'Smells good,' he said, inhaling appreciatively.
Mama Rosa rolled her eyes. 'Now I suppose you want to taste Mama's baking,' she said with mock gruffness. 'Is that it? Like I'm not busy enough?' Then she relented. 'Oh, go ahead. Taste one. But first, bring it here.'
He went to the rack, squatted down, and from one of the cool trays on the bottom selected a puffy, golden round cookie topped with a maraschino cherry. Swiftly Mama Rosa sprinkled it with confectioner's sugar.
'Now mange,' she urged. 'Mange! Eat!'
He bit into it. It was deliciously crunchy, with a sweet, creamy chocolate filling. 'Hey—these are great!'
Mama Rosa looked indignant. 'Of course they are,' she sniffed. 'I make only the best!'
'What're these called?'
'Minni di Sant' Agatha.' The Italian rolled smoothly off her tongue.
'Minni. . . what?'
'In English, the translation is Saint Agatha's nipples.'
He nearly choked on a mouthful. 'You're joking—right?'
Mama Rosa glowered. 'We never joke about our saints!' she warned darkly, and swiftly crossed herself.
Then he watched as, fingers flying, she stuck maraschino cherry halves atop a tray of unbaked cookies. He looked at the half-eaten one in his hand.
Now that he thought of it, it did resemble a breast with a nipple. It really did.
'It's a measure of devotion, not blasphemy,' Mama Rosa explained as she worked. 'Saint Agatha is the patron saint of Palermo and Catania. You see, the prefect of Catania wanted to sleep with her, but she refused. For revenge, he tortured her by cutting off her minnas—her nipples. So we Sicilians honor her chastity by naming the cookies after her. Capite?'
'Er .. . yes,' Sonny agreed quickly. 'Perfectly.'
In truth, he didn't understand; the reasoning behind it was entirely beyond him.
But it wouldn't do to disagree. He wasn't about to get on Mama Rosa's bad side—he needed her help in contacting the Sicilian.
Sonny's distant cousin, the lung tao in Hong Kong, had stressed urgency. And Sonny wasn't about to let him down. Especially since he was Sonny's nonstop ticket to the top.
The old man practically owns half of Chinatown, he reminded himself. If I succeed with this, I've got it made.
'About this Jimmy Vilinsky,' he said.
Mama Rosa rolled her eyes. 'I already told you,' she said wearily. 'I don't know any Jimmy Whatever.'
Sonny masked his growing sense of frustration. 'Look, all I'm asking is that you pass a message along to Carmine. That's all. Will you do that?'
'Oh, all right,' she grumbled. 'What do you want me to tell him?' Sonny came up with a business card. 'Give him this. Tell him I'm the new contact. That I've replaced Jimmy Vilinsky.'
'I'll try to remember.'
Shit! Sonny Fong thought. The way she's acting, you'd think I asked her to memorize the Gettysburg Address. 'He can reach me at this number.' Mama Rosa shook her head. 'He's not going to call you.'
'Why not?'
'Carmine never talks to nobody.' 'So what do I do?
'Come back tomorrow night . . . say at eleven? Maybe by then I'll have a message for you. Then again, maybe I won't.' She shrugged disinterestedly. 'With Carmine you never can tell. Sometimes he calls his mama, and sometimes he forgets. But right now I've got to finish cooking. This place is going to fill up soon.'
She made shooing motions with her hands.
'Now avanti. Avanti! Go!'
And with that, he was summarily dismissed.
Glad to get out of that stifling kitchen, he waved at the other women, who threw him kisses, struck lewd poses, and laughed uproariously.
Goddamn dagos! he thought, striding through the warren of cool dining rooms. Well, at least he'd made contact. That was the first step.
Sonny was home at six-thirty. He berthed his wheels in the underground garage of the East Seventy-fourth Street high-rise and took the elevator up to the thirty-sixth floor.
First things first. He headed straight to the desk in front of the panoramic living room window and sat down at his Packard Bell 1.2 gigabyte Pentium computer. An aquarium of electronically generated tropical fish swam lazily across his monitor.
