Never Too Rich (5 page)

She never returned to claim her daughter, nor did
she reach the party. Her plane crashed in the Alps, and Uncles
Alfredo and Joseph found themselves with a seven-year-old on their
hands.

They lived on the fifth floor of a run-down walk-up
on Bleecker Street. But Edwina didn’t know how seedy it was, and
even if she had, she couldn’t have cared less. The tenement
building might not have been much better than a slum, but the
railroad flat with the tub in the kitchen was spotlessly clean and
furnished on a far grander scale than it deserved. The linoleum was
bright red. Huge twin tubs of rhododendron leaves stood on
pedestals to either side of the crumbling fireplace. Colorful
Indian fabric draped the run-down furniture, and a plaster bust of
Madame de Pompadour, sprayed silver, was crowned with a straw hat.
Pink silk scarves were thrown over every lampshade, and the
softened light hid cracks in the plaster and the constant movement
of roaches. Soft zither music and pungent incense kept the city at
bay.

Uncle Joe and Uncle Al were the first people Holly
had dropped her off with that Edwina really liked. She was too
young to understand that “normal” men didn’t live together and hug
and kiss each other the way Al and Joe did; but whatever else they
did, it had to be said that they did it behind closed doors.

She lived happily with them for close to two years.
Before the first day was up, she’d dropped their “uncle” prefixes
and simply called them Joe and Al, and they were like doting
brothers with a young sister. It was Joe, an Off-Off Broadway
costume designer, who helped her sew the designer copies for her
dolls. And it was the slightly more serious Al, a photographer, who
made sure she went to school and picked her up after classes. Above
all, Al and Joe put a measure of stability into her life, and they
both cared for her deeply and lavished boundless love upon her. She
still spent nights crying for her mother, but at least she had a
family of sorts.

But all good things had to end—for a while, at
least. A new downstairs neighbor—a fat, mean, sharp-tongued gossip
who hated Al and Joe—called the Department of Social Services on
them.

Almost immediately a rigid, frowning social worker
in a sharply tailored mannish suit and a sour expression appeared,
lectured the “uncles” severely, and after a brief but fierce
tug-of-war triumphantly took Edwina with her. On the way to a city
shelter, the social worker told her that a beautiful girl needed to
be raised “right” and “normally” and that she was going to find a
nice home for her.

Edwina had cried that she didn’t want a nice
home—she wanted Al and Joe. But the lady smiled with smug
superiority and told her she should be grateful.

Edwina had just turned nine.

The childless family in which she was placed lived
in the far reaches of the Bronx. They were very young, bright, and
groomed to within an inch of their lives.

“
You will answer to the name
Vanessa,” the woman said. “We once had a ba . . . Never mind.” The
white-white shark’s teeth gleamed and the straight-combed blond
hair swayed like a curtain. “Vanessa. Now, say it. Va-nes-sa. And
you will call me Ma-ma.”

Edwina stared at her with loathing. She wanted to
run away on the spot.

Three days later, the opportunity presented itself.
In the middle of the night she sneaked into the master bedroom,
stole a twenty-dollar bill, and showed up at Al and Joe’s at five
in the morning.

Her “uncles” knew their priorities. Al fled with her
to a midtown hotel while Joe stayed behind and pleaded innocence to
the social-services people. Less than a week later, a new apartment
in a different neighborhood was found, no forwarding address was
left, and the movers came with the pedestals, the plaster bust of
Madame de Pompadour (now Day-Glo green), and all the Indian
fabrics.

Life went on happily for another three years, during
which time Al and Joe taught her all about style and doted on her
shamelessly. They dressed her up like a princess, took her to art
openings and the theater, and even to the Pines for the summers,
where she was quickly dubbed “The Princess of Fire Island.”

Then, just as Al’s fashion photography was taking
him into the big time, Joe fell head-over-heels for a handsome
model Al was using, and vanished with him. Al was heartbroken for
months, and to keep his misery at bay, he threw himself into his
work.

Before long, Alfredo Toscani broke through the last
of the barriers and became New York’s most celebrated fashion
photographer, earned gobs of money, and lived and worked out of a
brownstone in Murray Hill with his “niece.”

