That argument was not very convincing.

The time had come. Without warning, the killer silently jammed the steel instrument of death into the helpless victim. Blood came pouring out in large doses, doses larger than the killer had expected. The dark red liquid seeped onto the floor, staining everything in its path.

It all ends so quickly, the killer thought, watching as death claimed yet another life before its time.

The killer stood and turned toward the accomplice. The accomplice remained huddled in the shadows, watching with horrified eyes. “Clean up the remains,” the killer said coolly. “Make it fast.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. Now hurry.”

The accomplice had taken less than two steps when the door behind them flew open.

Both the killer and the accomplice gasped and spun around. A very young child peeked her head through the doorway. The little girl did not get a very good look at the room, but she saw blood. Lots of blood. Her scream pierced the silent room.

“Mommy! Mommy!”

“Get out of here, Gloria! Get out of here now!”

14

“SERITA shimmers ‘minerally gorgeous’ in this silver formal gown with a wide gold belt around her waist. The belt comes off for a more funsy look. Notice the dipping back. . . .”

Serita spun to show the audience her stunning back. From behind the curtain, Laura watched her friend. A sign over the runway read:Be your own SVENGALI!

Our new find: Mr. Benito Spencer!

The well-known SV logo of Svengali adorned both ends of the sign. The ballroom at the New York Nikko Hotel was packed with some of the biggest names in fashion. Laura had arranged front-row seating for the most important critics, and tonight, the Palladium would throw a party for Mr. Benito Spencer. Svengali’s marketing department had been hard at work, making sure that the company’s first show in nearly five months had plenty of positive publicity surrounding it.

Serita walked to the end of the runway, made a final turn, and headed back. No doubt about it, Laura thought, Serita was the best in the business. She thrived on the runway like an actress on the stage. With her back straight and her whole being giving off an aura of sophistication and elegance, Serita could make Hawaiian shirts look in vogue. And yet Serita allowed the audience to peek under the unruffled facade and see that she was no mere mannequin, that she was real and having fun up there.

With one last look of total composure, Serita made her grand exit. Once offstage, her cool expression changed completely.

“Out of my way,” Serita hissed as her casual runway stroll turned into a Carl Lewis-type sprint. On her way to the dressing room, her hands were busy working at unhooking the zippers. Four helpers raced after her. One managed to change Serita’s earrings while she was still moving. Another touched up her makeup. When Serita reached the dressing room (actually, part of the hotel’s kitchen), the third helper slipped off the silver highheeled shoes and replaced them with black shoes with a somewhat lower heel. Helper number four slid a white blouse over Serita’s shoulders. Wild-eyed, Serita stood and dashed back toward the runway entrance with yet another helper trailing her with a pearl necklace. Serita stopped and rolled her eyes at Laura as the pearls were wrapped around her swanlike neck.

“I hate this,” she whispered toward Laura.

“Who are you kidding?” Laura asked. “You love it.”

“True.”

Forty seconds after Serita had exited the runway wearing a silver formal gown with a gold belt, she stepped on again wearing a navy business suit complete with leather tie.

“Doesn’t Serita look smart in the latest . . .”

“They love you!” exclaimed an assistant standing next to Benito Spencer. Spencer silenced his assistant with a sharp glare. He took a drag on his cigarette with enough intensity to inhale a tennis ball through a straw.

Laura turned and smiled reassuringly at her latest designer, Benito Spencer (his real name was Larry Schwartz). He was a thin-faced, long-haired twenty-three-year-old who had to know that today would decide his fashion future. The critics out in the audience—ordinary folks who just happened to have accumulated an enormous amount of power in the fashion world—would make or break Benito Spencer. Tomorrow morning, Benito would be the “newest fashion genius” or a “washed-up no-talent.” Despite all the publicity, that decision would be made by these critics, many of whom had never been able to achieve their own dream of finding a sponsor and having their own show like Benito. For Svengali, today was merely a small financial gamble. For Benito, it was much more.

The young designer stubbed out the cigarette and fidgeted with a dress, searching for some way to keep himself busy. Laura truly wished Benito the best. He was a sensitive man who she believed had tremendous talent. She was confident he would do well today.

Laura used to look forward to the thrill of introducing a new talent to the fashion world. For weeks she would work on promoting new lines with the passion of a sculptor in front of a fresh piece of marble. She would stay late at the office and go over every detail of the presentation until everything was absolutely perfect. And when it was completed, when she could finally step back and look at the fruits of her long hours of labor, joy and a sense of fulfillment would fill her. But work no longer gave her such feelings. Now life held no emotions like happiness, affection, passion. Now life meant merely survival. It was an alternative to death—a welcome or unwelcome alternative, she could not say. Svengali was the life preserver she clung to in her sea of despair. Work, like life, had become just a way of passing time, an occasional distraction from reality.

But work had never been like that before. She remembered the joy of preparing her previous fashion presentation when David was still alive. The show had taken place a few days before she and David had taken off for Australia—a lifetime ago. Every night during that long week, Laura had stayed in the Svengali office until nearly midnight. A few nights before the show at the Beverly Hills Hotel, she sat alone in her office going over the show’s seating. The seating was a crucial element in a good fashion show. If you snubbed a major critic and forgot to put him or her in one of the front rows, the presentation would flop no matter how good the designs were.

She had been working at her desk, her head lowered over the list of fashion magazines that would be attending. She knew the critic from Vogue was having a small tiff with the one from Mademoiselle, so it would not pay to seat them next to each other. And the critic from . . .