Finally

YEARS after Al-Queda had done its gruesome work, New York, though traumatized was thawing from winter, returning to it’s business of being the center of the world.

Though the skyline was forever changed and the great buildings were dearly missed, Manhattan was bustling. Shoppers were grazing in its trendy boutiques and the usual crowds were fulfilling business, doing commerce for wealth as well as pleasure and were filling the sidewalks.

As the two black limousines snaked their way through Manhattan, no one paid them much heed.

Their opulence, in a city of opulence was as anonymous as grinding poverty was to most other parts of the world.

Passing Central Park, the limos cruise past The Plaz, passed that grand edifice as the driver continued tooling further along the street.

After another block, the chauffeur finds the street, pulls to the curb in front of tall sky scrapper, parks, as the other limousine parks behind him.

Having requested large men, that did not mind heavy lifting, of course accompanied by a large tip, the passenger in the lead care sits silently in the back. She peers out the tinted windows through sunglasses at the crowds of finely dressed people passing bye.

After some moments of reflection, the door opens, held by the burly driver.

She stands and as she passes, he is in awe by her beauty, though many faded white scares trail down her aquiline face. Standing, hesitating, she peeks up at the forty stories, nods to herself, knowing now that everything will be fine.

Dressed in an impossibly expensive Giorgio Armani black business suit, set off by a silk, white T-shirt, and with a pair of black Manolo Blahnik leather tie ups gracing her small feet, all tied together by a heavy black pair of Ray Ban sunglasses, she appears exactly how she wants to appear.

She looks chic, gorgeous, classic, and very, very, very rich, which she of course is.

Already having given explicit orders to her two chauffeurs, she stands patiently as the two men go to work.

As she stands there like a white, thin, tall egret dressed in black, men and women cannot but help stare at her, sharing whispers about her as they pass.

She notices none of them.

The two men work diligently as they stack box after card board box onto two, sturdy, steel dollies.

Loading both dollies to the top, both men turn and almost in reverence stall, waiting for the sophisticated, very generous knockout to give them further orders.

They stare at her. They can not help themselves.

Faded white scars, as well as a small, misguided nose, which she had a plastic surgeon repair, not for cosmetics, but so that she could breath, simply adds to her stunning beauty.

Beauty with out flaws is flaccid, always devoid of any character. She knows that now.

Like a band leader of a marching band, she waves for them to follow her into the building, which they do.

Gliding through the ornate lobby, she turns to the bank of gold letters of the business directory, behind glass, staked into the green marble walls.

Finding the number, along with her men, she smiles her way through a checkpoint, lying as she does.

Men are men, everywhere.

New York, Paris, Rome, Inferno Flats, they all are the same in the end.

They are susceptible to astonishing class and beauty and the guards at the detectors are no different.

They smile, blush, whisper as she and the men with the dollies pass through.

She could have walked into the lobby of The Central Intelligence Agency carrying an AK-47 and no one would have prevented her from doing so.

Once in the elevator, she presses her body against the wall as she had done so long ago when she was a thief sneaking around the Cox compound. Several men stare at her, which of course she ignores.

Up and up they go.

People fall away as others join them on their way to the top floor of the building.

The door pings open. She and her crew exit walk up to a pretty young receptionist sitting at a desk. Around them, people are bustling, some staring at her and the men; the office is richly furnished, quite rich and ornate.

Beauty as does style forever disarms the most leery of people.

Staring at the young, stylish receptionist, she smiles, gets right to the point, strong, elite, almost demanding in her words. She holds such grace and élan, perhaps that only the rich can muster; the girl is in awe of her.

The girl alerts, as the most beautiful woman she has ever seen demands to see who is in charge.

She protests, but that fades quickly.

Fanned across the desk, ten one hundred dollars bills sweeps all protest from her voice.

A smile from the woman melts her and though she loves her job at The Fortune Five Hundred Company, she is not well paid. She knows in this business, there are girls dying to get into an entry level position, pay their dues, until they can climb the ladder into a prestigious job, which what the place is all about to begin with.

