Virgin by Mary Elizabeth Murphy Page A

and
California on the Crenshaw jet. And now he was shuttling down the West Side of
Manhattan in a stretch limo.
    Life was good
on the fast track.
    Emilio hadn't
wasted his spare time during the past ten years. He'd gone to night school to
improve his English and his reading. And he'd kept in shape. He'd sworn off the
steroids but kept working out. The result was a slimmer, meaner frame, with
smaller but denser muscles. At forty-one he was faster and stronger than he'd
been in his halcyon days at The Blue Senorita. And this Dog Collar place might
be a little like his old stomping grounds . . . and he did mean stomping.
    He popped his knuckles. He almost hoped somebody got in his way
when he picked up Charlie.
    "It's up here on the left," Fred said.
    But Emilio was
watching to the right. On the near side of West Street, near the water, a group
of young men dressed in everything from leather pants to off-the-shoulder
blouses were drinking beer and prancing around. Every so often a car would stop
and one of them would swish over and speak to the driver. Sometimes the car would
pull away as it had arrived, and sometimes the young man would get in and be
whisked off for a rolling quicky.
    Fred did a
U-turn and pulled up in front of The Dog Collar. As Emilio stepped out, Decker
and Molinari appeared from the shadows. Decker was fair, Molinari was almost as
dark as Emilio. They were his two best men from the Paraiso security force.
    "He's
still there. Want us to--?"
    "I'll get
him," Emilio said. "You two watch my back." He pulled out a pair
of plain, black leather gloves. "And be sure to wear your gloves. You
don't want to split a knuckle in this place."
    They smiled warily and pulled on their gloves as they followed
Emilio inside.
    "He's
wearing a red parka," Decker said as he and Mol flanked the door.
    Crowded inside,
and dark. So dark Emilio had to remove his shades. He scanned the bar that
stretched along the wall to his right. No women--not that he'd expected any--and
no red parka. He met some frank, inviting stares, but no sign of Charlie. He
checked out the floor--crowded with cocktail tables, a row of booths along the
far wall, and an empty stage at the rear. Slim waiters with boyish haircuts and
neat little mustaches slipped back and forth among the tables with drinks and
bar food. Emilio spotted two women-- together, of course--but where was Charlie?
    He edged his
way through the tables, searching the faces. No red parka. Maybe he'd taken it
off. Who knew what Charlie might look like these days--the color of his hair,
what he'd be wearing? One thing Emilio had to say for the boy, he was discreet.
He wasn't deliberately trying to ruin his father's political chances. He
usually rented a place under an assumed name, never told any of his rotating
lovers who he was, and generally kept a low profile. But nonetheless he
remained a monster political liability.
    Maybe that was
why the senador had decided it was time to reel Charlie in. He'd been
gone for almost two years now. Emilio had tracked him to New York through the
transfers from his trust fund. He'd traced him
across the country but now he couldn't spot him across this single room. Had he
made Decker and slipped out the back?
    Emilio was
about to return to the door to quiz Decker when he saw a flash of red in the
rearmost booth and homed in on it like a beacon. Two guys in the booth--the one
holding the parka had his back to him. Emilio repressed a gasp when he saw his
face. It was Charlie. The curly brown hair was the same, as were the blue eyes,
but he looked so thin. Emilio barely recognized the boy.
    Why do I still
think of him as a boy? he wondered. He's twenty-five.
    Perhaps it was
because part of his brain would always associate Charlie with the pudgy
teenager he'd carried out of that Tijuana alley.
    Charlie looked
up at Emilio with wide blue eyes that widened further when he recognized him.
    "Oh,
shit," Charlie said. "You found me."
    "Time to
go home, Charlie."
    "Let