The LeBaron Secret (31 page)

“You're awfully hard on your mother, Melissa.”

“Hard on her? The truth is that I adore her, and always have. I often wish I had her strength, and her courage, her guts. I adored my father, too, worshiped him, but that was different, because I never knew him. He was never there. I worshiped my father in the abstract, as an idea, as a loving father who could never come close to me. I adored them both—my father in the abstract, and my mother in the essential reality. In religious terms, it's a little like the difference between the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son was real, Jesus existed, but the Holy Spirit is only a theory, an idea, a ghost. I loved the fact that was my mother, and the ghost that was my father, but adoring her doesn't mean that I trust her. You see, my mother is a very rich woman, and she thinks—knows—that she can buy people. Most people. People like you, for instance. How much does a reporter like you make? Eighteen, twenty thousand a year? Don't tell me, I don't really want to know. But someone like you she can buy at bargain-basement prices. You're not the first she's bought, and you won't be the last. But she can't buy me. Not just because I have plenty of money of my own, but because I won't let her buy me until she levels with me. So all she can do is try to manipulate me, through agents like you, but meanwhile she's stuck with me. That's why I feel sorry for you. When she's through with you, she'll dispose of you very quickly—like a used Pamper! But now she needs my vote. Even from the loony bin, she's going to need my vote.”

“Incidentally, how
do
you plan to vote? Not that it's any of my business.”

“No, it isn't. But the fact is I haven't decided, and you can tell my mother that. A lot depends …” She hesitates, and gives him a calculating look. “A lot depends on whether my mother finally decides to come clean with me. And a lot depends on how many Baronet shares I discover I am actually legally entitled to vote. And you can tell my mother that, too.”

“Dammit, Melissa, I'm not going to tell your mother any of this! I've already promised to keep all of this in the strictest confidence.”

“It will be interesting to see whether you keep that promise.”

“A promise is a promise. Now, will you stop being so suspicious and have another drink with me?”

“No. Was that Mother's suggestion, too? Get Melissa a little drunk, and maybe you'll get her tongue wagging. I can just hear her saying that. Did she also say, get Melissa a little drunk, and then maybe get her to bed down with you? Melissa has healthy sexual appetites—don't we all? A little roll in the hay might get her to unbutton her lip. I can just hear her saying that, too.”

He lowers his eyes. “That's not why I invited you to dinner,” he says.

“Then why did you?”

“For one thing, because I find you a fascinating woman.”

“Oh, I am, I am. Fascinating.”

“And because I find the LeBarons a fascinating family.”

“We are, we are. Quite fascinating.”

“And because, to be honest with you, someday I might like to write the LeBarons' story.”

“Well, you won't do that as long as Mother is around. If you found a publisher, she'd buy the publishing house.”

“To me, it's a very romantic story. The young Gold Rush immigrant … the story of a fortune made off the land in California … the special conditions of climate that produce the grape, warm sunny days and cool, dry nights … the romance of the wine business. You see, I've done a certain amount of homework already, Melissa.”

“Romantic, yes. But there are a few rough edges to the LeBaron story, some pretty ugly and dirty undersides that you're not going to learn about from me. Plenty of dirty linen, plenty of family skeletons, believe me.”

“Anyway,” he says, “let's stop talking about mergers and acquisitions and family skeletons. Let's have a pleasant evening, and change the subject to something pleasant. Okay?”

“Very well,” she says. “What shall that pleasant subject be?”

“You,” he says easily. “Tell me about your holiday in Switzerland last winter, for instance.”

“Switzerland,” she says. Then she lifts her napkin from her lap, folds it carefully, and places it on the tablecloth in front of her. Then she reaches for her Gucci bag, which she had placed on the floor, just beside her chair. “So that's it. I might have guessed. Sometimes I'm not as clever as I like to think. Switzerland. I'm going home. Thank you for the drink, Archie, but you're a shit. You're a shit, but I still feel sorry for you. I feel terribly sorry for the shits of this world. The stakes they are playing for are usually so pitifully small. My stakes are somewhat larger. Good-bye.” She rises, with her bag, to go.

He starts to rise. “Let me drop you at your house,” he says.

“No, thank you. I'll take a taxi. Taxis are cheap. Like this date.”

