Ariana and Collin had met at an acting class that was so far over on the West Side that it was practically in the Hudson River. The building was shabby, in one of those Hell’s Kitchen neighborhoods where there were only spotty efforts at renovation, and a lot of those seemed to be permanently weighted down by several layers of spray-painted graffiti.
It had been love at first sight for Collin, but Ariana had seen it as an opportunity. For her, life was full of opportunities, most of them wearing pants. Back in those days, she had been into lifting credit cards and small-time stuff like that. Collin had been a big help to her, especially when they’d been working hotels.
They had lost track of each other for a couple of years, until Collin had run into her at a sidewalk cafe near Lincoln Center a few months before.
Collin, of course, wanted to pick up where they had left off, but Ariana had made it clear that she had gone on to bigger and better things.
The effort to win her back had been more or less a matter of proving fiscal soundness, as Collin saw it. Ariana was still into money, so he had to get some — fast. According to her, she had married a wealthy but elderly man who had died suddenly, leaving her independently wealthy. She was into charity work now.
Collin sensed a false note in there somewhere, but he didn’t have a good enough ear to pick up on which one it was. Ariana certainly looked good — better than she had before. Her figure had filled out some, but she still had those pale violet eyes, the silky dark hair and exotic complexion, the pouty lips...
God, he lusted after her. But she had been so distant in the past few weeks...
Collin tried to call Ariana again, but got no answer. She didn’t even have her machine on. Suddenly, he got a strange mental picture of her at work. Maybe a portent, hm? he thought, reaching for his Manhattan directory to look up her number at the Foundation.
Ariana was a little bit sweaty, and her jeans were covered with dust. Her eyes met Carl’s across the now empty office as Gunther left with the last load, fully paid off and ready to roll. It was a mesmerizing, predatory look — a hungry look, actually.
She threw her head back, shaking dust out of her hair, then crossed the room to him and began to disrobe, those haunting eyes never leaving his.
“On the floor?” he said with a quirky smile, eyebrows raised. “We can be seen from the street, you know.”
“One last time, my dear,” she said, mouthing his neck desperately.
“Are you sure it’s been disconnected?” Collin asked the operator. “It’s not just out of service or something?”
“I’m positive,” the operator said firmly.
“Was there a forwarding number?”
“Like I told you, no.” Collin heard an abrupt click in his ear.
About half an hour later, he parked the Mercedes in the next block and walked over to the Porphyria Foundation offices. The sun had set hours ago, and the night had gotten chilly. Aside from a few bag people lying on grates in the street to keep warm, the whole area was deserted. The street lights cast an eerie glow, and the occasional odd noise made him jump.
He felt the front door. He could see where the plaque had been — and that it was no longer there. He stood on a railing and leaned over to look into the window. There was enough light to see that the place was empty — no furniture, no nothing. Collin had a feeling that Something Was Happening — something he wasn’t going to like.
He went back to the car finally, and decided to drive around for a while to think things over. Before long, he found himself in Ariana’s block on the Upper West Side.
He parked the car, got out, and went to a phone booth to call her again. There was no answer, but while he was there, he saw Ariana leave her building arm in arm with a tall, elegant-looking gentleman. Unfortunately, they were walking straight toward him. As they approached the phone booth, he averted his face and sank into the shadows to avoid being seen. When they passed, he realized who the man was, and why he looked so familiar. It was Dr. Montgomery from the Foundation. That certainly changed the picture.
He wondered if she was pulling a scam on him. He wouldn’t have been surprised. He thought about following the two of them, but decided that was childish. He went back to the car, pulling his jacket up around his shoulders, and waited for them to return.
At about one, the two of them strolled back, arm in arm. He watched her window for a while. The lights stayed on until almost two. He waited for Dr. Montgomery to leave, but he didn’t. Feeling more dejected than he had thought possible, Collin went home, a plan forming in his mind.
Very few people know there are organizations that rate charities to make sure they’re not putting all the dough they’ve collected into their own pockets. But several exist, and Marcus Schmidt, a thickly bespectacled little man who prided himself on balancing his own checkbook down to the penny each month, even if it took hours, worked for one of them as a field agent.
Despite the fact that Marcus had majored in accounting, he also prided himself on his knowledge of the classics in music and literature and other areas. In other words, his mother had wanted him to be a doctor, and he had failed her miserably, so he was trying to make amends.
Marcus was a very frustrated man in many ways, and he took it out mostly on those who didn’t live up to his high standards of charitable distribution, since he didn’t have a wife to beat or a dog to kick. Those who knew what was really cooking in the charitable foundation world knew that his was not the largest or most respected of the monitoring agencies and showed him the door when he got really obnoxious. Which was why his boss had lately sent him out to the newer and smaller organizations — ones that couldn’t fight back as easily.
It’s hard to say when Marcus first figured out that the Porphyria Foundation wasn’t exactly kosher. It’s easy to figure that, wherever he is now, he’d like people to think he glommed onto it the minute he heard the name, but those who knew what a jerk he was suspected it had come much later — like right before Dr. Montgomery had raised the little silver gun and pointed it at his chest. There was a certain wry look in Marcus’s eyes there at the last — one that showed an understanding and peculiar sense of humor that probably would have made Marcus’s mother proud. Unfortunately, there was no one to see it except Carl Montgomery, and he had other things on his mind.
It had been a long day for Collin, and he was exhausted. He fell asleep almost immediately after setting his alarm.
The following morning he was up bright and early, full of determination. He dressed in his best casual stuff — real preppy clothes, with an old-money gold and blue color scheme — and drove back up to Ariana’s apartment.
Luck was with him — he found a parking space on the first turn around the block. As he pulled in, he saw Ariana and Dr. Montgomery coming out of the apartment, suitcases in hand.
“Hi,” he said, walking up to the stoop.
Ariana’s face went through some changes — surprise, guilt, and a few other things — as she looked back and forth from one man to the other.
“Hi,” she said finally, weakly, and introduced the two men. They both acted cool. “I’m sorry I can’t talk to you now, Collin, but I’ve got to get Dr. Montgomery to the airport in a hurry.”
“Oh,” Collin said, surprised. “Vacation?”
Ariana thought about it for a minute. Collin could see the wheels turning. “No. Business trip.”
He thought for a minute himself. “Well, I have a meeting in the neighborhood this morning, and thought I’d stop by for a visit.”