When we left Nicolette and Neal, their budding relationship had just wilted like a rosebud in a Texas summer. Today we learn more about Neal, about why he was in town, and about the dark forces at work behind the scenes of Nicolette’s tragedy.

See if you can find the rugby reference. If you do, drop me a line.

Enjoy!

———

4

A gentleman in a business suit strolled along Park, making the last few blocks to 50th and Lexington. He got out of the cab at 47th and Park because it wouldn’t do to have the elites at the company see him without his driver; it would raise too many questions, and he simply wasn’t giving any answers.

His head was down, and he was not watching where he was going, really. He knew these streets very well, having beat them often during the last few years, and his feet carried him along without his conscious brain really navigating at all.

He bumped a street vendor — probably dogs or gyros or some other ridiculous disgutitude — who was bent over his cart.

“Hey buddy, what gives?” said the hot dog vendor. When the walking man didn’t retort, he continued, giving a wave of his hand as he did so: “Eh, go fuck yourself.”

The man turns on 50th, and proceeds past a clothing boutique called Cheryl’s Barrel of Threads, a five-and-dime, and a few other shops, and arrived at the Law Offices of Palmer & Sanford, took the elevator to the sixth floor, went straight past the secretary without so much as a wave, and walked into the office where David Palmer was supposed to be working.

David wasn’t there.

The man who had walked in slammed his fist against the desk, and with a broad swipe knocked off a lamp, an inkwell and Parker fountain pen, a card index, and a stack of file folders. He turned to exit and saw David Palmer standing in the doorway.

“I take it you’ll send someone to clean that up straightaway, Mr. Sanford?” asked David.

“Fuck you, get your own maid to clean.” Neal, the walking man, pouted like a child and crossed his arms.

David sighed. “What has you all riled up this morning? Did you forget to stop for coffee?”

“You didn’t tell me she was a hooker, David.”

“A hooker? Who, Nicolette?” David sneered, walked to the freshly cleared place on the left corner of the desk and sat down. “Do tell.” He picked up a large, black, glass paperweight that his father had given him and tottered it in his hands.

“Yeah, she’s a goddammed hooker, a call girl, a tramp. Why didn’t you tell me, David? If this gets out, that I’ve been paying for…. Hiring a… My reputation.” Neal looked haggard, distraught. He had been toiling over this despicable idea all the way from Sauk Centre by car to Minneapolis and by plane to New York.

“Your reputation is the least of your concerns, Mr. Sanford. You have a job, and that is to find out what the hell she’s up to.”

Neal stifled what was almost a cry, and almost a wildcat’s yelp.

“Well, I’ve done that. I’ve found out a lot more than I bargained for, too. A hooker, Christ, David.”

“It’s not the end of the world, Neal. You’ve met my wife, am I right? Darla? How much would you give me for a night of wrecklessness in her bed, hmm?”

“She is your wife! Can’t you show a little respect?”

“Oh, Mr. Sanford. Have you gone — ” he made a gesture with the index finger of his left hand — “limp?”

Neal Sanford glared at David Palmer. His hands were clenched into wrecking balls beside him, just ready for the arm to swing. He spoke through clenched teeth.

“Your sister fucked me, and then told me she was a… was,” Neal suddenly softened — went limp, as it were — and sank into one of the plush client’s chairs in David Palmer’s office.

“She told you she was a whore, Neal. Nothing more, nothing less. No worse than the girls you used to run around with at College, right?”

“Damn it, I had no idea. We spent the afternoon together, we talked about all sorts of stuff, I told her my grandfather story and she ate it up.” Neal sat up in the chair, and looked down at his hands. The right was trying to rip the fingernails from the left.

“I really liked her,” he said. “Now I don’t know if I can go through with this anymore, whore or not.”

“You can, and you will. There’s no reason for you to get your dick in a twist over some shitsmear country-girl from Podunk, Minne-so-ta,” David said, exaggerating the north-central accent he applied to the state name. “You live in the biggest little city in the world, and there are a million fish here that will let you dip your pole when you want.”

“It’s not just about the sex. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she was fantastic, Nicolette I mean, it was like — ”

David interrupted him.

“Spare me the theatrics, Neal.” His voice was flat. “That is my sister, afterall. The inner workings of her libido are not the least of my concerns, but damn close. Oh, and call her Niki.”

Neal looked up at David, his eyes sharp and his brow furrowed.

“Why would I call her that?” he asked, thinking of Nicolette saying the same thing just before she told him her backstory.

“That’s her whore name,” David said.

Neal rushed toward him, pummeling fists once again congealed. It only took one well-aimed swing with the paperweight to drop him like a — well, like a loosehead prop drops a hooker.

———

He looked at Darla. She was nude, leaning against him, and they were on the balcony of David’s apartment. He ran his eyes up and down the small of her back, the curve of her thighs, and reached his hand to touch her. His aim was true, and his mark was taken. He felt her buttocks move against his flaccid penis, and felt the latter grow.

She swooned in his arms, and spread her legs apart.

“Take me, David. Let the world see.”

He grasped the shaft of his erection and slid it into Darla, felt her throb, and began to pump against her, to dive into her, to scream inside, and to call out, o, o god, he would say and then finally

“Oh, Niki”

Oh Niki

oh niki

(oh niki)

oh no

———

David dragged Neal’s body across his office floor, smearing the blood, leaving a trail. Anyone who entered would know exactly where to find him. David shoved him under the desk, mashed his arms and legs into the knee space.

There were no windows in David’s office, because he was on the sixth floor, and despised heights. He refused to even enter this office when it was given to him until the windows had been boarded. Now, it seemed that his paranoia was justified.

David walked to the door and clicked the light switch. The room sank away in darkness, and he grabbed his coat from the hat rack and closed the door and locked it. He turned around and jumped, startled by Mary, his secretary.

“Mr. Palmer, did you see the gentleman that came this morning?” she asked.

“No, I didn’t. When did he ring in?”

“Just before you arrived, sir. I assumed he waited for you.”

“I’ve not seen anyone since I arrived.”

“Allright, then. Are you leaving, Mr. Palmer? Do you want me to hold your calls?”

“Yes, Mary, thank you. That’d be great.”

By now, David was beginning to relax. Mary had given him quite a start.

“Mary,” David said, “there’s one more thing. I’ll be leaving town for a few days, and I’ll be entirely out of pocket, no phone, no address. Okay?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Palmer. Thank you. Have a safe trip!”

David cocked his head and looked at her with a muddled expression.

“Mr. Palmer, are you all right?”

David shook himself. “Yes, Mary. Quite. Please hold my calls.”

“Yes, Mr. Palmer.”

He didn’t know it, but she watched him walk away until he had reached the elevator. She tried the door to his office, and found it locked.

———

Darla had the baby three months after David’s office encounter. David was still nowhere to be found, and no one had seen him since the day he walked out of Palmer & Sanford. When she was released from the hospital, she went back to Charleston, South Carolina, to stay with her parents while she got back on her feet.

———

…continued…