Chapter 1

I was sitting at a table in a private dining room at 21 in Midtown. "Well?" my tablemate asked.

"Denny -- this one's going to be a challenge."

"I have every confidence your abilities. You've worked miracles before."

"Frankly," I replied, "that's what it'll take. And it won't happen overnight."

"What do you figure?"

"Eighteen ... twenty-four months before we turn a corner," I replied. Denny shrugged. "I didn't say it was hopeless."

"So it's a go?"

"I'll give it my damndest."

Denny slapped my back. "I knew you would. In two weeks is the company Christmas party. Of course you're invited."

"I'll pass," I replied. "I don't think it's a good idea to mix business and pleasure."

"Business and pleasure? You'll never find that combination at one of our parties," Denny replied.

"Oh, no?"

"It's strictly business. Pleasure has nothing to do with it." I stifled a chortle. "You gotta be there, Phil. There'll be top-line managers from branches around the country. We'll need their buy-in to make this work. It's a good chance for some visibility."

"It's all optics, isn't it, Dennis?" I drained my highball glass. "I hate coming to one of those events stag ... and it presents the wrong kind of optics."

"Send for your home-town honey," Dennis replied.

"I would if there was one."

"What happened to you and Gwen?"

"Split ... From the looks of this assignment I won't have an opportunity to meet any eligible companions, either."

"No need to despair, Phil..." Dennis reached into his inside pocket and removed a black alligator- leather bound book.

"You're sharing your little black book with me?"

He kissed the cover. "Not on your life..." From the back he procured a business card and handed it to me.

"Escort service?"

"One of the best. The girls are all top-notch ... great arm candy. Their rates run from five hundred to over a grand an hour..."

"Five hundred?"

"Minimum. Given the quality of the merchandise it would be cheap at twice that. We're paying you enough so you can afford it, aren't we?"

"You're paying me more than enough ... but don't let my accountant hear me say it." I started to hand the card back to him.

He waved me off. "Hang onto it, pal. That place takes new clients by referral only. Call 'em and say Denny Day recommends."

Dennis's company limo dropped me at his guesthouse -- a co-op on Park Avenue near 30th. I approached the doorman and began to present my key. "Good evening, Ralph," I said.

"Go right on in, Mr S," the young man replied.

I headed for the elevator, inserted the key and called for the eighth floor. The car stopped and I trudged, my overcoat slung over my shoulder, to the apartment Denny was letting me use.

Locking the door behind me I stretched and slipped off my suit jacket. I recollected my dinner with Dennis. Some things never change. Dennis was a pig when I knew him in college and he still was. His importance as a client wasn't lost on me, though. Salvaging HIS business would make my mark.

I just wish he hadn't brought up Gwendolyn. I thought I was over that humiliation and I didn't need a reminder.

This was going to be a long and difficult assignment. Denny was right -- saving his company would require the cooperation of his line managers. Better to get them to buy in than feel something was being crammed down their throats.

I needed to attend his party and I needed a date -- he was right about that, too. I dug the business card out of my shirt pocket and regarded it. Lyrics from Simon and Garfunkel's The Boxer ran through my head:

• ... Just come-ons from the whores on Seventh Avenue.
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there...

I picked up the phone and punched in the number. It rang and a woman answered. "Dennis Day gave me your number," I said into the handset.

"Yes -- I know Denny," came the reply. "How can I help?"

Before tonight I'd have pegged the odds of me calling an escort service at about the same as picking up some hooker on the street -- on the far side of between slim and none. But, here I was ... and wondering if cruising the tenderloin would be the next step for me.

I tried on the persona of a cool tough-guy. It didn't fit very well. "I'm going to need a companion for two weeks from Saturday."

"Any of our girls in particular?"

"Naw ... just someone I won't be ashamed to be seen with."

"All our girls fit that category," she replied icily. "Let me check the calendar ... Steffi is free that night."

"Steffi?"

"Shall I put you down?"

"Uhhh ... Is Steffi by any chance free tonight? I'd like an opportunity to meet her."

"I'll connect you to her." There was a click and ringing.

"Hello?"

"Is this Steffi?"

"Yes..."

"My name's Phil. Do you smoke, by the way?"

"No, I don't."

"Good. Steffi, how would you like to accompany me to a corporate Christmas party two weeks from Saturday?"

"I'd love to."

Her voice sounded pleasant and clean-cut. Her diction had a geographic center of gravity near Jamestown. I was happy for that -- as much as I love the City, a New York accent grates on me.

"Steffi," I continued, "I'd like to get to know you before then. Are you by chance free tonight?"

"Sure -- not a problem."

I gave her my address and she said it would take her about twenty minutes.

I pressed the intercom. "Doorman," came the reply.

"Ralph -- I'm expecting a visitor. A lady named Steffi."

"Steffi ... got it Mr S."

While I was waiting I removed my tie and loosened my shirt collar. It was more like half an hour before the intercom buzzed. "Yes?"

"Mr S," Ralph's voice came from though the speaker, "Steffi is on her way up."

"I'll keep an eye out for her."

I waited by the door and listened for the chime of the elevator and the sound of footsteps approaching. The doorbell rang. I waited for the second ring before opening it. I was stunned.

