The Schwarzschild Radius (24 page)

he Webmaster had been waiting online for two hours for his next prospect and now she arrived.

I’m here
, he typed.

Sorry I’m late
, replied cindy2di4.

That’s OK. You’re worth waiting for. I didn’t know if you’d show up.

Sure I would.

I have a photo of me I’d like to send you
, he typed.

OK.

He sent a picture of a young man, early twenties, handsome and dressed in a plaid shirt.

That you?

Yup.

U R really handsome.

Thx. How about a pic of you?

I scanned it at the library today
, said the girl.
Gimme a sec to send.

As the photo began to resolve on his screen, he became aroused as he always did. She was about thirteen with brown hair and beautiful legs. She was sitting on a basketball, wearing shorts and a pink halter top.

WOW!
he typed.
All the guys must stare at you in the street.

No. I don’t have a lot of friends. I’m new in town and there are a lot of clicks in school.

Cliques.

Right.

He “listened” with infinite patience to her discussing her day, her thoughts, her anxieties. He listened and took notes.

I really like talking to you
, she wrote.

I love talking to you, Cindy. You are a really interesting girl.

I hope I don’t bore you with my day. It’s pretty ordinary, I guess.

It’s not boring to me. I like listening to you.

It’s just that I don’t have a lot of friends. I’m sort of lonely.

I want to be your friend. I don’t have many friends either.

But u r so handsome,
she wrote.

That has nothing to do with it. There aren’t a lot of good people out there. And I’m very busy these days with my business. So I don’t get out much,
he said
.

What’s your business?

I’m setting up a website where I can sell imported stuff from South America.

That sounds so neat. What’s the link to your site?

It’s still under construction, so you can’t get to it. I’ll let you know when it’s finished.

k

Let’s get online again tomorrow. Same time?

Sure.

Bye
:)

Bye
:)

After closing the chat session, he launched the intruder program. The file he had sent Cindy contained a Trojan horse which enabled him to take over the PC and inspect its contents.

hat am I bid?”

Only one bidder raised his paddle this time and it wasn’t Armand Greyson. The Guston was overpriced at $2.6 million and the buyer’s premium would push it way over his budget.

And budget was important these days. Sales were declining at his gallery and he had a nasty divorce on his hands. But his dictum in life was “for every problem, there is a solution.”

And Armand Greyson had a problem.

Since the discovery of Kirsten Schrodinger’s body, he was just going through the motions of his daily routine. Get up, shave, shower, coffee, dress, get down to the gallery.

At least a dozen times a day he got online to follow the Olivia Wallen disappearance.
No Clues about Honor Student Disappearance
, was the Yahoo headline this morning. Police were baffled. There were now rumors that she had been prostituting herself to pay for college. If they knew that, they might know a lot more.

Greyson looked at his watch―he had an appointment he had been looking forward to all week. He left Sotheby’s and returned to his apartment on Eightieth and Fifth to assess his options. Brazil had no extradition agreement with the US. He would have to liquidate all his assets here first, and that wouldn’t be easy. He couldn’t put the co-op in the name of an LLC; the association wouldn’t permit it. He had a home in Greenwich, Connecticut―the wife would probably get that anyway. Last summer, he had spent two weeks in Fortaleza, Brazil, and in between romps with fourteen-year-old girls, he checked out some beachfront property. It would be a good place to disappear to. Living was cheap and peaceful. Not many art galleries, but you couldn’t have everything.

His phone rang.

“Yes, please,” he said. Minutes later, there was a knock on the door.

“Hi, Armand. This is my friend, Lisa.”

“Welcome, Lisa. Come in. How’s my favorite niece?” said Greyson.

“Right,” said Sonia.

“You have a beautiful apartment,” said the other girl, scanning the massive stone fireplace, twelve-foot ceilings, fine art, sculptures, and antiques from all over the world.

“Let me show you around,” he said. “You can put your jackets in here. Sonia’s seen all this before, but maybe you’ll be more interested, Lisa.”

“Yeah, I’ll sit this one out,” said Sonia.

“These are things I’ve collected during my travels over many years. These are masks from the Akan tribe in Ghana. Those are Balinese theatrical masks. This hallway―after you―has some of my favorite pieces.” As she walked in front of him in the narrow hall, he was inspecting her thoroughly. His pulse raced when she had taken off the denim jacket, displaying her beautiful breasts in a white tube top. The cut-off jeans revealed lovely, creamy white legs. She would have no tan lines. He was torn between a genuine passion for the articulation of art and his addiction. The addiction won every time.

“Very beautiful,” said Lisa. “Your whole apartment is beautiful.”

“You have good taste. It was built in 1931 and designed by Rosario Candela, New York’s most celebrated luxury residential architect.”

“How many rooms is it?”

“Fifteen rooms total. Five bedrooms, four and a half baths, two maid’s quarters, five fireplaces, eighteenth century oak floors. It was love at first sight. Do you believe in love at first sight, Lisa?”

“I guess.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

She shook her head.

“And how old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

“Are you new in town?”

“Sort of. A few weeks. I’ve been hanging with Sonia for about a week.”

“She’s a doll. Well, fourteen’s a great age.”

When the tour was over, Greyson poured himself a drink and flipped through his vast collection of music for some ambiance.

“It’s dinner time. What would you girls like?”

“Menus?” said Sonia.

“I have them memorized.” Armand began rattling off the specials from Josie’s, The Center Room, and Café Lalo with the speed of a head waiter.

“I’ll have the cheddar burger, onions, mushrooms and that Italian cheese cake from Lalo’s,” said Sonia.

“Done―Lisa.”

“Same here.”

“I love symmetry,” said the art dealer. “I’ll balance that with the angel hair pasta and garden vegetables.”

As they ate in the formal dining room, it was evident that Greyson was a practitioner of the lost art of conversation, which often strayed into his love of the Old Masters.

His appearance belied his accomplishments. He was tall and skinny with a comb-over, red notches along the sides of his nose from the glasses he wore during the day, but was likely too vain to wear now, a college ring on one hand and a signet ring on the other. The suit was tailored, but with telltale dandruff along the shoulders. He looked like a salesman at Men’s Warehouse. Rachel wondered if the doorman really believed that Sonia was his niece.
It’s amazing what money can do
, she thought.

He told them how he had started out as a warehouse worker in Long Island City. It was a company that sold art supplies and instructional books. He bought some supplies with his employee discount and started what he thought would be a great career as a painter. He ended up getting a scholarship to the Parson’s School of Design. That led to a job at Christie’s and, years later, his own gallery.

“I really worked at the painting, but the competition in that field is beyond brutal,” he said.

“What sort of art did you paint?” asked Rachel.

“Nudies,” answered Sonia.

“Sonia has a talent for over-simplification. I painted what’s known as Fantasy Art. I’ll show you some afterward. It hearkens back to mythology with super muscular men, women and animals. It demands a lot of imagination―you create your own monsters.”