Getting busy, he tapped out a message and converted it into code. Decoded, it would read:
Greetings, most honorable fifth cousin twice removed. I am to contact our business partner 11:00 P.M. my time tomorrow night. Please advise me regarding the severance package for our middleman. If I may humbly suggest, I would be honored to take care of it capably at this end. That would result in an immense savings to the company. However, I shall do nothing without your consent. May the gods of fortune attend you. Your dutiful fifth cousin twice removed.
Sonny accessed the Internet, then routed and rerouted the message through such a complicated maze of educational institutions, government agencies, and various corporations, that it made it all but impossible to trace it back to him.
Once he sent it to Hong Kong via its convoluted detour, he erased the message from both his floppy and hard disks.
Then he waited.
Thirteen times zones away, the coded message arrived at its destination, a terraced, 1920s Italianate villa built on the hillside near the top of Victoria Peak. As one of the fewer than sixty freestanding houses in all of Hong Kong, and located on the only street zoned exclusively for one-family estates, the residence was a testament to the owner's incalculable wealth and power.
The E-mail, in indecipherable code, was received by a young Chinese computer operator. He printed one copy, deleted the message from the computer, and brought the printout to the lung tao's secretary in the paneled office next door.
Spring Blossom Wu had worked for Kuo Fong for more than three decades. A slim woman of fifty-five, she still retained the delicacy of her once youthful beauty, and looked to be in her mid-forties.
Her oval face was smooth and unlined, and her skin was the color of rose ivory. She had on well-applied makeup, and her black hair was pinned up. She was wearing a yellow silk chong sam with a mandarin collar and black high heels.
Swiftly decoding the message by hand, she fed the coded copy into the shredder, picked up her steno pad and pen, and went out onto the wide terrace.
As always, she stood there a moment, deriving pleasure from the surroundings.
The acre of beautifully planted garden was fragrant with jasmine and gardenias, white ginger, and year-round roses. The grass around the lap pool was billiard-table perfect. And the unrivaled view encompassed forested mountains, the high-rises of Aberdeen, and the island-dotted South China Sea.
There was the lung tao. Standing on the lawn at the far end of the aqua pool. A thin and commanding figure dressed in an exquisite, gold- embroidered ceremonial robe fit for an emperor.
He was indulging his great-grandchildren. There were eight of them, the youngest of whom was attempting to launch a kite, and the children's laughter and singsong voices embroidered the air.
Moving gracefully, Spring Blossom Wu descended the three flights of stone steps and made her way to the far end of the pool.
She bowed respectfully. 'A thousand pardons, most venerated Kuo,' she apologized, speaking Chiuchow.
Like the lung tao, she too had come from Swatow many decades earlier, and had proudly retained the culture, customs, and language of her native province.
Kuo Fong looked at her. 'Yes, Spring Blossom?' 'A message has come for you from New York.' A look of regret crossed the ancient man's face. Glancing at his great-grandchildren, he sighed and then clapped his hands sharply. 'That is enough for now,' he said.
The children's amah got up from the bench in the gazebo and waddled forward. Taking the two youngest by the hands, she led the way to the house, the older six following in their wake.
Spring Blossom Wu waited, her eyes modestly downcast. Once the amah and his great-grandchildren were out of earshot, Kuo Fong said: 'I would be honored if you read the message to me.'
When S
pring Blossom was through, he nodded sagely and walked, deep in thought, along the plantings at the edge of the property.
Spring Blossom followed him at a discreet distance. Finally he turned to her and dictated a reply, which she jotted down.
'Encode it, destroy your copy, and send the coded message to New York through the usual channels,' he told her. 'At once, honorable Kuo.'
In New York, Sonny Fong received his reply within half an hour of sending his message. Quickly he decoded it:
Greetings, Sonny Fong, fifth cousin twice removed. Remember the Confucian analect: To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short. Be filial and respect your elders. You did well to consult me. Contact our business partner but be wise! Let him take care of his specialty. You are to do nothing in this matter. There are other plans for you. Visit our immigration facilitator in Chinatown tomorrow. He has information for you. Remember, cousin, be as the tortoise which would rather be alive and wagging its tail in the mud than have its remains venerated. Observe caution and obey.
