One Dangerous Lady (10 page)

 

Chapter 11

T
he following morning at ten o'clock, Caspar drove me up to the Municipal Museum for a meeting of the acquisitions committee. I sat in the back of my black Mercedes, staring at the letter I had written for the Coles like it was a bomb, thinking that if Carla did get into June's building it would become a social hot spot that made the Middle East look like an oasis of calm by comparison. We pulled up in front of the Muni, a magisterial limestone museum complex on Fifth Avenue, and Caspar got out of the car, trotting around to open the door for me. I was about to hand him the letter to deliver to Hadley Grimes, but I put it back into my purse instead. I wanted to think about it some more.

It was with a conflicted heart that I walked up the wide stone steps to the entrance of the building. Once inside its cool stone precincts, however, I felt better. I loved walking through the vast halls, hearing my footsteps echo on the venerable old marble floors of the institution I had dedicated all my philanthropic efforts to for nearly a quarter of a century. I took the elevator up to the fourth floor where the acquisitions committee met in the large conference room adjoining the patrons' lounge. The meeting was just getting started and everyone was settling in.

I said hello to my fellow committee members, who were, with a couple of exceptions, bright, attractive, philanthropists who shared a passion for collecting and for our great museum. One exception was Robert Mueller, a socially ambitious, titanically rich man who had bailed the museum out of its terrible financial woes in the nineties. He had been so instrumental in helping us that we couldn't very well turn down his request that he be elected to the board. Then he wanted to be on the acquisitions committee, and no one felt they could refuse him that, either. Alas, it was a disaster. Mueller had strong opinions on a variety of subjects, particularly one about which he knew absolutely nothing: art.

I took my usual place next to Edmond Norbeau, the cultivated and attractive director of the Muni. Edmond greeted me warmly. A reserved and extremely correct man by nature, he never actually came out and said he was happy to have me back on the board after that humiliating period in my life where I'd been gently forced to resign, but I sensed he was thrilled.

That day, my darling Ethan Monk, now the head curator of Old Master paintings, was proposing that we acquire a haunting work entitled
Judas and the Thirty Pieces of Silver
, attributed to Étienne de La Tour. However, Ethan strongly believed the picture was actually by Étienne's father, the great seventeenth-century master Georges de La Tour, which, if true, would make it a major find. Robert Mueller disagreed with Ethan's assessment, of course, which only confirmed Ethan's educated hunch in the eyes of the other committee members. The picture was being deaccessioned by the Foster collection, a small museum in Virginia which was closing due to lack of funds. They were asking a million dollars—a real bargain if it did indeed turn out to be by Étienne's more celebrated father. The problem was we didn't have a million to spend on a speculative painting, no matter how convinced Ethan was of its true creator.

As I examined a large color transparency of the work—a study of the arch traitor Judas Iscariot, his tormented face illuminated by the light from a single candle flame as he stares at the silver coins shimmering on the table in front of him—I understood exactly how he felt, being on the brink of betraying my own best friend for a self-serving piece of silence, if not silver.

The committee agreed that the picture would be a fine addition to the museum and it was now just a matter of finding the funds to buy it. I knew that Ethan had his heart set on it, so I pledged half a million dollars specifically toward its purchase. That half million was over and above the two million I gave annually to the museum as a matter of course. However, that still left another five hundred thousand to be raised to buy the painting. There was some discussion about where the remaining funds might be located. But for the moment, the question was left unresolved.

After the meeting, I asked Ethan to ride down with me to the main floor.

“I'm going to the opening of
Tosca
tonight,” I said, certain he was, too.

“Me, too. Who are you going with?”

“Max Vermilion.”

“Well, well, well,” Ethan said with an approving smile. “I'm impressed.”

“I told him I wasn't a big opera fan.”

“That's putting it mildly. You only like it when I tell you who's sleeping with who in the cast.”

