‘Sure, you want another Danish?’
‘No, too sweet for me. Just the coffee. I have the feeling it’s gonna be a long night.’ Angel’s further encouraged when Carter’s eyes narrow just the tiniest bit. As men go, he’s a difficult read, but lust is lust and men have a hard time concealing their desire. He wants her. She can work with that.
Angel leans back and stares down at the table. There’s an imprint on the tabletop of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in a rowboat. The man stepping on to the shore has blond hair and a pointy little beard. He carries a staff in his hand, a staff topped with a Christian cross. Just in case any lurking savages should misunderstand his intentions.
‘You have to protect me.’ Angel runs a finger over the cross as she remembers one of the maxims placed before her at a seminar entitled ‘Reach Out: Life Is For The Taking.’ The race, Dr Maureen Lippcott had insisted, does not go to the swift or the strong. The race goes to the nimble. Conditions change. Adjust or die.
OK, so the dying part was a bit overdramatic. But you can’t control everything. That was the lesson. Just a few weeks ago, she’d read a story in the paper about a man – she can’t remember his name – who’d once been in the mortgage writing business. His company went bankrupt after the market crashed, but he’d read the cards before they hit the table. Within a few months, he opened a company that negotiates with banks on behalf of mortgage holders in default.
‘You can’t leave me to wander the streets,’ she says.
‘Don’t you have any friends?’
Actually, Angel isn’t that close to anyone, which is another part of being nimble. You have to be prepared to move on, at least until you reach your final goal. ‘First of all, the girls I know are in the same business I am. Second, what’s-his-face, that gangster, has Pierre’s hard drive. So what I should really do is warn my friends, not visit them. Hey, weren’t you listening the first time? Those gangsters came to get me and ran into you. That means we’re joined together in their minds. That means they’ll be looking for me harder than ever.’
Angel’s encouraged by Carter’s nod. He’s not disputing the facts. But there’s something she’s not telling him. Almost from the time she became a woman, Angel’s been attracted to bad boys. Her first lover, the last time she heard, was doing fifteen years in a federal pen for bank robbery and kidnapping. Angel’s always considered this attraction to be a character flaw, one certain, if indulged, to negatively impact her life plan. But now she’s sitting across from the baddest bad boy in New York and she’s got nowhere to go.
‘You have to protect me,’ she declares. ‘You can’t wash your hands and walk away.’
Carter stares down at his sticky fingers, then wets his napkin and wipes them off. ‘You want me to take you home?’
‘I ...’ Angel shrugs, then says, ‘Yes, you have to. Otherwise, I have no chance.’
‘Sure you have a chance. You can go to your apartment right now, pack a few bags and take off.’
‘What if they’re waiting for me?’
‘If a chance was certainty, they wouldn’t call it chance.’
‘Is that supposed to be funny?’
‘OK, Angel, let’s suppose I take you back to my home, that we tangle up our lives. What do you think will happen if you become a threat to me somewhere down the line?’
It’s a good question, which Angel freely admits. But there’s another item on her agenda, one she’s not quite ready to reveal, not until she’s softened him up a little more. She snaps her fingers. ‘I’ve got an idea. You can train me to do what you do. That way I’ll be able to fight back.’
‘That’s cute, Angel, but it doesn’t answer the question.’
‘You think I can’t do it? Hey, Carter, I’ve already got the memoir planned.
Angel nods encouragement when Carter’s smile becomes a laugh. That little glimmer of lust she noted before has now blossomed. It’s burning white-hot. She looks down at the disembarking Pilgrim and says, ‘There’s something else, Carter. Ricky Ditto liked to brag. He bragged from the minute he picked me up until you shot him. Along the way, he told me about his houses and his businesses and what a tough guy he was. In my world, the customer’s always right, so I encouraged him to a certain extent. Anyway, Ricky made this left turn off Broadway just after we came into the Bronx. There was a hillside covered with trees – it was too steep for buildings – and we were about halfway there when he pointed at this apartment house. Here’s what he told me, Carter. Ricky said there was an apartment in that building with three hundred thousand dollars under the floorboards.’
Carter signals to the waitress for a check, which she has ready. The diner’s crowded and she’s anxious to clear the table. Carter picks up the check and slides out of the booth, with Angel following closely behind. As they wait for the cashier to ring up the check, one of the tattooed men spins on his stool to openly stare at Angel’s breasts. Then he looks into Carter’s eyes, discovers an even darker version of himself and returns to his meatloaf.
Angel is more beautiful naked than dressed. She’s an altar at which Carter can bring himself to worship. But Carter doesn’t fool himself. When he runs his mouth along Angel’s inner thigh, from her crotch to the back of her knee, he doesn’t assume the guttural sound rumbling up from her chest indicates passion of any kind. Same for the twitch of a muscle just below her navel and the pressure of her manicured nails on the back of his head. Feigning passion is a necessary skill in the sex worker business. But then, twenty minutes later, Carter finds himself confronted by the unexpected. Angel’s face reddens, then her neck and her shoulders, the rush of blood leaving her skin the color of a sunburn. They’re both soaked with sweat by now, and they’re changing positions with the agility of performing dolphins. When Carter finally explodes, his orgasm is as powerful as any he’s ever known.
A few minutes later, Carter’s lying on the wet sheets, his hand over his eyes, trying to catch his breath, when he feels a second release. Janie’s passing? Paulie’s email? Carter’s ship has sailed without his noticing. He’s in the deep water now, and there’s no turning back, the shore already lost to sight. Angel’s lips are on his throat. Ready or not, here I ... Well, it might take a while before they get to the last part.
‘Tell me the truth.’ Angel leans forward, until her breasts fall lightly against Carter’s chest. ‘Am I worth a thousand dollars?’
‘Did you say you wanted the truth?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘I wouldn’t go more than nine-fifty.’
Angel jabs a finger into his belly. ‘Damn, you’re hard everywhere. It’s amazing. The men I’ve known in my life? If they had a body like yours, they’d be wearing sleeveless T-shirts tight enough to pass for girdles.’
When Carter doesn’t reply, Angel jumps up, walks naked across the room and begins to rummage in a chest of drawers. Her movements seem perfectly natural, as if she’s totally unaware of the predictable effect her bouncing buttocks have on Leonard Carter. But then she looks back over her shoulder, a wicked gleam in her eyes.
The face of an angel? The soul of a whore? Every man’s fantasy come to life? Carter feels like someone nailed his eyes to her ass.
‘Here, this’ll do.’
Angel spins around to display a summer-weight pajama bottom. She jumps on the bed, her breathing shallow, and works the pajama legs through the slats on the headboard. Then she ties his wrists. This is all play, of course, and Carter knows he can pull his hands free at any time. But then Angel lays a pillowcase over his eyes, tucks the ends beneath his head, and the game becomes more interesting. Carter holds his breath while Angel runs a fingernail across his chest, gently, slowly. Then she takes his left nipple into her mouth and gives it a tug.
Even as the inevitable, inescapable groan passes his lips, Carter’s thinking, yes, the ship has definitely sailed; yes, it’s in the deep water; no, I can’t see the goddamned shore. But then he realizes there’s nothing new here. His ship has sailed many times: when he left the military, when he left Iraq after the collapse of Coldstream Military Options, when he left Africa with the blood money in his pocket. No, there’s nothing new here, except for Angel, except for him flopping on the bed like a hooked fish.
And then there’s the money.
NINE
