Russ’s face burned, and his throat went tight. “Really?” he croaked.
“Really. And the thing we all learned about your pal is that Trip cares about just three things: Trip, Trip, and Trip. When the chips are down, you can count on that asswipe to be first out the door.” The barmaid unclenched her fist. “Why they keep letting him in here is beyond me.”
Russ swallowed hard and forced some air into his lungs. “Is it because he’s friends with Mr. Abercrombie?”
She pulled away from Russ. “Don’t know the guy. Never heard of him.”
He fished another hundred from his pocket. “Tell me who owns the club. Is it Abercrombie? Someone else?”
The barmaid eyed the bill, then held out a hungry hand. “Just a hundred?”
Russ brought out two more bills. “Deal?”
The barmaid took the money; it vanished in the pocket of her little skirt. She shimmied her bare torso. “Some people you never want to mess with own this club, baby. So there — I’ve given you a valuable piece of information.” The Japanese businessmen growled at her and she sashayed off. As she did, she turned back to Russ. “Better run along before I tell them you’re asking questions.”
If the barstool had turned into burning brimstone, Russ couldn’t have scrambled off it faster. He left the club at a near run, and didn’t slow until he reached the subway.
Russ looked up and down the nearly empty platform and remembered the chatter at the Metro desk. Just the kind of setup the city’s latest serial killer favored, he thought. Ten yards away, a heavily pierced, waiflike woman with spiky peroxide hair eyed Russ warily. Was she thinking about the killer, too? Was she wondering if it was him? Russ shook his head. No way, he thought, he didn’t fit the description.
All anyone knew about the killer was that he was white and big. No one had a clue about his motives, but several criminal psychologists opined in the media that he probably felt rejected by women and was striking back. Why pretty blondes was anyone’s guess. Russ didn’t know whether the guy went after peroxide blondes, too, but the pierced girl was taking no chances. She stayed well away from the platform edge — right up against the wall — as most women did these days. Pretty blondes, Russ thought, just the sort that Trip favored.
The Queens-bound train roared into the station with a hurricane rush of air. Russ stepped into the car and sat heavily on a plastic bench. The pierced girl got into another car.
As the subway rocketed into the tunnel, Russ thought about Trip and his ever-present women. He remembered the time, a year after college, when he let himself into Trip’s apartment and found his friend having sex with a girl on the living room floor. Russ had stood there mesmerized until she tarted screaming and Trip started shouting. Trip had never before lost that famous composure. After that, he took away Russ’s key. He told Russ that he didn’t want to see him again; that he was tired of him. This despite all Russ had done for him: the laundry, the errands, the rides to the airport. It counted for nothing, and Russ was cast out.
Until a year ago. Then, comfortably ensconced writing the “Street Talk” column, Russ had called Trip with a proposition. Finding him hadn’t been hard — Russ had followed Trip’s life avidly — but getting up the courage to call was a different matter. When he finally did, Trip treated Russ like a bill collector. “Is it something quick? I’m just on my way out.” It hadn’t been quick, but as Russ explained to Trip how “Street Talk” could bring them fortunes, Trip had found his patience. And that old charm. Now, Trip acted as if the idea was all his own.
The train slid into the station. Russ sighed raggedly and left the car. The platform was deserted. Long Island City cleared out by nightfall. The station’s old walls were as grimy as ancient evil. He trudged up the stairs. A dark forest of empty buildings greeted him. One sheet of newspaper spiraled spectrally down the deserted street. Despite the cool breeze off the dark river nearby, he was sweating again.
Russ stood before the slab of an office tower that housed Pennypacker Securities. At age thirty, Trip owned his own company. Office rents were cheap in Long Island City. Trip had leased two floors in a good building. Russ unclipped the cell from his Prada crocodile belt and, with shaking fingers, succeeded in stabbing out Trip’s number. He hadn’t loaded it into speed dial for safety reasons. “Make me rich,” he said when Trip answered. “I’m downstairs.”
“Come on up.”
Russ scrawled illegibly in the book, and the wizened security guard didn’t give it — or him — a glance. He took the elevator to the top floor. He had visited Pennypacker Securities only once before. Now, as then, an icily beautiful redhead met him at the elevator and escorted him back. Russ knew her name was Beatrice, and he followed her through a brightly lit area with circles of desks that resembled his newsroom. Young men barely out of their teens were working the phones with demonic energy. Russ recognized one of them from that night out on the town. He had Trip’s confident, preppy panache.
“Sir, this stock is about to pop,” he said. “And we can get you in on it.”
“The road to financial security, ma’am, is built on knowing which stocks are hot,” said another, nearly identical, young man
“Yes, I hear what you say, sir,” said yet another, a clone of the first two. “But understand I am going to build wealth for you. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Beatrice knocked on the open door to Trip’s office. Russ peered in. The office was swathed in darkness, but he could make out Trip’s silhouette. He was facing a broad window, looking out on the hypnotic Midtown skyline to the west. Russ looked too. There was the newspaper. There was Inferno. There was Russ’s new apartment. So many places Russ would rather be.
A Tizio lamp clicked on. Mr. Abercrombie sat on a long, sleek sofa. The lamp, a small furnace, lit the stony crags of his broad face. He turned to look at Russ, and gave what might have been a smile. The light caught his gold tooth and it glinted. He wore a black leather jacket and a crimson tie. Monster hands, matted with hair, rested lightly on his knees, as though poised to grab. “Are you all right, Ickes?” he asked. The almost-smile vanished. “You look like you swam here.”
Russ opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. He heard Beatrice close the door behind him. He was alone with them.
Trip turned around. His sculpted hair was the color of champagne, and that amazing grin was, as ever, a treasury of enticing enamel. His shirt had exquisite blue striping — stitched in London, Russ knew. With a dancer’s grace, Trip took his seat at the steel-and-glass Boltz desk that held his laptop and phone.
“Take a load off, champ,” he drawled. Russ sat in the chair in front of Trip’s desk. Trip grinned at him. “Now, what’s all this I hear about trouble?”
Before Russ could speak, Mr. Abercrombie got to his feet. He loomed above the desk and straightened his leather lapels. “I’ll let you fellas have your talk,” he said, and he stabbed at Trip’s phone console with a thick finger. “Bea, baby,” he rumbled at the phone, “whip up one of those cappuccinos of yours for me, okay, hon?” And then he winked at Trip and was gone.
“So, tell me all about it, champ,” Trip said when the door had shut.
Russ licked his arid lips. “I told you, I got a call from the U.S. Attorney’s office. They want me downtown, tomorrow at 10.”
“Did they say what it was about?” Trip was supernaturally calm.
“Not a word. But what else could it be?”
How could Trip keep smiling? “Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that it is about... our arrangement. What are you going to tell them?”