Leonid Unstoppable Read online

  I mime drinking, taking cocktail glasses from trays when severs drift past with them. Whenever I’m near a table, I set the glass down again. Pumping dance music races the pulse. Everybody’s eyes slide around. Peering. Checking. Checking who’s checking them, checking who’s coming in, checking for who’s missing.

  I thought I would be less conspicuous without a big camera. But I know that an event like this is not somewhere to whip out a smart phone and start snapping pics. The twenty minutes that I’ve been on board could be the longest time I’ve been in a public place without seeing anybody take a selfie.

  But I’m congratulating myself for the one thing I did guess right and prepare for. People do get phones out. Some to make calls, but amazingly few, at least in plain sight. I guess they’re all using Bluetooth earphones. But the place is packed with vain, beautiful people. Plenty of guests take out their cameras to use as mirrors.

  I’ve set my phone so I get the camera on the back, picture in picture on the screen with the selfie camera. And I put a blank plug in the headphone jack. I can pose like I’m checking my reflection, see the picture in the little window, and take pics without the phone making a shutter snap sound.

  Infectious dance beats pulse and swell. Sounds like Akram, the superstar Russian DJ. I catch a sight of the DJ booth. It is Akram. I practice looking like I’m checking the mirror while I get some pics of him mixing. The reception is not short of characters, so I get off a few great shots.

  I’m sure I’ve spotted Svetlana Zavarovski herself, the reclusive fashion empress, chatting very privately, huddled with a huge man who has scars and a pirate’s earring. His profile, the shape of his back seems familiar as I zoom in to snatch blurred photos of the couple.

  This part all seems to be working out. And I haven’t been thrown overboard yet. I feel like I can relax a little. Until I hear a voice, right behind my shoulder.

  “Oh my goodness,” a woman with a razor-cut bob and elaborate ink on one side of her face is making comical big eyes, “You’ve taken the ‘natural look,’ and really, kind of, hyped it to the sky.” I’m trying to see of she’s wearing play-tatts or if they’re real. Her eyes glint hard and she looks at my face on my camera screen and says, “Can you see anything at all in the picture? It’s like you’ve made yourself invisible.”

  Next to her, a guy in silver pleather pants and a T-shirt that looks like he stole it from the wall of an art gallery says, “It’s like a vampire, only more… vague.”

  “A vaguepire!” the first woman sniggers.

  “Super natural,” the man says, “More natural than nature.”

  “Extra natural,” a redheaded girl in a turquoise pantsuit chips in, grinning.

  “Natural max,” the first girl says. The three of them laugh and dissolve into giggles.

  “Hyper-nat,” the man says. And their giggles boil to a crescendo again. I smile, like I could be enjoying a joke with them.

  I don’t think they’re joking with me, though. I think they joking at me. I try to think of something witty to say back. What I come up with is, “Oh, do excuse me.”

  Yeah, Parker. Really flex that social muscle.

  I move away, into the densest part of the crowd, wishing the ballroom floor would open up just enough to drop me, down and through the hull, down to the bottom of the San Francisco Bay.

  Slipping into the thickest crowd of people I can see, their laughter still jangles in my ears. A rattling cackle like the horde of Hades.

  From the far side of the ballroom, a sly look seeks me out. Targets me like a laser. Making the best light, relaxed smile that I can, I lift a glass from a passing tray and try to seem relaxed. But he’s gone. Disappeared before I could finish fixing the smile.

  He saw through me. I know it. He saw through me from the beginning. I’m beginning to wonder if he had some other purpose in letting me on board. I can’t stand how he pushes my buttons like that.

  There. Now I’ve spooked myself into second-guessing. It’s going to be at least half an hour before the runway show starts, and I’m certain to disgrace myself and get pitched overboard, long before then.

  Chapter 4

  Him

  SHE’S GOT BALLS, I have to say that for her. Coming here wearing clothes like she got them out of a thrift store. One of the most glittering fashion events of the calendar, hosted on the oceangoing megayacht Firebird. She’s come to mingle with the A-plus-plus list glitterati, dressed like she’s here to paint someone’s kitchen. Pretty cool.

  There’s always a little clique in any fashion gathering, a group of people wearing clothes that are torn, warm, ripped and ragged. Poverty chic. Like junkie chic. Upside-down snobbery is never quite out of fashion. But it only looks ragged from twenty paces. Get a little closer and you see how perfectly the rips and splits are arranged.

  That’s not how she looks. Not like she’s a correspondent for a fashion magazine, either. Not Icelandic or from anywhere else. She can’t really believe that story would fool anybody.

