“Why what?”
“Why can’t you still tell the stories?”
“It won’t have the same impact.”
“Pish. Of course it will.”
“Someone attacked Teddy last night.”
“So?”
“So now he’s the victim of a vigilante.”
“You don’t know that,” I say. “It could be that he tried again, this time with the wrong woman.”
“And she beat him to a pulp?”
“Or her family did, I don’t know.” I snap my fingers. “Or it could have been an unrelated mugging.”
“Come on.”
“What?”
“It’s over, Win. The war is still to be fought, but this battle is lost. We needed public sympathy. But our monster is in a coma. Someone on Twitter will claim the victims beat him. Teddy’s mother will say that these scorned women lied about her baby boy—that they made him a target. It isn’t just about facts, Win. We need to win the narrative.”
I think about it. Then I say, “I’m sorry,” with perhaps too little enthusiasm.
Just to clarify: I’m not sorry about what I did to Teddy. I’m sorry I didn’t wait until after the press conference. Sadie has to be an optimist. I sadly am not. The law would never have caught up to Teddy. He would have been embarrassed, perhaps lost his job, but he also would have fought back in terrible ways. He would have trashed Sharyn and the other women. He would have claimed to be the victim of their harassment, not the other way around, and too many people would have believed him. That was what Sadie was fighting against here.
I believe in Sadie Fisher. She may eventually prevail. But not today.
It is eight thirty p.m. I have my own appointment in half an hour, but it is easy enough to cancel. “We could all go out for a drink,” I say to her.
“Are you serious?”
“We can commiserate.”
Sadie shakes her head. “I know you’re trying to be kind, Win.”
“But?”
“But you’re clueless.”
“Colleagues don’t get out for drinks?”
“Not tonight, Win. Tonight I have to go to the hospital and tell Sharyn what happened.”
“Perhaps she’ll be relieved,” I say. “Teddy can’t hurt her anymore. That should offer her some comfort, no?”
Sadie opens her mouth, thinks about it, closes it. I can see she’s disappointed in me. She pats my shoulder as she walks out the door.
I check my app. My rich-people dating program is so far down the Dark Web that there is no way anyone could set up a Teddy-like fake profile. Even if they could, they’d never get past the other security. The message reads:
Username Amanda is waiting for you.
So my partner for the evening has arrived at the suite already.
No need to keep her waiting.
CHAPTER 5
The app offers several secret entrances.
Tonight, we will use the one at Saks Fifth Avenue department store. The venerable Saks, located between Forty-Ninth and Fiftieth Street on Fifth Avenue, has a high-end jewelry department called the Vault. It’s located in the basement. Behind that, you’ll find a door that used to lead to a dressing room. It is locked, but we with the app can open it with a key fob. You enter through the door and take the steps down a level to an underground passage. The passage leads to an elevator under a high-rise on Forty-Ninth Street near Madison Avenue. The elevator only stops on the eighth floor. At this point it takes an eye scan. If your eye doesn’t pass the scan, the elevator doors do not open into the private suite.
It’s good to be rich.
To be approved for this app you must have a net worth of over $100 million. The monthly costs are exorbitant, especially for someone like me who uses this service frequently. The app’s service is simple: Match rich people with other rich people for sex. No strings attached. It is high end. It is boutique. But mostly, it is sex.
The app has no name. Most of the clients are married and crave the ultimate in confidentiality. Some are public figures. Some are gay or otherwise LGBTQ+ and fear exposure. Some, like me, are simply wealthy and seek sex with no attachments or repercussions. For years, I picked up women at bars or nightclubs or galas. I still do on occasion, but when you get past the age of thirty-five, this behavior feels somewhat desperate. In my somewhat dubious past, I hired prostitutes. There was a time when, every Tuesday, I would order both dim sum and a woman from a place on the Lower East Side called Noble House—my own version of Chinese Night. I believed at the time that prostitution was the oldest and a (per the House) Noble profession. It is not. When I worked a case overseas, I learned about human trafficking and the like. Once I did, I stopped.
Like with the martial arts, we learn, we evolve, we improve.
With that option gone, I tried working the once-fashionable “friends with benefits” angle, but the problem is, friends by definition come with strings. Friends come with attachments. I don’t want that.
Now for the most part I use this app.
Username Amanda sits on the bed wearing nothing but the provided satin-trim Turkish terry-cloth robe. Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame, a rosé champagne, is poured. There are chocolate-dipped strawberries in a silver bowl. A first-rate sound system can play whatever musical stylings suit your taste. I usually leave that to the woman, but I’d prefer no soundtrack.
I like to listen to her.
Username Amanda rises, smiles, and saunters toward me with a flute of champagne. Myron always says that a woman looks sexiest in a terry-cloth robe with wet hair. I used to pooh-pooh said sentiment in favor of a specific black corset and matching garter belt, but now I think Myron may be onto something.
We learn, we evolve, we improve.
The sex tonight is great. It usually is. And when it’s not, it is still sex. There is an old joke about a man wearing a toupee—it may be a good toupee, it may be a bad toupee, but it is still a toupee. The same with sex. I’ve heard often that sex with a stranger is awkward. I’ve rarely found this to be the case. Part of this might be my expertise—the techniques I traveled the world to learn involve more than fighting—but the secret is simple: Be present. I make every woman feel as though she is the only one in the world. It is not an act. A woman will sense if you lack authenticity. While we are together, this woman and I, it is just us two. The world is gone. My focus is total.
I love sex. I have lots of it.
Myron waxes philosophical on how sex must be more than what it is—that love or romantic entanglement enhances the physical experience. I listen and wonder whether he is trying to convince me or himself. I don’t like love or romantic entanglements. I like sharing certain physical acts with another consensual adult. The other stuff doesn’t “enhance” sex for me. It sullies it. The act itself is pure. Why muddy that with the extraneous? Sex may be the greatest shared experience in the world. Yes, I enjoy going out for a gourmet meal or a good show or the company of dear friends. I appreciate golf and music and art.
But do any of those compare to an evening of sex?
Methinks not.
This is one reason I liked prostitution. It was a straight transaction—I got something, she got something. No one owed anybody anything at the end of it. I still crave that, to leave the room knowing that my partner got out of it as much as I did. Perhaps that’s why I am good at it. The more she enjoys it, the less I feel in her debt. I also have a tremendous ego. I don’t do things that I’m not good at. I’m a very good golfer, a very good financial consultant, a very good fighter, and a very good lover. If I do something, I want to be the best.