Sonny's face clouded in disappointment. He wasn't in the least bit surprised. He had expected his suggestion about Jimmy Vilinsky to be overruled. Still, he couldn't help but feel let down.
More than anything, he felt consumed by the need to prove himself to Kuo Fong. Unfortunately, that would have to wait a little longer. Perhaps his visit to the smuggler of illegal aliens would provide the opportunity. He hoped so.
But that was tomorrow.
In the meantime, Sonny deleted the message and exited the program, leaving the monitor to the electronic fish while he went out to get himself something to eat.
16
Christos handed Gloria inside the telephone-summoned taxi and firmly shut the door from the outside. For once, nothing could put a damper on her spirits, not even the torn vinyl upholstery and cheap, overpowering air freshener. Quickly ducking down, she clutched the back of the driver's seat with one hand and felt thrilled to the tips of her toes when Christos touched his fingertips to his lips.
As if on its own accord, her own hand rose to her lips to mirror his.
'Where to, lady?' the cabby asked.
'Broadway and Baker.' Despite the dirty glass barrier, Gloria's eyes never left Christos. As the taxi lurched off and accelerated, she swiftly turned around and stared out the spotted rear window at his receding figure, her fingertips still poised against her lips.
Only once the cab careened around the corner and he disappeared from sight did she finally face frontward and let her hand drop, ever so reluctantly, into her lap.
Settling back in her seat, she heaved a deep, contented sigh of pleasure. She was in seventh heaven, bleary with postcoital bliss.
And ah, what bliss!
The three hours—three entire hours; good Lord, could it possibly have been that long?—they'd spent in that seedy room-by-the-hour had flown by and disappeared—poof!—just like that, as though envious gods had snapped their fingers.
Now, oblivious of the cab's defective shock absorbers, she permitted herself the luxury of reliving the events that had transpired.
She'd barely been aware of the whore's dormitory to which Christos had taken her.
Nor had she noticed the garish denizens and furtive customers or, for that matter, the scabrous, peeling walls and squalor of that fleabag hotel.
Even the cigarette-scorched furnishings and sagging bed with its pilly sheets had escaped her notice.
Sex, not decor, had been foremost on her mind.
Christos had washed out the single bathroom tumbler, which they shared, drinking the Absolut they'd picked up along the way.
Hormones took care of the rest.
Before she knew what was happening, they were bouncing energetically on the narrow twin mattress, the rusty springs squeaking and groaning.
Christos, in bed, proved himself an admirably inventive lover. He had reawakened feelings in her that she had almost forgotten could exist. And had done things to her that she had never dared try—let alone imagined herself doing.
But do them she did.
Never, never had her carnal appetite been so ferocious. So it wasn't love. Who cared, when lust felt this good?
Gloria couldn't believe her ravenousness. After having done without for so long, she was like a child let loose in a candy store. Suddenly she couldn't get enough.
At least, not as far as Christos was concerned.
For starters, there was his body. Tight, sinewy, and hairless, with sculpted abs, steely thighs, and the cutest, firmest little buns this side of the Rockies. He didn't carry a spare ounce of fat, and the way the muscles rippled beneath his skin made watching his every movement a study in anatomy.
But most impressive of all was his equipment. He was a walking tool box—with balls like succulent ripe fruits and a penis to die for. Larger, thicker, harder, and more superb than anything Gloria had ever dreamed of, its veins standing out in chiseled, bold relief.
She had been right. Christos Zzzyonopoulos was sex personified.
He was also unburdened by societal hang-ups.
'Hey—if it feels good, do it,' he murmured, and his mouth came down on hers in a frenzy of crushing possession while his middle finger authoritatively reached between her slender thighs and slid up her already engorged clitoris.
She nearly went out of her mind. Through instinct or experience, he instantly, unerringly found the precise location from which all her heat and desires stemmed, and fingered the lubricated warm flesh accordingly.
She shuddered with the excruciating need to yield completely.
