Pleasure Seekers (2 page)

T
hey’re not my type.

Taking furtive sips of her martini, she pondered Marcus’s statement.

The women who worked for her escort service weren’t
his
type, but her clients, staggeringly wealthy men from all races and nationalities who demanded long-legged, slim-hipped, large-breasted blondes and redheads. Months ago Marcus had suggested she hire social companions of color, but she’d resisted, not wanting to upset the status quo.

Now the contact hours were down, the company’s profits were also down and she knew she had to act quickly to counter the slide.

“What are you hatching in that beautiful head of yours?” Marcus whispered in her ear.

“I’ve been thinking about your suggestion.”

“Which one?”

“I’ve decided to take your advice and diversify.”

“What brought on this epiphany?”

Enid smiled mysteriously and told him about the conversation she’d overheard before he arrived.

Marcus traced the rim of his glass with a forefinger. “I know someone who would be perfect for Pleasure Seekers.”

“Who?”

“Ilene Fairchild.”

“The supermodel? Tall, thin, with waist-length hair extensions. To say she’s stunning is an understatement. Is she available for an interview?”

Marcus took his time answering, smoldering over Enid’s “sudden interest” in adding black women to her stable of pale-skinned beauties. After the third month in a decline of contact hours he’d suggested she include women of color, but she’d only agreed to think about it, and it had taken six months and a steady decrease in profits for her to
think
about it.

“Probably not for another week. She’s in Vegas shooting a music video.”

“Have her get in touch with me.” Enid’s voice was soft
and
firm.

“I’ll see what I can do.” He decided he would talk to Ilene and feel her out before having her contact Enid.

Ilene was only one of a number of beautiful women he’d met since becoming financial adviser to three hip-hop record-producer cousins, young men he’d grown up with in Westchester County.

The trio had made inroads into the music industry while he’d buried his head in accounting manuals. Their lives had taken different directions, but a chance encounter at a Mount Vernon block party had brought them together again.

Vincent, Derrick and Anthony Warren had amassed a small fortune, lived large, but had neglected to pay taxes on their earnings. They came to him with letters from the IRS with amounts owing over seven figures. He filed five years of back taxes for them while negotiating for lower interest rates and penalties.

The Warrens gave him A-list access to video shoots, studio rehearsals, concerts, backstage, launch and after-parties, all of which he politely declined.

He taught accounting and business courses at a New Rochelle community college, partnered in Pleasure Seekers and now managed the finances of three record producers. Enid was aware of the first two ventures, the latter, he kept secret for now. His entrée into the world of rap and hip-hop gave him the one advantage he needed to become Enid Richards’s equal partner—in and out of bed.

T
he waiter placed a small leather binder on the table in front of Faye. She glanced at the bill, and then reached for her handbag.

Alana picked up one of the business cards in the binder. “What’s this?” The pale blue vellum was high-quality paper. She noted the engraved initials P.S., INC. and a telephone number with a Manhattan area code before she turned it over.

“Is someone playing a game?”

Faye read the message on the reverse side. “It sounds interesting.”

“I’m going to ask the waiter who gave these to him.”

Faye waved her hand. “Forget it, Lana.” She dropped one card into her handbag. “It’s not the first time someone has passed me their business card anonymously.”

Alana’s waxed eyebrows lifted. “Really? I always dine out when I interview people for my magazine column, but I’ve never been the recipient of an anonymous introduction. What do you do with them?”

“I hold on to them for at least a month, then I have my
assistant call the number. It usually takes about a minute to discern whether it’s business or personal.”

“How many times has it been business?”

Faye slipped a credit card into the binder. “Only once. It didn’t start out that way. After I told my secret admirer that I was in advertising, he admitted to starting up a new company and needing someone to assist with a marketing campaign.”

Resting an elbow on the table, Alana cupped her chin in her hand. Her dark eyes sparkled. She always loved listening to Faye talk about the quirky people she met as an account executive.

“Was that an excuse to get you into bed?”

“I’ll never know. I got his account without sleeping with him.”

“Was he a brother?”

“No.”

“White?” Faye nodded. “Would you have slept with him?”

