19 Purchase Street (68 page)

Leslie abruptly shut the lid on her glittering cache, disillusioned with it, relegating it to its enemy darkness. She and one of the vault attendants locked the safe deposit box into place, and moments later she was outside. She stood there on Madison in the October sun, undecided about whether or not she should have lunch and give the whole thing some more thought.

There was a phone booth on the corner. She would call Gainer in Zurich, use Rodger's satellite line. Hearing Gainer might help clarify things one way or the other.

No.

This was her own battle.

The damn
monies
.

She was a victim of advantageous circumstances.

Otherwise there'd be none of this ambivalence. She'd just do what she felt she really wanted and there was no doubt what that was.

Think about down the road, some of her said.

Yeah, garden clubs and charities, some of her said. All the way to having her make-up overdone by Frank E. Campbell.

She remembered something said once by someone she didn't remember. An axiom that seemed to apply now:
One never does anything one doesn't want to do
. That was true, Leslie thought. Also consequences determined everything.

Well?

What she ought to do was take a taxi to La Grenouille, sit in the front room, order Scotch salmon and eat it slowly, little pieces. Have fresh raspberries for dessert with
crème fraise
. Afterward, maybe she would go to the woman on Sixty-ninth she'd heard about, the one who gave spiritual alignments. Three hour vigorous massages accompanied by penetratingly loud quadrophonic music that unknotted the kinks left over from past lives.

Leslie started for the curb to wave down a taxi. After only three steps she turned around and went into the General Motors Building.

Her legs were not minding her, it seemed.

Next thing she knew she was in an elevator to the forty-sixth floor, one of the floors of Bidwell, Reese, Minton and Dernby.

I love you, Leslie, she told herself as she told the receptionist her married name and that she wanted to see Mr. Bidwell.

“May I ask which Mr. Bidwell?”

“The old one.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“God, no.” Bidwell, never in the short time that was left of his life, expected her to come there to sign the divorce papers. Those perpetually maintained divorce papers that were part of her deal with Rodger. Bidwell, like everyone else, believed she would stay on that sweet ride. No doubt he'd clear his throat a half dozen times and ask was she
sure
she wasn't being rash?

No matter, there was no stopping her now.

A secretary came to accompany her down a walnut-paneled hallway, punctuated, of course, with hunting scenes, to Bidwell's corner office.

He was instantly up with his hand out and offering her a chair. He looked forlorn, but then, that was his normal expression.

Leslie was about to blurt out her reason for being there when Bidwell started clearing his throat. “Terrible about Rodger,” he said, “terrible.”

Don't say anything, Leslie was told by the voice in her that she attributed to Lady Caroline.

“We were just this moment trying to reach you,” Bidwell said. He plopped down in his leather chair. “You don't have to concern yourself with anything. We've already seen to the difficult arrangements.”

Say thank you. “Thank you.”

“Rodger, Rodger, Rodger,” Bidwell said with a tinge of reprimand, and then to Leslie. “You don't want a large funeral, do you?”

Say no. “No.”

“Good. Better all around. He was killed instantly when a huge earthmover toppled over on him while he was inspecting that project of his in Táchira.”

“Where's Táchira?”

“Venezuela.”

Leslie felt as though she also had to clear her throat. A lump was in it, deep sorrow gathering. There was too much feeling and water in her head, and the water was coming from her eyes. In her own way she really had loved him.

“That's the story the
Times
and everyone else will get,” Bidwell went on. “The truth is, Rodger was killed by a sailor in Caracas. We don't know the identity of the sailor nor will there be much of an effort to find out. You understand.”

At least Rodger went out swinging, Leslie thought.

“For the past forty-five minutes or so I've been going over Rodger's estate, but I doubt you feel like getting into that now?”

Leslie tried to swallow the lump. “Go ahead,” she said.

“I'm named executor, of course,” Bidwell said, “so there won't be any surprises. I've always made it my business to know Rodger's financial picture.”

Leslie's gaze fixed on the tower of the Sherry Netherland hotel across the way, pigeons perched on it like they owned it. “What is it?” she asked.

“What?”

“Rodger's financial picture.”

