The Zero Hour (32 page)

There were several leading private bondage-and-discipline sex clubs in New York City, and considering his relationship with Valerie Santoro, the odds were great that Elkind frequented at least one of them. He did not, however, turn up at the two best-known ones, Pandora’s Box and the Nutcracker.

At around four o’clock the next afternoon, Elkind left his office in the Manhattan Bancorp Building and began walking north up Lexington. His tails followed him to an office building on East Fifty-sixth Street between First and Second avenues, which was just a few blocks away.

Repeated calls to his office at the same time elicited the information that he was “out of the office,” and then that he had “left for the day.” As soon as surveillance had determined that Elkind’s destination, on the thirteenth floor of the building, was the private and very exclusive Brimstone Club, Sarah’s beeper went off.

She was there within twenty minutes, which, given the traffic, was impressive time.

The elevator took her straight to the thirteenth floor and opened on a small, dark, eucalyptus-scented waiting area with comfortable-looking couches around a black shag rug. On the wall were vast blowups of artistically grainy photographs of women posing provocatively in black leather. Behind a glass window, sitting at a counter, was a fierce-looking middle-aged woman with obviously dyed blond hair, an enormous bosom, and heavy purple eyeshadow. She glanced warily at Sarah and said, “Can I help you?”

Sarah had dressed casually in jeans and a button-down polo shirt rolled up at the sleeves. She looked like an attractive young woman who was perhaps a graduate student, perhaps a professional on a day off. Hard to read, yes, but certainly not someone to beware of.

She had thought long and hard about her approach here, too. Flashing her credentials wouldn’t get her beyond the waiting area, if they wanted to play hardball. If she bluffed her way in, she risked alerting him. Yet she had to get in somehow.

“A friend of mine suggested I check out working here, learn the trade,” she said offhandedly.

“Uh huh,” the blond receptionist said. “And who’s that?”

“I’d rather not say, okay? A friend. I’m sort of into the idea of dominance.”

She looked at Sarah neutrally yet appraisingly. “You have experience?”

“Some. I’ve played a little, with a lover. Done the clubs, the Nutcracker, you know. Now I’m sort of looking to do it professionally.”

“You married?”

“No. My ex-husband’s idea of dominance and submission was more mental than physical, if you know what I’m saying.”

The receptionist gave a short laugh. “What toys are you familiar with?”

“Well … single-tail whips. Floggers. Some knifeplay, electrical play. CBT.” CBT was the argot for cock-and-ball torture.

“We don’t allow the knife,” the receptionist said. “No blood sports.”

“I want a tour,” Sarah said.

“I think one of the rooms is booked,” said the receptionist.

“That’s okay. Everything else, though.”

The receptionist shrugged.

Another woman, this one with jet-black hair, gave the tour. She was stout and even more buxom than the receptionist, dressed entirely in black stretch fabric, and had a hooked nose. She introduced herself as Eva and gave an introductory spiel.

The Brimstone Club was one of New York’s most exclusive houses of D&S, or dominance and submission. Its clientele, she explained, included some of the city’s wealthiest and most powerful men and women. They ranged from corporate lawyers to music executives, from Wall Street tycoons to world-famous academics. No one from the lower or even middle echelons of society. A number of prominent public figures, a few extremely well known, came here regularly.

“Most of our members are men,” Eva explained, “mostly submissives, though not all. Largely heterosexual, but not entirely. We have a staff of fourteen, including two men and twelve exalted mistresses.”

Eva led Sarah down a low-ceilinged, acoustically tiled corridor. “We charge two hundred fifty dollars an hour, two-hour minimum. No sex or drugs allowed, and we’re strict about that.”

“So to speak.”

She smiled. “So to speak. No intercourse or oral sex. No blood sports. Absolutely no hand releases. That’s the law.”

“How much of that five hundred do I get?”

“Forty percent of the hourly fee,” Eva said.

“How many clients a day can I reasonably expect?”

“Look,” Eva said, “there’s always a surplus of mistresses.”

“So how much time am I going to sit, waiting for someone who doesn’t have a favorite?”

“If you’re good, you can do maybe a thousand a day for the house, which means four hundred for yourself.”

“You guys have an arrangement with any of the kinky clothing stores in the city? Any employee discounts or whatever? That stuff’s expensive.”

