The Long Fall

WHEN I GOT OFF the elevator on the seventy-second floor I felt a rush of satisfaction. The light fixtures along the hall are polished brass, and even the floor is a complex design of purple, green, and white marble tiles. The Tesla has wide hallways and the doors are heavy, hewn from solid oak. I got to the end of the hall and turned left. It was no surprise to see Aura Antoinette Ullman at the far end, waiting at my front door. Warren Oh had probably called her.

Aura was a tall woman, the color of dark burnished gold. She was near forty with a womanly maturity about her that always made me feel a thrumming somewhere near my heart. Her wavy hair was blond, naturally, and her cool-colored eyes defied definition by the color wheel. Her mother was Danish and her father a black man from Togo, an ambassador to some east European nation. Her father’s Christian name was Champion. Aura had told me that her mother, Helene, married him for his name, but was let down.

She, Aura, took her mother’s maiden name and came with her to New York when she was fifteen. She majored in business at CCNY and took over Terry Swain’s job when he went into the hot dog business.

“You’re seventeen days late on the rent,” she said when I reached her.

I pulled out a keychain that held the seven keys I needed to open the locks that secured the outer chamber of my inner sanctum.

Hyman and Schultz had figured out that I was the likely cause of their problems, but they didn’t have proof. So when they hired Aura they told her that her top priority was breaking my lease.

size="3">“The landlords want their money,” Aura said. Her voice was also golden—sexy with an added vibration that sent chills down into my shoulder blades.

I had opened three locks.

“I will start eviction proceedings tomorrow if I don’t have the rent by tonight.”

Five locks.

“You know that your lease is a crime, Mr. McGill.”

So’s that black dress you’re wrapped in, I thought.

Seven locks and the door came open.

When we walked in, the lights came on automatically. A tripped switch turned on three silent cameras that took digital pictures every eight seconds. The cameras were installed on a rare site-call by Tiny “Bug” Bateman himself, and so they were foolproof. I would look at the pictures of Aura later, after she’d finished threatening me and went back to her own office.

I leaned against the receptionist’s desk while Aura shone her stern visage down on me.

“I got a job I’m just finishing up right now,” I said. “I can pay you by tomorrow night.”

She appraised my words with her stormy, sky-colored eyes and smirked. Then she shook her head.

“My number-one job is to get you out of here.”

“Isn’t there anything I can do?” I asked, standing up straight.

Aura was three inches taller than I but it seemed like a foot. She pulled her head back and sneered, shaking her head ever so slightly.

“Come on,” I said. “Just one day. You know that you can’t evict me if I pay by tomorrow anyway. It’ll just be a lot of paperwork.”

“The owners would like to see it.”

“One day.”

“One day,” she said, “for one kiss.”

It was astonishing to me that something so sweet could hurt so bad. Holding that woman in my arms, I ached for a whole other life, a life that I would never have. When she pressed her shoulder against mine I moaned as much from the pleasure as from the ache.

I pulled away, trying to remember how to breathe.

Her gaze was triumphant.

“I could tell you liked that, Leonid Trotter McGill.”

I hadn’t caught my breath yetv hmy brea.

“You don’t love her,” Aura said. “She’s done you dirt again and again. Why would you stay there when it’s obvious where you want to be?”

“Georg and Simon would fire you if they thought we were together,” I said lamely.

“I can always get another job.”

“I’ll have your money before six o’clock day after tomorrow.”

“I only gave you one day.”

I went to the door, opened it, and looked down at her feet.

Ê€„

4

After Aura had gone I sat down in the receptionist’s chair and put my feet up on her ash desk. I didn’t have a receptionist but it was important to keep up appearances. I might become successful one day and need someone to greet my long line of wealthy clients.

Sitting there, gazing out the window at New Jersey, I wanted nothing more than to have Aura in my life. I wanted her to be my woman in a world where I was an upstanding and respectable citizen with a receptionist who only allowed honest civilians like myself past the front office.

These bouts of fantasy were always bittersweet because thoughts of what I didn’t have always brought me back to the chain around my neck—my wife, Katrina.

“I’M GOING TO leave you, Leonid,” Katrina had said to me one evening eleven months before. We were sitting in the dining room of our West Side apartment, alone.

I looked at her, trying to decipher the meaning of her words.

“Did you hear me?” she said.