Never Too Rich

by Judith Gould

  First she rang Bernie Fink, whose ad agency, Fink, Sands, and Sanders, had won the Mystique Cosmetics account. Like it or not, she had to let him know that Vienna, around whom their new ad campaign had been designed, would never be making Monday’s scheduled shoot. Best he learn that from her now, rather than from the evening news later on.

  His reaction when she told him didn’t surprise her; she’d been expecting an explosion.

  “Listen, Bernie,” she said softly when he finally ran out of expletives and gave her an opening, “what would you say to Jerry Hall doing the ads?”

  She heard his sharp intake of breath, followed by a moment of stunned silence. Then: “Would you care to repeat that?”

  Olympia said, a little louder, “What’s the matter, Bernie? Is the connection bad? Or is your hearing impaired?”

  “I thought I heard you mention Jerry Hall.”

  “That’s right,” she said, “you did. Well? Do you want her?”

  “With what’s happened to Vienna, I’d gladly give my right arm for her. Is she available? And are you representing her?”

  “No.” Wisely, Olympia held the receiver away from her ear; his furious squawks could be heard halfway across the room.

  “Olympia,” he yelled, “what the fuck are you trying to pull? You’re jerking me around, and I don’t like it.”

  “Just listen to me for a minute, will you?” she half-shouted. “I’ve got a new girl who puts even Jerry to shame, which is the only reason I mentioned her. I mean, this girl’s red hot and gorgeous . . . but unlike anyone you’ve ever seen. If you take one part Paulina Porizkova, one part Cindy Crawford, and two parts Jerry Hall, and you mix them all together ...”

  When she hung up four minutes later, Olympia allowed herself to breathe a little easier. Twenty-three years of marketing some of the world’s most beautiful female flesh was paying off. In less than five minutes she’d half-sold Bernie Fink on Shir . . . Billie Dawn—sight unseen; the rest would depend on the model herself. And there Olympia knew she had nothing to worry about. Billie Dawn’s looks would sell themselves, just as surely as they would sell five million eyebrow pencils and four million bottles of shampoo. It was a gut feeling she had, and she couldn’t have explained why if she tried. She just knew.

  She lit a cigarette with calmer fingers and stabbed out the number of Alfredo Toscani’s studio. “Yeah, this is Olympia Arpel,” she said through a hazy cloud of smoke. “I need to speak to Billie Dawn. Put her on, will you?”

  One of Alfredo’s assistants put her through to Alfredo instead.

  “Olympia, baby.” Alfredo didn’t waste any words. “I told you the contact sheets wouldn’t be ready until six, six-thir—”

  “I’m not calling about them, Al. I need to speak to Billie Dawn.”

  “She left some time ago.”

  There was a brief silence; then Olympia said, “She left?”

  “That’s right, Superagent. Panther told me she slipped out about half an hour ago.”

  “Th-thanks, Al.” Shakily Olympia replaced the receiver and stared a million miles out into space. She had to get hold of Shir . . . Billie Dawn—and fast. She desperately needed to produce her the first thing Monday morning for Bernie Fink. And right now it was—she glanced at her wristwatch and shut her eyes wearily—one past five on Friday afternoon.

  And the girl had disappeared.

  Chapter 16

  The sun had already gone down when Shirley came up out of the subway at Astor Place. After the jam-packed train and urine-soaked platform, the air smelled clean and fresh. Cooper Union squatted, a dark hulking stone island against the purple twilight. Waiting for the Third Avenue light to change, four finger-snapping youths bopped in time to the raucous din of a shoulder-held ghetto blaster. A little girl, clutching her mother’s hand, smiled shyly up at Shirley and then quickly hid her face in her mother’s skirts. Peeked back through the splayed fingers. Hid again. Peeked again.

  Shirley smiled and wiggled her fingertips. The friendly innocence of the girl warmed her momentarily, distracted her from thoughts of Snake and the music she’d soon have to face.

  The pedestrian light changed to Walk. Shirley hurried across, turning her head halfway around to look back behind her. The little girl, still clasping her mother’s hand, tripped charmingly along, like a wobbly baby colt. She could hear her laughter. Then the sharp, strident voice of the mother overrode the girl’s and cut her laughter short like a knife. Instantly the image of a raging Snake intruded back into Shirley’s mind. She was so close to the clubhouse now. Just a few more blocks, and she would be there.