Faye rolled her eyes at her friend. “Hell, no. The day I resort to sleeping with a man to land an account is the day I change careers.”

“Then why did he give you his card?”

There were times when Faye found it hard to accept Alana’s naiveté. “He was curious, Lana. He’d never dated a black woman, and going out with me under the guise that it was business related made it all right in his book.”

“So, you never dated him?”

“No. Whenever we met it was strictly business.” She held the other card close to her nose. “A woman wrote this. The perfume smells familiar.”

“Oh, shit! Don’t tell me we’re being hit on by a woman,” Alana whispered, frowning.

“Not necessarily.” Faye stared directly at Alana. “I’m going to call Mr. or Miss E and find out what they’re selling.”

“I’m not feeling the name P.S., Inc. It sounds a little kinky to me.”

“It could be a new magazine.”

Snatching the card from Faye’s fingertips, Alana tore it into tiny pieces and dropped them onto her dessert plate like confetti. “Whatever.”

Faye signed the credit card receipt then glanced at her watch. They’d been at the Four Seasons for more than two hours. “I don’t know about you, girlfriend, but I overindulged on champagne tonight. I’m taking a cab home. I’ll drop you off on the way.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Alana protested. “Why should you ride crosstown with me when we’re already on the east side?” Her apartment overlooked Central Park and Faye’s the East River.

“I don’t mind.”

Alana shrugged a shoulder. “Okay. Suit yourself.” Gathering her handbag off the leather seat, she pushed to her feet and adjusted the hem of her dress. The black knit fabric hugged every curve of her full, shapely body. “I’ll take care of the taxi.”

Following suit, Faye slipped her arms into her jacket. Smiling, she drawled, “Whatever.”

Both women walked out of the restaurant as a pair of blue-gray eyes watched intently.

F
aye flagged down a taxi within minutes of walking out of the restaurant. “Go through the park at Sixty-fifth, then head north to Ninety-second Street,” she told the driver. The directions were barely out of her mouth when the cabbie took off with a burst of speed.

“Damn,” Alana whispered, holding on to the edge of the seat. “We’re not in
that
much of a hurry to get home.” It was apparent the driver heard her because he slowed down considerably.

When the taxi stopped across the street from Alana’s building she leaned over and kissed Faye’s cheek, while pushing a bill into her hand. “Thanks for dinner.”

Faye smiled at her. “Anytime.”

The driver got out and opened the door for Alana; he stared as she strutted across the street in a pair of pumps that added three inches to her statuesque figure. Her one hundred eighty-five pounds, evenly distributed over a five-foot-nine-inch frame competed with her face and thick raven-black hair for attention.

Faye had met Alana two years before during Fashion Week. The two women had bonded quickly. Alana had
covered the event as the American-based lifestyles editor for
British Vogue.

Alana had become her sister, confidante and, at times, her conscience. She was artistic, generous, honest, unpretentious, and there wasn’t anything Faye wouldn’t do for Alana Gardner.

“Where to, miss?” the cabbie asked Faye after Alana disappeared into her building.

“Ninety-fourth and First.” She braced herself as he accelerated recklessly into the flow of traffic, sped northward, then reversed direction and drove back to the east side in record time.

Faye paid the fare on the meter, along with a generous tip, smiling at her building’s doorman as he opened the rear car door for her. She exited the cab with an audible sigh of relief. She had survived another wild New York City taxi ride.

The doorman touched the shiny brim of his maroon hat. “Good evening, Miss Ogden.”

She nodded at the elderly black man who always had a friendly smile and warm greeting for the building’s tenants. “Good evening, Mr. Bennett.”

F
aye walked into the richly appointed lobby of the prewar high-rise apartment building and removed the day’s mail from her mailbox.

Everything would have been close to perfect if not for her brother’s incarceration. Craig Jr., or CJ as he was affectionately called, had been found guilty of raping a married woman who purportedly had slept with a number of men in their Queens neighborhood.

CJ’s conviction coincided with her divorce, so Faye had to grieve twice—for the loss of her brother’s freedom and a union she’d gone into believing it would last forever.

The incident had caused a rift in her family. Craig Sr. had insisted on retaining the legal services of a friend to defend his son; within days of the arraignment the defense attorney accepted a plea rather than go to trial.

