SoHo Sins by Richard Vine Read Free Book Online

be overly tactful. “You know him, Angie—better than anyone else alive. Do you think he could be faking?”
    She met my eyes evenly. “I think Philip could say absolutely anything, do absolutely anything, fake absolutely anything, if it would help him get what he wants.”
    “Even now?”
    “People don’t change that much.”
    It seemed an odd thing to say, given what she’d been through and done. I laughed. “Well, we’re all in a hopeless fix then, aren’t we?”
    We went into the house, passing through several carpeted rooms to the kitchen, where a sliding glass door looked out on the pool. Melissa, on the diving board, was being watched by a middle-aged nanny. Her mother waved vigorously, and the girl replied with a quick, convoluted dive. When Angela turned to me, she had a faint smile on her face.
    “So, how are you in the romance department these days?” she inquired.
    “All right, I suppose. Why do you ask?”
    “I rather thought sex might be the goal of your visit.”
    I must have looked perplexed.
    “Don’t you want to sleep with me, Jack? It seems everyone wants to have one off with me lately, now that I’ve started spending time in the city again.”
    “I hadn’t given it any thought.”
    “Really? Rude chap, you’re the exception.”
    I should have known. After Philip left, Angela told me in confidence long ago, she felt as though half her body had gone. She had to get it back bit by bit, wherever she could. Evidently, that covered a lot of territory—and a great many lovers.
    “It’s phenomenal really,” she said. “Chaps I scarcely know are ringing me up left and right. They all offer dinner, then maybe Tibetan throat singers at BAM or whatever, but what they’re really saying is ‘Let’s go for a drink and a quick shag, shall we, dear?’ ”
    “Sounds annoying.”
    “I don’t mind. It’s all in good fun, mostly.”
    “Thanks, Angie, I’ve had my fun.”
    “Haven’t you though?”
    “Enough for now.”
    “So what do you want, Jack? Now that the fun is over?”
    “Oh, just one pure and loving heart.”
    She laughed, then caught herself. “My God,” she said. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
    “So I’ve been told.”
    Melissa came in through the sliding door, shivering and wrapped in a towel.
    “Hi, Uncle Jack. Did you see me do the full gainer?”
    “I was mesmerized.”
    “Missy, please don’t drip.” Angela scowled at the droplets that splattered onto the kitchen tiles from the bottom of Melissa’s white one-piece.
    The girl blinked her eyes at me once and headed off, teeth chattering, to her room.
    “Cute kid,” I said. “How’s her French coming? Does she still order
crème brûlée comme dessert
?”
    “Don’t be fooled. She’s a little hellion, that one, in her own quiet way.”
    I hadn’t come to discuss childcare issues. “Tell me, what brings you into the city more often now?” I asked as casually as I could. “Besides your dating schedule, I mean.”
    “I’m having a show in the fall.”
    I tried hard not to reveal my surprise. “Good for you, Angela. Where?”
    “At Michael Loomis’s gallery in Chelsea. Do you know it?”
    “Second-floor space on Twenty-fifth Street? Sure.”
    “Obviously, it’s not the best. But it’s what I could get.”
    We both realized she’d done fairly well. At her age, having spent a decade as a small-town socialite, she was lucky to find anyone to take her art seriously at all. Even Michael Loomis.
    “I’d love a preview,” I said.
    “Would you really? My pleasure.”

7
    Angela led me across the lawn to the white clapboard studio, a former carriage house. When she slid the door aside, a shaft of sunlight cut into the darkness, illuminating scores of humanoid forms in the interior gloom. Some life-size, some smaller, many cast in fiberglass or resin or metal, a few carved in wood, the figures hung from the walls, held twisted postures in corners, crouched half-dismembered on platforms, spilling