One Dangerous Lady (17 page)

 

Chapter 19

M
y party for Max Vermilion promised to be a glittering occasion, although not a huge one because I could only fit forty people into my dining room comfortably. Max being Lord Vermilion, the eighth “Oil” Vermilion, as Betty irreverently referred to him, everyone wanted to be invited. The final list was a combination of Max's and my friends, a sprinkling of inevitable
amis mondains
, and a few new and interesting people I thought it would be fun for Max to meet. Naturally I hired Trebor Bellini to do the flowers, telling him I wanted to create the atmosphere of a “wild English garden.” To which Trebor wisely replied, “No point in competing with Taunton Hall, Jo. What say we stick with a tame New York apartment?”

The day before the party I was in hostess hell, trying to pull all the loose ends together, as one does before such a big event. In the middle of dealing with everything, Max called and asked me if he could bring along a guest.

“Jo, m'dear, if this is the slightest imposition, you must tell me,” he said in his cheerfully clipped English accent. “We're too good friends now for you not to be completely honest.”

His polite request was merely a genteel formality as we both knew I could not refuse him anything.

“It's no imposition at all, Max, dear. Who is it?”

“Carla Cole,” he said. I blanched. “Ran into her at a luncheon at Bootsie Baines's today and we had a jolly time together. She spoke so well of you.”

I hesitated for a moment in an effort to gather my thoughts.

“Max, Lulu's coming to the party, remember? You specifically asked me to invite her.”

“So what?” he said blithely.

“You can't be serious. Lulu loathes and despises Carla.”

“Oh, Lulu loathes and despises so many people it's difficult to keep track,” Max said, dismissing the idea. “It's just her way, you know. She doesn't really mean it half the time.”

“Max, dear, I really think she means it
this
time,” I said, trying to remain calm. “May I remind you that Carla is the woman who stole her husband away from her?
And
the woman who Lulu now believes has
killed
him?”

“A bit dramatic,
what
?”

“Sweetie, we're not just talking
amis mondains
here,” I said, making a reference to the people in social life one tolerates but doesn't really like. “We're talking arch enemies.”

Remembering my promise to Larry, I bit my tongue to keep from telling him that Lulu was currently suing Carla because Carla was looting Russell's fortune.

“All my ex-wives loathe each other, but they behave in public,” Max sniffed. “I have children who don't speak to each other—or to me, for that matter. On their mothers' orders. But we all kiss and act friendly in public. That's life. One's bound to run into someone one loathes here and there. One simply controls oneself,
what
?”

“I think it's a bad idea.”

A long silence ensued. “That puts me in rather a bind,” Max said at last. “I'm afraid I've already invited her.”

“Don't tell me!”

“I was sure you'd be delighted to have her. I know you two are friends. I saw you lunching together at the Forum, remember?”

“Okay. You can bring her under one condition.”

“Name it, m'dear.”

“You call Lulu and tell her that Carla is coming and you call Carla and tell her that Lulu is coming. That way they can back out if they want to. I'm serious. I'm not going to do it. And I don't want my apartment to become a crime scene.”

“Oh, my dear Jo,” he said, chuckling, “I
assure
you there won't be a problem.”

I hung up with a sinking feeling. I immediately rang Betty and explained the situation.

“So you're depending on
Max
to tell each of them the other is coming?” she said incredulously.

“Well, I'm sure not going to do it, and I think they should both be warned.”

“Honey, one thing everybody knows about Max is that he's full of mischief. He loves social scenes the way sports fans love playoffs. I bet he doesn't tell either of them.”

“Oh, Betty! What do you
mean
? I can't have them showing up here unprepared. That's like having Churchill and Hitler to the same party—although in this case, it's hard to tell which is which.”

“ ‘Witch' being the operative word,” Betty said. “And lest you forget, Max Vermilion is the man who invited
all
of his wives and a few of his current girlfriends to his fifty-fifth birthday party. Gil and I were there. It was like walking into a ring of jeweled pit bulls. The only thing Max likes more than women fighting is women fighting over
him.
”

“Do you think I should call them?”

