“Sharyn ends up dropping out before she gets her degree because Teddy keeps harassing her. She moves up north, starts at another school. But Teddy finds her again. Like I said, we dig up other victims, but no one wants to come forward. They’re scared of him. And then Teddy turns up the harassing by proxy.”
She stops and looks at me. I figure she is waiting for my prompt, so I repeat: “Harassing by proxy?”
“You know what that is?”
I do, but I shake my head no.
“In his case, Teddy sets up profiles on Tinder and Whiplr and rougher sex apps, ones that deal with BDSM and whatever, as Sharyn. He posts her photos. He carries on conversations as Sharyn, sets up hookup rendezvous. Strange men start showing up at Sharyn’s apartment at all hours expecting sex or role play or whatever. Some get mad when she turns them away. Call her a cocktease and worse. Teddy works it hard. And then…”
Sadie stops. I wait.
“Then Teddy begins a flirtation with one guy on an underground site. As Sharyn. It lasts for six weeks. Six weeks, Win. I mean, that’s devotion, right? ‘Sharyn’”—again with the finger quotes—“tells the guy all about her violent rape fantasies. ‘Sharyn’ tells the guy she wants to be attacked and handcuffed and gagged—Teddy even gives the guy the place to purchase this stuff—and then Teddy sets up a time for the guy to role-play raping her.”
I sit perfectly still.
“This guy, he thinks he’s talking to Sharyn. He’s been told for weeks to be violent, to hit Sharyn and punch her and tie her up, to use a knife. He’s even been given a safe word. ‘Purple.’ Don’t stop, he says as Sharyn, unless you hear me say ‘purple.’”
Sadie looks away and blinks. My hands tighten into fists of rage.
“Anyway, that’s how Sharyn ended up in the hospital. Her condition…it’s not good.”
Again: I already know all this. I wonder how to proceed because I still don’t understand the panic. So I make my voice tentative. “I assume Teddy still hid his identity?”
Sadie nods.
“Ergo the police couldn’t touch him,” I continue.
“That’s correct.”
“He got away with it?”
“So it seemed.”
“Seemed?”
“Teddy’s full name is Teddy Lyons. Do you know the name?”
I tap my chin with my index finger. “The name rings a bell.”
“He’s an assistant basketball coach for South State.”
“Really?” I say, trying not to oversell it.
“We just got word. Last night, after the big game, Teddy was attacked. They beat the hell out of him, did some serious damage.”
They. She said “they.” Conclusion: I am still in the clear.
“Broken bones,” she continues. “Internal bleeding. Some kind of serious liver damage. They say he’ll never be the same.”
I try very hard not to smile. I am not completely successful. “Ah, that’s a shame,” I say.
“Yeah, I can see you’re all broken up about it.”
“Should I be?”
“We had him, Win.” Her gaze through her glasses is an inferno. I see the passion that drew me to her and her cause in the first place. Sadie is a doer, not a talker. We are similar in that way.
“What do you mean, ‘had him’? You just said he was getting away with it.”
“After what happened to Sharyn, I reached out to Teddy’s other victims again. They finally agreed to come forward. Sharyn was ready to go public too. That would be traumatic, of course. Teddy had taken so much from them already.”
“Hmm.” I lean back and cross my legs. I hadn’t really considered the repercussions. I rarely do. But…no, no, at the end of the day, she’s wrong. I say, “Then it seems Teddy’s beating helped them.”
“No, Win, it didn’t. Once you change your mind…It’s cathartic in the end, fighting back, standing up to your abuser. But more than that, we had a big press conference lined up for when Sharyn got out of the hospital. Imagine it—four victims on the steps of the State Capitol, telling the world their stories. We had two state assemblymen ready to appear with us. It would have ruined Teddy’s reputation—but more important, those compelling stories would help us pass a bill—a bill this office”—Sadie taps her desk—“had drawn up. The two assemblymen were going to present it to the governor.”
I wait.
“And now,” Sadie says, “poof, that’s all gone.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Why what?”
