Sylvie's Cowboy Read Free Page B

out of the penthouse, but nobody goes near it until
I’ve run it through the Tropigale books and then through the
Danmore partnership. Got it?”
    “No!”
    Les leaned forward and speared her partner’s
tie with her long-nailed index finger. “Look,” she told him, “you
can go ahead and set up a deal on the cars, but keep it quiet.
Harry was getting suspicious, and he may have told someone else.
They may be watching us. We have to act like nothing’s changed.
We’ll have it all soon enough, and without going to prison, if we
just take our time. Okay?”
    Dan Stern didn’t respond. Leslye said again,
punching with the index finger for emphasis, “I said we take our
time, okay?”
    “Okay,” said the man. The chair creaked again
as he left it. Leslye followed him to her office door.
    At the door she said, “One thing has changed,
though.” She made eye contact with him and smiled a cat-with-canary
smile. “Without Harry snooping around, the money’s as good as ours
already. I don’t have to marry Harry for it. You don’t have to
marry Sylvie for it.”
    “Hmmph.”
    The door opened and closed, and he was gone.
Leslye looked at the door for a long time.
    …
    Thursday Morning
     
    Leslye Larrimore scoured the penthouse
apartment’s kitchen for some suitable intoxicant with which to fill
her empty glass. From the bedroom, clothes hangers rattled, a
mattress creaked, fabrics rustled, shoes thudded and rolled.
Someone was packing. Someone in a hurry.
    Leslye opened the refrigerator and wagged her
hundred-dollar haircut at a wilted flower, one overripe avocado,
three bottles of Perrier, and a half-inch of flat wine in an open
carafe. She emptied the wine into her glass without relish.
    Packing noises resounded from the bedroom.
Leslye paced the kitchen carrying the empty wine carafe until she
discovered a refuse chute and dropped the bottle down it. Then she
meandered from the kitchen.
    In the living room all personal treasures,
family photos, or decorative knick-knacks were gone, the trendy
furnishings were sterile. The mega-screen TV was silent. Leslye
moved past the couches to study the blue-gray vista of the Atlantic
Ocean blurred by rain pelting the endless windows of the penthouse.
Muffled thunder vibrated the glass. Leslye sipped her flat,
leftover wine and grimaced.
    The packing cacophony from the bedroom
ceased, and Sylvie Pace emerged, eyes raccooned with mascara from
weeping. Her classic black dress fit her like a proverbial glove,
and she was barefooted. Mismatched lingerie drooped over her
shoulder and a shoe hung from one hand.
    Sylvie crossed to the window wall and stood
beside Leslye, watching the rain. Wind whistled outside. Thunder
shook the glass. Sylvie started sobbing.
    Leslye patted Sylvie on the back. “I don’t
know what to say, Sylvie. It’s like a nightmare. I can imagine how
you must feel. Until yesterday I guess you’d never even heard of
margin calls or collateralized debentures or leveraged buyouts.
This is a hard way to learn.”
    Sylvie nodded and pulled herself together.
Never in her crudest imaginings had she thought it was possible for
her father’s fortune to simply disappear almost overnight. She had
always been assured of plenty, of freedom, of leisure. Her
intellect comprehended the definition of “working class” or even
“poor,” but her emotions rejected any possibility of those terms as
applicable to herself. She controlled her sniffles and wiped her
nose on the lingerie she carried, then she headed back to the
bedroom.
    Leslye followed her.
    Sylvie disappeared into the room-size bedroom
closet.
    Leslye leaned against the bedroom doorway and
gagged on another sip of wine.
    Sylvie returned from the closet depths and
tossed another load of clothing onto the heap festooning the
now-invisible bed. Then she gasped and began digging through the
clothing until she uncovered a Shar-Pei puppy, who immediately
licked some of the mascara streaks from Sylvie’s