One Dangerous Lady (14 page)

“Well, anyway,” Betty said with a sigh, “the other reason I'm calling? Take a look at the paper this morning and call me back.”

By “the paper,” Betty did not mean the
New York Times
, the
Wall Street Journal
, or any other comparably serious publication. She meant very specifically the
New York Post.
Betty called the
Post
“the paper for those who love fiction in the morning.” I have to admit I enjoy the tabloids myself because they're always filled with horrible news that's fun to read, as opposed to horrible news that's horrible to read.

The headline on the front page of the
New York Post
read simply, “SURVIVOR?” Underneath was a blurry photograph of the camera-shy Russell Cole taken some years ago when he was still married to Lulu. I read the coverage, which in the
Post
, at least, had muscled aside all other news.

The story was about the mystery man being held in custody in Castries. Was he really Russell Cole? Well, I knew from Courtney that he wasn't, but that wasn't what was interesting about the article. What was interesting was that it delved into the missing billionaire's psychiatric history and his bouts with Dissociative Fugue Disorder. A staff psychiatrist at the Payne Whitney Clinic in New York was interviewed. Though she admitted to having no direct knowledge of Russell Cole's particular case, she described the disorder generally.

“Dissociative Fugue, or Psychogenic Fugue, as it was once known, is an unanticipated and sudden departure from one's home with an inability to recall one's past,” she was quoted as saying. “It's pretty rare, but we're seeing more cases of it nowadays than we used to. Just recently, in fact, there was a case of a man who walked into his house again after six years with absolutely no recollection where he'd been for all that time. He found his wife living with a whole new family.”

Betty phoned me back just as I was finishing the piece.

“So whadya think? Is it Russell?” she asked.

“I doubt it. Courtney Cole was at the opera last night and she says definitely not.”

“Well, Trish just called me. I hear you and Lulu made up.”

“That's not quite true. She apologized.”

“About time. Trish and June are barely speaking, though.”

“Don't I know it. They were icy to each other at the opera. I tell you, Betty, this place is turning into a war zone.”

“Well, these things happen every so often, just like in the Mafia. Time to dust off the couture flak jackets,” she said, then hung up.

 

Chapter 14

T
hat afternoon, a small package arrived from S. J. Phillip's, the venerable old London shop renowned for its antique jewelry and silver. Enclosed was a card of heavy ecru stock with a gold coronet at the top. A note written in black ink in almost illegible penmanship read, “With love and admiration from your friend, Max.” “Friend” was underlined three times. I opened the little burgundy leather box with some excitement. There, on the white satin interior, lay an exquisite little diamond dragonfly pin.

I was so touched by this gesture that I immediately called Betty to tell her. She was sanguine about the whole thing.

“Are you
sure
you didn't sleep with him?” she said.

“Positive.”

“Because he gives insect pins to all his mistresses. There's a story about a party in London where several of Max's former lovers showed up wearing the insect pins he'd given them and Max famously remarked, ‘Anyone got the bug spray?' ”

“Charming!” I said, repelled.

“And that's how one of his wives supposedly found out he was having an affair. Her best friend came to her house wearing
three
diamond bees and a spider. The best friend later became the next Lady Vermilion.”

“Well, I didn't sleep with him, Betty. You know I'd tell you if I had.”

“If you wear it, everyone will think you did.”

“Maybe that's what he wants them to think,” I said. “I should probably send it back. I gave Carla back her throw.”

“Oh, keep it, for Chrissakes!” Betty said. “Max won't get the point if you send it back. He won't even notice. I think he orders them by the gross.”

A
s predicted, the man in Castries turned out
not
to be Russell Cole. But I learned from Larry Locket, who called me from Barbados, that Carla had flown down to check him out herself.

“She's backed out of
three
separate interviews with me,” he said on the phone, sounding more than irritated. “I come down here, she promises to see me twice, doesn't, and then she leaves almost immediately. Then this man turns up in Castries. I go there and she promises to see me, and about an hour before we're supposed to meet, her lawyer calls and cancels. Either she's the rudest person in the world or she's hiding something. Well, at least my time down here hasn't been wasted, Jo,” he said. “I'm putting the jigsaw puzzle together.”

I filled Larry in on the whole brouhaha regarding the Wilman apartment. He said he was traveling from Barbados to Florida, where he was going to try and interview Antonio Hernandez's son about his former stepmother.

“He's reluctant to talk to me, but I've convinced him that our conversation will be off the record, so at least he's agreed to see me. Now let's hope
he
doesn't back out.”

Larry promised to call me the instant he got back to New York.