  Her step quickened on the cracked concrete sidewalk as she hurried east, the tenements becoming grimier the closer to Snake’s she got. Rings of fluorescents and bare bulbs glared behind dirty windows and thin curtains. Refuse overflowed from dented garbage cans, scattered by rummaging winos, the homeless, and the wind.

  The Upper East Side had been so clean. The block where Olympia had her office now seemed like an imagined slice of pure heaven . . . and Murray Hill, where Alfredo Toscani had his town house, had been so groomed and spotless, with front gardens and carefully sanded, painted woodwork. It might as well have been located in another galaxy.

  By the time she reached Satan’s Warriors’ turf, many of the depressing tenements had become burnt-out shells, more like Dresden after the bombing than New York in the 1980’s. As usual, the ever-present row of lean, chopped Harleys was parked in front of the clubhouse—an easy quarter of a million dollars’ worth of customized machinery.

  Suddenly Shirley shivered, and not because the temperature had plunged twenty degrees from that day’s noontime high. Seeing Snake’s chrome-customized panhead leaning rakishly on its kickstand had done it. He was home. Waiting. Any desperate hopes she’d entertained of his not noticing her hours of absence were dashed.

  As she let herself into the clubhouse, she could hear a Rolling Stones tape blasting from a stereo upstairs. She shut the front door quietly behind her. After the chilly, windswept twilight outside, the tenement seemed overheated. Sweltering. Dark. And smelly. The stench of stale beer and fresh pot hit her in a wave. There was a crunch underfoot as her right heel made contact with something soft and metallic. She looked down in disgust and kicked the crushed Budweiser empty aside.

  Five steps later, she nearly tripped over a heavily muscled biker with oily swept-back hair who was passed out at the foot of the steep staircase. His mouth yawned wide, displaying crowbar-rearranged teeth. He was snoring loudly.

  Stifling an expression of disgust, Shirley stepped over him and started up the listing staircase. As she approached the second-floor landing, the Rolling Stones grew so loud in volume the stairs were actually vibrating. Drunken voices and raucous laughter rose briefly behind a closed door. The noises were coming from the communal clubroom; from the sound of it, everyone was getting stoned and drunk.

  Shirley headed in the opposite direction, to the rear of the tenement, down a long narrow hall covered with ancient linoleum so worn that the backing showed through. For a moment she paused outside the door to the room she and Snake shared. Taking a deep, bracing breath, she forced a smile to her lips.

  “Snake?” she said hesitantly, twisting the doorknob and pushing the door open. “Baby?”

  She stopped short the instant she stepped into the room. Soft laughter was coming from over by the window. For a moment she could only blink rapidly, her smile frozen in place. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Snake was spread out on the bed, fully clothed, his arms folded behind his head. There was a look of painful concentration etched on his bearded face, and she saw why. A naked girl rendered faceless by a curtain of long black hair was kneeling over him, her head in his lap, holding his penis in her hand.

  Shirley’s brows drew together sharply as the girl took him in her mouth, her head slowly bobbing up and down.

  Shirley turned away quickly, a sick feeling turning somersaults in her stomach. Of all the terribl
e scenarios she’d imagined coming home to, this was not one of them. She’d thought . . . She blinked back her tears and swallowed the acrid taste of bile in her throat. She’d always thought that she was Snake’s ole lady. His one and only, his house-mouse, his common-law wife. But she wasn’t his one and only. At least not anymore. She could see that now.

  It was a moment before Snake became aware of her. When he did, he pushed the naked girl roughly aside and sat up, the grim concentration on his face replaced with dark anger. His yellow eyes leapt across the room at her. “Hey, bitch,” he snarled, the giant rings on his fingers flashing silver as he gestured. “Get your ass over here!”

  Shirley shut her eyes and hugged herself. She was still too shocked to move.

  “Are you gonna come here, or do I have to come and git ya?”

