Ben Ryder - Englishmen 3 - Released Read online

  “No idea. But I can tell you it takes someone very passionate to do the job he does.” Jackie sighed. “And by all accounts, he’s going against the heavily armed.”

  “So who exactly is this Johannson guy?”

  “Well,” Jackie began, “according to Forbes, he’s one of the richest men in the country. He claims to be Libertarian, and I suppose he is, in the sense that he wants smaller government, lower taxes, and less regulation. That, of course, suits his corporate interests. But he misses the point of Libertarianism when it comes to social issues. On those, he’s a flat-out conservative nutjob of the religious right and Tea Party variety.”

  “What kind of business is he in?” I was impressed how much Jackie knew on the subject.

  49“From what I hear, he has a finger in almost every pie:

  oil refineries, steel mills, chemical plants, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and even food. With that much money and power, his competitors don’t stand much of a chance. He buys them out and strips them down, or undercuts them until they’re forced into bankruptcy.”

  “How on earth do you know so much about him?” I asked, surprised at her knowledge.

  “Alex told me some of it, but it’s mostly been Martin who’s kept me well informed. He’s been after Johannson as a client for years. Do you have any idea how many properties they own? Martin would kill for a slice of that action! I told him I don’t like the idea of him dealing with such a shady character, but what do I know?”

  “So why does Alex have such an issue with him? Is it just the bribing of the senators?”

  “Isn’t that enough for a journalist? It’s kind of sweet when you think about it. There he is, going out into the world and exposing bad men, bringing them to justice with his mighty sword. Or pen, as the case may be. He’s something of a modern-day hero, in his own way.”

  Hero. Superhero. Superman. My thoughts drifted back to Alex opening his shirt. I reveled in the image that was emblazoned in my mind. Jackie’s phone rang, bringing me back to reality.

  I looked down at my work calendar. I had three articles to get through by the following night, including a write-up of the war photojournalist’s exhibition. I realized just how much work I had to do and started to feel a little harried. Before I started typing, the envelope icon bounced on the

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  bottom right corner of the screen. I clicked on it to read the incoming message.

  Dominic, There’s an offer on the house. It’s a cash buyer, so no waiting or complications with a chain.

  Please confirm your acceptance so we can move forward with the sale.

  Richard.

  The e-mail was short, efficient, and without pleasantries. It irked me, but I didn’t know why I would expect anything else. Tipping back in my chair, I played with the idea of delaying my response to make him sweat for a while. I could imagine his frustration. I knew he hated the fact that my name was on the property and that he couldn’t do anything without my signature. The issue of not having complete control must have been consuming him. The property needed to be sold so the equity could be divided and he could begin his life in a new place with his new man.

  But what would I gain by messing with his head? I’d only had the e-mail for a few minutes, and it was already messing up mine. I toyed with the idea of screwing up the sale out of pure spite and revenge for his lies and his cheating, to delay their happiness for as long as they’d delayed mine. But the longer we had that house together, the longer we were linked. It kept us in each other’s lives, and that was not what I wanted.

  I knew I had to take the high road. I replied, knowing my opportunity to torture him was gone, but satisfied that

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  my quick response would let him know I was as eager as he was to sever ties. Richard,

  FedEx the papers to the following address:

  Dominic Holland

  c/o The New York Daily Ledger

  614 8th Avenue, 35th Floor

  New York, New York 10018

  Please ensure that you include ALL documents that need

  signatures to complete the sale. I will sign and return them to the solicitor and also include a letter confirming that I relinquish any claim on furniture, fixtures, or fittings. You are free to dispose of anything that you do not wish to retain.

  Dominic. I wasn’t sure if he would regard the cold and businesslike tone as a slight, or if he would respond to it positively because it was clear and precise. Either way, I knew that including the address of the office in Manhattan would send a jolt of jealously through him.

  The high road felt good.

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  Chapter Four

  Saturday, May 6, 2017 IT TOOK me a while, but I finally settled on a topic for my piece for the Sunday supplement. It took me the entire day, but the end result was worth it. It seemed to be a simple enough subject: the background and accompanying photos of the street performers that occupy Union Square on the weekends.

  I hopped on my bike and cycled down to watch the artists entertain the tourists with a mix of talents. The jugglers and acrobats in the square had cleared areas for themselves by creating a circle of onlookers, attracting passersby who might be curious about what was happing in the makeshift amphitheaters. An old man with a simple bucket of soapy water and two sticks of wood attached by two pieces of thick string held the children’s rapt attention outside the market as he made the biggest bubbles I’d ever seen. Young musicians, who, judging by their talents, must have been students at a school for performing arts, laid their instrument cases on the ground to collect money as they played complex pieces by heart. The level of tricks by the magicians and illusionists was far more impressive than those I’d watched in my youth. They weren’t just pulling rabbits out of hats, but a menagerie of creatures from backpacks of tourists and the pockets of locals.

