never paid much attention to them before, Celina now was acutely aware that the photographs of Eric and her no longer rested on side tables or hung on walls.
 
Now they were packed away in boxes.

She stepped into her bedroom.
 
The bed, the antique chairs and tables Eric bought for her while abroad on business all remained, as did the shelves of hardcover books they once read in bed.
 
The books and the chairs and the tables would stay, she decided.
 
Celina needed some tangible proof that what she and Eric had was real.

As she turned to leave, she caught a glimpse of herself in the bedroom’s full-length mirror.
 
She was an unfamiliar woman who no longer looked happy, but years wiser than she had only days ago.

She closed the door behind her when she left the room.
 
It was getting late.
 
She wondered if her father had finished shooting with Frostman.
 
When she left him that morning, she returned to Manhattan to pack the rest of Eric’s clothes.
 
Although the job didn't take long, it had seemed to her like a lifetime.

She wondered if George was angry with her for not returning.
 
After the way he treated her, she decided, for the first time in her life, that she didn’t really care.
 
The phone rang just as Dan was leaving with the final box.
 
Celina answered it in the living room.

“Where have you been?” George asked.
 
“We missed you this afternoon.”

It was not anger she heard in his voice, but something else.
 
Regret...?
 
“I’ve been here,” Celina said.
 
“Cleaning.”

“Since when?”

“Since I decided to get rid of Eric’s things.”

A silence passed.
 
Celina dropped into a chair covered in glazed cream chintz and said, “What’s up, Dad?
 
Why are you calling?”

“Two reasons.
 
First, I wanted to apologize for what happened earlier.
 
I never should have reacted the way I did and I’m sorry.
 
Forgive me?”

Sometimes her father sounded so formal it amused her.
 
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she said, wanting to put it behind her.
 
“Let’s just forget about it, okay?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“How’d your meeting go with Ted?”

“It went fine," George said.
 
"But we’ll discuss that later.
 
I’m calling for another reason.”