“Interesting. Would you like to come in?”
“No.” She had no reason to, and if she’d learned anything in her short and thorny life, you didn’t walk into a stranger’s house unless you had an escape plan ready. That went double for rich strangers.
“Suit yourself,” he said. “It’s getting chilly.”
He strolled right past her and up the steps to the terrace.
“I need to collect tonight.”
“That won’t be possible,” he called back.
Of course it couldn’t be easy. Alex gave a tug on the schoolteacher, drawing her closer to the mansion, along the streets of Old Greenwich. But the Gray would be a last resort.
She followed Linus Reiter up the steps.
“So what’s with the Gatsby act?” she asked as she followed him into a vast living room decorated with cream-colored couches and blue chinoiserie.
White candles glowed on the mantel, the big glass coffee table, and the bar in the corner, illuminating shelves of expensive bottles that gleamed like buried treasure, amber, green, and ruby red. Billowing clouds of white
hydrangeas were arranged in heavy vases. It was all very glamorous and grandmotherly at the same time.
“I was aiming for Tom Wolfe,” said her host, heading behind the bar.
“But I’ll take what I can get. What can I offer you…?”
He was searching for a name, but all she said was, “I’m on a schedule.”
If you were stupid enough to break rule number one and follow a stranger into his house, then rule number two was do not drink anything from a rich stranger who was on the precipice of being upgraded to rich weirdo.
Reiter sighed. “The modern world keeps such an unrelenting pace.” “Tell me about it. Listen, you seem…” She was unsure how to continue. Pleasant?
Genteel? A little eccentric but harmless? He was surprisingly young, maybe thirty, and handsome in a delicate way. Tall, slender, fineboned, his skin pale, his golden hair long enough to brush his shoulders, the rock god style at odds with that impeccable white suit. “Well, I don’t know what you seem, but you’re extremely polite. I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to threaten you, but that’s my job.”
“How long have you worked for Eitan?” he asked, assembling glasses, ice, bourbon.
“Not long.”
He was watching her closely, his eyes a pale grayish blue. “You’re an addict?”
“No.”
“Then it’s for money?”
Alex couldn’t help the bitter laugh that escaped her. “Yes and no. Eitan has me in a bind. Just like you.”
Now he smiled, his teeth even whiter than his skin, and Alex had to resist the urge to take a step back. There was something unnatural in that grin, the waxen face, the princely hair. She jammed her hands in her pockets, slipping her fingers back into Samson’s knuckles.
“Darling girl,” Reiter said. “Eitan Harel has never and will never have me in a bind. But I’m still trying to solve the puzzle of you. Fascinating.”
Alex couldn’t tell if he was hitting on her, and it didn’t really matter.
“You’re not short on cash, so why not transfer the fifty to Eitan, and I’ll leave you to whatever wealthy men get up to in their mansions on a quiet
Wednesday night. You can move around the furniture or fire a butler or something.”
Reiter took his drink and settled himself on one of the white couches.
“I’m not giving that oily bastard a dime. Why don’t you tell Eitan that?” “I’d love to, but…” Alex shrugged.
Reiter made an eager humming sound. “Now things get interesting. Just what are you supposed to do when I don’t hand over the money?”
“He told me to hurt you.”
“Oh, very good,” said Reiter, genuinely pleased. He leaned back and crossed his legs, spread his arms, as if welcoming an unseen crowd to enjoy his largesse. “I invite you to try.”
Alex had never felt more tired. She wasn’t going to hit a man who wasn’t interested in defending himself. Maybe he got off on that shit or maybe he was desperate for entertainment. Or maybe he’d just never had reason to be afraid of someone like her and his imagination wasn’t up to the task. But she could tell he loved his gracious home, his beautiful objects. That might be all the leverage she required.
“I’m short on time and I have a hot date with Chaucer.” She tipped a vase off the mantel.
But the crash never came.
Reiter was standing in front of her, the vase cradled in his long white fingers. He’d moved fast. Too fast.
“Now, now,” he tsked. “I brought that back from China myself.” “That so,” said Alex, backing away.
“In 1936.”
She didn’t hesitate. She clenched the brass knuckles in her fist and swung.