  53Alongside these performers were the more common

  kinds of street entertainment, which only added to the circus vibe. Bearded buskers sang old Irish ditties and played their fiddles on the steps leading to the park, while a barbershop quartet sang in perfect harmony in the center. Just yards away from the buskers, gold- and silver-painted men posed as robots. Alongside them stood a woman covered in green makeup, wearing a crusty green-painted dress and holding a torch aloft, ready for any tourist who wanted a picture with the Statue of Liberty.

  Instead of writing an observational piece about street performances, which had been done countless times before, I took time with each of them to get their backstories and showcase their personalities. Some told me how they came to be out of work and managed to turn their performances into a living, while others told me of their training in the arts and how they used their time in this public arena as rehearsals for their night jobs in shows and bands. But the most interesting ones were the men and women who had regular spots marked out, where they’d performed for years. They did it purely to delight strangers and stake a small amount of notoriety in New York, like the Naked Cowboy.

  I returned to my apartment to write. By the time I finished the text and the layout for the article, it was 1:00 p.m., an hour short of the 2:00 p.m. cutoff time for the newspaper’s Sunday supplement. It was earlier than the weekday cutoff of midnight for first editions because the Sunday paper had so much more content. I put it together and e-mailed it to the art department, but had to wait around for an hour in case there were any last-minute issues or changes they wanted.

  54In the meantime I surfed the web. It was quite innocent

  at first. I had a big interview coming up with a high-profile actor who was trying to drum up advertising for an indie film he was in. Without his usual massive studio to foot the bill for a publicity tour, he was doing as many interviews as possible to get out the name of the small-budget film. I typed his name, Mason Russell, into the search engine of my laptop. I clicked on the first of thirty-eight million results, which was his IMDb page, and it took me to a list of all of his television and movie roles.


  Across the top of the page were various screen shots of him in different poses. I clicked on one of him shirtless, holding a gun. He was every bit the quintessential action man, damn hot with a ripped body. I returned to Google and chanced my luck.

  “Mason Russell naked.” Pages upon pages of the actor shirtless or in just a pair of underwear appeared, but sadly, none of him in the buff. Toward the bottom of the grid of images, I saw a thumbnail of what looked like the actor with a raging hard-on. I clicked on it, which took me to the page Male Nude Celebs, but I was soon disappointed that all the pictures were only someone’s wishful thinking. The larger image showed it was obviously a fake, a photoshopped image of Mason Russell’s head on a porn star’s body. I’d hoped for a moment that, somehow, I’d stumbled upon the scandal of a sex tape that was being passed around the web. No such luck.

  And, like so many times before, that adult website page led to another, which led to another, until I’d abandoned all research of Mason Russell and simply searched for porn.

  55By the time the 2:00 p.m. cutoff for alterations passed, I

  was on the sofa with my laptop watching a streaming video of two muscular Marines fucking against a Jeep. Turned on and as horny as hell, I started to pop the button fly on my jeans, ready to pull my cock out. But then I remembered I had the silver-haired man’s e-mail address. I tucked away my cock and walked over to the small closet where my leather jacket hung. I dug through the pockets and found the small slip of paper.

  I didn’t want to send him a message from my personal or work e-mail, so I quickly ran through the requirements of setting up an Outlook account. I assumed that, since his own e-mail address didn’t bear his name, and he hadn’t asked for mine, he wanted to keep any potential hookups anonymous. I decided on a name that I thought would catch his eye.

  To:[email protected]

  From:[email protected]

  Subject: Tonight?

  Hey, this is the guy from the subway and Central Park.

  Any chance you’re free tonight for some fun? I hit send and stared at the screen for a minute. What did I expect? That he’d be sitting around waiting for my email? I shook my head, minimized the window for the e-mail, and returned to the porn site.

  I found a video of two builders fucking on a worksite, still in their hardhats and boots. Less than five minutes in, I was about to pull my cock out again, convinced that I

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  probably wouldn’t hear back from the silver-haired man that evening, if ever. But just to be sure, just in case there was the remotest chance I wouldn’t have to resort to my own hand again, I opened the e-mail window. To my surprise, I had one unread message.

  To:[email protected]

  From:[email protected]

  Subject: RE: Tonight?

  The Imperial Palace Hotel. Room #1606. 9pm.

  Well, at least this time we won’t be under a tree, I thought to myself with a grin. I closed the browser on the porn. I wouldn’t be needing that anymore.

  I was a little skeptical of the name of the hotel. The Imperial Palace Hotel may have sounded plush, but there’s a habit in the hotel industry of christening hotels with grander names than they’re worth. In my time, I’d stayed in hotels called The Grand, The Grove, The Millennium, and The Gramercy. Each sounded like it would have private suites for visiting monarchy. In reality, they usually were little more than cheap dives.

  But this time it didn’t bother me. After feeling like I’d lived under someone’s thumb for so long in a sexless relationship, the idea of a quick and fun tumble somewhere with no strings attached was now quite attractive.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon going through my work schedule for the week ahead. With the white-water rafting trip the following weekend, I had to get a head start and make sure I was up to date on everything before we left. I also had to find a decent solicitor in London, one to whom I could fax the papers for the house sale as soon as I received

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  them. Until a couple of months before, I wouldn’t have thought for a second, in spite of our bad relationship, that Richard would do anything to screw me out of money from my share of the house. But then again, I didn’t think he would cheat and fuck me over the way he did. His actions proved how stupid it was to assume I knew him as well as I thought I did.

