Never Too Rich (17 page)

“
Please, Snake,” she pleaded. “Let
me explain—”

“
No, bitch,” he cut her off. “Let
me
explain. I found me a new ole lady, see? You’re nothin’
but a fuckin’ mama now. You belong to everybody in this club. An’
since everybody’s gonna share you from now on, they gonna get to
test-ride the new mama, know what I mean?”

Chapter 17

Olympia was not in a good mood, and she wasn’t
thinking very highly of New York Telephone either—it had taken her
ten infuriating tries before she finally got through to her own
office. For a while, all she’d gotten was busy signals, which she
couldn’t understand. The exorbitantly expensive new phone system
she’d recently had installed was supposed to take care of things
like that. “Dolly, it’s me, Olympia,” she said when she finally got
through to her secretary. “Thank God you haven’t gone home
yet.”

“
And thank God you called!” Dolly
said breathlessly. “The phones have been ringing off the hook and
there’s a crowd of reporters and TV people camped outside. They all
demand to talk to you about Vienna.”

“
Oh, Christ.” Olympia groaned. “I
should have anticipated that.” Now she understood why the
switchboard had been flooded.

“
What do I tell them?” Dolly asked.
“It’s after five and I’m afraid to go home. Those reporters are so
persistent they might follow me.”

Olympia sighed. “What did you tell them so far?”

“
That you weren’t available but
would talk to them later.”

“
Good girl.” Although Dolly was
blocks away and couldn’t see it, Olympia nodded approvingly. “After
I hang up, why don’t you go on home? If you keep saying ‘No
comment,’ they’ll get the message. But that’s not the reason I
called. I need Shirley Silverstein’s phone number and address, and
I haven’t got them on me.”

“
Shirley? You mean the new girl?
Just a min, I’ve got her contract somewhere right in front of me. .
. . Here it is! Ready?”

Olympia’s pen was already poised. Four seconds
later, she punched

Shirley’s number and signaled across the room to
Detective Koscina to let him know she was almost done and would be
with him shortly.

She had to wait through eight rings before someone
picked up at Shirley’s number. Heavy metal rock in the background
made it sound like a war was going on.

“
Yeah?” a harsh male voice
barked.

Olympia frowned. Above the noise of the heavy metal
and the harsh voice she could hear other sounds—the kind you heard
at the ringside of a fight. The sounds of a crowd egging someone
on.

^u
Is Shirley there, please?” she
asked.

“
Shirl?” There was a pause,
followed by an obscene laugh. “Yeah, you might say she’s
here.”

“
I need to speak to her. Can she
come to the phone?”

“
She might be comin’, lady . . .
but not to the phone!” The obscene laugh was back in the harsh
voice.

“
Please, it
is
urgent—”

“
Get lost, fuck-face,” the man
snarled, and hung up. But before his receiver hit the cradle,
Olympia heard a shrill scream in the background. A woman’s scream.
A scream for help.

For a moment every tiny hair on her arms stood up
straight. Somehow she knew that scream had been Shirley’s.

Before Detective Koscina could stop her, Olympia was
out the door.

Shirley’s eyes were wary as they jumped from biker
to biker. She was hunched slightly forward in the classic fighter’s
stance, constantly turning in circles like a cornered animal. They
had surrounded her completely, a wall of unkempt two-hundred-pound
apes.

Without warning, one of them feinted a move at her,
and her nails slashed through empty air as he ducked back.

The others hooted laughter.

“
Wassamatter? Pussy clam up?” one
of them shouted.

She whirled around, her waist-length hair flying.
Another had already dug his penis out of his fly and was shaking it
at her. “Slurp, slurp, li’l mama! Tripper’s got a treat for you!”
The penis flopped flaccidly up and down.

“
Look, guys.” Her voice surprised
even her; it sounded strong and steady, almost inanely, insanely
reasonable. “Just back off and we’ll forget this ever happened,
okay? We’re friends—right?” But her eyes kept darting
about.