Remembering a little slip of a Betsy Johnson outfit she has been dying to buy, she peeks right, left, sweeps the money into her drawer.

She stands, assures the beautiful woman that yes indeed she can help her, turns and clicks down the hall in her sling back, low heels, black leather pumps.

After many curious stares from some very chic workers milling around and a few minutes later, the girl walks towards her.

She is followed by a distinguished, graying at the temples, Pierre Cardin black suit, white shirt, black tie, black leather loafers, late fortyish man. In her mind, though a bit taller, the man reminds Mandal of Bobby Ugo.

She charms the bejesus out of him.

They chat, he is in her web, of course can not say no to her, for why should he.

He is as prone and weak to wealth, opportunity, as well as to the most stunning woman he has ever seen.

He is just like the like any sap she has ever met.

Being charmed by a habitual liar, he rbeing anything but what she represents, never even enters his mind. Like most men, he just wants to be near her and if breaking some silly rules means he can, why the heck not.

Peeking at the burly men dressed in black, the dollies and, then her, hidden behind those Jackie O sunglasses, he bows slightly. He asks her to please follow him; which she and her merry band of men do.

Past many cubicles and, then the offices, the VP leads her along the hall. Once through the door of his office, which we’re made of plate glass windows, with a full view of the city, he pulls a leather arm chair out for her. She sits.

He moves around his desk, settles in an even bigger brown leather chair, smiles, feels his toes curling and, then the grift begins.

They exchange pleasantries about how they love Paris, Rome, skiing in the Alps, blah, blah, blah.

For good measure (over kill is preferable when a girl wants what she wants when she wants it) she try’s Italian.

No! He does not speak it.

She plumbs out some French from her full lips, nope. She smiles and reverts back to English.

Already he is so very enamored with her.

That’s a good thing.

Deciding already before meeting him, that the truth of the matter would never do, she has, as always, a new plan ready at her lying lips.

A genius, she only needs half of her brain to know that a story about a mad poet living in a barn, surrounded by Indians in the desert, with visiting killers from the Mafia, while this crazed family of murderers ran an amphetamine empire, was a no no.

She will tell him a new, better story.

As preposterous as her new story will be, she is still the perfect liar, having honed that craft being a heartless, thieving prostitute in a nude club in her other life.

That is a minor fact that she will skip in the telling of the tall tale also.

Her story goes something like this.

A widow to a Swiss Banker and in between grieving, she is tooling along the slopes of Bariloche, in The Lake District of Chile, skiing, doing S curves when suddenly she veers off path.

An avalanche had broken and she had barely steered clear from it, alive. It had closed all the passes, and at that time she did not know it.

Finding herself in a remote valley, completely lost, she sees a lone cabin in the deep snow, smoke spiraling out of a grey stone chimney. Cross country skiing over, she knocks at the door and thus a life changing experience appeared from the most unlikely of places.

The man, who answered the door of the wooden cabin, was an artist, horrible disfigured from burns from an airplane accident.

He spoke little of it.

He was reclusive, had horses, dogs, cats and very little to do with the outside world.

Surprisingly, he had graciously allowed her to enter his world. (She loves this story).

Mandal thinks about throwing in a planet destroying asteroid.

She does not.

With jaw agape, he stares at her face in awe.

The slick VP has no questions what so ever why any man would send HER away, ever.

Time passed and she had fallen in love with him, as he had with her.

As she spins her story, he keeps staring at the boxes, back to her lips, a yard of bare legs which he cannot tear his eyes from.

Then sadness engulfs him, for she tells him the year she spent with the artist was the most amazing time in her life.

She assures him, peeking at the boxes that her Man, Jason that his writing is in the boxes is nothing short of pure artistic genius.

Tears fall under her Raybans as she tells him the rest of the tragic, horrific fairy tale.

He had been sick, very ill for a very long time. He then dies in her arms, telling her that he loves her.

OMG.

