Transgressions

other than the slight wheeze of his own breath within the apartment.

'I, I really must be going,' he said to a bust of Hadrian and his own backup reflection in a framed mirror that once had flattered royalty in a Bavarian palace. But he waited another minute before opening one of the bronze doors and letting himself out into the elevator foyer.

Gypsy whore, he thought again, extracting some small satisfaction from this judgment. Fortunately he seldom had to deal with her. Just to lay eyes on the Woman in Black with her bilious temperament and air of closely held violence made him feel less secure in the world of social distinction that, beginning with John Ransome's money, he had established for himself: a magical, intoxicating, uniquely New York place where money was in the air always, like pixie dust further enchanting the blessed.

Money and prestige were both highly combustible, however. In circumstances such as a morbid scandal could arrange, disastrous events turned reputations to ash.

The elevator arrived.

Not that he was legally culpable, Cy assured himself while descending. It had become his mantra. On the snowy bright-eyed street he headed for his limo at the curb, taking full breaths of the heady winter air.

Feeling psychologically exonerated as well, blamelessly distanced from the tragedy he now accepted must be played out for the innocent and guilty alike.

Peter O'Neill arrived in Las Vegas on an early flight and signed for his rental car in the cavernous baggage claim area of McCar-ran airport.

'Do you know how I can find a place called the King Rooster?'

The girl waiting on him hesitated, smiled ironically, looked up and said softly, 'Now I wouldn't have thought you were the type.'

'What's that mean?'

'First trip to Vegas?'

'Yeah.'

She shrugged. 'You didn't know that the King Rooster is, um, a brothel?'

'No kidding?'

'They're not legal in Las Vegas or Clark County.' She looked thoughtfully at him. 'If you don't mind my saying— you probably could do better for yourself. But it's none of my business, is it?' She had two impish dimples in her left cheek.

Next, Peter thought, she was going to tell him what time she got off from work. He smiled and showed his gold shield.

'I'm not on vacation.'

'Ohhh. NYPD Blue, huh? I hated it when Jimmy Smits died.' She turned around the book of maps the car company gave away and made notations on the top sheet with her pen. 'When you leave the airport, take the interstate south to exit thirty-three, that's Route 160 west? Blue Diamond Road. You want to go about forty miles past Blue Diamond to Nye County. When you get there you'll see this big mailbox on the left with a humungous, um, red cock—the crowing kind—on top of it. That's all, no sign or anything. Are you out here on a big case?' 'Too soon to tell,' Peter said.

The whorehouse, when he got there, wasn't much to look at. The style right out of an old Western movie: two square stories of cedar with a long deep balcony on three sides. In the yard that was dominated by a big cottonwood tree the kind of discards you might see at a flea market were scattered around. Old wagon wheels, an art-glass birdbath, a dusty carriage in the lean-to of a blacksmith's shed. There was a roofed wishing well beside the flagstone walk to the house. A chain-link fence that clashed with the rustic ambience surrounded the property. The gate was locked; he had to be buzzed in.

Inside it was cool and dim and New Orleans rococo, with paintings of reclining nudes that observed the civilities of fin de siecle. Nothing explicit to threaten a timid male; their pussies were as chaste as closed prayer books. A Hispanic maid showed Peter into a separate parlor. Drapes were drawn. The maid withdrew, closing pocket doors. Peter waited, turning the pages of an expensive-looking leather-bound book featuring porn etchings in a time of derbies and bustles. The maid returned with a silver tray, delicate china cups and coffee service.

She said, 'You ask for Eileen. But she is indispose this morning. There is another girl she believe you will like, coming in just a—'

Peter flashed his shield and said, 'Get Eileen in here. Now.'

Ten more minutes passed. Peter opened the drapes and looked at sere mountains, the mid-range landscape pocked and rocky. A couple of wild burros were keeping each other company out there. He drank coffee. The doors opened again. He turned.

She was tall, a little taller than Peter in her high heels. She wore pale green silk lounging pajamas and a pale green harem mask that clung to the contours of her face but revealed only her eyes: they were dark, plummy, febrile in pockets of mascara. Tiny moons of sclera showed beneath the pupils.

'I'm Eileen.'

'Peter O'Neill.'

'Is there a problem?'

'What's with the mask, Eileen?'

'That's why you asked for me, isn't it? All part of the show you want.'

'No. I didn't know about—. Mind taking the mask off?'

'But that's for upstairs,' she protested, her tone demure. She began running her hands over her breasts, molding the almost sheer material of the draped pajamas around dark nipples. She cupped her breasts, making of them an offering.

'Listen, I didn't come here to fuck you. Just take it off. I have to see—what that bastard did to you, Eileen.'