Omerta - Mario Puzo [114]
Aspinella Washington did not hate all men, but she was repeatedly surprised by just how many of them turned her off. They were all so . . . useless.
After she had taken care of Heskow, she was briefly interrogated by two officers in airport security, who were either too dumb or too intimidated to challenge her version of events. When the cops found $100,000 taped to Heskow’s body, they figured his motive was obvious. They decided it was appropriate to reward themselves with a service fee for cleaning up the mess she’d made before the ambulance arrived. They also gave Aspinella a clump of blood-stained bills, which she added to the $30,000 Heskow had already given her.
She had only two uses for the money. She locked all but $3,000 in her safe-deposit box. She had left instructions with her mother that if anything ever happened to her, all of the money in the box—over $300,000 in payoffs—should be put in a trust for her daughter. With the remaining $3,000, she took a cab to Fifth Avenue and Fifty-third Street, where she entered the fanciest leather-goods store in the city and took an elevator to a private suite on the third floor.
A woman wearing designer glasses and a navy pin-striped suit took her payment and escorted her down the hall, where she bathed in a tub filled with fragrant oils imported from China. She soaked herself for about twenty minutes and listened to a CD of Gregorian chants while she waited for Rudolfo, a licensed sexual-massage therapist.
Rudolfo received $3,000 for a two-hour session, which, he was delighted to point out to his very satisfied customers, was more than even the most famous lawyers received per hour. “The difference,” he said with a Bavarian accent and a sly grin, “is that they just fuck you over. I fuck you over the moon.”
Aspinella had heard about Rudolfo during an undercover vice investigation she conducted in the city’s elite hotels. One concierge was worried that he might be asked to testify, so in exchange for not being summoned, he gave her the tip about Rudolfo. Aspinella thought about making the bust, but once she met Rudolfo and experienced one of his massages, she felt it would be an even bigger crime to deny women the pleasure of his extraordinary talents.
After several minutes he knocked on the door and asked, “May I come in?”
“I’m counting on it, baby,” she said.
He walked in and looked her over. “Great eye patch,” he said.
During her first session, Aspinella had been surprised when Rudolfo entered the room naked, but he had said, “Why bother getting dressed just to get undressed?” He was an extraordinary specimen, tall and taut, with a tattoo of a tiger on his right biceps and a silken mat of blond on his chest. She particularly liked the chest hair, which separated Rudolfo from those magazine models who’d been plucked, shaved, and greased so carefully you couldn’t tell whether they were male or female.
“How have you been?” he asked.
“You don’t wanna hear about it,” Aspinella said. “All you need to know is that I need some sexual healing.”
Rudolfo began with her back, pressing deep, honing in on all her knots. Then he gently kneaded her neck before turning her over and lightly massaging her breasts and stomach. By the time he began to caress between her legs, she was already moist and breathing hard.
“Why can’t other men do this to me?” Aspinella said with a sigh of ecstasy.
Rudolfo was about to begin the premium part of the service, his tongue massage, which he did expertly and with remarkable stamina. But he was struck by her question, which he had heard many times. It always amazed him. It seemed to him that the city was exploding with sexually undernourished women.
“It’s a mystery to me, why other men can’t do it,” he said. “What do you think?”
She hated to interrupt her sexual reverie, but she could tell Rudolfo needed pillow talk before the grand finale. “Men are weak,” she said. “We’re the ones who make all the important decisions. When to get married. When to have kids. We rein them in and hold them accountable