Killer WASPs (3 page)

I’d never actually met Chef Gianni, but he’d been anointed one of America’s rising-­star
chefs by a top food magazine just a month ago. Deeply tanned, he wears several gold
earrings in each lobe, and at thirty-­eight, has a proclivity for dating women in
their twenties. His downtown Philadelphia restaurant, Palazzo, occupies the penthouse
of a luxurious hotel in Society Hill, decorated with lacquered black walls and bright
red banquettes upon which patrons enjoy forty-­eight-­dollar pastas. Gianni, who has
the touchy temperament of a star TV chef in the making, likes to threaten to dangle
the busboys over the edge of Palazzo’s balcony while techno music pulsates in the
dining room, which customers absolutely love. “He’s so
mercurial
!” they invariably giggle.

Given that Holly happens to the only daughter of a billionaire—­seriously, her father
is in the chicken business, and recently out-­Perdued the Perdues—­she visits Palazzo
frequently. Joe does a fair bit of business with clients over dinner at Palazzo, too.
They were definitely on the list for tonight’s party, while I filled the “And Guest”
slot on their invitations.

“You know those guys he’s screaming at, right?” Joe whispered to me. “They’re the
hot florists of the moment, Colkett and Colkett. No one knows if they’re brothers,
cousins, or if they’re a ­couple. Very talented. They use lots of fruits and vegetables
in their work. Remember when Holly used them for her Non-­Valentine Valentine’s Party
last winter? Their big thing is that they’re incredibly overpriced.”

“I love the Colketts!” Holly sang out, giving the florists a wave.

Normally, Holly evokes rapturous greetings in all men, women, and even cats and dogs,
but the Colketts didn’t seem to notice her. They were cringing nervously next to two
topiaries the size of Volkswagens made of artichokes, pomegranates, and lemons that
they’d just wheeled in. Chef Gianni studied their bill, ranting in Italian.

Bills were a sore point at the moment with Gianni. According to the front-­page stories
about him in Bootsie’s newspaper, he’d spent months combing the hill towns of Italy
for antiques for the restaurant with his young decorator-­slash-­girlfriend. This
had proven to be a very expensive extended vacation/buying trip, which resulted in
some rather testy meetings with his investors when he’d returned home with that deep
tan, a lot of Versace luggage, and crates full of overpriced furniture.

As we watched, transfixed, the chef glared at the bill, tore it in two, stuck both
halves into a lit votive candle, and threw the flaming paper on the glossy restaurant
floor, where it ignited a tablecloth and came perilously close to setting aflame a
very pricey-­looking silk curtain. As the flames leaped higher, a stunned-­looking
waiter ran over, snatched the burning tablecloth, and ran out the front door to the
driveway as smoke billowed behind him. We watched the hapless waiter stomp out the
fire, but then flames began to lick the edges of his long white apron, too, so he
flung the apron onto a flagstone walkway, where the little bonfire appeared to die
down.

Crisis averted. Sort of.

“Six thousand dollars,” screamed Gianni at the Colketts. “You think it is okay to
charge Chef Gianni six thousand dollars for flowers?” The florists looked at each
other and giggled nervously, the kind of laughter that comes from near-­hysterical
terror. The chef turned purple, tore off his apron, and stomped up and down on it.
He ripped a piece of round red fruit from a topiary and beaned it at the florists,
who ducked, but one didn’t duck fast enough and screamed in pain when he took the
object, which appeared to be a dried pomegranate, in the ear. “Yesterday, I got an
estimate from florist who says she can do all the flowers for five hundred bucks a
week. You charge Chef Gianni eight times that!”

“Actually, six thousand is twelve times that,” pointed out the chef’s girlfriend,
who’d appeared from the back of the restaurant, and was languidly rearranging her
long hair and lighting a cigarette. I had met her once before—­she’d gone to design
school with Joe. I couldn’t understand how this girl put up with the perpetually angry
chef. His cooking skills seemed to be his main selling point, and she didn’t look
like a big eater. Maybe she liked the trips to Italy.

“Not at all, Chef,” ventured one of the flower guys. “These topiaries will last forever.
They’re really quite a bargain. They’re
freeze-­dried
.”

“They are bullshit!” The chef’s face was turning a color that could only mean an imminent
stroke, but just then, a small horde of guests crowded in through the front door,
and a waiter started passing glasses of Barolo, which we all grabbed and started gulping
down. Suddenly, Chef Gianni snapped back to normal, noticing that the party had actually
commenced, that the candles were lit, and that baby lamb chops, cheeses, and olives
had been piled upon a lavish buffet. The waiters surreptitiously repositioned the
topiaries so that the bald spots didn’t show.

