Chapter 1
Angela and David Martin stepped past the head waiter holding the red velvet rope, then waited for him to lead them to their table. David was waiting to see the look of surprise on her face when they were shown to the small circle surrounding the spotlighted stage where the floor show would be. It had cost him an extra fifty dollars to get it, but for their second anniversary it was worth it. Especially since he knew that she was feeling a little upset with him these days. He knew she thought he had been running around lately in the evenings, but actually he was doing some free-lance bookkeeping to make up for the money he had lost by gambling. A couple of months ago he had fallen back into his old habit of gambling despite his strong resolve not to, but now he was through with it forever he was three thousand dollars in debt, and when he finally paid that off, he would never set foot in that club again.
As Angela wound through the narrow lanes among the other diners, David couldn't help noticing the envious looks he received from most of the men. He smiled secretly to himself as he watched his young wife's sensuous walk ahead of him.
Angela was not as tall and long-legged as she looked in the tight-fitting emerald evening dress he had made her wear, and his insistence on the upswept blonde hair-do accented the effect even more. He enjoyed the way her tautly rounded buttocks undulated smoothly under the green satin material. Her waist above was so narrow and wasp-like that he could encircle it with his hands, but her gently curving hips flared out enticingly to the sides. She had a petulant little girl's way of bending her smooth-skinned neck as she held her head to one side that even after two years of marriage always made him feel a little jerking sensation in the pit of his stomach when he watched her.
When they reached the table, she turned to face him as the waiter in his red dinner jacket pulled the chair out for her. She had refused to go out with her husband in the low-cut top he had wanted her to wear, and she had altered it so that only the tantalizing promise of her firmly ripened breasts was visible. Even so, he thought as she sat down with a slightly surprised expression on her lovely face, she's easily the most exciting woman in the place.
Pleased though she was at being the center of so much attention in the expensive supper club, Angela, nevertheless, found herself unavoidably worrying about how much it was going to cost. Just to get the front table must have set David back another twenty dollars, she was thinking. The waiter brought them the Manhattans they had ordered and left them the menu. Before David could pick it up to look, she glanced at the prices down the side, and her heart skipped a beat. Most of the main courses cost over thirty dollars per person! That was more than she allowed herself for a whole week's shopping for them to eat at home. Once again, David seemed to her totally irresponsible when it came to money. And she had noticed that their bank account was lower than it had been for the whole two years they had been married.
Angela tried to smile at him when he raised his glass and put his left hand over hers in a gesture of continuing devotion, but she couldn't bring herself to answer his beaming happiness with full conviction. David became aware of her faltering hesitation and he leaned over the table with a look of concern on his face.
"What's the matter, honey?" he asked. "Don't you like the choice I made for our anniversary party?"
Immediately, she felt guilty for being such a wet blanket. He was trying to please her, but he just didn't know what had been going on in her head the past few weeks. Or perhaps he did, and he was just trying to soothe her nerves with his attentive manner.
"Y-yes, David, darling. I-it's just that I didn't think we would be able to afford all this," she stammered as the waiter covered the table-top with hors d'oeuvres of all kinds in a huge Lazy Susan. "I guess I worry too much about money," she laughed half-heartedly, trying once again to smile and reassure him.
"Don't be silly," he chided her lightly. "We'll make up for it with spaghetti and hot dogs at home for a week. I just couldn't let the occasion pass without really doing it up in style. After all, it's only once a year, and the second anniversary will never come again," he philosophized. He raised his half empty glass again and looked directly in her blue eyes. "So drink up and smiiiile!" he clowned, throwing the drink down his throat with one motion and immediately summoning the waiter to bring another. They had already had two martinis each before they left home, and he was feeling good already.
Angela had always loved his dashing, good-humored manner, and in spite of her reservations, she suddenly felt better and downed the rest of her drink with him. The glasses were whisked away silently almost before she had set hers on the table, and she glanced meaningfully at the menu lying on the table, hoping David would take the hint and order the food soon. Another Manhattan would make four drinks in a little over an hour, and already she could feel her head beginning to spin. Besides, she knew even though David prided himself on his capacity for drink, he often was offensively drunk before he knew it was happening, and she didn't want him to embarrass her in this sophisticated establishment.
She saw with relief that he had taken the hint and was poring over the menu with great care as he tried to decide what they should have. She took the opportunity to take a good look at the man she had married could it be only two years ago? He had recently turned twenty-five years old, and his face looked even more boyish and handsome to her now than it had when she first met him three years ago. His sandy-red hair was a little longer now on the sides than it had been then, in the newer style for men, but he always kept it well-groomed and neat, never letting it grow so long it touched his collar in the back. He looked very modern in the wide lapels of his double breasted dark brown suit, tailored to fit his slim, muscular body. He had a certain flair, even in the way he moved his hands, that always seemed to make people like him, which could explain his successful career as an insurance broker for one of the best firms in Manhattan. He had made new inroads for his company into the new "mod" circle of Madison Avenue advertising artists, the ones who a few years back were not even considered worth bothering with in the insurance business. But David had been accepted by them as one of their own kind, and that coupled with their new success and affluence caused them to begin buying big company policies for all of their steadily growing personnel. David had already started making it fairly big before she met him, and he was still one of the top men in that particular field.