“Oh, sure. No nice clothes, no clients, simple as that. Yeah, we’ve got arrangements.” She opened a door marked
REST ROOM
. A man in a maid’s uniform was on his knees, furtively cleaning the tiled floor with a toothbrush and a pail of Lysol. Sarah noticed he was wearing a wedding band.

“That’s not clean enough, Matilda,” she barked. “Do it again!” She closed the door. “Anyway, that’s the rest room. Unisex. His real name is Matthew. Matilda, when he’s in the role. He’s a sissy slave.”

“Good help is hard to find, isn’t it?” Sarah said.

“Not here. All right, now, there are five dungeons, all fully equipped.” She pulled open a heavy steel door labeled
DUNGEON TWO
. Except that its walls were painted black, it could have been a doctor’s examination room. Its equipment, however, would not have been found in most hospitals. There was a rotating wooden bondage table, a stretch rack, a cross outfitted with leather manacles. Against one wall was a long rack of whips and crops and other equipment Sarah didn’t recognize. Against another wall was a black leather gym horse.

“That’s Two. They’re all pretty similar, with minor variations—suspension equipment, a pin chair, that sort of thing.”

“Can I see the others?”

“Dungeon Three is in use, but I can show you the others if you want. Believe me, it’s all pretty much the same thing.”

“Forget it, that’s all right.”

“Our dominas typically wear leather, patent leather, latex, PVC, or English riding attire. We perform bondage, spanking, flagellation, and humiliation, all mild to severe. Puppy training, infantilism, genital chastisement, nipple torment, foot worship. All the usual.”

When they had returned to the waiting room and Sarah had been handed a three-page form to fill out, she asked to use the rest room.

“Sure,” Eva said, “go ahead. You remember where it is?”

“Yeah.”

“If you want Matilda out of there, just order him out. He’d love it.”

Unescorted, she followed the corridor to the rest room, passed by it, and found the steel door marked Dungeon Three, the one that was occupied. This had to be where she’d find him. She swung it open.

A beautiful redheaded woman in black PVC stretch pants, bra, gloves, and thigh-high black patent-leather boots with long spike heels was wielding a crop on a naked middle-aged man wearing only a black leather hood.

She turned toward the open door and said huffily, “
Excuse
me.”

“Excuse
me
,” Sarah said. “Mr. Elkind?”

A muffled, confused voice emerged from the hood: “Yes, mistress?”

“Mr. Elkind, it’s Special Agent Sarah Cahill. I’m awfully sorry to disturb you, but I thought we might have a little talk.”

*   *   *

The corporate headquarters of the Manhattan Bank were housed in a spectacular modernistic building designed by Cesar Pelli and located on Fifty-second Street near Lexington, very close to the headquarters of its leading competitor, Citicorp.

The executive offices were on the twenty-seventh floor, where Warren Elkind’s suite of offices occupied a large corner of the floor, the area of a small law firm. The floors were covered with Persian carpets; antiques of burled walnut and fruitwood lined the corridors.

In his thousand-dollar navy-blue double-breasted suit with a gold tie, hair combed back, and seated behind his mammoth, bare desk, Warren Elkind once again exuded gravity. Sarah found it hard to reconcile this mandarin with the sweaty, paunchy figure she’d seen wearing nothing but a leather hood just half an hour ago.

Warren Elkind was the chairman of the second-largest commercial bank in the country. An Amherst graduate, he had been married to a wealthy New York socialite for twenty-some years and had four children. He was a director of PepsiCo, Occidental Petroleum, and Fidelity Investments, and a member of a number of exclusive clubs, from the Cosmos in Washington to the Bohemian Grove in San Francisco. A well-connected guy.

But rarely did he appear in the public eye. Here and there he gave a speech about bank regulation. Once in a while he and his wife appeared in the society pages of the
Times
at some benefit or other.

“Now,” he said, “my lawyer will have a field day.”

“So will the press,” Sarah said. “And your shareholders. And the thousands upon thousands of employees of the Manhattan Bank.”

“Are you aware this is blackmail?”

“Yes,” Sarah admitted blithely.

“And that I could get you fired for it?”

“Only if you could prove it,” she responded. “But if I go down, I’ll take you with me.”

“What the hell do you want?”