“
Shut yer fuckin’ face ‘n’ stop
whimperin’!” The harsh voice belonged to Spidy Wolf, Satan’s
Warriors’ president. Her eyes snapped in his direction. He was
huge, with a beer-barrel chest and tattooed tree trunks for arms.
They weren’t just show muscles, either. No one got to be—or
stayed—president of the gang if he couldn’t keep the others in
line, and that meant being able to kick ass. “You ain’t Snake’s ole
lady no more,” he explained, “and that makes you a mama, see? An’ a
mama’s community property.”

“
I’m
nobody’s
property!”
Shirley spat the words.

“
Oh yeah you are. You know the
rules. Without an ole man, you belong to whoever wants you,
whenever he wants you. It’s initiation time, mama, so
strip.”

Her chin went up defiantly. “And if I refuse?”

A murmur of excitement rose all around her.

Oh, no! thought Shirley, realizing too late what she
had done. The regretted words had slipped out—but there was no
taking them back. They amounted to a direct challenge of Spidy
Wolf’s authority. Now if he let her go he’d be perceived as a
weakling; he’d never live it down.

“
Get outta your clothes,” Spidy
said quietly.

She stood erect, her eyes fixed on his face. She
shook her head. “No,” she said with dignity.

He stared at her silently for a few moments. The
others were waiting, shifting restlessly.

“
You don’t leave me no choice.”
Spidy’s face was expressionless, but his eyes glittered feverishlv.
“I’m gonna have to force you, ain’t I?”

She stared at him with hatred. “You know what this
is, don’t you?” she said coldly. “It’s called rape.”

There was a roar of cruel laughter and drunken
back-slapping. “Rape,” someone chanted, mimicking her. “Rape!” And
the chant was taken up until the roar of it filled her ears. “Rape
. . .
rape .
. . RAPE . . . RAPE—”

Suddenly someone pushed her roughly from behind,
propelling her forward so that she stumbled into the men in front
of her; they in turn pushed her back again. Then hands were shoving
at her from all sides—from the front, from behind, from the left,
and from the right. They kept flinging her in all directions, until
everything spun dizzily before her eyes. “Rape . . .
rape
.
. . RAPE . . . RAPE”—the chant pummeled her from all sides, now
accompanied by the stamping of boots.

“
Cool it!” Spidy Wolf finally
roared above the din.

As though a switch had been thrown, the chanting
stilled and the shoving stopped.

The sudden silence was eerie. Even the heavy metal
recording was quiet; the tape had ended sometime during the
chanting.

There was a rustle of movement as Spidy shouldered
two men aside and stepped into the circle. For a moment he just
stood there staring at Shirley, his legs spread.

“ ‘
Nuff of the kid stuff, bros,” he
said, looking around with a gap-toothed grin. “Whattya say we get
down to business?” Then almost before Shirley knew what was
happening, he had thrown himself against her. His huge rough hands
dug inside her jacket, ripping her sweater and gripping her breasts
as he pushed his face into hers to kiss her.

Shirley went wild. She tried to push him away, but
it was like fighting a bull. When bucking, twisting, and thrashing
still didn’t extricate her, she concentrated all her strength in
one knee and brought it up into his groin.

His eyes bulged as he doubled over and expelled a
lungful of air, but his bellow wasn’t one of pain. It was a bellow
of rage. “Fuckin’ whore!” he screamed. He instantly let go of her
and his fist blurred. The big silver skull rings on his four
fingers were like brass knuckles; there was a sickening crunch as
they smashed into her nose. Splinters of bone stabbed through flesh
and cartilage.

She nearly fainted from the white-hot flash of
pain.

Blood poured out of her nostrils.

“
Nobody kicks me in the nuts,” he
snarled.
“Nobody!”
Almost without effort he flung her to her
knees. When she started to rise, she saw him fumbling with the fly
of his Levi’s. His penis leapt free, thick and
monstrous.

She averted her face. “Please,” she whispered
thickly. “Don’t.”

“
Look at it!” he commanded
quietly.

She closed her eyes and didn’t see his
silver-knuckled fist flash again, but pain exploded in her head
like a grenade. The blow knocked her flat on the floor.

For a moment she lay dazed, unable to move. Then
gingerly she moved her arm and touched her burning brow. It, too,
felt wet and sticky. She brought her fingertips close to her eyes
and inspected them: more blood. His rings had cut her forehead
open, and she could already feel her left eye beginning to
swell.