Unfortunately, Angela was thinking, his sudden big income must have caused him to look for ways of spending money, and the friends he had made growing up in the city had led him into their high living ways. Before they had married, he had spent a great deal of time at what he called the "Big 'A' ", the race track, losing and winning money almost without concern for which way his luck happened to go. He had bought a Porsche sport car, and his troubled young wife knew he used to dart off to Atlantic City or Saratoga Race Track, or wherever the crowd led him, on a moment's notice.
Angela, herself, had come from a much different background in upstate New York, raised in a family that practiced frugality and thriftiness while still providing for the best comforts money could reasonably buy, and she had had her doubts about him at first when they met. But he had toned down his life-style when he found she was not in agreement with his ideas, and she finally consented to give in to her impulse and agree to marry him. David gave up his bad habits of gambling and studying the racing forms for the "sure thing" which never seemed to come in, and his earnings went instead into fixing up their lovely apartment overlooking the Hudson River on the West Side.
Now in the last two or three months, he had begun to change, and when Angela first noticed the bank account was slowly being depleted for no good reason, she became worried that he had once again fallen into his old ways. He was staying away from home more and more in the evenings, saying he had a lot of work that couldn't be done any other time, and maybe it was true, though she didn't think so. More and more she had begun to think he was no longer happy with her as a wife and that could somehow explain what he did evenings while she waited patiently for him at home.
"What do you say we begin with a smoked salmon and white wine?" David interrupted her thoughts. He was looking at her with those warmly expressive eyes that had first endeared him to her, his even teeth showing in a wide, easy smile. "I'd suggest the snails, but I know you don't like to pull the little beasts out of their shells," he playfully mocked her sensitive nature. 'Then we can have steak a la Bordelaise with a nice bottle of Medoc. Sound good?"
She tried to appear enthusiastic over his selection as the waiter reappeared with the drinks and the head waiter materialized out of nowhere to take their order. The wine steward seemed to congratulate David on his choice of wine, and when they were alone again, David put Angela's drink in her fingers and they clinked their glasses together lightly.
"May we have many more years of happiness together, my darling. And may you always stay as beautiful as you are," he toasted gallantly.
"Yes, I think I can drink to that," she replied with a playful thoughtfulness she hoped disguised her true feeling of doubting his sincerity.
He didn't seem to notice her nervous mood as he took a long swallow of his drink. She sipped hers carefully, not wanting to make the lighted-headedness she was feeling still worse. The wine would make her senses haze over, but by then she would have begun to eat. She served herself some of the delicious-looking hors-d'oeuvres and took a few bites to stave off the dizziness coming over her little by little.
Now David was heartily digging into the various dishes and she glanced around the club for the first time since they had sat down. It was a lovely place, she decided, and she was being just plain silly to worry about the money. After all, she reminded herself, she had married David because she thought he would be able to offer her a glamorous existence, and he was doing his best to give it to her.
She let her eyes pass from one table to another without staring at any of the chic women who somehow made her feel a little dowdy even though her husband had assured her she could feel comfortable in any company. Then she looked over the empty low stage to the table opposite them, and she suddenly realized the man facing her must have been fixing his attention on her for a long time.
He seemed not to notice that she had caught him doing it, continuing to stare in her direction with a small suggestive smile playing over his cruel lips. She let her eyes fall to her plate again as she took some red beets on her fork. She felt herself blushing in confusion as she unconsciously glanced in the stranger's direction just as she ovaled her mouth over the food and saw him lick his own lips in an obvious gesture of relish as he focused on what she was doing.
The lewd expression on his ruddy-fleshed face embarrassed her so much she almost choked, and she was forced to cough lightly into her napkin. After that she tried to ignore him, but she could feel his hot hungry eyes boring into her the whole time she was trying to eat. Angela was used to men staring at her in appreciation, but never in her whole life had she seen such a brazen display of unabashed animal interest.
She found herself wondering what the red-haired woman with the man must think of his actions, and surreptitiously she glanced over at her when a waiter stood between the lewdly devouring eyes of the man and her. The woman looked about thirty years old, Angela guessed, when she saw her face turned up to the waiter; and even though she had a very pretty face, it was made up with too much eye-shadow, and the orange lipstick clashed dramatically with her hennaed hair. She somehow looked harder and more depraved than anyone her age should look, the young girl thought. Angela could see the outline of her ripely matured breasts under the tight, low-cut orange dress, and she saw that the rest of her lush figure was just as voluptuous under the material clinging to her smoothly curving hips and buttocks. She seemed to be just the sort of woman who would be with the horrid man who had been staring at her. Abruptly, without warning, the red-head turned and looked over her bare shoulder directly at her.