“I thought you’d never ask. Mr. Elkind, we have some very good information that either you or your bank, or both, are being targeted by terrorists. And we’ve been trying to tell you this for over two weeks.”

“Who?”

“We don’t know.”

He nodded slowly. “Probably the loons who did Oklahoma City. Those right-wing militia groups are convinced that the major banks are in some giant conspiracy with the Israelis and the Russians and the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.”

“I think whoever’s behind it is considerably more sophisticated than any militia group. In any case, we need your cooperation. A few weeks ago you saw a call girl in Boston named Valerie Santoro, who was murdered later that same night.”

Elkind stared levelly at her for several moments. His nostril hairs were white. His hands were perfectly manicured. “I don’t know who or what you’re talking about.”

“Mr. Elkind, I understand your situation. You’re a married man with four children, you’re the chairman of a major bank, you have a reputation to protect. I understand why you’d rather not admit you know Valerie Santoro. But the potential consequences here are serious. You should know I can make sure your name is kept confidential, that any connection to Ms. Santoro—”

“You understand English, don’t you? I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“You should also know that a call was placed from a limousine rented in your name to a telephone number in the name of Valerie Santoro. We have records. That’s point one. Point two, your name was discovered in Valerie Santoro’s Rolodex. Now, perhaps we can talk for a few minutes.”

Elkind looked at her for a long while as if deciding which way to play it. At last he spoke. “Listen to me, Special Agent Cahill,” he said with quiet sarcasm. “I don’t know any Valerie Santorini or whatever the hell her name is. You say a call to some woman was placed from my limo? What the
hell
makes you think I know anything about that? What the hell makes you so sure
I
made this call? How the hell do I know who had access to the limousine?”

“Mr. Elkind—”

“And you say my name is in some girl’s Rolodex. So what?” He leaned over his desk, rustled through a pile of mail, and triumphantly waved a large junk-mail envelope. “I’m delighted and honored that some call girl in Boston put me in her Rolodex. And apparently I’ve also won
ten million dollars
from the Publishers Clearing House, Special Agent Cahill.”

“Please, Mr. Elkind—”

“Ms. Cahill, in my position, you’re a target for all sorts of schemers and loonies. These type of people prey on rich men like me all the time. They go through the
Forbes
Four Hundred, they buy addresses from these computer data services. I don’t even know this woman, and I resent your wasting my time with this bullshit. If you’re going to accuse me of the murder of some girl I don’t even know, go right ahead. But you’d better have an ironclad case. And you’ll be laughed out of a job. I’ll see to it.”

Sarah felt her face flush with anger. She studied the repeating floral pattern on the rust-colored carpet. “Is that a threat?”

“That’s a prediction. I’m not without friends and allies. Don’t fuck with me.” He stood up.

“Sit down, please,” she said. She took out a cassette tape recorder and hit the play button.

After she played the phone conversation between Elkind and Valerie, she said: “This, as well as your documented membership in the Brimstone Club, can become public knowledge through artfully placed leaks. Which means the end of your reign at Manhattan Bank. The humiliation will be too profound. Your board of directors will demand your immediate resignation.”

“My private life is my own affair.”

“Not for someone in your position of prominence.”

“There’s no difference between what you people are doing now and the way you went after Charlie Chaplin. You don’t find it repulsive?”

“Oh, sometimes I do,” Sarah admitted. “But this kind of gamesmanship is something I’ll bet you’re quite familiar with.”

“That’s Machiavellian—”

“Right—since the end justifies it. Everyone’s always in favor of privacy unless we’re invading the ‘privacy’ of terrorists or assassins—then they’re all in favor of our ‘intelligence.’ I’d have thought that the threat of a terrorist attack on your own bank would have persuaded you to cooperate long ago, but I guess not. Now the choice is yours: tell me everything, or lose your career, maybe even your family.”

Sarah called to mind the society-page photographs she had seen of Warren Elkind’s socialite wife, Evangeline Danner Elkind, at one benefit or another, duly recorded in
Town & Country
and the
Times.
She was an anorexic blonde, once beautiful but now the taut-skinned victim of one too many face-lifts. She was what Tom Wolfe called a “social X ray.” She and her husband had four children, one at Choate, one at Exeter, one at Vassar, one doing drugs and living off Dad’s money in Miami.