A few days later, I made a call—more urgent this time—to my morals coach, Hogan. I had gotten a coded e-mail from Paul Morse, saying that the next Virgin Sacrifice party was set for six PM the coming Friday.
“Should I go?” I asked.
“Is the girl ready?”
“I think so. More than ready, in some ways.”
“You have to follow your instincts on this one, Jack. I can’t help you there.”
“Thanks a lot. Look where my instincts have gotten me so far.”
“I’m talking about your higher instincts this time, Flash.”
“Oh, right. You better pray that I have some.”
“I do, daily.”
That Tuesday, I stopped by Angela’s place and offered to take Melissa around to the openings at the end of the week.
“Perfect,” Angela said. “I do need to spend time with Philip, poor thing.” She called out in the direction of Melissa’s bedroom, “Sweetheart, you’d like to see some art with Uncle Jack on Friday, wouldn’t you? He’s awfully kind to offer.”
After a moment, the girl appeared at the end of the hallway, half in shadow. She was uncommonly subdued, staring at me over a white turtleneck that hung halfway to her knees.
“All right,” she said. “Can I watch movies at his house afterwards?”
“Of course, dear. That will be lovely, won’t it?”
When I arrived on Friday evening, Angela was ready to make a quick departure, lugging a bag of books she planned to read aloud to Philip. As soon as she left, Melissa came out of her room in her plaid skirt and knee socks. There was a great deal of space between the top of her socks and the hem of her skirt. As I talked, awkwardly, she slipped on the blue Bradford blazer over a sweater and a white blouse with a sharply creased V-neck. I explained to her where we were going and what she would have to do there. She nodded; her face did not flinch.
“Only if you want to,” I said. “Are you up for it?”
“Don’t worry, I’m good at acting,” she answered. “I’m practically a star.”
“I can believe it. Let’s go then. They’re expecting us.”
“Wait.”
She went into the rear of the loft and came back, minutes later, wearing a dark purple coat and a miniature candy-red backpack. The shining patent leather pouch was an alluring touch, a strap-on heart shape bulging outward between her shoulder blades.
“What are you bringing?” I said.
“Just girl stuff. Don’t ask.”
When we stepped out onto the sidewalk, Melissa shivered once.
“Are you cold?”
“I’ll be fine.”
We walked east, passing boutique windows until we crossed Broadway and encountered a couple of French restaurants followed suddenly by a bleak intersection. I took Melissa by the hand and led her slowly down Crosby Street. The evening was coming on early, a cool grayness engulfing the garbage bags and bundles of papers stacked in front of the old five- and six-story buildings.
“This street needs some shops,” Melissa said.
“You’re right, honey. But they’ll be here soon enough. Probably a Starbucks, too, before your junior-high days are over.”
“I wish there was something here now.”
I glanced ahead as we passed several darkened doorways. “There’s a little tapas joint. They have music there sometimes. Guitars, people clapping. Dancers stamping flamenco on a tiny square of linoleum by the bar.”
“It’s too cold for Spanish music today.”
“That’s when you need it most.”
“I don’t feel like it. I won’t have to dance like a Spanish girl, will I?”
“No, not like that.”
“What then?”
“You choose.”
After another block, the bulk of the designated old building seemed to rise up suddenly. We arrived at a doorway festooned with improvised buzzers.
“Ready?” I asked.
“If you are, Uncle Jack.”
I pressed button number four, hand-labeled “China Luck Trading,” and a moment later Sammy’s voice came out of the squawk box. “Yeah?”
“It’s Jack,” I said. “With Melissa.”
Almost immediately, someone very large and unknown to me opened the door. He was wearing dark slacks and a black T-shirt with a gold chain at his neck.
“You the art dealer?”
“That’s right.”
“Come in.” As we crossed the threshold, he smiled at Melissa and did his best to sound kind. “Hello, young lady. We’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
“Thank you very much,” Melissa answered.
As we squeezed past the doorman, his hands went over me in the same way Sammy’s once had. He glanced at Melissa under the fluorescent light in the hallway but said nothing. He knew what was coming, so there was no need to pat her down. Instead, he led us into the ancient elevator, slamming the accordion gate. As he pushed the wooden handle of a drum lever, we rose slowly past several locked floors.
At the fourth level, he stopped and jockeyed the cab up and down a few times to make the match-up even for Melissa.
“Mind the gap, sugar,” he said as she stepped out. He closed the elevator and came and stood near us.
Paul and Sammy were waiting to greet the girl. Despite the chilly weather, Paul was in designer jeans and a crisp pale blue shirt with two buttons open at the top. Sammy, eschewing his suburbanite togs, wore a dark gray Canali suit. It fit his bulk well, even though its cut was a year out of date.
Paul kissed Melissa on both cheeks. “Welcome, finally.”
As Missy slipped out of her coat, I saw Sammy’s eyes go over her with a horse trainer’s glance.
“Melissa,” Paul said, “this is my friend Uncle Sammy.”
Missy extended her hand, and Sammy raised it as he bent forward slightly to kiss the back of her wrist.
“Honored to meet you, miss.”
“So polite,” Melissa smiled. “You should learn from him, Uncle Jack.”
“A very nice uniform,” Sammy added. He nodded slightly to me.
“It’s so hokey. I don’t see why grown-ups like it so much.”
“My daughter was crazy about going to the Bradford School.”
