The Finishing School

29

FABULOUS DEON SPOTTED Linda at the bar. “Well, hello again, honeychild. Thought I’d lost you,” he shouted over the music.

“I was hanging for a while with that guy Aidan who has that radio show, remember him?” Linda shouted back. She took a sip of her cocktail, pinkie extended.

“No, but you have so many men, how can one keep track?”

“Look who’s talking, D!”

“Are you joking? I am in such a dry spell, I swear I’m thinking about paying for it!”

“Never say that! You take too many risks,” she scolded.

“Ah, well, dearest, thank you for caring. But a person does need love.”

“Sex is what you’re talking about.”

“Semantics.”

“I’m gonna set you up with that lawyer I mentioned. The one who does work for the station? He’s nice, and he’s looking for a real relationship.”

“I’ll take a pass on that one. He sounds stupendously boring.”

“You could use a little boring, and fewer party boys. Besides, this guy has a house in Amagansett.”

“What good does that do me in December? Remind me next August, and maybe I’ll be interested.”

“Oh, look, D, Bettina Lloyd is over there! She just signed a major deal with Def Jam. I’m gonna see if I can score an interview. Catch you later.”

Linda pecked Deon on the cheek and floated off into the crowd. Deon sighed and ordered a double Macallan straight up. He tossed back the booze when it came, glancing around restlessly, thinking maybe he should just go home. What would hanging around Screen get him, except a few hours older and a few more ego-bruising rejections? If recent experience was any guide anyway. Maybe he should take Linda up on her offer and meet Mr. Stable-and-Boring. He was turning thirty-five next week, and the party scene, which still held sway over him with its high-voltage thrills, was not welcoming him with quite the same open arms it once had. The writing was on the wall, the bloom off the rose. People had grown tired of him. Pretty soon even dull old sugar daddies like Linda’s friend would look at him with indifferent eyes, so maybe he should set himself up while he still had the goods.

A completely hot young man wearing tight pants and a filmy wifebeater pushed his way up to the bar beside Deon and stood so close that their thighs touched in the tightly packed crowd. The boy had that look Deon went for every time-dusky-skinned, pouty-lipped, built. He ordered an expensive single-malt, then glanced back over his shoulder at Deon enticingly. Deon recognized the move. He’d used it to good effect himself, back in the day.

“Here, darling, let me get that for you,” Deon said, reaching for his wallet.

“Yeah, awright.” The kid had the sound of the projects in his voice. Which to Deon indicated that he might be more available than his dazzling looks would otherwise suggest.

“I haven’t seen you around here before. What’s your name?”

“Who askin’?”

“They call me Fabulous Deon. I’m well known in these parts. If you’re looking for an in, I could be just your ticket.”

“Maybe I’m lookin’. But why you gotta ask my name?”

The young man finished off his drink in a quick gulp, head tipped back, Adam’s apple bobbing in his well-muscled neck. Then he wiped his lovely mouth with the back of his hand.

“You like your privacy. Not a problem. I’ll just call you darling,” Deon said, practically salivating.

“I know a place. C’mon, I ain’t got all night.”

The boy took Deon by the hand and pulled him through the crowd toward the edge of the platform. Deon wondered what the kid charged. He looked expensive, and Deon only had forty left in his wallet.

They reached the far end of the subway platform, and the kid pulled Deon into the darkness of the tunnel. “Where are we going? Wouldn’t the men’s room be more convenient?” Deon asked.

“Dis way,” the kid said, gripping his wrist tighter.

Deon realized he was about to be robbed. He dug his heels in, but the kid was strong and had him in an iron grip. He yanked Deon a few feet forward, then pounded on a metal door barely visible in the half-light. It swung open to reveal one of Expo’s bodyguards.

“Lamar, help! I’m being robbed!” Deon yelled. But Lamar grasped Deon by his shirtfront, threw him to the hard tile floor, and kicked him repeatedly in the gut with heavy work boots. Deon screamed at the top of his lungs, the sound masking the crunch of breaking ribs.

“It ain’t feel too good being a rat now, huh?” Lamar said. He rifled through Deon’s pockets and pulled out his wallet.

Through a haze of pain, Deon saw Jay Esposito talking to a tall, slender white man he didn’t recognize. Jay nodded at Lamar, who gave Deon’s wallet to the pouty kid. Jay peeled five hundreds off a money clip he took from his breast pocket, counting them carefully, and put those in the kid’s hands, too.

“Remember, I know where you live,” Expo said.

“Yo, we cool. You ain’t got no problems wit’ me,” the kid said, stuffing the money and the wallet in his pants and heading for the door, which Lamar shut and bolted behind him.

Expo drew a large club from his leather golf bag and looked down at Deon, who lay moaning, tears leaking from his eyes.

“Did I mention, D, I been working on my golf swing?”