Gods of Manhattan by Al Ewing

Author:Al Ewing [Ewing, Al]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781906735869
Google: vbvXAAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1906735867
Goodreads: 7442054
Publisher: Abaddon
Published: 2010-09-20T12:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The Case of The Red Mask

Marlene Lang lay on the couch in her apartment, sipping a Brandy Alexander in her nightgown and waiting for the phone to ring.

She had no doubt it would. Rarely did an evening go by without a gentleman caller, and she'd built up quite a stable of admirers.

It might be David, begging her to come around for another shoot, proclaiming in his broken tones that she was the only model who could possibly do, telling her that he understood that he'd been in the wrong. In which case she would smile sweetly, tell him that she was dreadfully busy this evening, and then go and take a long, luxurious bath. David had to learn not to sulk.

It might be Jack - lovely Jack, her one-eyed sailor, her grizzled soldier, back from Uzbekistan or Antarctica or London, catching a night between one delightfully top secret mission and another to ravish her expertly on the balcony, treat her to oysters and champagne in bed and then fly off on a cavorite wing-pack like something out of a radio serial. Jack called rarely, but his brief visits always left her drifting in a pink haze for weeks.

It might be Easton, cool, calm and collected Easton, asking her out to a sushi bar in Japantown to drink cheap sake and help him forget some tragedy. She loved the way he looked at her; that mixture of need, sorrow and contempt, like she was an addiction he couldn't shake, a poison he didn't want a cure for. It was all so wonderfully noir.

It might be Timothy - gentle Timothy, living in his moldy, fetid bedsit in the Village, occasionally slipping out to O'Malley's bar, terrified of the police. Sleeping with him was like charity, like slumming with an underclass of one, and yet there was something in him, a fire that sparked and possessed him; all the fire and spine and strength that David lacked. Dear Timothy Larson, her most secret lover.

It might be Parker, of course. Parker wasn't quite as exciting as Jack or Easton or even David - who had the most wonderfully wicked imagination if not the spine to match - but he had a cruel streak and hidden depths underneath the frosty surface. She enjoyed their verbal jousting, the sexual tension, and most of all his air of cold amusement, as if there was something he knew that she didn't, a secret all his own beyond the ones they shared. Also, she had to admit - and the thought made her instinctively flex her bottom - it had been rather an awfully long time since she had been properly spanked.

New York had the most interesting men of any city in the world, and she was building up rather a varied set.

And of course, there was the other one.

The most interesting of them all.

As if in answer to her thoughts, the phone rang. She smiled as she picked up the earpiece, a thrilling premonition dancing its way down her spine.

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