Gianni straightened his cuffs, started breathing again, and spied Holly in her teeny
black dress. His mood totally changed. Very bipolar.

“Holly Jones!” said the chef. His face paled to magenta, and he ran over to kiss Holly’s
hand. “You are gorgeous!”

In this second, I suddenly understood Gianni’s charisma. His shaved head and tattoos
took on a sexy, bad-­boy quality. He began lavishly greeting women ranging in age
from their thirties into their eighties with an athletic swagger. When smiling attentively
and doling out triple kisses, he made each woman feel like he’d love to rip off her
clothes, if only they were alone together.
So that’s what his girlfriend saw in him!

Dozens of ­people were crowding in behind us, and a minute later, I lost Holly and
Joe in the haze of Chanel No. 5 and knots of well-­dressed men bragging about their
golf handicaps, so I made my way to the bar, hoping that the contraband lobster tails
would appear soon.

“Two vodkas,” I heard a voice growl behind me. I peeked around and found that this
was the not-­very-­feminine intonation of my neighbor, Honey Potts of Sanderson, a
seventyish woman dressed in a blazer, white shirt, and khakis, her skin the leathery
texture of George Hamilton’s after a month in Mexico. Everyone on the Main Line knows
who Honey Potts is—­she’s a grande dame in the old tradition, and she’s always front-­page
in the
Bryn Mawr Gazette
, judging a local dog show or leading a garden tour. Honey, her nickname since childhood
(real name: Henrietta), didn’t really fit her anymore, since she’s more intimidating
than sweet, but then, these WASPy names never make any sense. I mean, who would name
a girl Bootsie?

Next to Honey was her best friend since childhood, Mariellen Merriwether. Mariellen
was slimmer, taller, blonder, and wearing a pink dress and beige heels. And pearls—­always
pearls. There was something about Mariellen that made you feel instantly inferior,
which it seemed was the point of her existence. She lived on a smaller property than
the adjoining Sanderson, but it was still huge by any standard, consisting of fifteen
acres with a charming old farmhouse and a horse barn, where her prizewinning gelding
Norman lived in Ritz-­Carlton-­like conditions. According to Bootsie, who’d attended
charity functions chez Merriwether, the entire house was covered in toile, and what
wasn’t toile was monogrammed, including her toilet paper and ice cubes. Norman’s barn
was almost as cozily fitted out, and Norman himself dined on organic hay and carrots
from Mariellen’s personal gardens.

“Well, they’ve ruined the firehouse, but at least there’s free-­flowing Stoli,” Honey
groused to Mariellen as she flagged down a waiter in the candlelight, waving her already
empty glass. Just then, the minuscule Maine lobsters made their appearance on the
buffet on massive platters, and a small stampede ensued. It seemed that even the wealthiest
Philadelphians can get themselves into a lather over free lobster.

“Look at all these vulgar
trays
of lobster they’re serving—­so Caligula,” sniffed Mariellen to her friend, as I finally
got to the front of the line and tonged three of the tiny crustacean tails onto a
small cocktail plate.

“Let me finish my drink, then I’m ready to hit it. I’ve got to get home for
Dancing with the Stars
,” growled Honey, who snagged her cocktail from the returning waiter, forked in a
quick plate of lobster, and then headed for the door, Mariellen on her heels.

As for the Colketts, they were out on the patio, shakily clutching drinks and sharing
a Marlboro Light before coming back into the bar for a refill. Now that the party
was under way, music was pumping, and cocktails were being lavished on guests by the
apron-­wearing waiters; all in all, it was a pretty spectacular scene. Chef Gianni,
who had clearly entered the “up” phase of his rapid-­cycle manic episode, schmoozed
euphorically with his guests, his bald head gleaming and earrings jingling as he did
a little shimmy dance around the room. The room was so crowded that I still couldn’t
locate Holly and Joe in the crowd. The Colketts seemed to disappear from the patio
as well, but who could blame them after the trauma they’d endured at the chef’s hands?

Just as Honey and Mariellen made their exit, I saw through the restaurant’s front
windows that Bootsie had arrived. She threw her Range Rover keys to the valet guys
and greeted Mariellen and Honey enthusiastically, which Honey ignored, and Mariellen
acknowledged with an air kiss that stopped about three feet from Bootsie’s cheek.
I wobbled out on my borrowed high heels to the restaurant’s pretty brick patio to
watch Honey get in her car. Mariellen rode shotgun, while Honey took the wheel, still
drinking her cocktail and munching a handful of baby lamb chops, and steered the car
out of Gianni’s driveway.