“You could—for all the good it would do.”

“I'm sure if Lulu hears Carla's coming she won't come. And vice versa. With any luck, both of them will decline.”

“Dream on,” Betty said. “Max Vermilion is the biggest social catch around. If you think either of those gals is going to fold in the stretch, think again.”

“So you don't think calling them would do any good?”

“Max said he'd handle it, didn't he? So let him,” Betty said. “Just hide the good china.”

T
he morning of the party, I sat at the desk in my bedroom with the placement placards spread out in front of me, trying for the hundredth time to seat the damn dinner. I got an inkling of what Metternich must have gone through trying to seat the Congress of Vienna. No matter what I did, someone was bound to be insulted. Rich people are like monarchs, used to absolute rule within their own spheres. Seating a dinner like this one was always bound to give offense to someone. For example, the only way not to offend Lulu was to seat her at Max's table. But Max had called again to ask if Carla could be at his table. Since I couldn't very well seat Carla and Lulu anywhere near each other it meant that if I honored Max's request, Lulu would be offended. And if I put Lulu at Max's table and Carla at another table, Max would be offended. Finally, I split the coveted baby—a.k.a. Max Vermilion—in two. I put Carla on his right and Lulu on his left. That way no one could complain, and they could all kill each other if they felt like it.

T
hat night, I put on a long white silk dress and pinned Max's diamond dragonfly high up on my shoulder. I didn't look my best because I was a nervous wreck. I went around the apartment lighting all the candles myself to help steady my nerves. Larry was the first guest to arrive. We had a drink and he informed me that the
Wall Street Journal
was doing a big article on Carla Cole and the RTC Corporation.

“The reporter doing the story is a friend of mine,” Larry said. “He claims that Carla is inches away from getting control of the whole thing now and there's nothing anyone can do about it.”

“Is Lulu still suing?”

“Yes, but she doesn't really have a case. The law is in Carla's favor. Russell set it up that way. Lulu told me she was meeting with the lawyers today.”

I looked at my watch with a feeling of panic. “Larry, do you realize that in less than twenty minutes, Carla and Lulu are arriving here for dinner. They're going to kill each other. Jesus, what am I going to do?”

“Check for automatic weapons at the door?” he ventured.

P
olite and punctual guest of honor that he was, Max Vermilion arrived on the dot of eight. He looked elegant in an old-style tuxedo that was intended to “last the duration,” as he put it. Max didn't approve of men whose clothes were “too new or too fashionable,” and his entire wardrobe seemed to consist of many similar bespoke suits made by a Savile Row tailor who had gone out of business at least twenty years ago. He was a marked contrast to those in New York who, unlike Thoreau, are wary of any enterprise that does
not
require new clothes.

Carla arrived shortly after Max. She was dressed in a long black sheath and had her hair pulled back into a tight chignon. The large diamond-studded choker she was wearing reflected the light and gave her face a glow. She greeted me with the requisite air-kisses, one on each cheek, and the smug attitude of an adversary who knows she has won. There was something even more confident about her that night and I suspected it had to do with her impending wealth.

“Jo, darling, thank you so much for including me in on your beautiful party tonight. I hope it is not too much of an imposition.”

“Not at all, Carla, dear. I'm delighted you could come,” I said, hiding my apprehension under a forced smile. “You know Max Vermilion, of course . . .”

Max bowed slightly, giving her a mock kiss on the hand. “Dear lady, how very nice to see you again.” That seemed to be one of Max's stock lines.

“And Larry Locket . . .” I said.

Carla bridled slightly when she saw Larry.

“Ah, Mr. Locket . . .”

“Mrs. Cole,” Larry said, shaking her hand with a knowing smile.

“I trust you are not working this evening,” Carla said lightly.

“Writers are always working, I'm afraid,” Larry said.

Carla made a sad face. “Oh, and I thought we were going to have such a nice conversation together,” she said, abruptly turning her back on Larry and talking to Max.