Into the apartment stepped the most statuesque Black lady I had ever seen. She was tall -- nearly six feet, with a long neck and slender arms. Her face looked like it belonged on an African princess, and her skin was the color of bittersweet chocolate. She had long, coarse, black hair that extended past her shoulder blades.

She was dressed in white -- a sheer blouse over a white camisole and a white skirt that cut halfway across her thighs. Since it was a mild in the City for late November she didn't wear a jacket. The contrast of the white fabric against her dark brown skin was stunning.

"Steffi?"

"Yes ... Is something wrong?"

Hers was the voice I heard on the phone earlier -- no doubt about that. "No ... no. You'll have to excuse me -- you're not what I was expecting ... when we spoke on the phone you did not sound Black."

"I understand completely. You'll have to excuse me, too -- when we spoke on the phone you did not sound like an asshole. If you'll excuse me I'll be going before we waste any more of each other's time." She turned toward the door.

"Wait -- don't go. I didn't mean it that way, Steffi. You're race doesn't make any difference to me. You're a beautiful woman -- you're just not what I visualized. I'm delighted to meet you. Please stay."

"My rates are five hundred per hour ... in advance."

I reached into my pocked and withdrew a stack of bills -- mostly hundreds but with a few fifties and twenties -- held together with a brass money clip. I set it on a table near the door. "When you're done here, you're free to take whatever you think is fair." I sat on my sofa and patted the cushion beside me. "Have a seat."

Steffi sat beside me. "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt," she said.

"Thanks ... Tell me -- what does my five hundred buy me?"

"Whatever you want. I don't do oral, though."

"No oral?"

"Everything but. Anything beyond a hand job needs a condom."

I nodded. "Sounds sensible."

She began unbuttoning her blouse. "Shall we get started?"

"Let's sit and talk for a while."

"Do you mean you want to pay five hundred an hour for talk?"

"I've demonstrated I can afford it."

"It IS your money." She glanced at her wristwatch.

"Steffi -- where are you from? You don't sound like a New Yorker, either."

"I was born in Sierra Leone," she replied.

"When did you come to this country?"

"As a very small child. A pair of white missionaries adopted me. My father ... my adopted one ... was ordained a minister after his stint in Africa."

"Where did you grow up?" I asked. "Let me guess -- Jamestown."

"That's right," she replied. "How did you know?"

"From your speech. I can peg where someone's from -- anywhere in New York State -- just by listening to them talk."

"I'm impressed..."

"So you're a preacher's kid. How did you end up in this line of work?"

"Even preacher's kids fall on hard times. Besides -- maybe I'm rebelling from all that moral structure."

"You have the most striking face," I said. "It looks like it belongs on a princess."

"I am a Mende princess -- so they tell me. Of course they can tell a little kid anything."

"They being your parents?"

"Yeah..."

"I think they're right, Steffi. Just the other day I was looking at a photograph in National Geographic of a beautiful African princess in her tribal costume with bangles around her neck ... You have her face."

"You're embarrassing me, now."

"I'm sincere, Steffi. You are beautiful." She smiled and looked away from me. "You have the prettiest smile ... You said you were Mende?"

"Uh-uh."

" ... the same as Cinque from the Amistad incident."

"You're familiar with it?" she asked.

"Certainly. Before I became a business consultant I was a history major, specializing in early nineteenth century American. The Abolitionist movement was the topic of my senior thesis. I come from a long line of Quakers. My ancestors were doing things like running the Underground Railroad, and my family has original letters and diaries from those days. I based my thesis on them."

"You're a Quaker?"

"I'm not a practicing one. Quaker meeting places are getting hard to find. We're kind of a dying breed."

"I've never met one before." She consulted her watch again.

"Steffi -- do you have someplace to go? Another assignment, perhaps?"

She opened her bag, removed a Blackberry and manipulated it. "No," she said looking up. "I'm free the rest of the evening."

"You walked in here at nine."

"It sounds about right."

I put my hand on her knee. She finished unbuttoning her blouse and slipped it off her shoulders. Then she stood, unfastened and unzipped her skirt and slid it off her hips. Underneath it she was wearing a black thong.

"Let me look at you, Steffi ... Turn around ... your body is perfection." I took her hand and ran my fingers up her forearm.

"You won't find any tracks if that's what you're looking for. I don't do drugs."

"I hadn't even thought of that, Steffi. I was admiring the shape of your arm." I stroked the inside of her elbow. "I like this part of a woman's arm. I think it's sexy, especially if there's a trace of a vein showing. Backs of knees are sexy, too. Do you think that's wierd?"

"Not compared to SOME of what I've seen."

I patted my lap. Steffi sat and I caressed her thigh. "Your skin is so smooth..."

"I work at it to keep it that way."

" ... and you have such beautiful, long legs."

She stretched them out and admired them. "Do you think so?"

"Steffi -- is this the sort of work you wanted to do?"

"It's not bad," she replied. "The pay's good. I enjoy sex and I like the variety."

"You get paid for something you enjoy doing."

"And, I like having my days free. Best of all -- no commitment."

"You don't want commitment ... I don't want it either. Not right now, at least." I stroked her face with the backs of my fingers. "You have beautiful eyes, too. Steffi -- is that your given name or is it short for Stephanie?"

"It's my given name."

"I like it."

"It doesn't fit me," she replied. "There's a lot about me that doesn't fit."