“Why can’t you still tell the stories?”
“It won’t have the same impact.”
“Pish. Of course it will.”
“Someone attacked Teddy last night.”
“So?”
“So now he’s the victim of a vigilante.”
“You don’t know that,” I say. “It could be that he tried again, this time with the wrong woman.”
“And she beat him to a pulp?”
“Or her family did, I don’t know.” I snap my fingers. “Or it could have been an unrelated mugging.”
“Come on.”
“What?”
“It’s over, Win. The war is still to be fought, but this battle is lost. We needed public sympathy. But our monster is in a coma. Someone on Twitter will claim the victims beat him. Teddy’s mother will say that these scorned women lied about her baby boy—that they made him a target. It isn’t just about facts, Win. We need to win the narrative.”
I think about it. Then I say, “I’m sorry,” with perhaps too little enthusiasm.
Just to clarify: I’m not sorry about what I did to Teddy. I’m sorry I didn’t wait until after the press conference. Sadie has to be an optimist. I sadly am not. The law would never have caught up to Teddy. He would have been embarrassed, perhaps lost his job, but he also would have fought back in terrible ways. He would have trashed Sharyn and the other women. He would have claimed to be the victim of their harassment, not the other way around, and too many people would have believed him. That was what Sadie was fighting against here.
I believe in Sadie Fisher. She may eventually prevail. But not today.
It is eight thirty p.m. I have my own appointment in half an hour, but it is easy enough to cancel. “We could all go out for a drink,” I say to her.
“Are you serious?”
“We can commiserate.”
Sadie shakes her head. “I know you’re trying to be kind, Win.”
“But?”
“But you’re clueless.”
“Colleagues don’t get out for drinks?”
“Not tonight, Win. Tonight I have to go to the hospital and tell Sharyn what happened.”
“Perhaps she’ll be relieved,” I say. “Teddy can’t hurt her anymore. That should offer her some comfort, no?”
Sadie opens her mouth, thinks about it, closes it. I can see she’s disappointed in me. She pats my shoulder as she walks out the door.
I check my app. My rich-people dating program is so far down the Dark Web that there is no way anyone could set up a Teddy-like fake profile. Even if they could, they’d never get past the other security. The message reads:
Username Amanda is waiting for you.
So my partner for the evening has arrived at the suite already.
No need to keep her waiting.
CHAPTER 5
The app offers several secret entrances.
Tonight, we will use the one at Saks Fifth Avenue department store. The venerable Saks, located between Forty-Ninth and Fiftieth Street on Fifth Avenue, has a high-end jewelry department called the Vault. It’s located in the basement. Behind that, you’ll find a door that used to lead to a dressing room. It is locked, but we with the app can open it with a key fob. You enter through the door and take the steps down a level to an underground passage. The passage leads to an elevator under a high-rise on Forty-Ninth Street near Madison Avenue. The elevator only stops on the eighth floor. At this point it takes an eye scan. If your eye doesn’t p
ass the scan, the elevator doors do not open into the private suite.
It’s good to be rich.
To be approved for this app you must have a net worth of over $100 million. The monthly costs are exorbitant, especially for someone like me who uses this service frequently. The app’s service is simple: Match rich people with other rich people for sex. No strings attached. It is high end. It is boutique. But mostly, it is sex.
The app has no name. Most of the clients are married and crave the ultimate in confidentiality. Some are public figures. Some are gay or otherwise LGBTQ+ and fear exposure. Some, like me, are simply wealthy and seek sex with no attachments or repercussions. For years, I picked up women at bars or nightclubs or galas. I still do on occasion, but when you get past the age of thirty-five, this behavior feels somewhat desperate. In my somewhat dubious past, I hired prostitutes. There was a time when, every Tuesday, I would order both dim sum and a woman from a place on the Lower East Side called Noble House—my own version of Chinese Night. I believed at the time that prostitution was the oldest and a (per the House) Noble profession. It is not. When I worked a case overseas, I learned about human trafficking and the like. Once I did, I stopped.