Then I spoke to Betty, who said that Carla had called her, wanting to have lunch.

“She's on pins and needles about that fucking apartment,” Betty said. “I don't have the heart to tell her my letter won't make a damn bit of difference. The only way she'll ever get into that building is over June's dead body.”

Prophetic words.

O
n the eve of the board's vote a week later, June called and asked if she could stop by on her way to the Winter Wonderland Ball. June, known as “the Iron Organizer,” was a philanthropic workhorse, involved with more worthy causes than the Red Cross. June's motto has always been, You go to mine, I'll go to yours. The only trouble is, most people can't stand parties you have to pay for, whereas, according to Betty, June “never met a benefit she didn't like.” June was always recruiting her pals to buy tickets to some big, dreary “gala evening,” as she put it. But this one was unquestionably the worst of the lot.

The Winter Wonderland Ball, an annual party benefiting the Carnegie Hill Hospital, had been buried by an avalanche of really boring people years ago—the kinds of people who actually
enjoy
dressing up in dirndls and lederhosen and dancing polkas until dawn in a room decorated with Styrofoam sleighs and fake snow. One year I sat next to a man who had the largest beer stein collection in the world. I
ask
you. Rather than be stranded again in this social crevasse, I agreed to lend my name to the committee and send in my money—on the condition that I did not, under
any
circumstances, have to go.

June arrived on the dot of six. I opened the door and she flew in, breezing past me without so much as a howdy-do, throwing her white fur cape on the hall settee along with the matching muff. Barking at poor Cyril to get her a white wine, June headed straight for the living room. Her dark hair was curled in an unflattering style and sprinkled with little diamond snowflakes. Her outfit—a floor-length, faded blue velvet dress with a ratty white fur hemline and matching ratty fur collar and cuffs—was a sight to behold. June, who was clearly pleased with the look, announced in passing that it was “vintage costume.” Vintage hideous, I thought. It looked like something the old-time skater, Sonja Henie, might have been buried in. And indeed, the vague smell of mothballs mingled unhappily with June's signature floral scent of Joy perfume.

“This is it, Jo! I've had it! I've come to the end of a long road of friendship!”
she cried, throwing her hands in the air and facing me.

“What's up?”

“Well!” she huffed, sinking down onto the yellow silk sofa in front of the coffee table. “I have just received
all
the letters that have been written to the board on the Coles' behalf. The vote is tomorrow, as you know. And who do you think wrote a letter for them?”

“Who?” I braced myself because I knew the answer.

“Betty!”
she cried.

“Really?”

“
Yes!
Our dear friend Betty!” June defiantly crossed her furcuffed arms in front of her. “Betty, it turns out, is a guerilla warrior—just like that awful man Che Godiva.”

“You mean Che Guevara? The great revolutionary hero?”

“Yes, him. Whatever. She's a traitor. Now we know why Carla gave her that fur throw, don't we? It was a bribe, pure and simple. She wanted Betty to write a letter for her, and Betty
did.
So much for loyalty!”

I couldn't face the fact that June now wouldn't be speaking to Betty on account of Carla. That she and Trish were on the outs was bad enough. I tried to reason with her.

“Junie, Russell
is
Missy's godfather, after all. I mean, you have to take that into consideration. I'm sure that Betty agonized over this decision.”

“Nonsense! The only decision Betty's ever agonized over in her life is whether to start drinking in the morning or the afternoon. She did this to spite me because she's angry we didn't come to Missy's wedding! She thinks I faked my injury because I wasn't invited to that vulgar bridal dinner which, by the way, I wouldn't have gone to anyway—even if we
had
been invited.”

“I really think you're wrong,” I said, lying, knowing she'd hit the nail on the head.

“I'm not wrong! Gil mentioned something about it to Charlie when they were playing golf last week. She feels hurt. Well, that's no reason for her to ruin my life, for heaven's sakes! Jo, I feel like sending her divine Dr. Newman's report about my foot. I really
did
bang it up and he really did advise me not to travel. . . . Well, anyway, I know Betty thinks I'm willful and imperious. And maybe I am. But it's
my
building, after all. It's not enough that I have to see Carla Cole at social functions. Now I have to share an elevator with her? Not on your life! But never you mind,” she said just as Cyril offered her the glass of white wine on a silver tray. “Thank you, Cyril.” June chugged down nearly half the glass before resuming. “She's
not
getting in, thank God! I've taken a poll and it's fifty-fifty. Guess who breaks the tie?”

“I can't,” I said facetiously.

“Me!”
she said with the smug air of a minor bureaucrat.

