Lovers and Liars Read Free Page A

store, which was worth fifteen, buying the lease. He turned around and sold it a few months later for twenty.
    The next lease he acquired was a restaurant’s, and when he sold that, he made double the profit he’d hoped for. Soon he had several leases going at once, all in Brooklyn. He also had his eye on some property that he wanted to develop in Brooklyn. He knew he could make a fortune putting up an apartment building if he could only get the zoning laws changed. He had Hayward approach a couple of the city councilmen, to sound them out. Hayward told him they’d be amenable to bribes.
    Abe built his first apartment buildings.
    His ambitions expanded across the river to Manhattan. The economy was booming. The value of property was soaring, and Abe wanted to build offices in the heart of the city. But he would have to tear down some tenements on one of the lots, and this time he couldn’t move the city council, noteven with the color of his money, because there was an Historic New York movement afoot, led by a couple of fat society matrons.
    Bonzio told him he could get the council to approve Abe’s plans. Abe wasn’t a fool. “What do you want in return?” he asked.
    “Just a piece of the property,” Bonzio said. “Just a small piece, six percent of the profits.”
    Abe regarded him with suspicion.
    “And you come in on a deal with us in Florida,” Bonzio went on. “We need somebody like you with a good head for real estate.”
    Abe didn’t want to do a deal with the mob, but he was starting to get overextended—he had five loans going at once. And his ambitions were uncontrollable; he wanted very much to make another deal—this one even bigger and more lucrative than the rest. And the thought of expanding his reach into new territory was heady and exhilarating. He agreed.
    Bonzio, as promised, got the council to remove their moratorium on the building in the district where the historic houses were located. Abe, as promised, went in on the deal to build a hotel in Fort Lauderdale. When it came to his attention that the wife of one of the New York City councilmen had had a serious accident and was hospitalized for six months, he frowned and shrugged the incident away as coincidence, not blackmail.
    She had been the victim of a hit-and-run.

3
    N aked, Belinda sat on the edge of the massive Victorian bed with its half canopy, thick rosewood legs, huge headboard, and antique lace spread. It had been her one major purchase, and it dominated her otherwise empty bedroom. She carefully pulled on a stocking, fastening it to a black garter. The mate followed. Belinda stood, stepping into three-inch heels, reaching for a purple leather skirt. She shimmied into it, forgoing underwear—she never wore panties when she was in this mood. The skirt clung to her strong curves like a second skin. A gold silk blouse followed, and she was braless, of course. The blouse molded to her firm, full breasts. She added a dozen gold bangles, huge gold hoops, a couple of chains, and ran her fingers through her hair, increasing its disheveled appearance. She spot-sprayed it.
    She had decided to go out, after all. Cruising. Why not? The adrenaline flow had not ceased. She was feeling powerful It was a feeling unlike any she had ever had before—a feeling of being able to accomplish almost anything. She was launched. Her career was about to take off. Like a rocket.
    She wanted this second sale so badly she felt she could will it to come true. It would come true. She knew it. She had no doubts. Even her agent, Lester, seemed confident now that she was in . And once that sale had gone through, she could relax, breathe a little, feel secure …
    Maybe even take a vacation.
    She was having a delicious fantasy. An Oscar for Best Dramatic Screenplay. Belinda got goosebumps just thinking about it. She knew the odds were against it, so she tried not to dwell on it. But imagine: Two sales and a multi-million-dollar box office and an