Like with the martial arts, we learn, we evolve, we improve.
With that option gone, I tried working the once-fashionable “friends with benefits” angle, but the problem is, friends by definition come with strings. Friends come with attachments. I don’t want that.
Now for the most part I use this app.
Username Amanda sits on the bed wearing nothing but the provided satin-trim Turkish terry-cloth robe. Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame, a rosé champagne, is poured. There are chocolate-dipped strawberries in a silver bowl. A first-rate sound system can play whatever musical stylings suit your taste. I usually leave that to the woman, but I’d prefer no soundtrack.
I like to listen to her.
Username Amanda rises, smiles, and saunters toward me with a flute of champagne. Myron always says that a woman looks sexiest in a terry-cloth robe with wet hair. I used to pooh-pooh said sentiment in favor of a specific black corset and matching garter belt, but now I think Myron may be onto something.
We learn, we evolve, we improve.
The sex tonight is great. It usually is. And when it’s not, it is still sex. There is an old joke about a man wearing a toupee—it may be a good toupee, it may be a bad toupee, but it is still a toupee. The same with sex. I’ve heard often that sex with a stranger is awkward. I’ve rarely found this to be the case. Part of this might be my expertise—the techniques I traveled the world to learn involve more than fighting—but the secret is simple: Be present. I make every woman feel as though she is the only one in the world. It is not an act. A woman will sense if you lack authenticity. While we are together, this woman and I, it is just us two. The world is gone. My focus is total.
I love sex. I have lots of it.
Myron waxes philosophical on how sex must be more than what it is—that love or romantic entanglement enhances the physical experience. I listen and wonder whether he is trying to convince me or himself. I don’t like love or romantic entanglements. I like sharing certain physical acts with another consensual adult. The other stuff doesn’t “enhance” sex for me. It sullies it. The act itself is pure. Why muddy that with the extraneous? Sex may be the greatest shared experience in the world. Yes, I enjoy going out for a gourmet meal or a good show or the company of dear friends. I appreciate golf and music and art.
But do any of those compare to an evening of sex?
Methinks not.
This is one reason I liked prostitution. It was a straight transaction—I got something, she got something. No one owed anybody anything at the end of it. I still crave that, to leave the room knowing that my partner got out of it as much as I did. Perhaps that’s why I am good at it. The more she enjoys it, the less I feel in her debt. I also have a tremendous ego. I don’t do things that I’m not good at. I’m a very good golfer, a very good financial consultant, a very good fighter, and a very good lover. If I do something, I want to be the best.
When we finish—ladies first—we both lie back on the cream-colored Mulberry silk sheets and down pillows. We take deep breaths. I close my eyes for a moment. She pours more of the sparkling rosé and hands me a flute. I let her feed me a chocolate strawberry.
“We’ve met before,” she says to me.
“I know.”
This isn’t uncommon. Her real name is Bitsy Cabot. The superrich travel in rarefied albeit similar circles. It would be strange if I didn’t know most of the women. Bitsy is probably a few years older than I am. I know she splits her time between New York City, the Hamptons, and Palm Beach. I know that she is married to a rich hedge fund manager, but I can’t remember his first name. I don’t know why she’s doing this. I also don’t care.
“At the Radcliffes’,” I say.
“Yes. Their gala last summer was wonderful.”
“It’s for a good cause.”
“It is, yes.”
“Cordelia throws a good party,” I say.
You probably think that I can’t wait to get dressed and leave—that I don’t ever spend the night so as to avoid any attachment issues. But you’d be wrong. If she wants me to stay, I stay. If she doesn’t, I leave. Sometimes she is the one to leave. It doesn’t really matter to me. I sleep the same whether she is here or not. This bed is quite comfortable. That’s all that really matters.
She isn’t going to reach me by staying. She isn’t going to repel me either.
One major point in favor of the overnight: If we do stay, I often get a spectacular morning encore without the hassle of finding another partner. That’s a nice bonus.
“Do you go to the gala every year?” she asks.