“Assets and holdings come to …” he opened a portfolio on his desk, flipped past a couple of pages “… five and a half billion dollars.”

“That much?”

“Not all his, of course. There are a number of limited partners and individual shareholders, considerable corporate intricacies, both here and overseas. I should think the last thing you'd want was to get involved with that mishmash.”

Smile, Leslie. A faint, grateful smile.

“Your concern should be with his personal estate,” Bidwell told her. “Naturally, we have always tried to keep that as minimal as possible.”

“Naturally.”

“Let's see …” Bidwell did some figuring on the back of one of the pages in the portfolio.

“A few million?” Leslie said.

Lady Caroline told her to keep still.

Bidwell glanced up at Leslie, thought this woman wasn't going to be a problem, not at all. He could assure Boston of that. “After all the necessary reductions,” he told her, “what you should end up with—and mind you, this is only a rough figure—is about four hundred million.”

Rich me
.

She stood a bit wobbly. “I don't have my car,” she said.

“I'll have my driver take you. Will you be home if I need to reach you?”

“I don't know.”

“But you will be in New York.”

“Yes.”

She arrived home at twenty to three. She immediately tried to phone Gainer, and while she had the Dolder Grand on one line a call from him came in on her other line. He was at a pay phone at Flughafen Floten about to board a flight to Paris, where he'd connect with a Concorde flight home. He'd be landing at Kennedy around eight o'clock. He had a great surprise for her.

She didn't press him to tell her what the surprise was but he couldn't keep it to himself.

The three million he was bringing home.

To her.

He was so enthusiastic about it, so happy. He told her his prodigal attitude toward it and some of the extravagant things they would do. She hardly had a chance to get a word in, and then he would miss his flight unless all they said was I-love-you.

L
ESLIE
was at Kennedy at a quarter to eight, had the driver take her in one of the Rolls. She waited in the International Arrivals building and right up to the moment when she saw Gainer coming through—him with a here-I-am, isn't-it-great-to-to-see-me spirit to his step, she hadn't yet decided how she was going to break it to him about the four hundred million. That news was right there in her mouth practically crying to be said.

But she didn't want it to dampen his enthusiasm, diminish his high. She didn't want it to make him feel inadequate, not ever. Didn't want it to make him feel, well, self-conscious that he hadn't earned their money or stolen or inherited it. Didn't want it to make him have the slightest qualm whenever she was being extravagant with him in Rome or somewhere. Or when they were at Tiffany's or having their fifteen room Trump Tower apartment done over or when he had it in his heart to buy a new Rolls Corniche for her. Should she keep her mouth shut? She didn't want all that money to come between them and their happiness for a second.

It didn't.

EPILOGUE

I
N
November of that year the oldest, most established realtor in Greenwich pulled one off. The largest residential transaction in a decade.

He sold the Rakestraw estate on Round Hill Road.

Forty-seven acres with a thirty-six room main house. A ten foot spike-topped wall around it all.

The man who bought the Rakestraw place was R. Hamilton Ward. Like Edwin Darrow had when he bought 19 Purchase Street, Ward paid cash, rumored to be in the neighborhood of twelve million. Ward was a graduate of Princeton Law and qualified to practice in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Retired now, however. Originally, he was from Maryland, a shore family.

The Rakestraw estate had not been occupied for several years. It would take a great deal of renovating to get it to where it suited its new owner's tastes and purpose. And even then, it would require a lot of upkeep. Coming and going.

Gordon Winship is still alive.

About the Author

Gerald A. Browne is the
New York Times
–bestselling author of ten novels including
11 Harrowhouse, 19 Purchase Street
, and
Stone 588
. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages, and several have been made into films. He attended the University of Mexico, Columbia University, and the Sorbonne, and has worked as a fashion photographer, an advertising executive, and a screenwriter. He lives in Southern California.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

“She's Always a Woman” by Billy Joel is reprinted courtesy of Impulsive Music, 375 Broadway, Hicksville, N.Y. and April Music Inc., 1801 Century Park West, Los Angeles, California.

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^th
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Copyright © 1982 by Bright Star Productions, Inc.

ISBN: 978-1-4532-2092-4

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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