Caught by surprise, Angela could not react quickly enough to avert her eyes, and she saw the woman give her a quick, caustic measuring glance before lifting one eyebrow insultingly and turning back around.
Angela gasped without being able to control herself at the insolence on the woman's face, and her fork made a sharp metallic noise as she let it drop a short distance to her plate.
This attracted David's attention and he looked at her now downcast face with concern.
"What is it, honey?" he asked. He had noticed she was acting a little nervous, but he had thought it best to ignore it, knowing it could lead to a discussion that might turn out to be unpleasant and spoil the evening if he acknowledged it.
"T-that man," she managed to stammer, casting a glance over his shoulder. "H-he keeps staring at me in the worst way you can imagine. He's doing it again!" she complained.
David turned and met the amused glance of the man she had indicated.
Oh, Christ! David almost muttered out loud.
It was Harvey Sears, the person he least wanted to see tonight of all nights. He felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as Sears lifted his eyebrows slightly in a gesture that could only mean one thing. He wanted David to come talk to him.
"Excuse me a minute, Angela, I'll have a word with the guy," he said as he laid his napkin on the table and shoved his chair back before one of the waiters could assist him. He hoped she wouldn't notice that he knew Harvey Sears and had been summoned by him. The last thing in the world he wanted to happen was for her to find out he had for a brief period taken up gambling again, and owed this man more money than he liked to think about. He cursed himself again and again for falling prey to his weakness as he edged his way between the ring of closely packed tables.
"Hi, Dave," Harvey Sears said without smiling as the young insurance man reached the table. "Long time no see." He didn't offer to shake hands, to David's relief, and instead sat back in his chair almost glaring up into his face.
"Hello, Mr. Sears. How do you do?" he inclined his head briefly to the seductive-looking redhead he had seen before the club Sears owned.
"Cut out the mister, Dave. Call me Harvey. You know Jeanette, I suppose?" he asked shrewdly, noticing David's glance sliding down her ripely enticing curves visible above the table.
"I've seen her, yes," he replied, slightly embarrassed by the cool, calculating gaze she was giving him, a suggestive little smile beginning to play at the corners of her full sensuous mouth.
'That the little wife?" Sears asked, giving his head a little toss in Angela's direction. "Quite a knockout. Would you like to ask her to join us?"
"Thanks, but she asked me to speak to you about staring at her that way. She, ah, finds it a bit disconcerting," he explained lamely, not wanting to offend the gambling boss.
Harvey Sears suddenly changed his expression to one of anger, his complexion flushing an even more reddish color than before. He glowered in Angela's direction for a long moment, his fists clenched tightly on the edge of the table, and then he looked back at David, a harsh look of offended vanity clouding his expression. "She does, eh? What the fuck is she, some kind of prima donna?" he snarled.
"It's just that she hasn't been around too much, Harvey," David quickly interjected, using Sears' given name for the first time. "She doesn't mean anything by it. She's only terribly shy, that's all," he added, very much on the defensive.
Sears looked at him openly for what seemed a long time, his eyes reflecting the fact that his brain was busy weighing odds, calculating. Then he relaxed and snorted, "All right, Dave, I'll help you out. Tell her I thought she was an old girl friend of mine."
"Thanks, Harvey. It's our anniversary, and I hate to see her upset," the young husband breathed in relief.
Sears waved his hand depreciatingly. "That's okay. I was enjoying looking at her. She's some dish nice, young, innocent but I guess I'll have to make do with Miss Bigtits here. Huh, baby?" He winked at Jeanette, who playfully moved her shoulders back and forth, making her voluptuously full breasts quiver in invitation under her tight dress.
Her lewdly suggestive action made David's restlessly stirring cock crawl with a sudden eagerness in his trousers as he fought to tear his eyes away from the shadowy, deeply indented cleft between her breasts, and he started to leave.
"Just a minute, Dave," Sears ordered without looking at him.
This was the moment David had been dreading, not knowing what he would say or do when it came.
"Yes, Harvey?" he inquired innocently.
"About the three thousand bucks," Sears began, his words casual and without inflection. "We can't wait forever. It's not just me, you know. I've got all my partners in business to think about. And they're getting a little itchy. Especially since you don't show up at the club any more. They think maybe you're thinking of doing something stupid." Sears suddenly twisted his head and fixed David with his gaze once more, as if to decide how much truth was in the suggestion.
"I'll pay, don't worry about that," David replied with a nervous smile.
"We don't worry about it, Dave. We just wonder what you've got in mind."
"I'm working on it, Harvey. In a couple of weeks . . . " he started to say.
"A couple of weeks is too long," Sears interrupted in a curt, gruff voice. His tone seemed to leave nothing more to say, and David waited.
"Come to my office at the club tomorrow at eleven sharp," he commanded. "Or . . . " he let his voice trail away into a menacing silence much worse than any words he could have used. "So long, Dave," he said in dismissal. "Enjoy your dinner," he jibed, and then he acted as though David had disappeared into thin air, talking and joking with the redhead, who threw her head back in peals of laughter.