  My mind wandered to the following weekend and the rafting trip, but more specifically to Alex. I wondered how he was doing in DC and about the story he was working on. He obviously was dedicated to his job and seemed to have made a name for himself in the world of journalism. I’d read a few of his bigger articles, major stories he’d either reported on or uncovered himself. He’d also written profiles of major labor leaders, a widely acclaimed series on immigration reform, and a particularly hard-hitting exposé on fraud and waste in the education system.

  Unlike many of his peers, Alex had a stellar reputation for reporting based on evidence and not sensationalizing a story. He relied on old-fashioned hard facts and wrote in a straightforward and clear way that conveyed the truth. Maybe his love of the truth was why I liked him so much. I knew he probably didn’t have any interest in me other than as a work colleague, but that element of honesty in his personality had become one of the most important things to me in a man.

  That, and he was ridiculously attractive. I decided that if I were to meet a guy in New York, when I was ready to consider another relationship, Alex would be a good yardstick for comparison. I was sure by that time he’d be snatched up by someone else. The lucky bastard.

  58Such high-minded values were cast away as I ventured

  out to meet the silver-haired man. The Imperial Palace Hotel was bigger and far more lavish than even the name suggested. I couldn’t have been more wrong about the possibility of it being a dive. I walked through the stylish lobby and immediately saw ball gowns of every cut and color walking between smart black tuxedos. Anywhere else, my dark-blue jeans and black T-shirt would have looked perfectly respectable and relatively smart, but at this event, whatever the grand occasion was, I probably looked like a waiter who hadn’t changed into his uniform.

  I tried to locate the bank of elevators that led up to the 16th floor, but ended up next to reception, as I had to navigate around a particularly large group of wealthy-looking people. The men looked like they’d been reanimated from the cover of a Monopoly box, while their sixty-year-old wives’ faces stretched back as if caught in a wind tunnel. As with most plastic surgery on women of a certain age, their necks gave them away, even with the gaudy diamond necklaces trying to distract the eyes from their wrinkled, hanging skin.

  “Can I be of assistance, young man?” a man said haughtily from behind the desk.

  “I’m just looking for the elevators,” I said casually.

  The concierge, whose neatly engraved badge said his name was Jacques (though I was sure he was just Jack when he went home every night), looked me up and down. “Have you already checked in, sir?” he asked in a tone that clearly said I shouldn’t be there and he found my presence worrisome.

  “No, I’m just visiting a friend. He’s on the 16th floor. Can you direct me to the elevators, please?” I responded politely.

  59He looked at me again, but this time he suspiciously

  drew his eyes from my sneakers up to my face. He obviously could see I wasn’t attending the event they were hosting, and I’d already admitted I wasn’t a paying guest. He looked down at his computer. “Perhaps I can call him and ask him to meet you here by reception?” he asked. He tapped a couple of keys on his computer to pull up the right screen. “Your friend’s name?”

  Finally, it clicked. I was surrounded by wealthy people in their best outfits while I stood around in jeans and a Tshirt. The hotel likely was full of guests at the event. He thought I was a rent boy! Well, maybe not a rent boy—I was clearly too old for that. Perhaps he thought I was a hustler. For a moment I was offended, but then I smiled inwardly. Could I take it as a compliment?

>   I put on my best British accent. “Whilst I appreciate your kind offer of assistance, all that I require is the location of the elevators.”

  “Jacques” still looked unsure, but he pointed in the direction of a corridor and informed me I could find the elevators on the left-hand side. As I walked away, he beckoned a security guard, so I hurried along. I found the elevators and took the first one that arrived, punching the button for the 16th floor and the Close Door button repeatedly.

  The doors opened, and I took a final look in the mirror next to the elevator bank. I was actually nervous. I found my way to room 1606 and knocked on the door. I could feel my hands become clammy. I didn’t know why I was nervous, especially since this was a much safer place than the last time I met him. The silver-haired man opened

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  the door and immediately stepped out, closing the door behind him. He was dressed in a tuxedo and carrying some kind of clothing that looked like a small black tie bunched up in his hand.

  “Follow me,” he said, just above a whisper, as his eyes scanned the empty corridor. “You look perfect.”

  “Where are we going?”

  He didn’t respond. As we reached the end of the plush hallway, he stopped at a door with a glowing red exit sign above it. He looked around to be sure the coast was clear, and before I could tell him to wait, he pushed the door open. Once again, I felt uneasy, but I followed him through into a large stairwell that ran the height of the hotel. The high walls weren’t as perfectly smooth as the wallpapered interior. Instead, these walls were roughly textured and painted a brilliant white, probably covering up the original building works of this old hotel. The stairwell’s black iron handrails looked modern and were sunken into the dark-green concrete floor.