By this time Edwina had long been infected with
fashion fever. It was Al who sent her to the Fashion Institute of
Technology, from which she had dropped out to become Duncan
Cooper’s wife and Hallelujah’s mother.

“
Ma!” Hallelujah said sharply,
giving Edwina a poke. “Like, are you here or what?”

Edwina jerked herself out of the past. “Of course
I’m here, darling,” she said in a startled voice. “I was thinking
about when I was your age.”

“
Oh,
Ma,”
Hallelujah said
despairingly, “I bet you were
born
old.”

_Chapter
4

Slam, slap, hump hump hump.

Gasps of pleasure.

Grunts of pain.

The smacks of bare thighs pounding against bare
buttocks.

The sounds were music to Antonio de Riscal’s ears,
and he was as close to heaven as he could get on earth. The kid he
had picked up earlier was worth every penny of the three hundred
dollars he’d promised him. He was hung like a stallion and his
couilles
were those of a bull, which came as no surprise—he
had surmised that fact from the bulging jeans.

Stifling a moan, Antonio gripped the edge of his
glass-topped desk for dear life. He shut his eyes in ecstasy. He
was completely bent over the clear two-inch-thick slab, his torso
still flawlessly clothed in jacket, shirt, and tie, but his
trousers and briefs were gathered around his ankles, and his naked,
hairy round buttocks were raised, exposed to the air.

Grimacing, he twisted back and forth as the muscular
boy gave him the ride of his life. No one, ever, had been that deep
inside him. At first penetration, it had hurt terribly, but now
that his sphincter was relaxed, it felt like the giant penis was
thrusting against a silk lining.

An animal! Antonio thought as he spun out of
reality’s orbit. The kid is a dirty, low-class animal. A sex
machine!

Even Antonio’s contortions didn’t open him up far
enough. The kid had to grab his buttocks and lift him straight off
the floor as he rammed, and the angle of the thrusts set everything
inside Antonio singing and buzzing. With every thrust Antonio could
even feel the delicious crunch of pubic hair against his buttocks.
“Yes!” he whispered, spurring the kid on. “Oh,
yes—
”

He opened his eyes just as straight ahead, barely
twenty feet across the room, the door to his office burst open.

He stared in horror.

Doris Bucklin!
His ten-fifteen
appointment!

Under him, his hard penis deflated, shriveling to
nothing. His squirming buttocks went dead. His face turned red.

He thought he was going to die.

Doris Bucklin stood there, mouth gaping like a dead
fish’s, staring at the kid still humping away at Antonio de Riscal,
Seventh Avenue’s premier designer, like it was his last fuck on
earth. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Liz Schreck was looking in
over Doris’ shoulder.

Antonio dropped his chin down on the glass, shut his
eyes, and whimpered painfully. He wished the floor would open up
and swallow him whole. Or, better yet, that a bolt of lightning
would sizzle and strike both Doris Bucklin and his damn secretary
dead.

And the kid’s sudden orgasmic groans only added to
the surreality of the situation. “I’m coming!” he shouted. “I’m
coming! I’m coming! I’m—”

The office door slammed shut. Cautiously Antonio
opened one eye to make sure the women were gone, and only when he
was certain they were did he dare open them both.

With a plop the kid pulled himself out, but Antonio
hardly even felt it. Wearily he pushed himself up from the
desk.

The kid casually pulled off the condom that had
sheathed his penis. “Tip’s all full,” he said proudly, holding it
up to the light. “See?”

Antonio didn’t look. He was too miserable, and only
vaguely aware of the rubber plopping into the wastebasket beside
him.

Behind him, the kid pulled up his jeans and zipped
his fly. “Hey, I’m pretty good, huh?” He was grinning from ear to
ear. “Anytime you need a fuck, you just tell me.”

Slowly Antonio turned around. He stared at him
bleakly. “Get out!” he whispered.

“
Huh?” The kid scowled, suddenly
angry. “Hey, man. You owe me. You said three hundred.” He held out
his hand, palm up. “You got fucked, now you pay.”

I got fucked, all right! Antonio thought miserably.
I fucked myself.