Ethan, a rabid opera lover, once confided to me that he forced potential boyfriends to sit through the entire Ring Cycle—all seventeen hours of it—before he would get involved with them. “It's a good way to tell whether or not they're serious about the relationship,” Ethan said earnestly, then added. “Of course these days seventeen hours
is
a relationship.”

“Anyway, I'll see you there,” I said.

“I doubt it. I'm sitting in Lulu Cole's box.”

“God, I forgot. Of course, Lulu will be there. She's the chairman. Well, I won't see you, then.”

“Maybe at intermission. Listen, Jo, I want you to become Lady Vermilion so I can come and live with you at Taunton Hall. Imagine waking up to all that beauty every morning.”

“Just let me get through
Tosca
first, okay?”

Even Ethan was trying to fix me up with Max.

Caspar was waiting for me outside the Muni. I got in the car and we headed down Fifth to the Pierre Hotel, where Trish Bromire was giving a benefit luncheon. Poor Trish needed all the support she could get right now. Her husband, Dick Bromire, was about to go on trial for tax evasion and other money-related crimes. There was a real possibility he might go to jail. It was the job of Trish's girlfriends to support her in her hour of need. Though I didn't much feel like going to the luncheon, I couldn't very well let her down.

Before I took my compact out of my purse to freshen up, I extracted the letter I had written for Carla Cole. As we rolled along the avenue, I stared at it for a long moment. I had considered dropping it off on my way to Trish's luncheon. However, that portrait of Judas Iscariot had hit home. I didn't feel like seeing Judas staring back at me in the compact mirror. Betty could teach June a lesson if she wanted to, but I was not about to betray one of my best friends, whether Carla Cole had something on me or not. I ripped it up.

T
he luncheon at the Pierre was being held in the Cotillion Room, a large, light, and airy space with three picture windows facing Fifth Avenue. Trish was involved in so many charities, it was difficult to keep track of them all, but this was one of her less fashionable causes, the Bromire Center for the Aged. I applauded Trish for using her social clout to support “people” institutions as opposed to “arts” institutions, which were distinctly more sought after on account of their ability to springboard big supporters to social prominence. It was disconcerting the number of rich people in New York who eagerly shelled out millions of dollars for a seat on the board of the great old institutions like the Municipal Museum or the Metropolitan Opera, but who balked at spending fifty dollars for a more needy but less stellar cause.

Everyone knew that if Trish Bromire's name was on an invitation, the event would be filled with prominent socialites and photo opportunities, if you liked that sort of thing (I don't). Understanding she attracted a chic crowd and flashy coverage in
Nous
magazine, Trish used her power wisely—spreading it around to include minority scholarship programs, small dance and theater companies, cancer hospices, and other obscure but worthy organizations that never got any attention.

A couple of photographers, lying in wait for the lunching ladies, snapped my picture in the lobby. I climbed the long flight of steps to the second floor to the Regency Room, a cocktail area in front of the Cotillion Room, where drinks were being served. I greeted many old pals along the way. As bad luck would have it, June was standing near the entrance in a fussy, pale blue luncheon suit with bows on the sleeves and ruffles at the neck. I imagined what I might have felt like seeing her now had I delivered that letter, and I was happily reaffirmed in my decision to rip it up. She was engrossed in conversation with a woman I didn't know and they didn't look as though they wanted to be interrupted. I tried to sneak by, but June caught sight of me and motioned me over to say hello. She gave me a kiss. So did the other woman, whose warm greeting I returned, pretending to know her, even though I hadn't the slightest idea who she was. The two of them obviously wanted to resume their talk, so I excused myself and walked away.

I grabbed a glass of wine from a waiter carrying a tray with glasses of wine, orange juice, and water. Betty marched up to me wearing a white suit made of some sort of rolled material that made her look like the Michelin Man or a padded cell, depending on the angle. I could tell by her blotchy complexion and watery eyes that the champagne flute she was holding wasn't her first.

“So whaddya think of Marcy Ludinghausen?” Betty asked, slightly sloshed.

