As for Gilbert Murrow, she'd made no attempt to change his de rigueur business attire of bow ties, vests, and cardigan sweaters. "I fell for the geek in you and wouldn't change a thing," she'd told him. "At least, not at work." She did, however, have "suggestions" on how she wanted him to dress when they went out as a couple-a lot of Land's End khakis and polo shirts for casual, and knockoff Armani suits that she got from some mysterious connection in the Garment District. He only hoped it wasn't a couple of wiseguys knocking off trucks.
Murrow rarely complained about her treating him like her own life-size Ken doll. Ariadne always made it seem as if he'd made the selections, and she believed in rewards for good behavior. Nor had she ever insulted him by suggesting that he wear lifts or even a bigger heel. "In fact, I like the idea that every time you face me your mouth is so close to these babies," she said, waving the babies in his face.
Yet, their relationship wasn't all about sex. For all of her tough-girl bluster and locker-room talk, Ariadne was well read and could intelligently discuss a wide variety of philosophers and writers from Plato to Dan Brown. She'd traveled the world as a working journalist and had interviewed many of the most famous people of her day, as well as covered the usual assortment of wars, scandals, and disasters. Although mostly a reader of nonfiction, she confessed to the "occasional romance novel." She told him they made her hot and so he had not teased her when he came to bed one night and found her reading a paperback titled Heathen Sins with a picture of a bare-chested Indian warrior who looked amazingly like Fabio with dark hair, holding a helpless, buxom white woman. A half hour later, she turned out the lights and rolled over on top of him. "Come here, my noble savage. I need to be ravished with lots of heavy panting and a few threats if I don't comply with your wishes fast enough."
She loved to talk about serious matters, too, and loved that he was a good listener. But she knew when to be quiet and let him hold forth on the topics that mattered to him. He'd a real affection for political strategies and running Butch's race, and she encouraged him to try out his ideas and some of Butch's speeches on her. "No one has a better bullshit detector than Big Mama," she told him. "If they sound good to me, the public will eat 'em up."
No one had ever listened to him as she did, not even Karp, whom he worshipped. Once when he'd been belaboring the value of public-opinion polling, he looked over at the couch where Ariadne was lying down and saw that her eyes were closed. He stopped talking, hurt that she'd been so bored that she fell asleep. But then she opened her eyes and asked him why he quit.
"I thought I'd put you to sleep," he said, pouting.
"I wasn't sleeping, baby," she said. "I was just concentrating on what you were saying. I love listening to you talk, Gilbert. I love the way your mind works."
That might have been the day, even the moment, when he realized he was in love with this big brash woman. It terrified him. He knew she was much more worldly than he was and, until he'd finally objected, due to the seeming endlessness of the list, she'd had no compunctions about discussing former lovers. It was usually in some fun anecdotal sense, but still it made him wonder if he was just the next former lover. The thought broke his heart, and he sometimes cried when alone in the shower, thinking about how dull life would be if she ever left him. But they'd been lovers for four months and she showed no signs of wanting to split, so he did his best to go with the flow.
When they got to the lobby of the hotel, Murrow wanted to go straight to the Trillium, a five-star restaurant that he'd been salivating about since they got on the road. But she'd insisted that they start with a drink in Mr. Brown's Pub. Once inside, she chose a booth in the darkest corner. He figured it was to try out another one of her kinky ideas when she almost immediately began toying with the zipper of his Dockers.
Then the hand that had been temporarily at ease started inching its way up his leg again. "Don't you ever stop thinking about sex?" he asked, though for the moment he let her hand wander.
"Not when I'm near you," she replied and gave him a squeeze.
Murrow yelped, which at least served the purpose of getting the waitress's attention. She hurried over to the table. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you two," said the girl, obviously a local kid home from college for Christmas break and trying to make a little money. "What can I get you?"
"The lady and I will each try one of your Last of the Mohicans Mar-TEEN-ies," Murrow said, squeaking out the last word when Ariadne gave him another squeeze.
"Shaken not stirred," Ariadne added innocently. "Just like Bond…James Bond."
The waitress gave them an amused look and left for the bar to put in their order. Stupenagel turned to watch her go but suddenly tensed and turned back around to face Murrow. "Look who just walked in," she said in a low voice. "But don't be obvious."
Murrow stole a peek around her head. "Hey, Hugh Louis! I didn't think he wandered this far from the 'hood."
"Do you think he'd recognize you?"
"Nah. I've seen him at a couple of functions that Butch has attended. But I was in the background both times and never even got introduced. Will he recognize you?"
"Maybe," she said. "I interviewed him about fifteen years ago when he was representing that girl who claimed she'd been abducted by white supremacists. I was the one who broke the story that it was all a big hoax. He wasn't real happy with me, so he might have my face memorized. What's he doing?"
"He's bellying up to the bar. Now he's ordering…a beer. He's drinking the beer and…uh-oh…"
Stupenagel started to look but he whispered urgently, "Don't turn around. Olav Radinskaya and Shakira Zulu just walked in."
Forty feet away, Zulu looked around the dark bar and sniffed. Honkytown, she thought, only people of color in this hotel are the bellboys and the waitstaff. She didn't like being this far from her constituency, nor did she like the amused looks she got from the local crackers for her Angela Davis afro. Maybe I'll just come up here during the revolution and burn this bastion of whiteness to the ground. Burn, baby, burn.
Unfortunately, revolutions cost money, so sometimes she had to make compromises with her ideals-such as the stock portfolio and real estate investments that she mothered like the children she'd never had. Zulu meant to continue amassing her personal fortune, even if it meant dealing with white devils like Olav Radinskaya, a repulsive man with an egg-shaped head and thinning blond hair. He favored blousy silk shirts from which tufts of wiry, gray chest hair poked out, and thick gold chains. He apparently didn't believe in bathing and reeked of acrid nervous sweat and onions. Radinskaya looked dumb as a stick, but she knew he was clever and ruthless, a middleman for the Russian mob but with his fingers in his own dirty pies as well.
Radinskaya noticed Zulu looking at him and smiled. Ugh, he thought. He didn't like women in the first place. But this is a particularly ugly one, dark as a piece of coal, almost makes that pig, Louis, look white. Ugh, hardly more than animals, these niggers, but necessary that I deal with them as if friends for now.
He lifted his Stoli on the rocks and clinked glasses with Louis. "To our new venture," he said. Although neither man could stand the other, and both detested Zulu, who hated them in return, they'd all managed at various times in the past to forget their personal distaste and cooperate for their mutual benefit. A favor done here. A string pulled there. They were all richer for it. "I'll drink to that," Zulu chuckled as she sipped her black (naturally) Russian.