Pay-Per-View here. Fuckin’ A you’re late – strike one. You’re a dish, but come on. You’re almost as old as my wife – strike two. And you are not a blonde – strike three.”
Jane stared at his hand until he felt compelled to remove it. Then she said, thoughtfully, “You ordered a blonde, did you?”
“You’ve heard of bond ratings? We’re into blonde ratings. And hyperinflation,” Howie quipped, ogling after two extremely busty young women.
“And naked options,” Jane riposted, her eyes narrowing. “No doubt.”
Bernie rolled his eyes. “Asswit and company?” He wheeled in front of Howie and Jane to command their undivided attention. “Time is money. That is the be-all and end-all, the song of songs, the bottom line. Let’s fill or kill here. You,” he pointed at Jane with his cigarette, “are not the girl from the website; but if you’re the package we were expecting, sugar, so be it.” He walked around her as if she was a luxury car in a showroom. “And if you don’t make the grade,” he shrugged, “you go home tomorrow, COD.”
Jane looked at Howie. She looked at Bernie. She reflected that she was running low on cash. Also that the two Wall Street assholes facing her belonged to the tribe that had trashed her pension fund. Without skipping a beat, she put an arm around each of them and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Gentlemen, I think I understand the situation perfectly. You had a certain expectation and you’re feeling a little exposed here. You look to me like the kind of guys who like to hedge your bets and limit your risk. So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. How about I put a little skin in the game?” And she nodded toward the Victoria’s Secret shop across the street, where nubile and faceless manikins in push-up bras and thongs cavorted behind luridly backlit plate glass windows.
13 How To Be a Millionaire
Like dancers in a music video, the five of them crossed the street in lock step to the lingerie shop. Howie held the door and Bernie snapped his fingers at the bodyguards. “Stay,” he ordered and the two men stationed themselves on either side of the entrance, exuding testosterone and embarrassment. Once inside, a bevy of saleswomen in sleek black ensembles and perfect hair bore down upon them like so many Hollywood vampires. They relieved Howie and Bernie of their coats and conducted a whirlwind tour of the shop, reaping a vast collection of lacy nothings at Jane’s unerring direction. When every leather, feather, sequined, and see-through fetish and fantasy was provided for, the saleswomen led the way upstairs to a private waiting room, a copy of Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors in miniature, where Howie and Bernie were ensconced in comfortable club chairs, a decent bottle of scotch at their elbows.
“Does this come in - black?” Jane asked, flaunting a white fur-trimmed bustier and flashing her prospective sugar daddies an alluring smile. Immediately the saleswomen scurried below, and Jane turned to enter the changing room. “I’ll be back before you can say ‘credit default swap,’” she promised.
On the other side of the door, Jane studied the bustier the way a vegan contemplates a bloody veal chop, before tossing it over one shoulder and assessing her prospects of escape. It was a spacious gilt-trimmed chamber with the usual dais and three-sided mirror for preening. A series of velvet curtains concealed one, two, three alcoves where clients could disrobe in private and, behind curtain number four – a shallow stockroom, lined floor to ceiling with shelving and plastic bins, except for the far end where Swiss law provided a second floor emergency exit. Praying no fire alarms would go off, Jane darted to the heavy metal door and put her shoulder against it just as a discreet knock sounded from the waiting room and two pert saleswomen entered.
“Does madame require –“ they stopped, stock still, mid-sentence, seeing their record-breaking commission poised to abscond. Jane clasped her hands in fear and supplication, then motioned them to her side.
“Sex traffickers. “ she whispered urgently. “They’ve got three other girls drugged up and locked in a closet back at the hotel. If you’ll call the police, I can sneak out and –“
They looked at each other, looked at her. Bewildered “But in this country, sex is - legal.”
“And that is very enlightened of you,” Jane conceded, “but they’ve taken our passports and threatened to kill us.”
“Oh,” one of the women gasped, putting her hands to her mouth. “I saw the men outside.”
“We’re headed for the worst little whorehouse in Abu Dhabi. Including my baby sister.”
Another, louder knock fell on the door. “Hey, Blondie. If Daddy doesn’t get a lap-dance pretty fucking soon, he’s going to downgrade you to a sell.”