  She still didn’t move. Couldn’t move. So much had happened to her today that she’d barely been able to digest it all . . . and now there was this to top it all off. It was just too much.

  Before she knew what was happening, his steel-cleated boots hit the floor with a thud. Three long strides and he was upon her. His giant hand clamped around her wrist, the four giant silver rings digging painfully into her bones.

  “You been out again,” he accused grimly. “Whattsa matter? This place ain’t good enough fer you no more?” His grip on her wrist tightened even more.

  She looked at him through eyes burning with pain. “You’re hurting me, Snake,” she said quietly.

  “If you think that hurts, you got another think coming. This ain’t nothin’, li’l filly.” His face turned even uglier as he smiled. “C’mon.” Not bothering to tuck his penis back into his pants, he dragged her out into the hall.

  “Please, Snake,” she pleaded. “Let me explain—”

  “No, bitch,” he cut her off. “Let me explain. I found me a new ole lady, see? You’re nothin’ but a fuckin’ mama now. You belong to everybody in this club. An’ since everybody’s gonna share you from now on, they gonna get to test-ride the new mama, know what I mean?”

  Chapter 17

  Olympia was not in a good mood, and she wasn’t thinking very highly of New York Telephone either—it had taken her ten infuriating tries before she finally got through to her own office. For a while, all she’d gotten was busy signals, which she couldn’t understand. The exorbitantly expensive new phone system she’d recently had installed was supposed to take care of things like that. “Dolly, it’s me, Olympia,” she said when she finally got through to her secretary. “Thank God you haven’t gone home yet.”

  “And thank God you called!” Dolly said breathlessly. “The phones have been ringing off the hook and there’s a crowd of reporters and TV people camped outside. They all demand to talk to you about Vienna.”

  “Oh, Christ.” Olympia groaned. “I should have anticipated that.” Now she understood why the switchboard had been flooded.

  “What do I tell them?” Dolly asked. “It’s after five and I’m afraid to go home. Those reporters are so persistent they might follow me.”

  Olympia sighed. “What did you tell them so far?”

  “That you weren’t available but would talk to them later.”

  “Good girl.” Although Dolly was blocks away and couldn’t see it, Olympia nodded approvingly. “After I hang up, why don’t you go on home? If you keep saying ‘No comment,’ they’ll get the message. But that’s not the reason I called. I need Shirley Silverstein’s phone number and address, and I haven’t got them on me.”

  “Shirley? You mean the new girl? Just a min, I’ve got her contract somewhere right in front of me. . . . Here it is! Ready?”

  Olympia’s pen was already poised. Four seconds later, she punched

  Shirley’s number and signaled across the room to Detective Koscina to let him know she was almost done and would be with him shortly.

  She had to wait through eight rings before someone picked up at Shirley’s number. Heavy metal rock in the background made it sound like a war was going on.

  “Yeah?” a harsh male voice barked.

  Olympia frowned. Above the noise of the heavy metal and the harsh voice she could hear other sounds—the kind you heard at the ringside of a fight. The sounds of a crowd egging someone on.

  uIs Shirley there, please?” she asked.

  “Shirl?” There was a pause, followed by an obscene laugh. “Yeah, you might say she’s here.”

  “I need to speak to her. Can she come to the phone?”

  “She might be comin’, lady . . . but not to the phone!” The obscene laugh was back in the harsh voice.

  “Please, it is urgent—”

  “Get lost, fuck-face,” the man snarled, and hung up. But before his receiver hit the cradle, Olympia heard a shrill scream in the background. A woman’s scream. A scream for help.

  For a moment every tiny hair on her arms stood up straight. Somehow she knew that scream had been Shirley’s.

  Before Detective Koscina could stop her, Olympia was out the door.

  Shirley’s eyes were wary as they jumped from biker to biker. She was hunched slightly forward in the classic fighter’s stance, constantly turning in circles like a cornered animal. They had surrounded her completely, a wall of unkempt two-hundred-pound apes.

  Without warning, one of them feinted a move at her, and her nails slashed through empty air as he ducked back.

  The others hooted laughter.

  “Wassamatter? Pussy clam up?” one of them shouted.