“What year? Maybe I know her.”
“No, she didn’t get in.”
“Why’s that?”
“Some office foul-up. I’m getting it fixed.”
Paul led Missy into the larger room. There, clutching her backpack, she was greeted warmly by two teenage girls and a young man who looked as though he had just won an L.A. boy band audition.
“Wow,” he said. “Paul was right. You are a real doll.”
Unfazed, Missy took her place on the divan between Paul and this other attentive heartthrob.
“I’m David.” He reached out to shake her hand.
“What’s all this stuff?” she inquired.
Near the coffee table were several microphones, a rack of extinguished lights, and two dormant video cameras. I noticed—farther back, halfway across the room—the telltale red glow of an “on” signal from a camera perched unobtrusively on a shelf. Beyond the tiered wall unit lay the entrance to a dim hallway, the one I remembered well from Paul’s compilation tape. I knew where it led.
“We’ve been working on a video,” Paul said casually. “An MTV kind of thing.”
“Cool,” Melissa answered.
“But we’re having a problem,” David said. “The dancers need help with their backup routine.”
The “dancers” turned out to be two women in their twenties with bathrobes wrapped over skimpy costumes. They came in carrying platters—one supporting a bottle of champagne on ice, the other bearing a huge plate of cookies. The two performers smiled, and I could see they were pros who were there to set an example and coax the girls into the activities ahead.
The one with the champagne came up to me, close.
“You must be Mr. Smith,” she said.
“I suppose I must.”
“I’m Cheryl. Such a pleasure to meet you, I hope.” She looked steadily into my eyes. There were small broken veins in her otherwise attractive face. “Could you be a dear and help me open this? I always get scared by the boom.”
The cookie girl put down her tray and went to fetch champagne flutes, while I worked the wire off the bottle. Cheryl stood close beside me, her augmented breasts hovering near—without ever quite touching—my wavering right elbow.
“I have a problem,” I said. “You’ll have to hold it for me.”
“Whatever you want, Mr. Smith.”
“Call me Ed.”
Her two-handed grip was strong. I twisted the cork out with a small, delicious pop.
Cheryl laughed, and I grabbed the bottle to pour the foaming Taittinger into one glass after another.
“Let’s drink to a good dance tonight,” Paul proposed.
“And to the dancers,” his young sidekick said.
We clinked glasses and drank.
The handlers had not yet offered anything to the underage girls. You could see the envy begin to glimmer in the excluded kids’ eyes. This was a very practiced crew, a slick operation.
“Sit with me, Ed honey,” Cheryl said. We found a place directly across from Melissa, where I could witness every chummy development with Paul.
Rock music began to swell from the sound system.
“Tell me what happened to your arm, baby. Did you lose it in an accident?”
“An art accident.”
“Oh.” Cheryl smiled warmly and touched my knee. “You’re having fun with me, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
She leaned away and put her arm around one of the girls, a fake blonde of maybe fourteen with the sad look of a runaway.
“Ed is a really funny guy,” she said. “I’ll bet he’d give you some champagne, if you asked him real nice.”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s all have a party.”
Cheryl poured for the kid, who drank a half-glass quickly, like so much ginger ale.
Paul had already opened a second bottle and was pouring for Melissa. She took the champagne flute in one hand and a cookie in the other, glancing rather unpleasantly at Cheryl.
Paul began to tell funny stories.
“Do you think I’m pretty, honey?” Cheryl asked me.
“Sure. You’re a babe.”
“No, really.” The schoolgirls were laughing at Paul’s nonsense tales. “Sammy says I dance good but I’m getting too old.”
“What does he know?”
“He’s a big producer; he knows a lot.” She touched the runaway kid on the shoulder. “How about you? Do you like to dance?”
“Maybe.”
“Come on,” Cheryl said. “Show me.”
She pulled the girl up by the wrist. Slowly at first, the two of them began to sway and twist to the soundtrack.
The runaway, still in her street jeans and a sweatshirt, had a surprising grace. Raising her hands over her head, she answered Cheryl’s movements, adding slight variations, improvising in counterpoint to Cheryl’s swaying.
Someone dimmed the lights, and all the girls began to look beautiful. The guys called out encouragement from time to time.
Cheryl’s sidekick got the other teenager up—the two older women modulating into a series of stage moves now, while the street girls echoed.
“We should get this on tape,” David said. He rose and turned on one of the handheld cameras, weaving in close among the girls and backing away again.
“Get this,” the second girl said, and gave him a small shimmy.
“Not like that, honey,” Cheryl’s friend said. “Lay it on him.” Laughing, she went into an old go-go dancer’s routine.
A joint started making the rounds, and I saw that when Paul passed it to Melissa his hand lingered needlessly, tenderly, on her exposed thigh, just below the edge of her plaid Bradford School skirt.
All at once, Melissa stood up and drained the last of the champagne from her glass. As Paul bent to refill it, she began to sway in front of him, making the skirt swing while she turned, her weight shifting subtly from one hip to the other and back again.
Cheryl leaned over, touching my face and giving me a full, lingering view of her breasts.
“How are you, baby?” she asked.
“I’m very good.”
“Having fun?”
“Loads.”
In fact, the enjoyment was beginning to disorient me a little. When I stood, my head was as light as my racing heart.
“Save my seat,” I said. “I don’t want to miss the finale.”