Footsteps(2)

He stood next to Peter and ordered a scotch, neat. The bartender nodded and poured from a bottle of top-shelf Macallan. At least the free stuff was the good stuff. Auberon rated only the best. Philanthropist that he was and all.





Of course, Carlo had it on some damn fine authority that there was more than a drop of blood in the cement around Auberon’s impenetrable reputation. But who was he to judge.





“Where the hell have you been, bro?” Peter lifted an irritated eyebrow and waved his empty glass at the bartender. “I’ve been talking you up, but the whole point of this was for us to make nice-nice with these people. Pagano-Cabot? That’s two names. And I’m not even the first one. So why am I the only one out here grinning like a moron?”





“Because you do grinning moron so well. You’re a natural.”





“Fuck you.” An elderly woman draped in diamonds like some kind of zombie chandelier, standing just to Carlo’s other side, gaped at Peter’s language. “Sorry, ma’am. Buy you a drink?” The woman pursed her lips and turned away, just as the lights blinked.

Carlo downed the Macallan and asked for another.





Peter clapped him on the back. “Hey—I saw you go face-to-face with the Queen of the Evening. Did you cop a good feel?”





With no idea what his friend was talking about, Carlo only gave him the look that said he was crazy.





“Coming out of the bathroom. You ran right into Auberon’s wife. The Mega-Hottie from Down Under?”





The woman he’d run into had had an accent, but it hadn’t been Australian. “What are you talking about? That’s Auberon’s wife? And I don’t think she’s Australian.”





“You talked to her? What are you talking about, Australian? I didn’t say Australian. She’s from some South American country. Like Panama or something like that, I think.”





“Down Under means Australia, moron.” Having no intention of giving his friend a further geography lesson about the difference between Central and South America as they headed back toward the theater, Carlo sighed. “And I just bumped into her and said I was sorry. I didn’t get her life story, and I didn’t cop a feel.”





“Shame to waste a chance to get a grope of that rack, but it’s probably for the best. Auberon is not the kind of guy you want to piss off.” He cast a slant look at Carlo. “But that probably wouldn’t faze you much.”





“Don’t be an ass, Pete.” They returned to their seats, well back from the really glittery folk, and waited for the rest of the program to start.





There was a simple, Lucite podium positioned in front of the conductor’s more substantial one. The mayor of Providence, resplendent in his own penguin frippery, crossed from the left and stood at the clear podium. As he began his remarks extolling James Auberon’s multitude of personal and professional virtues, Peter leaned over and muttered, “Did you see Auberon earlier?”





Carlo turned slightly and muttered back, “What?”





“Right. Probably not. You never see anything unless it’s made of brick and steel. Beginning of intermission. He was at the bar when I got there. Was practically finger-fucking some little blonde in a tiny white dress that looked like it was made of ribbons or something. Right there at the bar.”





At that, Carlo’s attention was caught. “I thought you said the woman in the hallway was his wife.”





Peter turned up one corner of his mouth slyly. “And that means what, exactly? Aren’t you an expert in how little that means?”





Carlo winced and turned his focus away from his friend and back toward the podium, where, now, James Auberon was accepting his token—yep, some crystal dust-catcher. The woman he’d run into was standing a few steps back and to the left of the podium. Carlo and Peter were seated at about the midpoint of the theater, so he didn’t have a close-up view, and he hadn’t paid much attention when he had been close up. But she was clearly, obviously, fantastically beautiful. Wearing a strapless, dark plum-colored dress that was sequins from its skintight top to its flowing bottom, and long earrings with faceted golden stones catching the spotlights that were aimed at her husband, she had her hair done in a simple ponytail, a long, chestnut fall of hair lying over one shoulder, and down onto a splendid, exemplary chest. Her skin was a golden tan; it glittered faintly, as if she were wearing some kind of shimmery something over it. Pixie dust, he thought, and chuckled quietly.