Carla played up to Max with the verve and energy of a skilled coquette. I wondered who this woman really was. Had she, in fact, engineered the disappearance of her husband in order to get her hands on his fortune? Could she possibly have had anything to do with June's accident or the “accidental” death of Lulu's spy? And what, exactly, did she know about me? And how did she know it? No one looking at such a resplendent figure would imagine her capable of murder. But I knew, probably better than anyone in my little set, that murderers come in all forms—even socialites.

The next couple to arrive were the Bromires. Trish, pale as a candle flame, was getting thinner, and Dick, pink as a raspberry soufflé, was getting fatter by the day. Trish became very fluttery around “Lord Max,” as she constantly (and erroneously) referred to him. He was, in fact, Lord Vermilion. It was rather touching the way Trish dropped the names of the people she knew in the English nobility, hoping to impress him. This was an old habit of Trish's, something she did with anyone she considered grand. I remember Betty once pointing out to her that it was impossible to impress anyone by telling them you'd just met people they had grown up with. But that didn't seem to deter Trish, who went right on dropping names.

There was a palpable air of doom about poor Dick. The trial was winding down to a grim, some felt inevitable, conclusion, accounts of which we all devoured each morning in the newspapers. Food seemed his only comfort. In short order, Dick washed down several smoked salmon and caviar hors d'oeuvres with successive flutes of champagne. Powerless to curb his compulsive eating, Trish stood by with the air of a beleaguered nanny who has given up on disciplining a willful child.

Ethan Monk drifted in with some friends from the Municipal Museum, Edmond Norbeau, the director, and his wife, Christine, and Justin Howard, the chairman of the board, and his wife, Regina. I watched Carla excuse herself from Max to go talk to Justin Howard, who greeted her warmly, as did his wife. I didn't much like the look of this. The Municipal Museum was my own little bailiwick, and I certainly didn't want Carla butting her nose in there. I immediately scooted over to their group like a polite hostess, and said, “Well, I see you all know each other.”

Justin Howard responded by giving Carla a little one-armed hug and saying, “Everyone knows this brave lady.”

Carla, Justin, and Edmond excused themselves and retreated to an isolated corner of the room, leaving me and Ethan with the wives. As I talked to Christine Norbeau and Reggie Howard about the current Ingres exhibition at the Muni, I watched Carla, Edmond, and Justin out of the corner of my eye. I knew Edmond well enough to know that he was never that enthralled unless he was deep in conversation about the Muni, his beloved museum. And Justin Howard wasn't about to waste his valuable time at a party like this, which was full of so many potential contributors, unless something big was up. I ran out of things to say about Ingres and dragged Ethan off into a corner.

“What's up with those three?” I asked him.

“Something very exciting, Jo. Carla has agreed to put up the other half million for the
Judas
! Isn't that wonderful?”

I was horrified, but said nothing.

The Municipal Museum, widely considered one of the most prestigious of all New York institutions, was the social climber's Mount Everest. I dreaded the thought of Carla horning in on my territory.

Nearly all the guests had arrived and I kept glancing at the entrance to the living room, steeled for the arrival of Lulu. It was getting late and I was beginning to wonder if she would show up at all. She still hadn't appeared by the time the last guests, Betty and Gil, arrived.

Gil apologized for being so late.

“It's my fault,” he said. “Important gallery opening.”

“Dreary cocktail party,” Betty whispered in an aside.

Gil took a long look at my glittery array of guests, like a farmer appraising a fine crop ripe for picking.

“Good group,” he said. With that, he strode into the crowd, hand out, eyes sharp, bent on doing business.

Betty stayed back with me and surveyed the scene. “Well, I see Dracula,” she said, referring to Carla, who was still talking to Justin and Edmond. “But where's Frankenstein?” A reference to Lulu.

“Not here yet. Let's hope she doesn't come.”

I saw Max glancing surreptitiously at his watch. He was a great believer in punctuality and it was past the time we should have sat down for dinner. Cyril came in and whispered to me that the chef was getting anxious.