Prologue
Christ, I’m naive. I travel the world with the ludicrously wealthy. I see things that would make your average Sun journalist think ‘Well, that’s a bit far-fetched.’ I fix the unfixable, arrange the unarrangeable and I am, IMHO, bloody good at it. Only right now I’ve just realised I’ve been monumentally dense.
I’m in New York. Two heavy, studded doors have been pushed wide open with a flourish meant to impress me. They reveal a panoramic view of Central Park. I’m looking north across a sea of green. The Dakota building - where John Lennon met his end - is down and to my right. Harlem is little more than a hazy smudge in the distance. It is breathtaking. So too is the room around me, only in a less tasteful way.
It is a room not so much adorned with gold as hewn from it. It’s a car crash of themes and inspirations. A gold and crystal chandelier fights for space with gold-trimmed alabaster columns and a water feature so overblown it would make Liberace blush. Heavy golden frames house mystifyingly eclectic art. A Jackson Pollock clashes with a Lowry. A Picasso looks faintly embarrassed to be sat by a Jack Vetriano. Beneath my feet is a powder blue carpet so deep-pile you could lose your average family dog in it.
I’m gawping like a child, part astonished; part horrified. I work on private jets. Believe me, I’ve seen the crimes against style that result when a person with no taste is given far too much money. But this is on another scale. God knows how the PA and security team work in this place every day. They must leave with a headache.
Which reminds me: the security team. Weren’t they flanking me as I walked in here? They’re always here – as permanent a fixture as the columns. Yet now they’re nowhere to be seen. It’s just me and him. Oh bugger.
“You like?” he says with a lascivious, broad grin that betrays his intentions.
Right. Play it cool. Act dumb. And on no accounts encourage him. That won’t be difficult because the man opposite me, insanely wealthy as he is, has the resemblance - and all the sexual allure - of a flying monkey from The Wizard of Oz.
“It’s er, very impressive,” I say, looking pointedly at the artwork to ensure there’s no way he thinks I mean him.
“Let me show you this,” he says, drifting into an adjoining room. He’s short, balding yet oddly light on his feet. If I shouted “Fly my pretty!” there’s half a chance he would. He is El Capitano. That’s how he’s addressed by all around him. El Capitano or simply ‘sir’. No one will call him by his actual name. Ever.
“Come, come!” he says eagerly, and hesitantly I edge forward until I can see that it’s a bathroom. The room I’m in seems sedate by comparison. Everything, from loo seat to shower head is, as far as I can tell, gold. It looks as if King Midas has been round, touching everything by accident.
He casts me a knowing look and nods towards the jacuzzi. I turn on my heel and leave. No way, mate.
He encourages me in the direction of a room directly opposite. I can see it’s the bedroom and stay fixed resolutely to the spot.
“This really is an incredible view,” I say, changing the subject.
“You like it? Have you ever thought of owing a place like this?”
I laugh, part nervously; part genuinely. “No, sir, I haven’t. You pay me well but this is a little out of my pay bracket.”
“Park Lane,” he says. “You could have an apartment on Park Lane. Just like this.”
I banish the momentary shudder of owning any apartment ‘just like this’ and act stupid. “Park Lane’s in London.”
“Yes, and you could own a place like this. In your home city!”
Bless. He’s really trying. “I really couldn’t. I could never afford it.”
“I shall buy it for you.”
“I couldn’t afford to maintain it.”
“I shall pay you £5,000 a month to maintain it.”
“I would never be able to furnish it!”
“You shall have anything you want.”
Oh for fuck’s sake.
How the hell do I get out of this? He’s my employer. He pays me a lot of money to be the attendant on his private jet. I’m envisioning a simple choice of leaping on him and satisfying every one of his grubby little urges (never going to happen) or telling him to shove his job up his golden arse and storming off. But it’s a really good job.
“You shall have all of this,” he says, “and all I shall ask in return is a favour. Once a month.”
There’s a moment while he waits to see if I’ve worked out exactly what favour he wants from me once a month. I feel sick. And then there’s a weird moment where an awful lot of things happen instantaneously but it feels like forever.
There’s a voice shouting at me, telling me I’m such an idiot for getting myself in this position. It’s my conscience but it sounds like my Mum. Same thing.
Then there’s a rational part of my head figuring out a diplomatic, tactical way of saying ‘Leave me alone you disgusting troll.’ It’s not coming up with much, though.
My flight response is wondering whether I could get past him and a corridor of security – or whether I’d be able to survive a fall from this height (no and no respectively).
And while all of this is going on there’s El Capitano. He’s given up waiting for an answer and has decided to chance his luck. With a leer he grabs my chest with both hands and there’s an awkward moment while he thinks he’s got the prize but really doesn’t know what to do with it, and while I snap to my senses.
I snap first. “What the who the how the WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? GET OFF!” I yell and bat his hands away like I’ve just discovered two tarantulas on my cleavage.
His expression changes to one of violent rage.
“You think you’re too good, eh?” And now he’s chasing me round the room like a chubby Al Pacino as directed by Benny Hill. “You want your job; you do as I tell you, yes? You do as I fucking well tell you!”
I’m leaving, stomping out the doors, past security (who watch me go with a wry smile), to the lift. I jab the lift door button and pray it’s there – but of course it’s there because it’s his private lift and it’s always there.
Then I’m in the lobby, trying to run for my life without making it look like I’m running for my life, through a set of revolving doors, into the street and I take a series of sharp zigzagging turns, putting as much distance between myself and him as I can.
After five minutes it’s fairly clear no-one’s following me and I can start to hear the din of the street above the sound of my heart. I breathe an enormous sigh of relief and lean back against the wall of a building that feels welcomingly solid and safe.
Well that went well. You hear of these things and the victim always says she feels ‘violated’ or ‘dirty’ or ‘humiliated’. I felt none of those. He was the dirty old sod and, aside from the naivety of allowing myself to end up in a room alone with him, I’d done nothing to encourage him.
He can piss off if he thinks I’m being his flight attendant on the way back from New York. I shall turn up for work on Monday as usual and I shall tell the CEO what’s happened. El Capitano shall apologise and I may graciously accept. Or he’ll refuse in which case I’ll sue his arse off.
For now I am a single girl, alone in New York, whose ride home has just evaporated. I make a call and wrangle a first class ticket home. At his expense, I should add. I’m not sponging off him. I have three hours to kill before I need to be at the airport.
And Saks Fifth Avenue is sooo close.