  But I also can’t believe that she’s the spy. She’s too conspicuous. You’d be crazy to try and perform commercial espionage looking so totally out of place.

  But then, second-guessing, I think, people who play spy games, they always love a double bluff. Better to have her on the boat where I can see her. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. The real reason has nothing to do with business, and I’m furious with myself for it.

  Tonight of all nights, I can’t afford distraction. I can’t take my eye off the game. I need to watch every one of these people. Somebody is setting out to betray me.

  She moves around the ballroom, standing next to people just long enough to look like she could fit in. Just close enough to grab a snippet of their conversation, too. And moving on quickly enough that nobody will try to pin her down.

  I’ll get mad if I go on like this. Thinking about all of what’s at stake tonight, I can’t be having adolescent fantasies about a girl.

  I never had time for love. Never felt anything like it, not without a whole lot of pain to go with it. I’d more or less forgotten about all that idiocy. Now, on the most critical night of the year, a whiff of warm, honey-scented hair drops my mind through a trapdoor.

  I’ve been too much around the fashionista crowd and for too long. Is that why she seems like such a breath of cool air?

  Somebody so unaffected, so fresh, is that why she stirs such powerful feelings inside me?

  Damn, Konstantin. I should just fuck her. Get it over with. Get it out of my system and get back to what I’m here to do.

  But I’m fascinated, thinking about her body like an over-excited schoolboy. I want to feel that bounce. Slapping on the tops of my thighs. Hot against my pelvis. Sliding wet, up and down my cock.

  The sun is down, and lights are low outside on the foredeck. For the runway show, chairs are lined up along the forward deck, with bleachers set up at the near end. From the middle of the bleachers, a thin runway shoots between the rows of seats to a black stage, set near the point of the prow. In the middle of the black stage, a black box stands about six feet high.

  Every seat is taken. Trying to look cool and indifferent, all the guests are pent up and anxious. They know this will be special. Our shows are. Photographers crouch along either side of the runway.

  A mist of dry ice curls up from under the long runway. Neon colored lights make patterns in the mist. Swirling patterns, lace through colored renderings of the infinity sparkle of the Zavarovski logo. Music rises, rolling and rumbling to a climax. Then it stops. There’s a hush. Tension crackles in the air

  Chatter bubbles through the crowd as everybody wonders. Are people going to come out that little box?

  I’m at the back, by the bleachers. Watching. Intent. The design leaks have been so devastating, so detailed, and so incredibly early—they could only have come from someone close to Svetlana herself. An outsider is involved, but there’s somebody here, somebody near the top of the firm, passing our secrets
out.

  Three girls, dancers, long-limbed and limber, leap out of the little box on the stage. Their costumes are so fine and sheer, they seem to be wearing nothing but the dazzling, vividly colored stones that make Zavarovski world-famous. They leap and cartwheel. Long, sheer ribbons of fabric follow their movements.

  Akram raises the pace of the music.

  I’m watching the little stowaway. She’s standing, positioned near to the stage. Photographers’ long lenses swivel, following the dancers as they jump, tumble, and leap on the stage, coming together, and then running down the runway to the far end. The stowaway pulls out her phone.

  Oh, no. Will I have to throw her overboard after all?

  When she pulls out the smart phone and starts snapping, that’s the giveaway. She must be a blogger. That or a spy. At this point, I can’t decide which I would despise more.

  I could signal to security. Have her stopped. A raise of one finger, the tilt of my eyebrow. I could have her caught. Taken below. Now.

  There it is again. She’s got me thinking about all the wrong things.

  The dancers spin and leap along the runway and I lose sight of her as the crowd rises to burst into applause.

  I slip around the back of the crowd, searching for her. At first, I can’t see where she’s gone, then there’s a quick movement ahead as she tries to blend into the crowd.

  I should be thinking about interrogating her. Find out what she’s really doing here. Instead, what I’m thinking about is breaking her open. Spreading her wide and getting up inside her. Beating and pounding out my raging need into her hot, wet, soft flesh.

  Either way, first I have to find her and catch her.

  Chapter 5

  Her

  HE’S COMING. I SAW him. Prowling with his head low. Focused, intent. Like a hunter. He moves with a definite purpose, and it makes my knees watery and weak.

  I duck, slipping around the back of the stage. Heading over to the other side. It’s a tight squeeze. The stage is almost up against the ship’s railing. Sliding along the rail, without thinking, I look down. All I can see below is blackness. Then, a couple of glints, the reflection of lights, or maybe the moonlight, sparkling on the water—it looks like it’s a hundred feet to the waves.