Against the vehement wishes of Faye and her mother, Craig Sr. convinced his son to accept a sentence of five to eight years in prison in lieu of a possible fifteen to twenty if found guilty by a jury. Another downside of the plea was CJ had to serve five years before he was eligible for a parole hearing. He had just completed his second year.

Faye stopped talking to her father or visiting the house where she’d grown up in the Springfield Gardens, Queens, neighborhood. She only called her mother when she knew Craig Sr. wouldn’t be there.

The last time she’d shared dinner with Shirley Ogden, she informed her mother that she’d begun an exhaustive search for an attorney willing to appeal the case. What she did not tell her mother was that she’d found one, but his fees were exorbitant. She’d completed the application to secure a loan against the equity in her cooperative apartment, but it still wasn’t enough to cover his fee; her long-term goal to use her property as collateral once she set up her own advertising agency for black-owned businesses had become very, very long-term.

The doors opened and she stepped into the car, pushing the button for the fourteenth floor. The elevator rose quickly, silently, and soon the ride ended.

Faye made her way down the carpeted hallway to her apartment, unlocking the door and walking into a spacious entryway that opened out to a sunken living room with a panoramic view of the East River and Long Island City.

She’d accepted the one-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath co-op as a divorce settlement in lieu of alimony, and it had soon become her sanctuary—a place where she shut out the sounds of the city.

The overstuffed club chair with a matching footstool in an alcove off the living room was where she read, composed copy, watched television, listened to the radio and meditated.

At home she spent more time in the den than she did in bed, although there’d been a time when she’d spent entire weekends in the king-size bed with her oral surgeon ex-husband making love and being loved.

A wry smile twisted her mouth as she placed her keys and handbag on the small table next to the chair, her gaze lingering on a family photograph.

Kicking off her heels, Faye sat down, raised her feet onto the footstool, closed her eyes, covered her face with her hands and willed her mind blank. Her hands came down quickly as she opened her eyes. The scent from the anonymous card lingered on her fingertips.

A knowing smile softened her features. She was familiar with the fragrance because her firm had designed an aggressive holiday marketing campaign last year for the classic perfume.

She reached into her handbag for the card. The delicate loops in the letter E and the navy blue ink confirmed that a woman had written the message.

And there was only one way to decipher the cryptic message from Mr. or Ms. E.

This task she would not give to her assistant.

She would place the call herself.

Tomorrow.

Lowering her feet and pushing off the chair, Faye made her way into her bedroom and adjoining bath. She lit half a dozen lavender-scented candles on a table, turned on the water in the tub, removed a jar of bath salts off a built-in shelf and poured a generous amount under the running
water. The lavender fragrance filled the air as she stripped off her clothes, leaving them on a padded bench in the corner.

Faye then went through her nightly ritual of cleansing the makeup from her face and brushing her teeth before she settled into the lukewarm water for a leisurely soak.

When she climbed out of the bathtub forty-five minutes later, she was completely relaxed, her mind free of everything that had gone on in her life for that day. She blotted the moisture from her body with a thick velour towel, then walked into the bedroom and crawled into bed.

The cool air coming through the vents of the air conditioner whispered over her naked body, raising goose bumps on her flesh, but Faye didn’t notice it. She had fallen asleep.

L
eaning back in her chair in the sun-filled office, Faye stared out the window. The sounds coming ten stories above Third Avenue were still audible. She’d spent the past couple of hours revising copy for a family-style restaurant chain whose executives wanted an inviting hometown theme for their upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday sales pitch.

Swiveling, she faced her desk, her gaze lingering on the legal pad. She’d listed more than two dozen words, crossing out some and circling others. The ones that remained were:
small town, Main Street, winding roads,
family members that ranged from great-grandmother to an infant. The idea came to life in her head when she decided to include a young soldier in desert fatigues who surprises everyone when he walks into the restaurant to share Thanksgiving dinner with his extended family, while meeting his infant son for the first time. The camera would zoom in on his wife’s face as tears of joy fill her eyes. She hands him his son as the music swells.