“
Still wanna fight it?” Spidy Wolf
challenged softly from somewhere above.

She lifted her head slowly and gazed up at him. She
sensed he was towering over her, but he seemed to fade into a
soft-focused blur. She tried to shake her head: no, she didn’t want
to fight. With every movement, spasms of pain flashed through her
skull like bolts of lightning.

“
Good,” he said, and she could hear
the grin in his voice. “Now you’re learnin’. We only wanna have a
little fun, right, mama?”

Fun?
The word reverberated inside her head,
clearing the blur into hard-edged reality. He called this fun?
Blankly she watched him thrust his hips forward and prod her with
the tip of his cleated engineer boot. One silver-knuckled fist was
wrapped around his penis, peeling his foreskin back. “Now, get up
and suck it,” he snarled.

Somehow she managed to find the reserves of strength
to raise herself to her knees, but when she opened her mouth, she
raised her head back, hawked deeply, and spat up into his face
instead. Seeing her saliva hit him brought a wild blaze of triumph
to her eyes.

He flinched and wiped his face with the back of his
grimy hand. “You’re gonna be one sorry cunt,” he snarled. He
snapped his fingers at four of his cronies. “Hold her down,” he
said grimly. “This bitch’s gonna be taught a lesson.”

Instantly four bikers sprang forward, grabbed her by
the arms and legs, and dropped their knees on her wrists and
ankles, pinning her to the floor.

“
No!” she yelled hoarsely, shaking
her head wildly. Tears of shame and helplessness welled in her eyes
as she bucked and writhed, but it was a useless struggle. They were
far too strong for her.

Defeated, she started to let her head drop back.

Then Spidy Wolf launched himself at her. One moment
he was standing over her, and the next it felt as if a ton of iron
had fallen on top of her.

She felt hands tearing violently at her clothes.
Fabric ripped and rent, buttons popped and bounced and rolled away.
For an instant Spidy’s hips rose into the air, and the sudden
release was a godsend. But then his hips came crashing down again
and he slammed himself inside her.

It felt as though she was being torn to pieces.

The agony was overwhelming, like the hottest of blue
flames. She shut her eyes against it, but behind the closed lids,
blue neon buzzed and flickered, and somewhere in the distance she
could hear the voice of terror. “Shiiiir-ley, Shiiiiirley . . .”
Her name echoed, distorted and thick, rolling through her mind like
relentless breakers upon a beach. “Shir-ley’s gonna be a good girl!
Shir-ley’s gonna make Brother Dan feel good!”

“
Nooooo!” she screamed. She could
smell Brother Dan’s sweat and bourbon now. In front of her closed
eyelids, the neon cross grew and grew, blazing brightly.

Chapter 18

“
Wait for me here,” Olympia
instructed the cabbie. She swung the door open. “I won’t be long.
Don’t take off without me, all right? You’ve got a twenty-dollar
tip riding on this.” Urgency was written all over her face, and her
tone was dictatorial.

The cabbie twisted around, taking stock of the
mink-coated passenger with the black lizard handbag. He shook his
head in bafflement at the woman’s folly. “Anything you say, lady,
but I still think you’re nuts. You couldn’t pay me to get out on
this block, and I’m a combat vet.”

Olympia smiled grimly. “I’m not asking you to get
out, am I? Just be waiting for me, that’s all.” She climbed out,
absently reaching back and pushing the cab door shut. She could
hear clicks as the driver locked all the doors from the inside. He
kept the engine running too.

She stood for a moment staring first at the row of
gleaming Harleys parked along the curb, and then up at the
building. It was a typical tenement, built a century ago to house
Eastern European immigrants, probably divided into railroad
flats.

She went up the half-flight of chipped stone steps
and tried the front door. It was locked. She nodded to herself. So
it was no ordinary apartment building. From all the bikes, she had
gathered that much, and wasn’t surprised. She looked around the
door: there was no buzzer anywhere in evidence. She knocked and
waited. When nobody came to open up, she slipped her handbag over
her wrist and pounded on the door with both fists.