  Crouching low, my heart’s in my mouth. One slip and I could be through the railing. One moment out of balance, and I’d be gone. I slide, as neatly as I can, along to the other side, then along, in front of the seated crowd, behind the photographers.

  He’s right behind me. There’s no doubt about it. He’s definitely onto me. I’ll get all the pictures I can. I’m not giving up that easily.

  The real runway models appear at last, bursting from the middle of the bleachers. Twirling and swirling they pose provocatively. They’re draped in loose, sheer fabrics that they waft and wave over the faces of the VIPs and supersmart guests.

  On the run, I’m snapping and catching every little glimpse, every hint of glitter and glamor, and every tremor of excitement that I can from the show. I keep snapping, Running. Ducking. Making the very most out of the few moments I may have left. I’m proud of myself that I even remember to get pics of the guests.

  His fingers grip a hold of my elbow. He pulls, like he’s going to lead me away. I shake my arm free of his hand. “Let go of me.”

  “You’re a fucking blogger, I knew it.”

  “I am not a blogger.”

  His dark, fierce glower sends a shocking chill through me.

  “What the fuck are you, then?”

  There’s no point trying to pretend now. If he’s going to fling me over the side, it may as well be for who I really am, not for his weird obsession with bloggers. So I tell him.

  “Okay. What I told you, Icelandic Vogue, it’s not really true. I’m a photography student. I came here to try and get a scoop. Try and start to make a name for myself.”

  “Nice try. If you were here as a photographer, you would have brought a real camera. You’d have a lens two feet long. You’d have a huge bag over your shoulder.”

  “I thought if I brought a smart phone, I’d be able to blend in.”

  “That would be great if you were trying to blend in with a crowd of bloggers.”

  “What are you so worried about with bloggers? What could a blogger do to you?” His face darkens. “No, don’t answer. I don’t need to know. I just need you to know, I’m not a blogger.”

  “You’re a photographer. You said.”

  “I can see that you don’t believe me. But it’s true. I’m a photographer. Okay, strictly speaking, I’m fucking photography student. Okay?” His eyes widen. I’m shaking, “I was just trying to get a break.”

  “By selling pictures of our secret show to the fashion press? Or were you going to sell them to somebody else?”

  He’s reaching for my arm again. I shrug away.

  “I wasn’t going to sell them to anyone. I was going to show my professor that I’ve got some initiative and some balls.”

  “And put the pictures up in your portfolio. Online, of course.”

  “Without permission? No,” My lips tighten. “That would just show that I’m an idiot. That I don’t take rights seriously.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Then bite me.”

  Again he reaches for my elbow. Again I shrug it away. I’m backed against the rail now. If he comes any closer, I will be over the side. Or I’ll be climbing his torso. Damn. Even now that seems like a great idea. Better than ever, in fact.

  “Come with me,” he snaps, and his hand waves in a gesture of command.

  I follow him.

  He leads me to the back of the stage. Opens a small door to a narrow stairway. Two models are rushing up the steps. Before they reach us, they turn and clamber into the box on the stage. As he urges me down the steps, the crowd outside roars and applauds. That must be the two models, leaping out of the box.

  The steps lead into a cramped room, dazzlingly bright, and packed full of heaving, bustling bodies. The scent of sweat, makeup, hair spray and a whole mess of different colognes makes the back of my throat tense up. The thick air is hard to take.

  About a dozen girls, all of them half or completely undressed, all of them stick thin, share the mirrors that line the walls of the room. In the middle of the crush, three hairstylists are working on two girls at the same time.

  A thin, wiry man with a pencil mustache and hair shaved with swirling patterns seems to be directing everyone at once. He points, waves, and claps his hands. His voice is calm and assured. “Andrea, Giuliana, you’re next. Come here and twirl for me?” Two girls rush up to present themselves.

  “Marco,” the man calls. One of the hairdressers hurries across. The director points to one of the girls. The stylist nods. He seems to know what to do.

  That hand at my elbow urges me through the room. The director looks up and says, “Konstantin. Hello. Is everything okay?” He sounds like he’s talking to his boss.

  “Everything’s going very well, Jean-Jacques. Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Maestro.”

  ‘Maestro’? He doesn’t stop or even pause. He keeps us moving. Then raises his hand to snap his fingers. “Claudio,” he calls out. In the far corner, at the back of the room, a photographer looks up. Makes his way between the girls toward us.