Picking up a pencil, Faye scribbled: background music—jazz, R&B or gospel. Singer: soulful voice. She
was partial to “I’ll Be There,” off the Dave Koz CD
The Dance.
Massaging her forehead with her fingertips, she put the words together like puzzle pieces, adding and deleting sentences and phrases until they flowed like the lyrics of the sensual love song.

The soft buzzing of the intercom broke into her concentration. She pushed a button, activating the speaker feature. “Yes?”

“Do you want me to make any calls for you before I leave? I’m going out with the others to celebrate Monica’s engagement.”

“No, Gina. I’m good here.”

“Do you want your calls to go directly to voice mail?”

“No, I’ll take them. Have fun.”

“Thanks, Faye.”

She pressed the button again. Picking up the pale blue business card she’d tucked under the telephone, she dialed the number. The call was answered on the second ring.

“Good afternoon, P.S., Inc. This is Astrid. How may I direct your call?”

Faye lifted her eyebrows. The woman who’d answered the telephone had a beautifully modulated voice. “I’d like to speak with either Mr. or Miss E.”

“That would be Ms. Enid Richards.”

She was right about the perfume. “May I speak with Ms. Richards?”

“I’m sorry, but Ms. Richards is on an overseas call at the moment. Is it possible for her to call you back?”

“Yes,” Faye said, before she could change her mind.
Closing her eyes, she gave Astrid her name and cell-phone number.

“Thank you, Ms. Ogden. Ms. Richards will return your call.”

Faye hung up, leaned back in her chair and studied the items in the office that had become her second home. There were no diplomas on the walls or family photos on her desk and credenza. She had established the practice of keeping her private life just that—very, very private. No one at Bentley, Pope and Oliviera knew of her divorce until she updated her personnel file, and her brother’s dilemma was something she refused to discuss with anyone.

She’d decorated her office with bamboo shoots in colorful ceramic pots, framed prints of the firm’s award-winning marketing campaigns and a watercolor she’d purchased from a Harlem street vendor.

A headhunter, retained by the executives at BP&O had courted her for several months before agreeing to her salary demands, and her association with the prestigious advertising agency had been beneficial to her and to them. They won a Clio the year she signed with them, and they’d picked up another three since that time.

Faye knew why she’d been given a corner office, a higher commission than her counterparts and her choice of accounts. She was responsible for all marketing programs targeted at the African-American consumer. She’d become so proficient at what she did that she now wanted to open her own agency.

Her cell phone rang twice. Reaching for it, she pressed the Talk button. “Ms. Ogden.”

“Ms. Ogden, please hold for Ms. Richards.” Faye doodled on the pad as she waited for the mysterious Enid Richards.

“Ms. Ogden. This is Enid Richards. How may I assist you?”

Faye’s eyebrows lifted before a slow smile parted her lips. The mature-sounding voice coming through the earpiece had a distinctive southern drawl. She’d also noticed that Enid said
assist,
not help.

“That’s what I should be asking you, Ms. Richards. Someone at the Four Seasons gave me your business card last night.”

“I was that someone, Ms. Ogden. I’d like to meet with you to discuss a business arrangement.”

Faye’s smile faded as she sat up straighter. “What type of business?”

“That is something I will not discuss over the telephone.”

“If that’s the case, then I’m going to hang—”

“Please don’t,” Enid said quickly, cutting Faye off. “I can assure you that what I’d like to propose to you is legal. It is an arrangement that will prove advantageously beneficial to you
and
my company.”

Enid Richards’s evasiveness should’ve set off mental warning bells, but Faye found herself intrigued with the velvety timbre of the woman’s voice.

“When and where do you want to meet?” she asked.

“I’ll leave that up to you, Ms. Ogden.”

She glanced at the planner on her desk. She hadn’t sche
duled any meetings for the afternoon or evening. “Tonight at six, Café de Artistes.” She knew she hadn’t given Ms. Richards much notice, but if she were truly sincere then they would meet at her convenience.

“I’ll make the reservation in my name,” Enid said quickly. There came another pause. “Thank you, Ms. Ogden.”

Faye wanted to tell her thanking her was a little premature, but said, “You’re welcome, Ms. Richards.”