Sex, Lies & Serious Money

52

Curly had fallen into bed still dressed after Maria had dropped him off, and now he woke, vaguely disoriented. “Maria!” he called. He wanted breakfast, and he had grown accustomed to her making it. It was past ten o’clock, and he was hungry.

He looked around the apartment for her and noticed that her suitcase was gone from the closet, and so were the clothes that had been hanging there. It took a moment for him to realize that Maria had decamped.

He didn’t even know if Maria was her name; all he knew was that she lived in Florida, and that was a big state. He had her cell number, but it was a throwaway. He also knew that he was very close to flat broke. He had been counting on the Barrington score to refresh his cash flow, and that hadn’t happened. His rent was due in a couple of days, and his electricity bill was already overdue. He picked up his phone and called Butch.

“Hello?”

“It’s me. We need to talk.”

There was a long silence before Butch spoke again. “It’ll have to be late tonight. I have obligations until then.”

“Right now will do nicely.”

“One AM at the band shell in Central Park, near that bench we sat on. Take it or leave it.”

“Okay, okay.”

Butch hung up. Curly thought he was getting a little too big for his britches; tonight he would have to trim the boy’s wick a little, teach him who was still boss.

The actress’s name was Brooke Taylor, and Butch treated her to lunch at the new Ralph Lauren restaurant in the Fifty-fifth Street store. His bosses wouldn’t complain about his spending time with a celebrity, who might become a major customer.

“What a beautiful room,” she said, looking around.

“Would you like a glass of wine with lunch?”

“No, I have to watch my weight. I’ve no time to lose pounds before we begin production.”

He ordered mineral water for them both.

“Last night was a lovely evening,” he said, “particularly the very last part of it.”

“I thought so, too.”

“Once you start shooting, what will your schedule be like?”

“When we’re shooting interiors I start at nine — it’s in my contract — and I don’t work after six, except for night exteriors. When we shoot morning exteriors, it’s likely that I’ll be speaking lines by seven AM. It’s a thing about the light.”

“I’m just figuring out how I can spend as much time as possible with you without exhausting you.”

“If I’m in bed by ten — and asleep by midnight — I’ll be fresh as a daisy when the car comes for me.”

“Now that’s a schedule I can live with.”

“But not when we’re doing morning exteriors. I have to be asleep early on those days.”

“I can live with that.”

“Good, because you’ll have to. This is going to be a career-making series for me, and I’m not going to screw it up just to get laid.”

“And I wouldn’t allow you to, on my account. I want to see you happy at all times.”

“And if the series goes the way I think it will, then I will be happy. The writing is outstanding, and the production values will be deluxe. My set apartment is almost as nice as the one I live in.”

“Which is very nice indeed. I compliment you on your taste and style.”

They ordered lunch and both made do with a salad.

“Where did you get your schooling?” she asked at one point.

“Groton and Yale,” he replied truthfully, not mentioning his graduate course in being a convict. Then he reconsidered. “There’s something you should know about me, and you’d better know it now.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“You may think so. A few years ago I was working at a brokerage house, and I got mixed up in a transaction that went wrong. I took responsibility for my share of it and pled guilty to financial fraud. I did three years of a five-to-seven-year term. I was released in a program to reduce the prison population by paroling nonviolent, first-time offenders, and I was discharged from parole shortly thereafter. The whole episode was a major lapse in judgment and a moral failure on my part. Neither of those things is going to happen again.”

“Does the Lauren organization know about that?”

“Yes, I told them everything at my first interview, and they were very good about it. Now I’m a free man, very well employed, with a paid-for apartment and a good income. And my prospects are unlimited. I’m clean in every respect.” Well, he thought, in every respect but one: the cash from the raid on Laurence Hayward’s bank account, or, at least, what was left of it after Curly’s incursion.

“Thank you for being frank with me,” Brooke said. “I would have been shocked if I’d found out about it by other means.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted that. It’s why I told you.”

“I admire you for doing so.”

“Nothing to worry about in the future,” he said. “I’ll check with you before I rob any banks.”

She laughed. “You’d better!”

After lunch he walked her to her car, which was idling at the curb, and kissed her. “Dinner tomorrow night?”

“Not tonight?”

“There’s some unfinished business I have to take care of tonight.”

“With a woman?”

“There’s no woman with a claim on my time, except for my sister.”

“You have a good relationship?”

“We love each other — like sister and brother.”

“I’ll make you dinner tomorrow night, then. Come at seven.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” He put her into the back of the town car and waved her off, then went back to work.

All afternoon he thought about his evening, how it had to go. He checked the movie schedules and made his plan based on that. He had to be very, very careful. His future looked bright, if he could pull this off. If he didn’t, well...

That afternoon, he got two calls from Curly and ignored them both. He didn’t want to talk to him, and he erased all evidence of having received his calls. Curly would be there; he would want the money.

Butch intended to see that he got what was coming to him.