The Red Velvet Horse (Siren Publishing Allure) (9 page)

“I forgot to arm the security system, and neglected to keep up the premiums. It was unforgivable.”

* * * *

Nick Eglassio was a little brown nut of a man, with a shrewd expression and hooded eyes. Always dressed to the nines in yellow waistcoats and diamond stickpins he knew everyone in the art business, and particularly those who were less than honest.

“I heard about your misfortune, and I’m so sorry,” he said to Holt with a valiant attempt at sincerity. “And of course, I thought of you immediately when this particular…business deal came up.”

I bet you did, Holt thought bitterly, amazed to find himself actually consorting with someone as disreputable as this.

They were sitting in Nick’s bizarrely furnished office, which had a clear view of the gallery floor below. An elongated African warrior in cast iron brandished his spear beside an early Ming dynasty figure with pigtails and a Fu Manchu moustache. Animal skin rugs dominated the floor and walls.

“So what does it involve?” Holt asked warily. Desperate for some quick cash, yet only too familiar with the kind of underhanded business arrangements Nick dealt in, forged artworks being his specialty.

“Just a couple of items that you could sell for me in your shop,” he replied glibly, flicking the ash from his cigar towards a hefty jade ashtray.

“Stolen, I suppose?”

“No, but they were supposed to be.” Nick laughed wickedly. “And the insurance company has paid handsomely for the theft.”

“If there are any questions asked, where am I supposed to have…acquired this merchandise?”

“I’ll take care of that.” Nick stuck the old stogie in the corner of his mouth and worked it around with relish. “I’ll provide you with legitimate looking paper work, just in case anyone gets nosy. But that’s highly unlikely.”

“Give me a couple of days to think about it.” Holt felt intensely uncomfortable with the whole thing. He didn’t want to involve April without her prior knowledge. And yet, didn’t want to add to the mess he had landed her in, by asking her to participate.

It was a conundrum that he wouldn’t have wished on his worst enemy.

Yet, the fact remained that Village Antiques was about to go under. Only a bold move could save it.

“Nick Eglassio?” April was wide-eyed in disbelief. “How could you even consider doing business with him? The man’s a well-known crook.”

“Believe me, I don’t like the idea any better than you do. But it’s either that, or go belly up. Which is it to be?”

* * * *

Since the robbery, Holt had been avoiding seeing Carla. Not only in order to save money, which he could no longer afford, but also because he suspected that she might have had something to do with it.

He had not breathed even a hint of this suspicion to another living soul, too ashamed of having been used as a dupe. Yet, the persistent memories of Carla seeming more than a little interested in the store’s security system, as well as the value of the merchandise continued to haunt him.

“This is absolutely gorgeous,” she had gushed, referring to the Edwardian pearl pendant he had given her for Valentine’s Day. Then, assuming (correctly) that it came from Village Antiques, asked him if they had a lot of similar pieces of comparable value.

“Quite a good selection at any given time,” he had replied frankly. Never thinking for one moment that she could have any ulterior motive for asking. But then, even now he wasn’t certain that she did have.

Then there was the matter of the security code, and how the conversation had veered around to it on the night he had drank too many Vodka cocktails. They had been lounging in Carla’s heavily sexual back room, which had every appearance of a Turkish brothel, complete with beaded curtains and floor cushions.

Had he told her what it was? For the life of him, he couldn’t now remember.

Now that the need to get naked with a woman for full sexual intercourse was hot upon him, he relegated all these questions and doubts to the back of his mind, and headed for Missy’s Massage Parlor with a raging hard-on that would not be denied.

“I’ve missed you,” Carla scolded playfully, as she led him towards the scarlet covered bed. Wearing harem pants and impossibly high-heeled shoes, her full breasts swelled out invitingly from the skimpiest of halter-tops. “What have you got for me there?” She dragged her long red fingernails down the length of his bulging crotch. “Feels good whatever it is!”

Holt’s need was too urgent to indulge in this type of pre-coital flirtation and play. “Just bend over the bed and drop your pants,” he ordered her in a voice that sounded alien even to his own ears.

“Wow, you really do have an appetite tonight.” Carla giggled nervously. She did as he wanted, leaving her shoes on and poking her behind well up in the air to accommodate him.

“God that’s great...just great…” he muttered like a mantra, while he fucked the living bejesus out of the woman, whom he thought might very well have betrayed his confidences in the worst possible way.

When she came and sat on his lap afterwards, curling up like a cat in a contented little ball, he wondered if perhaps he might be mistaken. Heavens, am I getting paranoid? Or, was he just seeking someone else to blame for his own carelessness?

However, several weeks later, the Police recovered some of the pieces stolen in the robbery, and the dealer who had fenced them identified Carla as the source.

“Well at least we have everything back now…or almost,” April exclaimed gratefully when she heard the good news. She had been working on a window display for Halloween at the time. “So you can tell that crook Nick Eglassio to take a hike. We will not be doing business with him after all.”

Now that I was in touch with my darling Tom again, all else in life paled beside the rush of adrenaline that accompanied the very sight of his letters. “Marry me, Hannah, please,” he implored. “Let’s not risk losing each other again.” Yet, much though I would have loved to accept and move back to the sweet air of the pacific coast, I knew it was but a pipe dream. For I already had a husband living there, a brutal beast named Ned Beasley.

Also––and this I will not attempt to either deny or justify–– I had got used to a more luxurious style of living and was reluctant to abandon this comfort to eke out a mean living as the wife of a tram conductor.

That was not the end of it either. My sexual appetite had increased since working at Mrs. Cloud’s, and I simply could not imagine being restricted to one man forever, even if it were someone as handsome and dear as my beloved Tom.

It was around this time that a most unexpected occurrence took place.

