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“Who was that guy and how did he talk you into going?”
“Someone from the old country. A producer acquaintance wanted me to show him the sights. It sounded like fun. I haven’t been home in a year. I don’t often get to speak my own language.”
“How did you end up at the fight?” says Candy.
“He knew about them. He’d been to something like it in Vienna.”
“Did he tell you what you were going to see?” I say.
“No.”
“Why didn’t you just leave when you saw what was going on?”
“He’s a financier of some kind. A powerful man with powerful friends. He could make trouble for me with my visa if I didn’t stay with him.”
“He said that? He flat-out threatened you?”
“He didn’t even say it as a threat. It was a game to him. He wanted me to sleep with him, but I left. You have to draw a line somewhere, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” says Allegra.
Candy says, “Damn straight.”
“Give me his name and hotel and I’ll have him on the first plane out of town tomorrow,” I say.
“Don’t bother,” says Brigitte. “There was another reason he took me to see the fight.”
“What?”
“Do you remember Simon Ritchie? The friend who helped me come to America last year?”
“Yeah, you were supposed to be in his Lucifer movie.”
“Yes. That’s him. He did something else for me. He said that all of his wealthy friends had done it. That it was common practice in Los Angeles.”
“Shit. Please don’t tell me.”
She wipes a finger under her nose, stifling tears.
“Yes. I have a wild-blue-yonder contract. That man tonight. He wanted to show me where I’d end up if I didn’t let him do what he wanted to me.”
“Okay, then. He’s dead. Tell me where he is. I’ll go right now.”
“I left him at the fight.”
Candy squeezes my hand, trying to calm me down. It doesn’t work.
“Are you going somewhere, Stark?” says Julie, coming back. She heard my tone and her question has the ring of a warning. I stay put.
“I was thinking about it,” I say.
She sets a glass of Aqua Regia in front of me and sips a new martini.
“Don’t,” Julie says. “Have your drink and stay with us for a while.”
I take a gulp of my drink.
“Sure. Why not?”
