“Are you all right, Ickes?”
The words were like an electric shock, and Russ swung round in his chair. John Featherstone loomed above him, disdain contorting his face as though he’d bitten into bad meat. “Are you all right?” his editor asked again.
“Who, me?” Russ sputtered. “I’m fine. Fine, fine, fine.” He shook his head to banish a disorienting image.
On the fifteenth of every month, outside an exclusive and vaguely dangerous club called Inferno, Russ met Trip’s business partner, Mr. Abercrombie. Abercombie, a Gothic beast of a man, would emerge from the club with a fat envelope of cash for Russ. He scared Russ witless, and seemed to know it, as he always asked the same question before disappearing back into Inferno: “Are you all right, Ickes?”
Hearing those words from his editor was an unnerving jolt. Unlike his old editor, forced into retirement now, Featherstone didn’t appreciate Russ’s journalistic talents, and usually treated him the way a cop does a juvenile delinquent. Concern wasn’t part of the equation.
“Well, you don’t look fine. You’re sweating like a pig, Ickes.”
“Uh, I’m not feeling well,” Russ said, aware that vast wet blotches had spread from his armpits. “I better go home.”
“First you’re fine, then you’re not — what am I going to do with you, Ickes?” Featherstone examined his waterlogged underling with gimlet eyes.
“I–I better go then,” Russ said. He got up.
“Well, your column is in, and it was... adequate. So Chimera Genetics is about to skyrocket, huh?”
“That’s what they say.” Russ grabbed his Italian suit jacket from the hanger hooked to the cubicle partition. He slipped it on to hide the damp stains mottling his handcrafted shirt.
“Hmmmm.” Featherstone tilted his head skeptically and peered at the reporter with the intensity of an engineer searching for a fatal structural design flaw. “Nice threads. You’re certainly dressing better lately. How much did this suit cost?”
Bile rose into Russ’s throat. He swallowed back the burning acid. “Uh, it was a gift. My birthday was last week. The big three-oh.”
“You used to dress like you shopped at the Salvation Army.”
The khakis Russ once wore were innocent of pressing and dry cleaning. Now his tailored trousers had creases sharp enough to slice a finger. “Things change, I guess.”
Slumping through the newsroom, Russ passed a cluster of other business reporters near the Bloomberg machine. None of them liked him, and he suspected they were jealous of his having “Street Talk.” Someone muttered, “Brain Distrust,” and they laughed.
Eighteen months ago, when Russ was angling for the “Street Talk” stock tip column, he’d sought visibility by telling people he was the great-grandson of Harold Ickes, the FDR Brain Trust guy. For whatever reason — maybe for his pedigree — the paper’s top brass gave him the column. But the publication had its share of nasty people, and they all had long memories, and not long ago — just after Labor Day — Russ had learned why lying to journalists was unwise. Someone on staff dug up that Russ Ickes was no relation to Harold. It was late October now, and when Russ passed through the newsroom, he ignored the snickers and walked
There was a bustle around the Metro desk, and Russ paused there. Another young woman — another pretty blonde — had been pushed off a subway platform onto the tracks and into the path of an oncoming train. This made it five. The murders had happened randomly at stations throughout the city, always late at night and with few witnesses. The cops had no leads. Russ thought about the trains roaring out of the darkness and the helpless figures on the tracks. A shiver went up his spine.
The air outside was bracing. It was past 8 o’clock, and the evening rush had subsided. With the sodden shirt chilling his skin, Russ moved moodily along the pavement. He had to compose himself before he saw Trip, but he couldn’t slow his pounding heart.
He wandered in slow motion through Midtown, and wondered how to handle Trip. People pushed past him with purpose and places to go. So many of them were stylish and good-looking — so much like Trip.
Russ’s mouth was achingly dry, and he looked down the block. He was approaching Inferno — Trip’s favorite club — and he knew it wasn’t just by chance. He sighed. He could use some liquid courage before facing Trip.
The beefy guard at the velvet rope wore a red greatcoat with black leather lapels. He was as welcoming as Russ’s editor. “We’re full,” he said.
“Come on — this place doesn’t get going until midnight.” Russ produced a hundred-dollar bill. “Come on... please.”
The guard regarded the bill as he might used toilet paper. “We’re full.”
“I was here three weeks ago.” This had no impact on the guard, but Russ pressed on. “I was here with my friend, Trip Pennypacker.”
The guard’s eyes narrowed. “You a buddy of Mr. Cool’s? He knows people here.” He unfastened the velvet rope and Russ pocketed the hundred and stepped forward. The guard’s face turned stormy. He stopped Russ and reached into his pocket to extract the bill.
The only other customers inside were three Japanese businessmen. The club’s craggy, cavelike walls were red, and paper flames flickered everywhere. By 3 a.m. the joint would be jammed with writhing dancers. Russ ordered a twenty-dollar Scotch from the scantily clad barmaid and remembered that Saturday night with Trip.
It was only because Russ had complained that he never got to see Trip that they had gotten together at all. Trip had grudgingly agreed to let Russ join his friends for dinner at Per Se — with the proviso that Russ not give his real name or say how they knew each other. Russ sat ignored by Trip’s trendy friends, and watched as a devastating blonde ran her hands through Trip’s hair and her lips over his neck.
The only thing Trip said to Russ the entire evening was that the two of them would split the check. Russ’s half was astronomical. Afterward, Russ tagged along to Inferno. He paid for a round of drinks — another enormous sum — and Trip and his friends vanished among the dancers, leaving Russ to get plastered by himself and at a huge price.
As he sat at the lonely bar now, Russ recognized the bartender from that night. Her little outfit was red leather. “Good to see you again,” he said to her as she put the glass in front of him. “I was in here Saturday, three weeks ago.”
“Great,” said the barmaid, who clearly saw nothing great in Russ.
Many men would be staring at her cleavage. Russ fastened onto her bored eyes. “I was here with Trip Pennypacker.”
Her blasé expression changed into something Russ couldn’t read. “Trip, huh? He’s your pal? You like him?’
“Trip? Sure — he’s the smoothest guy I know. Handsome, smart, charming, and the girls all think he’s pretty sexy.”
“Yeah?” she said. “And what about you? Do you think he’s sexy?”
“Me? Well, I, uh... Do you remember me from that night?”
“I remember — you were the little guy who bought drinks for Trip and his worshippers. Who was the bitch with him that night?”
“The blonde? Tiffany something. She’s a model. He has a million of them.”
The woman leaned over the bar, her breasts bulging against the red leather. “Listen,” she said, “Trip has run through too many girls in this place.” She made a fist and Russ guessed that included her. “And some of us are plenty pissed at him.”