“When I’m in the Hamptons,” I say. “Are you on any of the committees?”
“The food one, yes.”
“Who does the catering?” I ask.
“Rashida. Do you know her?”
I shake my head.
“She’s divine. I can message you her contact.”
“Thank you.”
Bitsy leans over and kisses me. I smile and hold her gaze.
She slips out of bed. I watch her every move. She likes that.
“I really enjoyed tonight,” she says.
“As did I.”
Another thing that may surprise you: I don’t have a problem with repeat engagements because in truth there are only so many fish in this particular sea. I am honest about my intentions. If I feel that they want more from me, I end it. Does this always work as cleanly as I’m making it sound? No, of course not. But this is as clean as it gets and maintains what I require.
For a few more moments I don’t move. I bathe in this afterglow. It’s two a.m. As much as I’ve enjoyed tonight, as much as I am certain I would relish an encore or two with her, I try to imagine spending the rest of my life only making love to Bitsy Cabot. To any one person, really. I shiver at the thought. I’m sorry—I don’t get it. Myron is married now to a stunning, vibrant woman named Terese. They are in love. If it works out as Myron hopes, he will never know the flesh of another.
I don’t get it.
Bitsy heads to the bathroom. When she comes out, she is dressed. I am still in the bed, my head propped in my hands.
“I better head back,” she says, as though I know where back is. I sit up as she says, “Goodbye, Win.”
“Goodbye, Bitsy.”
And then, like all good things, it’s over.
* * *
The next morning, I have a car service take me to the airport to visit my old FBI boss, PT.
I used to love to drive. I am a big fan of Jaguars and still keep two at Lockwood—a 2014 XKR-S GT that I use when I’m out there and a 1954 XK120 Alloy Roadster, which my father gave me for my thirtieth birthday. But when you reside in Manhattan, driving is out of the question. The borough is basically a parking lot that sways forward. One of the great things that money
can buy is time. I don’t fly private or have a driver because I crave more comfort in my life. I spend the money on those items because at the end of your life, you will crave more of what the annoying experts coin “quality time.” That’s what private jets and chauffeur-driven cars allow you to do. I have the ability to buy time—and that, when you think about it, is the closest thing to buying happiness and longevity.
The driver today is a Polish woman from the city of Wrocław named Magda. We talk for the first few minutes of the journey. Magda is reluctant at first to engage—exclusive drivers are often schooled on not bothering the upscale clientele—but I find every human being is a tale if you ask the right questions. So I probe a bit. I can see her eyes in the rearview mirror. They are a deep blue. Blonde hair peeks out of her chauffeur cap. I wonder about what the rest of her looks like, because I’m a man, and at heart, all men are pigs. It doesn’t mean I would do anything about it.
Today’s vehicle is a Mercedes-Maybach S650. The Maybach brand gives you a wheelbase stretch of eight inches, so that your chair can tilt back forty-three degrees. The plush seat has a power footrest, a hot-stone massage setting, and heated armrests. There is also a folding tray/desk so as to get work done, a small refrigerator, and cupholders that can cool or heat, depending on your preference.
Come to think of it, perhaps I do crave the comfort.
Teterboro is the closest airport from Manhattan for private aircraft. I flew into Teterboro with Swagg Daddy after our night of quasi debauchery in Indianapolis. When we reach the well-guarded gate on the south end, Magda is waved through straight to the tarmac. We pull up next to a Gulfstream G700, a plane that hasn’t really hit the market yet. I’m surprised. The G700 is expensive—close to $80 million—and government officials, even top-echelon, clandestine ones like PT, are not usually that extravagant. Middle Eastern sheiks use the G700, not FBI agents.
I have no idea where we are going or when we will be back. I assume that I am to be flown to Washington or Quantico for my meeting with PT, but I really do not know for certain. Magda has been instructed to wait for me. She gets out of the car and comes around to open my door. I would insist on doing it myself, but that might be patronizing. I thank her, climb the plane steps, and step inside.
WIN Page 5