The VP almost starts to weep wondering where he can get a Cracker Jack screen writer so he can whore the story to Hollywood.

Within the moment of his final death, she promises him that she would cherish the legions of his unseen work in her memory forever.

(CUT to more tears)

After his funeral, she had packed up his numerous novels, thousands of pieces of prose. Thus, was the reason she was sitting before him now.

Sniffling, all the VP really wants to do is fuck her.

Which, unknown to him, is an outside possibility for he does not know to what depths of depravity she will go to to get what she wants.

She finishes, he shrugs his shoulders and reluctantly tell her that as riveting as her story is, perhaps the time is just not right for bringing a totally unknown writer to the market.

Then, some what stunned, he watches as, with out asking, she places an unfiltered French cigarette between her peach, sexed up lips.

She flicks open a lighter like a Long Shore men, ignites the smoke and, then removes her shades.

He gulps, for a through a plume of smoke, she drills his head with the most dazzling blue eyes he has ever seen.

Prepared for such a rebuff, she casually reaches into her breast pocket, withdraws a thick white envelope, smokes, a little pout and, then pushes it across the polished teak desk top with the longest, white fingers he has ever seen.

He takes the envelope, stares at her, cracks it open and runs his fingers across the new one hundred thousand dollars in nice one hundred dollar bills, aligned with in it.

He stares at the money, looks at her, begins to speak. Her low voice crushes the words from his lips.

She tells him, that of course she understands a reading fee is required within such matters. Hopefully, this little token will rectify such a small problem.

She then whispers in her best whore voice, that she will be in New York for one day, and perhaps he might know of some elegant place that they might dine, perhaps chat about the matter more, later in the night.

She laughs slightly, telling him wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to celebrate his publishing houses new, great fortune.

F-4-BINGO. Chimes in his head.

He gulps, scrutinizes her, appreciating her obvious innuendo of sex was a generous gesture and above all her knowledge of the publishing industry stuns him.

Sex is sex though. Money is also money.

Happily married, or at least as one can be in such an outrageous state of life, he wonders how he can sneak away from his wife, so he can have that slender, white body mambo on his dick.

He has never been unfaithful, but he is now leaning in that direction.

In the end, he decides not for the money is simply enough.

The kids do need help with their college education and with the money he can finally get the pool set into the ground on his Long Island chateau.

He smiles, pockets the slag into a drawer and, then she pulls out a folded piece of paper, slides that across the desk to him.

He reads it, crinkles his brow, and looks curiously at her.

She smiles.

They talk business as she tells him he will not be disappointed in the slightest, and these are her conditions.

He shakes his head YES at her most generous offer, agrees and, that is if the minions in the tunnels, the firms readers like her dead poets work, which he is sure they will, they have a GO.

They stand, shake hands, she pearls in and hug’s him.

He wilts as she whispers into his ear that you will not be disappointed.

As she had made Arvan do, she crosses her heart and hopes to die, her last words.

She exchanges cell phone numbers with him, smiles and turns and with her men and with dollies at hand, walks from his door.

He, pretty much thunder struck from the entire surreal moment, strains for one last look at that body.

Feeling the partial erection in his trousers, from her simple touch and her breath on his ear, he dreams of.

What if?

He does not know yet, that several months down the line and for his fortuitous vision in taking on the unknown dead writer, he will be made President, for the artists will turn out one best seller after another from the grave.

Also, because of fate, and his business acumen and the conditions the woman has set forth, he was applauded for the deal, which had sent the Board back onto their heels for the publisher being seen as a philanthropist was never a bad thing, in the corrupt corporate world.

The agreement was set as follows:

Half of all royalties were to be paid to various environmental endeavors scattered around the world. Doctors with out Borders, Green Peace, were just two on the list of a half dozen.

The other monies, fifty percent, were to be wired into her Swiss Bank Account in Geneva.

She was no fool.

With no further words shared between them, she had dissolved into the elevator and was gone.

He never saw her again.

TO BE CONTINUED...