'Oh . . . my God . . . Christos!' she cried, clenching her pelvic muscles and tightening her arms around him. 'I want you inside me. . . .'
'Don't be in such a damned rush,' he whispered, nibbling gently on her earlobe. 'I want to enjoy you . . . all of you. And I want you to enjoy me . . . all of me . . . .'
And thus began that afternoon of revelations, the embarkment on her voyage to sexual rediscovery.
Layer by layer, as though shedding her of cumbersome, unnecessary clothes, he stripped away her prudish inhibitions and soon had her eating out of his hand.
But first, he ate her.
His probing tongue was paralyzing. She lay there, a pliant vessel, legs splayed and eyes closed, luxuriating in the delectable sensations he aroused with each feathery flick and whorl of his tongue.
The thrumming and the sweetness and the world light-years away . . . no one else inhabited this garden of earthly delights; no one witnessed the two of them merging into a single entity whose sole aim it was to derive the most exquisite pleasures life could offer. This—this—was heaven as she'd never known it.
Nothing else mattered.
Nothing else existed.
She was aware only of gratification and ravenous impulses, and she knew with a certainty that from here on there was no turning back, that she had reached a crossroads and was forever and completely, irrevocably lost.
Forgotten now was her thirst for vodka. It had been replaced by a craving infinitely more unquenchable—the need to explore and familiarize herself with every contour, every nook, every curvature and last square inch of his sublime male body.
Like an acrobat, he balanced himself on one arm and executed a 180- degree turn in midair. Then, bending his body in a great lengthwise arc over her, he supported himself on his elbows and toes.
She could feel the warm puffs of his breath grazing her groin, could see his raised pelvis poised high above her face, her entire field of vision filled with that rose quartz hardness that protruded so assertively, so tauntingly, from the dark curly thicket of his hair.
And suddenly she realized what it was he wanted of her.
'No, please . . . ' Her voice was faint. She pulled a face and shook her head.
Anything but this, she projected, just not this. I cannot do it. I will not. I don't want to.
'Please, I . . . I've never tried . . . '
He laughed softly. 'Then how do you know
you won't like it?' he said. 'Bet you ten to one you will.'
Her eyes were wide, as though she were hypnotized by the monster phallus. She could see it strain and twitch, jerking and leaping in anticipation.
'Just go with the flow,' he advised gently. 'Let it come naturally.'
Gloria drew a deep breath. The idea of going down on a man had always repelled her. She had never been able to understand women who enjoyed performing such debasing, abominable acts. And now here she was. Not only considering it, but becoming fascinated with it. Why this should be she couldn't have begun to explain, but a part of her—a stronger, baser, more primitive personality emerging from some dark recess of her being—actually wanted to do it!
For a fraction of a second he was statue still, seemingly suspended in the air above her. Then he thrust ever so slowly downward—and her lips parted, as though of their own volition.
Gone suddenly were her qualms. No longer was her sexuality pliant and yielding. Now it was overpowering and voracious, as if it had a force of its own—a force even she could not control.
Her lips opened, as though in protestation, but widened in welcome.
Smoothly he slid into her moist oral cavity.
She needed no prompting. Her mouth immediately locked itself around the pulsating thickness, as if it were something alive, something she felt the need to nurture and give succor to.
Her sudden ravenousness enslaved her. Caused the wetness to flood from her loins as he gently thrust himself further down her throat.
For one long, terrible moment, she was afraid she was going to gag. Then it passed, and a great dizzying whirlpool of abandon caught hold of her and swept her away.
Flesh, flesh, flesh! Inside her mouth, where he belonged to no one but her. Where she possessed the very essence of man in its entirety and there was no one, no one under the sun, to steal it away!
Then, like a bee in search of nectar, she felt his head once again dip between her splayed thighs and seek out the very epicenter of her feminine being.
Together now, they feasted—he on the moist pink succulence of her petaled blossom, she on the hard sword of his flesh, nuzzling his testicles and inhaling his delicious maleness and wondering how she could ever have shied away from something so utterly, so depravedly, so sinfully delicious.
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