David ed. - Face Off (2014) Anthology

And what hands! Long fingers, tipped in black nails.

Hair was tough to duplicate, but hands were the most arduous of sculptors’ challenges. Michelangelo was a genius at them, finding perfect palms and digits and nails in the heart of marble.

And James Robert Verlaine, who knew he was an artistic, if not blood, descendant of the great master, created the same magic, though with metal, not stone.

Which was much, much tougher to accomplish.

The crowd in Rasta’s, Midtown, was typical for this time of night—artsy sorts who were really ad agency account managers, nerds who were really artists, hipsters pathetically clinging to their fading youth like a life preserver, players from Wall Street. Packed already. Soon to be more packed.

Finally, he caught Mona’s eye. Her gaze flickered. Could be flirt, could be fuck off.

But Verlaine doubted the latter. He believed she liked what she saw. Why wouldn’t she? He had a lean, wolfish face, which looked younger than his forty years. His hair, a mop, thick and inky. He worked hard to keep the do in a state of controlled unruliness. His eyes were as focused as lasers. Thin hips, encased in his trademark black jeans, tight. His work shirt was DKNY, but suitably flecked and worn. The garment was two-buttons undone with the pecs just slightly visible. Verlaine humped ingots and bars of metal around his studio and the junkyards where he bought his raw materials. Carried oxygen and propane and acetylene tanks, too.

Another glance at Mona. He was losing control, as that familiar feeling rippled through him from chest to crotch.

Picking up his Basil Hayden’s, he pushed away from the bar to circle Mona’s way. He tried to get past a knot of young businessmen in suits. They ignored him. Verlaine hated people like this. He detested their conformity, their smugness, their utter ignorance of culture. They’d judge art by the price tag; Verlaine bet he could wipe his ass with a canvas, spray some varnish on it, and set a reserve price of a hundred thousand bucks—and philistines like this’d fight to outbid themselves at Christie’s.

L’art du merde.

He pushed through the young men.

“Hey,” one muttered. “Asshole, you spilled my—”

Verlaine turned fast, firing off a searing gaze, like a spurt of pepper spray. The businessman, though taller and heavier, went still. His friends stirred, but chose not to come to his defense, returning quickly to a stilted conversation about the game.

When it was clear Mr. Brooks Brothers wasn’t going to do something stupid and get a finger or face broken, or worse, Verlaine gave him a condescending smile and moved on.

Easing up to Mona, Verlaine hovered. He wasn’t going to play the let’s-ignore-each-other game. He was too worked up for that. He whispered, “I’ve got one advantage over who you’re talking to.” A nod at the phone.

She stopped speaking and turned to him.

Verlaine grinned. “I can buy you a drink and he can’t.”

Tense. Would she balk?

Mona looked him over. Slow. Not smiling now. She said into the phone, “Gotta go.”

Click.

His index finger crooked for the bartender.

“So, I’m James.”

Playing it coy, of course. She said something. He couldn’t hear. The music at Rasta’s was a one-hundred-decibel remix of groups from twenty years ago, the worst of CBGBs.

He leaned closer and smelled a luscious floral scent rising from her skin.

Man, he wanted her. Wanted her tied down. Wanted her sweating. Wanted her crying.

“What’s that?” he called.

Mona shouted, “I said, so what do you do, James?”

Of course. This was Manhattan. That was always question number one.

“I’m a sculptor.”

“Yeah?” A faint Brooklyn lilt. He could tolerate that. The skepticism in her eyes, no.

His iPhone appeared and, shoving it her way, he flipped through the pictures.

“Jesus, you really are.”

Then Mona looked past him. He followed her gaze and saw a tall redhead, smiling as she made her way through the crowd. A stunner. His eyes did the triplet glance: face, tits, ass. And he didn’t care that she saw him doing it.

As tasty as Mona.

And no LBD for her. Leather miniskirt, fishnets, low-cut dark-blue sequined top, strapless.

The arrivee tossed her beautiful hair off her shoulders, glistening with sweat. She cheek-kissed Mona. Then pitched a smile Verlaine’s way.

Mona said, “This is James. He’s a real sculptor. He’s famous.”

“Cool,” the redhead said, eyes wide and impressed—just the way he liked the pretties to be.

He shook their hands.

“And you are?” he asked the redhead.

“I’m Amelia.”

Mona turned out to be Lily.

Verlaine got Amelia a Pinot gris and a refill of his bourbon.

Conversation wandered. Protocol demanded that, and Verlaine had to play the game a little longer before he could bring up the subject. You had to be careful. You could ruin an evening if you moved too fast. A girl by herself? You got her drunk enough, you could usually get her to “try something different” back at your place without too much effort.

But two together? That took a lot more work.

In fact, he wasn’t sure he could pull this one off. They seemed, fuck it, smart, savvy. They weren’t going to fall for lines like, “I can open up a whole new world for you.”

No, may have to write this evening off. Hell.

But just then Lily leaned forward and whispered, “So what’re you into, James?”

“Hobbies, you mean?” he asked.

The women regarded each other and broke out in laughs. “Yeah, hobbies. You have any hobbies?”

“Sure. Who doesn’t?”

“If we tell you about our hobby, will you tell us about yours?”

When a sultry raven-haired pretty in a tight LBD asks you that question, there’s only one answer: “You bet.”

The redhead reached into her tiny purse and displayed a pair of handcuffs.

Okay, maybe the night was going to be easier than he thought.

JAMES ROBERT VERLAINE HAD A certain charm, Amelia Sachs gave him that.

The clothes were weird— Midnight Cowboy meets Versace—and he probably owned more hair products than she did. But, despite that, his witty attention was completely on her and Lily.

With Lincoln Rhyme as a romantic as well as professional partner, Amelia had been freed from the madness of the dating world. But before him there’d been innumerable evenings in restaurants and bars with men who were anything but present. Their thoughts kept zipping back to Nokias or BlackBerrys in jacket pockets, to business deals sitting on office desktops, to girlfriends or wives they’d forgotten to mention.

A woman knows right away when a man’s with her or not.

And Jim Bob—she loved Lucas Davenport’s nic for him—definitely was. His sniper eyes bored into theirs, he touched arms, he asked questions, made jokes. He inquired .

Of course, this wasn’t typical bar meeting talk—about family and exes, about the Mets, the Knicks, politics, and the latest retreads from Hollywood. No, the theme for tonight was such esoterica as describing the type of rope he enjoyed tying “girls” up with, where to get the best mouth gags, and what kind of whips and canes caused the most pain but left the fewest marks.

Back at Lincoln’s loft, the four investigators had decided the way to Verlaine’s psyche was through his fly. His sado-sexual history would give them entry. Lily had gone to the bar first—strategizing that a single bulb might draw the moth less suspiciously. Yep on that one. Then Amelia—in an outfit she’d had to purchase an hour earlier—had arrived to seal the deal. And it had taken a whole sixty seconds to find out that Verlaine usually came to Rasta’s before heading to his fave S&M dives.