“Honey Potts took a roadie!” Bootsie shouted over the crowd to me, impressed.

S
EVERAL HOURS AND
glasses of Barolo later, Joe dropped me off at home, and I let myself in the side
gate from my driveway, fumbled for the house key I keep under the flowerpot by the
back door, and stumbled into the kitchen. Waffles, who’d been asleep on the couch,
got up and ran over to greet me. Then he went to the door, turned around, and looked
at me with an expression that said,
I gotta go
.

“One second!” I told him drunkenly, as I ran upstairs, exchanged the sky-­high heels
for flip-­flops, came back down and searched for several minutes for his leash, which
it turned out he’d buried in the couch cushions. It was dark outside, except for a
half moon above, a porch light at the house next door, and a few stars. Unfortunately,
instead of heading for his usual bathroom area behind a leafy laurel bush near my
back fence, Waffles headed for the gate and gave me Sad Eyes.

It was really too late for a walk. I pointed at his favored shrubbery, and suggested
he do what he needed to do. Sad Eyes continued. Guilt gripped me through my boozy
haze as I looked at his downcast, droopy face.

“Five minutes,” I said, relenting. The dog totally has my number. “Up and down the
driveway, maybe a quick trip to the lilacs on the other side of the yard. That’s it.”
More Sad Eyes—­which it turned out were bullshit, because as soon as I opened it,
Waffles tore out of the gate like Seabiscuit, with me hanging on to the leash and
running as fast as I could in flip-­flops and in my tipsy state. Waffles
looks
slow, given that he’s short and portly, with huge ears and goofy, freckled legs,
but he can haul ass when he wants to.

This was one of those times, and he tore down the driveway, ears flying, tail wagging,
and barely slowed at the street. Luckily, since it was now closing in on 11:30 p.m.,
there was no one passing by, so we didn’t get hit by any cars as we darted onto the
grounds of Sanderson. The estate has an old and very pretty entranceway with a limestone
archway over the driveway, but there are no gates barring visitors from the property.
The front part of the property runs for a full half mile bordering the road, with
beautiful old oaks and chestnuts providing screening and shade, and just behind these
woods are cow pastures. The Potts family is very big on cows, though I couldn’t see
any right now—­they must have lumbered inside for the night. We set off on a little
path with wind gently rustling the leaves above us, the moon lighting the way, and
Waffles chugging along, all excited and breathing like a little Darth Vader.

The Pottses’ cow barn was a quarter mile away, in the direction of the main house,
but set off by a paddock and a small wooded area. Like Norman, Mariellen Merriwether’s
horse, the cows lived in what I was sure were cushy, upscale accommodations—­at least
they had a home that wasn’t about to be sold out from under them, I thought sadly.
Waffles and I would have to go stay with Holly, who hates dogs, and thinks Waffles
is especially useless. In the midst of my self-­pity, I noticed Waffles had paused
on the trail to wag at something.

“Hey, are you lost?” said a man’s voice from somewhere in the darkened trail in front
of me. I screamed and jumped a few feet into the air. Waffles huffed over happily
to get petted by the unseen guy, who bent over and scratched the dog’s velvety ears.
This seemed like a good sign. Evil killers who lurk on fancy estates don’t usually
stop to pet dogs.

“I live across the street,” I said nervously, “and I was just taking my dog for a
quick walk, and he ran over here.” Clearly, I was trespassing. But maybe this guy
was trespassing, too, which was scary. Or would have been, if I hadn’t had those three
glasses of wine.

“Late walk,” he said, sounding amused, and coming closer while Waffles sniffed his
knees assiduously and my eyes adjusted enough to the dimness to see some of the man
in front of me. While the moon didn’t afford much in the way of lighting, I could
see the guy was wearing jeans, a T-­shirt, and old running shoes, and had dark hair
and was maybe five-­nine. He was kind of cute. At least, he looked like he was cute
from what I could see—­he had a scruffy beard, a dark tan, and seemed to be in his
late thirties. He smelled very nicely of soap. And like something else. What
was
that smell? It was earthy, natural, a little funky, but pleasant. I’d smelled it
on really hot July days wafting over from Sanderson . . . it smelled like a country
road in the summertime . . .