“I figured, Junie. And I think Betty knows that, too. She just did Carla a favor because Carla did so much for her at the wedding. But she knows Carla can't get into your building if you don't want her to.”

“That's right! And she's
not
getting in—no matter what that old fart Hadley Grimes says. I have the final say! Take
that
, Marcy Ludinghausen!”

“Okay, but just calm down for a moment and try to think about it another way.”

She glared at me. “What are you talking about, Jo?”

I was trying to play Eisenhower here, appeasing the egos of my two best friends.

“Junie, can't you just forget about it and vote for Carla just for the sake of peace in the building, and for Betty, for that matter? Think about it. You'll never run into Carla. I never see
any
of my neighbors.”

“Oh, you sound just like Charlie,” June said, giving me an irritable flick of her wrist. “He wants me to forget about it, too. But how
can
I? Among other things, Lulu would never forgive me if I let Carla in.”

“Why does Lulu have to know? Tell her you were outvoted.”

“Oh, don't be absurd. People know everything. Jo, the truth is, I'm just thankful that I'm in a position of great power. I will crush her.”

June Kahn, the George S. Patton of New York society.

I could see it was no use arguing with her.

“Where
is
Charlie, by the way?” I asked, thinking that I might be able to talk more rationally to him. Charlie Kahn was sometimes a temperate influence on his socially militant wife.

“In Europe on business,” she said. “He doesn't get back until tomorrow.”

“What does he say about all this?”

“Oh, he thinks I'm obsessed. He couldn't care less whether she moves in or not.”

“Well, maybe he has a point.”

“Thanks a lot!”

“Junie, just forget Carla. She's not worth it, believe me. It's a waste of energy. So she
does
get into the building. So what? If we all band together, we can freeze her out of New York. She'll be just another woman in a couture suit looking for a lunch date. Eventually, she'll leave town.”

June crossed and uncrossed her arms, then fidgeted with the fur on her cuffs, her birdlike face even more twittery than usual.

“No, Jo, it's just not that simple. I can't back down now. I'm voting against her and that's that. And I'll never forgive Betty for writing that letter. I feel so
betrayed
,” she said in a sad little voice. “Betty's supposed to be sitting at my table tonight. I don't know how I'm even going to
look
at her—the snake!” She sighed deeply and rose to her feet. “Well, I'd better go.”

I got up, too.

“How did you get here, Junie? You didn't walk here by yourself, did you?”

I knew how cheap June and Charlie were when it came to transportation. They never dreamed of hiring a car for the night, even when June was dressed to the nines in a gown and jewels. A taxi was as close as they got to luxury, and they walked whenever possible. Betty and I were always afraid the two of them would get mugged one day if they weren't careful.

“Of course, I walked. I only live three blocks from here, for heaven's sakes.”

“Let me have Caspar take you to the Plaza.”

“Thanks. That'd be great.”

As I escorted her to the door, she said, “Did I tell you that Marcy Ludinghausen sent me quite a pretty little pin from Pearce to try and butter me up? I returned it, of course.” She shook her thin little finger at me. “There are
some
people in this world who still cannot be bought!”

I made one last stab at getting her to drop the cudgel.

“Junie, listen to me. You're already not speaking to Trish. If you stop speaking to Betty, it's going to have a ripple effect. No one's going to be speaking to
anyone
by the time this is over—if it ever is over. Is there no way I can convince you not to make a big issue out of this?”

She thought for a brief moment and then said simply, “No.”

She headed for the hall closet, where Cyril had hung her cape. Pulling it off the hanger, she threw it around her, pulled up the hood, and opened the front door. I grabbed her muff and followed her into the vestibule, where I pleaded with her.

“Junie, come on, you're being so unreasonable.”

She glared at me. “Don't tell me you're on Carla's side, too, Jo!”

“I most certainly am not! In fact, I refused to write a letter for her.” I offered her the muff. “I was supporting you.”

“Well, you're not supporting me now!” Grabbing the moth-eaten thing, she turned her back on me and rang for the elevator.

One could never win with June.

I was so exasperated I could hardly see straight. “I
am
supporting you by giving you good advice. I just don't want you to shoot yourself in that wounded foot of yours, that's all. Think of what Clara Wilman always used to say, ‘No matter how right you are, bad behavior can make you look wrong.' ”

She didn't answer—a first for June.

“Well, take the car,” I said, sighing. “I don't want you walking alone at night.”

“Screw you
and
your car,” she said without turning around.

“Don't tell me you're mad at me now, Junie? What the hell have
I
done?”

June maintained a stony silence until the elevator arrived. She stepped inside the wood-paneled car and faced front with a glacial expression.