  She whirled around, her waist-length hair flying. Another had already dug his penis out of his fly and was shaking it at her. “Slurp, slurp, li’l mama! Tripper’s got a treat for you!” The penis flopped flaccidly up and down.

  “Look, guys.” Her voice surprised even her; it sounded strong and steady, almost inanely, insanely reasonable. “Just back off and we’ll forget this ever happened, okay? We’re friends—right?” But her eyes kept darting about.

  “Shut yer fuckin’ face ‘n’ stop whimperin’!” The harsh voice belonged to Spidy Wolf, Satan’s Warriors’ president. Her eyes snapped in his direction. He was huge, with a beer-barrel chest and tattooed tree trunks for arms. They weren’t just show muscles, either. No one got to be—or stayed—president of the gang if he couldn’t keep the others in line, and that meant being able to kick ass. “You ain’t Snake’s ole lady no more,” he explained, “and that makes you a mama, see? An’ a mama’s community property.”

  “I’m nobody’s property!” Shirley spat the words.

  “Oh yeah you are. You know the rules. Without an ole man, you belong to whoever wants you, whenever he wants you. It’s initiation time, mama, so strip.”

  Her chin went up defiantly. “And if I refuse?”

  A murmur of excitement rose all around her.

  Oh, no! thought Shirley, realizing too late what she had done. The regretted words had slipped out—but there was no taking them back. They amounted to a direct challenge of Spidy Wolf’s authority. Now if he let her go he’d be perceived as a weakling; he’d never live it down.

  “Get outta your clothes,” Spidy said quietly.

  She stood erect, her eyes fixed on his face. She shook her head. “No,” she said with dignity.

  He stared at her silently for a few moments. The others were waiting, shifting restlessly.

  “You don’t leave me no choice.” Spidy’s face was expressionless, but his eyes glittered feverishlv. “I’m gonna have to force you, ain’t I?”

  She stared at him with hatred. “You know what this is, don’t you?” she said coldly. “It’s called rape.”

  There was a roar of cruel laughter and drunken back-slapping. “Rape,” someone chanted, mimicking her. “Rape!” And the chant was taken up until the roar of it filled her ears. “Rape . . . rape . . . RAPE . . . RAPE—”

  Suddenly someone pushed her roughly from behind, propelling her forward so that she stumbled into the men in front of her; they in turn pushed her back again. Then hands were shovin
g at her from all sides—from the front, from behind, from the left, and from the right. They kept flinging her in all directions, until everything spun dizzily before her eyes. “Rape . . . rape . . . RAPE . . . RAPE”—the chant pummeled her from all sides, now accompanied by the stamping of boots.

  “Cool it!” Spidy Wolf finally roared above the din.

  As though a switch had been thrown, the chanting stilled and the shoving stopped.

  The sudden silence was eerie. Even the heavy metal recording was quiet; the tape had ended sometime during the chanting.

  There was a rustle of movement as Spidy shouldered two men aside and stepped into the circle. For a moment he just stood there staring at Shirley, his legs spread.

  “ ‘Nuff of the kid stuff, bros,” he said, looking around with a gap-toothed grin. “Whattya say we get down to business?” Then almost before Shirley knew what was happening, he had thrown himself against her. His huge rough hands dug inside her jacket, ripping her sweater and gripping her breasts as he pushed his face into hers to kiss her.

  Shirley went wild. She tried to push him away, but it was like fighting a bull. When bucking, twisting, and thrashing still didn’t extricate her, she concentrated all her strength in one knee and brought it up into his groin.

  His eyes bulged as he doubled over and expelled a lungful of air, but his bellow wasn’t one of pain. It was a bellow of rage. “Fuckin’ whore!” he screamed. He instantly let go of her and his fist blurred. The big silver skull rings on his four fingers were like brass knuckles; there was a sickening crunch as they smashed into her nose. Splinters of bone stabbed through flesh and cartilage.

  She nearly fainted from the white-hot flash of pain.

  Blood poured out of her nostrils.

  “Nobody kicks me in the nuts,” he snarled. “Nobody!” Almost without effort he flung her to her knees. When she started to rise, she saw him fumbling with the fly of his Levi’s. His penis leapt free, thick and monstrous.