Jane indicated the door with an open palm. “See?”
The saleswomen looked at each other, looked at Jane. Came down firmly on the side of sisterhood and solidarity. Almost in the same breath they recited the musketeer maxim. Which is also the national motto of Switzerland. “Einer für alle, alle für einen. Go!” They practically pushed her out the door.
It was a command that did not have to be repeated. In less time than it takes a supercomputer to execute a million penny trades, Jane was skittering on the icy stoop, gripping the rusted handrail to avoid plunging over the side onto the snowdrifts and cobblestones below. Oh shit. Getting her bearings she realized that no easy way down awaited her. The stoop was a mere balcony without stairs or ladder attached. Pressed for time and without further consideration, Jane went over the side, grasping the iron balusters as she dropped and swung free. For a brief instant she dangled, swaying, in mid-air. A broken ankle would be really inconvenient here, she reflected, trying to gauge the depth of the snow beneath her. Somewhere overhead someone had begun shouting. Presumably Howie and Bernie, discovering their bird had flown. And also that somewhere along the line their pockets had been well and cleanly picked. Game on, assholes, Jane grinned. And let go.
Once on solid ground, she picked her way with fair speed along the blind backsides of several more shops before finding and ducking up a jagged alley. The alley spat her out on the high street again, near a blind street musician gamely sawing away at the waltz from “Eugene Onegin.” The Davos crowd jostled past, deaf to anything but the wheels in their own heads and the sounds of their own voices. The Gypsy violinist felt rather than heard the two wallets that Jane dropped into his open violin case, but he stopped to feel for the bills that fluttered in her wake. “Nais tuke!” he called after her, in Romany. [“Thank you!”]
Bobbing rapidly around and through the knots of paparazzi and their celebrity prey, Jane thrust a bulging money clip into the breast pocket of her topcoat and cursorily examined the Blackberry that Bernie by now was missing. Behind her, the cocktail hour hubbub reached a new crescendo as Bernie and Howie stood on the sidewalk and threw billion dollar tantrums. They screamed at the shopgirls. They screamed at their goons. They jumped up and down, exhibiting every symptom of spoiled child syndrome. Seeing the blue lights of a police car careening toward them, the two traders took a minute to shrug themselves back into their camel hair overcoats. In that brief lull in the action they noticed something odd.
“You’re ticking,” Howie said.
“So are you,” Bernie replied.
A couple of small but satisfying explosions were heard as Jane jumped aboard a passing street tram. The rear of the retreating tram had the last word. ‘Think Different’ an Apple advertisement recommended, while a Tata poster was still more emphatic: ‘Reclaim your life!
14 Strange Times
Phil’s Casket Company was a squat brick warehouse about a block from the waterfront in Yonkers and a world away from the luxury condos that seemed to rise from its roof like glittering fungi, so tall they cast shadows deep into the parking lot even at midday. John stepped out of the taxi and paused to read the sign on the door: “Dying Doesn’t Have To Be Expensive.”
“Good to know,” John said dryly.
The small and seedy front office, crammed with battered furnitu
re and sample books opened to swatches of pink and purple silk and damask, was deserted. So John let himself into the adjoining room, which turned out to be a huge cavernous showroom for a dizzying array of burial paraphernalia – coffins, urns, burial vaults, monuments, all in miniature for display purposes, small enough to fit your average munchkin comfortably. The area was set up like a library or bookstore, the wares on shelves, the shelves divided into sections: Hardwood, Metal, Kosher. John found Vinnie in the Super Economy aisle. He raised his arm in a half-wave as Vinnie spied him.
“So I hear you can get a Star Trek burial, with a U.S.S. Enterprise casket or an urn shaped like Spock’s head. Is that right?” Vinnie winked at John.
The elderly woman waiting on him barely batted an eye. She didn’t even stop her knitting. Just looked at him over her granny glasses.
“I believe we do have a catalog. Original series or Next Generation?”
“Aww. Can you even ask?” Vinnie said.
She nodded, zooming away in her electric wheelchair. “I had such a crush on Captain Kirk.”
“We all did,” Vinnie assured her, as he shook hands with John. He looked around for Jane. “You take my advice? You seem to have lost about 110 lbs.” John shook his head.