The kid advanced toward him threateningly. “Three
hundred dollars, man,” he growled.

Like an automaton, Antonio pulled up his trousers,
reached for his wallet, and took out three crisp hundred-dollar
bills. “Now, get out,” he whispered.

“
Whassa matter?” The kid leered at
him. “You didn’t like it?”

“
Just go!” Antonio pleaded. He sank
down into his swivel chair and clutched his head in his hands. Then
his head suddenly whipped up. “Not that way! The back
door!”

“
Okay, okay.” After a few seconds
he heard the door slam and he was alone.

For a long time he sat there unmoving. He had no
desire to face the world. Not after this. He didn’t know how he
would ever hold up his head in front of Liz or Doris Bucklin
again.

For once he just didn’t know what to do.

The thought came out of the clear blue.

Anouk. His wife. He had to call Anouk.

He rubbed his hands over his sweating face.

She would know what to do. Anouk always knew just
how to take care of any situation.

With trembling fingers he reached for the phone and
stabbed his home number. He listened to the rings. One. Two.

“
Anouk . . . Anouk . . .” he willed
aloud, drumming his manicured nails on the glass slab.

Maybe she’d gone out already.

“
She’s got to be there,” he
murmured. “Anouk . . . come
on.
Oh, please, dear God,” he
prayed, “let her be there. She’ll know what to do.”

Four rings. Five. “Come
on,
come
on!”
he moaned as the telephone rang a sixth time in his apartment on
Fifth Avenue.

_Chapter
5

“
One of these days,” Anouk de
Riscal warned sweetly as she glanced at the hairdresser in the
tortoiseshell mirror, “someone, someplace, is going to cut off your
pecker. And when they do, don’t come to me for pity.”

“
Oooo!” Wilhelm St. Guillaume
shrilled in mock horror as he teased a handful of Anouk’s gleaming
soft raven hair with extravagant flourishes. “Bitchy, bitchy,
bitchy!
Didn’t we sleep well?” His voice had an unplaceable,
vaguely Continental accent.

“
We
slept perfectly well,
thank you,” Anouk said archly. She was seated in queenly splendor
in her luxurious aubergine velvet, nineteenth-century Russian time
capsule of a bedroom, and smiled at the reflection of her spidery
hairdresser, who, when she was in town, came every two days to work
his magic on her in the privacy of her apartment.

Wilhelm leered suspiciously at her and flapped a
limp wrist. “Or is it because I, who know every beautiful square
inch
of your lovely head, and who has not seen you in a
month—”

“
Of course you haven’t, dear
Willie. I was in Careyes and Las Hadas.”

“
I would have thought Brazil,
also.” His fingers crept spiderlike along her skull. “You see, I
have a marvelous memory, and these itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny new scars
behind your pretty little ears were definitely
not
there
before you left.” Triumphantly he lifted a whole handful of her
hair and made a production of examining the backs of her ears
closely. “Definitely Dr. Ivo Pitanguy, I would say!” His eyes
glowed at Anouk in the mirror. “Madame has had another face lift!”
he announced in a stage whisper.

She didn’t miss a beat.

“
And William S. Williams, late of
Chicago, Illinois, has a big mouth,” she said succinctly, “which he
will keep firmly shut. Or else Madame is not only going to find
herself a new hairdresser, but she’ll also spread the word about
town that that phony accent of yours, as well as that minor title
which you conferred upon yourself— both of which are highly suspect
as it is—are really just the imaginings of a butcher’s offspring
from the South Side.” She raised her eyebrows significantly and her
pupils took on a hard topaz-chip brilliance. “Do I make myself
clear, Willie,
darling?”

His jaw clicked open and snapped shut. “How did you
know?” he hissed, forgetting himself momentarily and dropping his
accent.

“
I’ve known for rather a long time,
actually,” Anouk said casually, drumming her fingertips on the
velvet arms of her chair. Then her voice grew irritable. “Now will
you get on with it? I do not have all day, you know.”

Wilhelm St. Guillaume, a.k.a. William S. Williams,
knew when he was beaten. He hung his head in shame and, without
another word, got busy snipping, crimping, teasing, and
combing.