Half-standing, he watches her as she turns and moves quickly across the restaurant toward the door, her thin Delman heels leaving brief impressions in the thick green carpet on the floor of Ernie's bar, small, resilient dimples that lose their shape immediately her heels have left them.

Finally, he sits down again, and calls to the passing waiter, “Check, please.”

“Thank you, sir, but Miss LeBaron has asked that this be placed on her bill,” the waiter says.

At this very moment, Gabe Pollack has just reached Assaria LeBaron at her house on Washington Street. “I'm in Los Angeles,” he says. “My secretary says you've been trying to reach me.”

“Yes,” she says. “Gabe, this is very important. Harry Tillinghast is planning to make a takeover bid for Baronet, and Eric's behind him. Naturally, their object is to get me to bail out of the company. I'm going to fight this every inch of the way, Gabe. They're not going to do this to me, but there is one immediate problem. All the shareholders have received notices in the mail, and Melissa is having dinner with your Mr. McPherson tonight. I think it's more than likely that she'll mention something about it to him, and that he'll feel there's a story in it. All that is fine, Gabe, but I don't want a story yet. I'm meeting with the lawyers tomorrow, and there's a family meeting planned for over the weekend. If McPherson comes to you in the morning with a story on Kern-McKittrick, I want you to tell him to keep the lid on it until I'm ready. Will you do that for me, Gabe?”

“Sure,” he says. “That should be no problem, Sari.”

“Believe me, when I'm ready to go to the press it'll be a much bigger story than anything Mr. McPherson will be getting out of Melissa at tonight's dinner. And if you'll do that for me, Gabe, I'm sure you know what your reward will be.”

“No—what?”

“You'll be the first newspaper in the country to have the story. You'll have the exclusive, inside track.”

“If that's possible, that would certainly be very nice.”

“I'll personally see that you get it, Gabe.
That
should sell some papers for you. I'll even go farther, if you'll sit on any story about us until I give you the high sign. You know I've never given interviews, but I'll give you an interview on this one—one that'll knock 'em off their feet. How's that for a return for the favor, Gabe?”

He chuckles. “Yes, I guess that would be really something,” he says.

“Good. It's a deal. Besides,” she says, “it rather amuses me that the first to get this story won't be the
Times
or the
Wall Street Journal
, but our little old
Peninsula Gazette!
” She replaces the receiver in its cradle.

While she has been talking, Thomas has been standing discreetly a few paces outside her door. Now he enters. “Madam,” he says, “there was a letter today in Miss Melissa's mail that I thought you should know about.”

“Oh? What sort of letter?”

“It is a letter from Switzerland, Madam. It appears to be from the Palace Hotel in Saint Moritz.”

“I see.”

“And it appears to be quite more than an ordinary letter. It is quite a thick packet. I didn't deliver it to Miss Melissa, because I thought Madam might wish to examine it first.”

“I see,” she says. “You're asking me whether I'd like to open it and read it first.”

“I thought this packet might possibly contain information that would be of special interest to you, Madam.”

“Yes.” She hesitates, playing with a pencil. “You know I disapprove of doing things like this,” she says. “I've never liked to do it. But yes, I think under the present circumstances, we should. These are very special circumstances, after all.”

He nods. “I'll fetch it for you, Madam.”

While she waits, she doodles with her pencil, and the doodles are the pie charts that she has been drawing and redrawing now for many days. When he returns, and hands her the letter, she sees that indeed it is very long.

“Have you read this, Thomas? Never mind—of course you have. It doesn't take twenty minutes to steam open a letter.” She adjusts her reading glasses on her nose, and reads:

My dear Miss LeBaron
,

Thank you for your kind letter, and its interesting enclosure, and I apologize for the long time it has taken me to get back to you with a reply. We are just now coming to the end of our customarily busy and hectic winter season, and our staff is now preparing for what our British guests call their “hols,” a well-deserved rest until the hotel reopens for summer, in June. This gives me a chance to answer your letter in some detail, which I know you were hoping to have me do
.

But first of all, let me tell you how pleased I was to hear that you enjoyed your stay with us. Let me tell you also that it was our distinct pleasure to have you with us as our gracious and most charming guest. I passed along your compliments and good wishes to Hans, your ski instructor, who in return sends felicitations to you. All of the staff agree with me that your visit was only flawed by the fact that it was much too brief! The staff and I all look forward to another, longer visit in the future and, in the meantime, send our compliments and greetings for a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year!

