Ron Gonen wanted to swing.

Long before he arrived in New York City in December of 1981, Gonen had heard all about the swingers clubs that dominated the city's seedier side in the pre-HIV days of the lates 1970's and early 1980's. They were all-night, couples-only orgies for the uninhibited. The most famous clubs were on the Upper East Side and weren't really clubs at all, but apartments that had been designed for carefree sex: endless reels of pornographic movies playing in one room, every inch of available floor space covered with mattresses in another room and every inch of ceiling space covered with mirrors in a third room.

Doormen charged a modest fee -- no more than $100 per couple -- but only the seediest clubs would admit single men. And that was Gonen's dilemma: he was suddenly single but he didn't dare ask any of the more refined women he had met through his growing cocaine trade to accompany him to a swingers' club.

He called Alexander Algor.

"You need to give me the number of a woman who will go to a swingers' club with me," Gonen said. "She doesn't have to fuck me. I don't care if she walks out as soon as they let us in. I just need to get in the door."

It was no surprise to Algor that Gonen wanted to go to a swingers' club. Since he had formalized his separation from his wife back in Israel, Gonen had been out of control in his lustful pursuits. On more than one occassion Algor had called a woman he was dating only to hear Gonen's voice in the background. It seemed as soon as Algor introduced a woman to Gonen -- even if he made it clear he was romantically interested in the woman -- Gonen would sleep with her.

Algor, thinking he would get a little payback on his friend, flipped through his address book and stopped at a number he hadn't called in months.

"I know just the person," Algor said and then gave Gonen the number for Honey Tesman.