Old Jock and I had just enjoyed a particularly rousing time astride the wanton Neddy. I could hear the church bells tolling in the distance, heralding in a New Year. As we clinked our glasses together, and swallowed the champagne in one greedy gulp, he asked me to be his wife.

“I could never get enough of your sweet quim, lassie,” he declared with a frankness that did him credit. “And if you were my wife we could be shagging away like beavers every minute of the day.”

“You do me a great honor, Jock,” I replied, once the initial shock had worn off, and I had contented myself that he was indeed serious in his proposal. “But please, give me time to consider.”

Marriage was a big step, as I had found out to my cost with the monstrous Ned Beasley. This thought entered my mind with just the right amount of wryness to offset any bad feeling or bitterness, for these are poor bedfellows who rob us of joy, as certainly as they do no harm to the stinker who caused them in the first place.

“Are you going to accept him, Ma’am?” Mattie asked, her plump little hands clenched uneasily in her lap. Concerned, no doubt, as to what her position would be in a new household.

“I am,” I replied without hesitation. For Jock was a very wealthy man, having made his fortune in the lumber business. Chances such as this did not come along every day. While it was true that he was uncouth with the most vulgar of sexual appetites, he was not ungenerous. Always giving me a most handsome tip on top of the fee to Mrs. Cloud. Unusual for a Scotsman, or at least that’s what we’ve been led to believe. There again, this unbecoming characteristic was probably attributed to them by their old archenemy the English. Scotland being a poor country, they simply didn’t have it in the first place.

So were my thoughts as I prepared for my wedding to Jock Sinclair, a simple ceremony that was to take place in a small Presbyterian Church on the shores of Lake Ontario. They were accompanied also, and I daresay inevitably, by memories of my last engagement to the dishonest Jeffrey Sutton, and how cruelly my hopes had been shattered on that occasion.

It was, therefore, with a great deal of relief that I saw my current venture go off without a hitch. When, on an idyllic Indian summer day in mid October, Jock and I were joined as man and wife in the sacred bonds of holy matrimony.

What God has joined together, let not man put asunder…(Matthew 19:6)

* * * *

April set aside the crumpled manuscript, yawned and stretched. Her eyes were tired from pouring over the yellowed pages and faded writing. However, the literary offerings of Hannah Wilks were well worth the effort. The sheer indomitable spirit of the woman shone down through the years, with enough brilliance to give heart to even the frailest of souls.

From where she sat in the window seat, she could see the lights of the city twinkling like earthbound stars on a backdrop of black horizon. Her thoughts were still very much in nineteenth century Toronto, at a certain lakeside church on an Indian summer’s day.

My heavens, the sheer bold-faced audacity of the woman, marrying one man, while still wed to another!

Hannah Wilks was now a bigamist.

The question was would she get away with it?

* * * *

Jock Sinclair turned out to be a surprisingly good husband, if overfond of his native Scotch and possessed of a strictly unconventional nature. For instance, far from being ashamed of marrying a former prostitute he was actually proud of the fact.

“Whores make the very best of wives,” he was wont to say. Especially when he was deep in his cups and the company jovial. “They’re just so damned grateful to only have to fuck one man that they’d never be unfaithful. And they’re damned good in the sack to boot.”

This ribald remark was always guaranteed to bring forth many a hearty guffaw, often of an embarrassed nature. But fortunately for me, as I disliked being made the brunt of amusement in this way, Jock entertained seldom and only then a few old cronies whom he had known for years.

Although uncouth and fond of rough expressions, he was generous with me, and always kind. We lived in an old granite castle of a place in the fashionable Rosedale district. On winter nights the draughts fairly swirled around the skirting boards and wainscots, blowing the flames around in the fireplaces and sometimes extinguishing them altogether.

“I never thought I’d see the day that I’d marry an Englishwoman,” he often told me in a joking manner. Completely ignoring the fact that this particular one was a former whore as well. Which, to most modes of thought would be infinitely more significant, not to mention unacceptable. “But it just goes to show that we never know what tricks fate has in store for us,” he would add philosophically.

Jock’s sexual appetite was boundless, and often kept me awake until dawn. “You’re saving me money lass,” he would tell me with the most disarming of smiles. “Can you imagine how much this would cost me in Mrs. Cloud’s?”

At the very mention of my erstwhile employer and her high-class establishment, I would thank my lucky stars that Jock had taken a shine to me and made me his wife. For a whore has a very short shelf life, and I was fast approaching that age when I would no longer be employed in a top-notch house.

Eventually, sliding down the scale to sleazy knocking shops, and then ending on the streets themselves. A sorry old pockmarked floozy in a gin-induced stupor, peddling my disease-ridden bum, for a few pennies, to anyone who would have me.

Thanks be to heaven and Jock Sinclair, that horrific fate would never be my lot in life. Instead, I would be required to satisfy one man only, in the opulent comfort of a sprawling mansion.

“Do you ever hear from Tom now?” Mattie Gwyn had the temerity to ask me as we strolled one day in a nearby park. For wasn’t it she who had intercepted his letters to me and destroyed them only a short time ago.

“No, I do not,” I replied brusquely. “Although it is none of your business, and an extreme impertinence for you to question me thus.”

I lowered myself carefully onto my favorite bench. Jock had been overly vigorous the night before and my bottom and both its orifices were decidedly tender.

“Isn’t the lilac beautiful just now?” Mattie slickly changed the subject as she reached up and plucked a flower.

“Gorgeous,” I replied coldly, but sniffed appreciatively at the snowy bloom she thrust into my face.

The very mention of Tom had started up a line of thought that I would have sooner left dormant. For I felt guilty about the way I had abandoned him for the lucrative offer of marriage from Jock Sinclair. Loath to upset him by telling him the true nature of my defection, I had simply stopped writing and left no forwarding address.