One Way or Another(61)

“Get to your feet.” She almost snarled the command at me and I obeyed quickly, slipping on my too-large flip-flops. I stood there while she looked me up and down, in my baggy gray sweatpants, the gray sweater that hung over my diminished breasts that had once been so pretty, had tempted men, had given them and me pleasure; at my pasty skin that had once been golden; at my sunken eyes that would no longer give a man a flirty look; at the face I never again wanted to see reflected in a mirror, so hideous I knew I had now become.

She stood assessing me, so completely in control I wanted suddenly to hit her. Rage made me tremble. Mehitabel, I knew, mistook my rage for fear. And I was afraid. Afraid I had nowhere to take that rage, no direction. I was helpless and she knew it.

She stepped closer, stood, relaxed, her face in mine, our eyes locked. A smile lifted the corners of that thin red mouth, then she took a step back, surveyed me again, held out both hands, palms up, showing me what she had. A collar. Made of leather. Encrusted with stones that to me looked like rubies and sapphires, a few diamonds marking the clasp. I looked at it, lifted my head, looked at her.

“Stand up straight,” she commanded. I stood straighter.

“Lift your chin higher.” I lifted it.

And felt the chill of the leather collar as she wound it around my neck, the slight pull as she latched it, the softness of her hands as she patted it into place. I knew this was my final humiliation. Mehitabel had won. Ahmet had won. Though why I was so important when he could have had any girl, any woman, anyone at all, still bewildered me. Had I just happened to be the one handy for his sadistic sexual practices? The amenable girl with no background, no family, no one who cared? The woman who wanted to be loved and was glad to be with him. The bastard.

Mehitabel tightened the collar. She took another step back to admire her handiwork, then, before I knew it she had a leash in her hand, was clipping it to the collar, jerking my neck, tightening it.

I groaned in pain. In fear. In degradation. I was Mehitabel’s bitch, on a leash, to be taken wherever she wished. Somehow, I knew it would be to Ahmet.





43

Morris Sorris made a habit of leaving his work behind him when his long day was over. It had often started at six A.M. in his car, heading out to some house in the boonies, or else to a freezing cold warehouse where unimaginable antique treasures might be found, if he got lucky, that is. Morrie figured that if he was getting out of bed for anyone before six A.M. he deserved to be lucky, and today he was. Of course the “warehouse” he was visiting that morning was no simple secondhand or “vintage” joint; it was an ex-garage in South London made over into a veritable fortress with the addition of spiked iron rails, crosshatched iron grills over the windows, and barbed-wire fences with a security guard day and night, protecting the valuable items stored there. Today, for instance, Morrie was to take a look at a set of ten dining room chairs, walnut with curved legs and lion’s paw feet. Were they Sheraton? Morrie’s trained eye, plus his instinct honed over the years for the false, would guide him on that decision.

He got lucky, the chairs he was certain, he later told Martha over the phone, were authentic though in a pretty bad state: the webbing, of course, was gone, there were chips in places though nothing that could not be fixed by an expert like himself, and they were still the original soft shade of good walnut, a wood which was becoming rare and costly. Morrie’s father had been an expert carpenter, a worker in wood, and he’d trained his son well. There wasn’t much Morrie could not do with wood, and for him, today was a bonanza. How often did a man get to work with the real thing, after all?

“I just wish they were not going to that house,” he found himself saying to Martha, voicing a thought he had kept in his head for some time now.

“You mean Marshmallows? Why ever not?” Martha was surprised.

Morrie thought about why for a minute, then said, “I guess it’s because they are so delicate, so beautifully made, it’s rare to find a set like this, and that ugly house does not deserve them. I’ve seen Ahmet at home. They’ll never be shown off to advantage in that massive bloody dining room with the captain’s chair presiding over everything. And no doubt now, with the Captain himself, our Mr. Ahmet—probably soon to become Sir Ahmet if the rumors are to be believed—acting as the host with the most.”

“I haven’t heard those rumors, and Morrie, you’d better remember that Ahmet is ‘the host with the most.’ That’s how he can pay us.”

Morrie rang off and stared gloomily out the car window, his mind still on the Sheraton chairs he had just agreed to pay a king’s ransom for on behalf of the billionaire “host with the most,” who he despised for some reason he could not yet describe. As the saying went, he could not put a finger on it. The man was affable, reasonable, never arrogant as so many monied folks he had worked with had been. Money seemed like a second skin to Ahmet Ghulbian; only a problem if something itched, got at his secrets. Morrie didn’t quite know, either, why he suddenly thought that Ahmet was a man who kept his secrets well hidden behind that very pleasant face, the firm handshake, the I’m-one-of-you friendliness that rang so true. Or did it? And if it did, then why was Morrie so uneasy about him? It was, he guessed, because he was dealing with a secretive man. Ahmet kept his cards close to his chest, told you exactly what you wanted to hear. And Morrie knew that was dangerous. When you heard what you wanted to hear you felt safe, only you were not. You were in the power of the man telling you that.