Now, to get to the substance of the questions you pose to me in your letter. I confess, when you spoke to me in December here, I did not immediately in my memory (always faulty!) draw a connection between your name and the people you feel may have been your relatives who stayed at the Hotel in 1926. Too, the fact that the Hotel was in the throes of its busy winter season may also be blamed for my unfortunate mnemonic failure. But the photograph of the young woman you enclosed immediately “triggered” my memory, and I remembered the young woman as though it were yesterday! Also, a search of the Hotel's records and registry (kept as meticulously as possible since the Hotel's first existence in 1856) revealed that indeed Mr. and Mrs. Peter Powell LeBaron stayed with us in 1926 and also in 1927. It is particularly regrettable that I should not have remembered their party instantly, since theirs was an unusually long stay!

Remember, of course, that in 1926 I was only a young boy of twelve, working here for my father, being trained, as he was trained by his own father, in the hotel business from the ground up. That year, I worked in a variety of positions. I worked as a busboy in the dining room, as a waiter in the Bar, and occasionally helped out at the Concierge's desk, delivering mail and telegrams and newspapers to the guests' rooms. As a result, I got to know many of the guests and their habits more than a little well
.…

“What a windbag,” Sari says, turning a page.

…
The woman in the photograph you sent me is very definitely Mrs. Peter Powell LeBaron. I remember her well, and our Guest Record Ledger shows that she and her husband occupied Suite 91–93 on the fourth étage. It might interest you to know that this particular suite has also been a favorite of many notables over the years. Miss Mary Pickford and Mr. Douglas Fairbanks spent a part of their honeymoon there. It was also the suite which Miss Greta Garbo always requested, as did Marlene Dietrich and Miss Barbara Hutton, when she was Countess Haugwitz-Reventlow. Other more recent dignitaries who have occupied the suite include Arturo Lopez-Wilshawe and the Baron Alexis de Rédé, Salvador Dali, Lord and Lady Ribblesdale, Mr. and Mrs. David Rockefeller, Mr. Henry Ford II, Miss Christina Onassis, and the King of Qum
…

“And what a name-dropper!” Sari says. “The King of Qum!”

…
Mr. and Mrs. LeBaron's traveling companion, Mrs. Mary Brown, who remained with them throughout their stay, occupied an equally fine apartement, Suite 87–89, on the étage below. Suite 87–89 has provided a “home away from home” for an equally distinguished list of notables over the years, including Miss Paulette Goddard, Mr. Alfred Hitchcock, M. Jacques Fath, the novelist Erich Maria Remarque, Count Theo Rossi, Miss Elsa Maxwell, Miss Audrey Hepburn, Baron and Baroness Thyssen, and His Royal Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan. The late Shah of Iran particularly fancied this suite, as did David O. Selznick and Lady Maureen, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava. But on to my recollections of your relatives, which will interest you more
…

“About time!” Sari mutters.

…
With the photograph you sent me in my hand, the memories of Mr. and Mrs. LeBaron come flooding back. I remember that Mr. LeBaron was a very tall, very distinguished-looking man, good-looking in a rugged American “Western” way. His wife was a tiny woman, but quite extraordinarily pretty, though she looked, in contrast to her husband, quite foreign. I remember that there was some speculation among the Hotel staff about what might have been her country of origin. Some speculated that she might have been Italian, but I remember that she was addressed by her intimates as “Saree,” so there was some talk that she might be part Asian, perhaps Indian. She must have been quite young at the time
—
recently married, I believe
—
but in the eyes of a boy of twelve she seemed very mature, so poised, so dignified, so full of self-confidence and excitement, almost a
grande dame.
What I remember most vividly about her was her walk. For a woman of such small physical stature, she seemed to have extraordinary presence, and this was expressed in the way she walked. Coming down the short flight of steps into the dining room in one of her beautiful dresses, her walk was almost regal, like an actress stepping out onto a stage into the spotlight, and heads would always turn throughout the room as she made her entrance, and moved gracefully to her table, which was number 5, a wonderfully lithe and springy walk
…