“Marcy's here?” I said, looking around the room.

“You just said hello to her. She's over there talking to June—about the apartment, I'm sure. Wait'll June finds out I wrote a letter for Carla. Oy!”

I whirled around and stared at the stranger who had greeted me at the door, trying to divine any traces of the Marcy Ludinghausen I had once known.

“My God, that's
Marcy?
I didn't recognize her! What the hell happened to her?”

“Aggressive face-lift,” Betty said, matter-of-factly. “Youth may be wasted on the young, but it looks ridiculous on the old.”

Marcy Ludinghausen was the artistic heiress to a mouthwash fortune whose avocation in life was marrying and divorcing. People had lost count of all her husbands by now, including Marcy. Betty once asked her what her definition of “safe sex” was, to which Marcy blithely replied, “An inner tube zipped all the way above my head.” Marcy flitted in and out of New York social life, depending on whom she was married to at the time. Each time she got rid of a husband, she sold the abode in which the two of them had lived together. I'd always liked Marcy because she was quirky and lots of fun.

I stared at the new Marcy, thinking of the old Marcy. The old Marcy had been an exotic beauty with an alluring depth to her striking looks. In contrast, the new Marcy's face was flat and characterless, like an old blouse that had been too zealously starched and ironed.

Thinking what a pity this was, I remarked, “If I have a face-lift—and God knows it's getting to that point—I just want to look refreshed.”

“Only
refreshed?
Not me, kiddo!” Betty pointed her index finger at her face like a gun. “Hey, if I'm gonna spend thirty thousand bucks and a lot of downtime overhauling this kisser, I wanna look more than fucking
refreshed.
I want to look
sensational!
But there's a big difference between looking fabulous for your age and looking like an episode of
Star Trek.
”

“She must be husband hunting again,” I said.

“I hear tell she has her eye on Lord Vermilion. Just think, if they got married, they'd have, like, fifteen spouses between them. They could have reunions in Yankee Stadium.”

“Betty,” I whispered. “He called me.”

“You're kidding! I knew he would!”

“Keep your voice down, please. I'm going to the opera with him tonight.”

“I thought you hated the opera, Jo.”

“Well, I do, sort of. But he promised we could leave if we were bored.”

“I like everything about the opera except the singing. Unfortunately Gil adores it as you
well
know,” she said, referring to that bleak period when I was evicted from my apartment and the Watermans had so kindly taken me in for a time. Gil played opera nonstop. It drove me crazy. But that's another story.

June broke away from Marcy and hurried over to us. She was in a state.

“Well!” she announced breathlessly. “I've just had the most unpleasant talk with Marcy Ludinghausen! She's selling that apartment to Carla no matter what. The board meeting's next week and if they vote her into the building I'm going to kill myself—
and
Hadley Grimes. He's behind all this.”

Betty looked at me and rolled her eyes heavenward. “Junie, you're obsessed. You realize that?”

June ignored Betty. “That's the thing about this town. People will do
anything
for money. It's just outrageous. Do you know what Marcy had the nerve to say to me? She said, ‘Find me another person who'll pay me twenty-eight million dollars for my apartment and I won't sell it to Carla.' All she's thinking about is the money.”

“And who can blame her?” Betty said. “She's been trying to unload that white elephant for two years.”

June turned to me for sympathy. “You understand, don't you, Jo?”

“Junie, I have to say I agree with Betty. I think you're being a tad unreasonable, sweetie. It's not as if Carla stole
your
husband.”

“Oh, she will if she gets the chance. She's that kind of woman. Although Charlie's not rich enough for her. Don't you see? Having someone like that in the building brings the whole tone of the place down. If Carla gets in, I'm sure the value of all our apartments will suffer.”

“Oh,
please
!” Betty said, exasperated. “She's paying a record price for that old behemoth. If anything, the value of your apartment will go
up
!”

“Well, then it's blood money,” June sputtered. “I'm ill! I hope you girls have told everyone not to support her, like I asked you.”