Too Damn Rich (39 page)

She turned her face a little, watching him
slip a hand inside his suit jacket, watching him extract one of
those wafer-thin, black calf business card holders. The expensive
kind, with a rounded gold corner set with a teeny sapphire
cabochon.

Kenzie felt a surge of irrational
jealousy.

Obviously an overpriced gift from some
girlfriend, she thought bitingly. Men never buy those kinds of
things for themselves.

And that decided her. The hell with prudence.
She had as much a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
pleasure as the next person.

So Hannes and Charley were working together.
So what?

Last night had been a moment of weakness, a
mere hormonal accident. It wasn't as if she intended to take up
with Charley again. Nor did she owe him her fidelity. In fact, she
didn't owe him a goddamn thing!

She looked on as Hannes performed that
one-handed trick of flipping out a business card and holding it
between the middle and index fingers— the while-collar version of
striking a match with one hand.

"I wrote my home phone number on the back,
Kenzie," he said softly.

She reached out to take it, but was
unprepared for what happened next.

The card was like an extension of his body.
The instant she touched it, a powerful electric current jolted
through her.

Unbidden, her mind flashed back to that
rain-slashed night last October, when his tongue had fluttered
delicately against her naked flesh and she had offered him her
treasure, that soft, moist sanctum between her thighs.

He held onto the card a moment before letting
go.

And that was when she realized it.

I've missed him, she thought in amazement.
Goddammit! I've really missed him!

She swallowed to lubricate her throat. "You .
. . you said there were several reasons you dropped by," she
reminded him softly.

He smiled. "Well, one other."

She raised her winged brows.

"I would like to take you to dinner this
evening. If you are free, that is?"

Dinner, she thought to herself. That's
harmless enough. It isn't as though I'm committing myself to
anything.

"Yes," she whispered. "I ... I think I'd like
that. Only I don't eat red meat, so—"

"No problem," he assured her. "I know just
the place. I'll pick you up at seven?"

She nodded hypnotically. "Seven's fine," she
said thickly.

"And if the fax arrives in time, you'll bring
me a copy?"

She nodded dreamily.

"Well, I'd better fly." His teeth flashed
brilliantly again. "I'll see you this evening," he said.

And he was gone.

"Well, well, well," observed Zandra archly.
"Darling, he's divine. When it rains it certainly pours—seems your
dry spell's over and a monsoon's begun. How ever do you do it?
Well, never mind. I'm off to lunch—"

But Kenzie didn't hear a word. She was
smiling drowsily into space, anticipating the pleasant evening
ahead.

Hannes, she thought. Hot damn!

Mortimer's, on the corner of Lexington Avenue
and East Seventy-fifth Street, is the kind of neighborhood
restaurant which wouldn't normally elicit a second glance. The main
dining room has cafe- curtained windows, bare brick walls, a long
bar to the left, and tables with white cloths to the right. Above
the bar hangs a drawing of the restaurant's namesake—the fictional
Mortimer—rendered as a romantic young man.

Inevitably, great potted palms (or, as on
this day, giant arrangements of blossoming dogwood branches) sit
atop the bar, leftovers from the previous night's private
party.

That there is never a shortage of these
horticultural extravaganzas attests to private parties being not
the exception, but the norm: for nearly two decades, the city's
rich and famous have adopted Mortimer's as their unofficial but
highly exclusive club.

Now, at lunchtime, the main dining room was
buzzing as the new arrival breezed in. She carried herself with a
kind of breathless theatricality, and posed by the door for a long
moment, her eyes spinning about to see who was already here.

Obviously, the usual battalion of ladies who
lunch but do not eat.

Holding court at the preferred window tables
were the likes of Gloria Vanderbilt, Annette de la Renta, Nancy
Kissinger, Pat Buckley, Joan Rivers, Nan Kempner, and a Rothschild
or two. Plus their pet escorts—Bill Blass, Jerry Zipkin, Johnny
Galliher, and Kenny Jay Lane.

Even as the new arrival eyed them, so too did
this cliquish audience eye her right back.

Dina Goldsmith did not disappoint. Her face
was immaculate, tweezered, defined. Subdued makeup glowed in a
palette of warm almond, creams, and rose. Her blonde hair was
pulled tightly back and held in place with a gold barrette and fell
loosely down her back like shimmering cornsilk. She was wearing a
sable coat over a turquoise Chanel minisuit with orange and lilac
braid trim. There were long ropes of tiny, carved, green onyx
leaves around her neck, and matching earrings, bracelet, and
brooch. Her purse and shoes were black crocodile, and she was
carrying a shiny little string-handled red shopping bag.

Her entrance had the desired effect; it set
off waves of sibilant whispers.

She savored the talking heads and
appreciative looks. They were proof positive that she had
Arrived—and with a capital A!

The proprietor, horn rims perched on the tip
of his nose, scurried over to welcome her. "Mrs. Goldsmith!" he
greeted warmly. "Ms. von Hohenburg-Willemlohe is already here."

Dina smiled brilliantly and, taking little
high-heeled running steps, followed him past table IB—the one just
to the right of the door, and which was still unoccupied—to the
second one down, where Zandra was seated by the window, facing away
from the door.

"Hello, sweetie!" Dina sang.

Zandra, who hadn't noticed her entrance, gave
a start. "Dina! Gosh! Darling, how are you? Hullo!"

"Sorry I'm fashionably late, and I did so try
to be punctual!" Dina leaned down and put her arm around Zandra and
almost, but not quite, touched cheeks. "Mwah!" she air-kissed.
"Mwah!"

The proprietor pulled out the chair facing
the door, and Dina hopped around the table and sat down opposite
Zandra and got settled. She put her bags down and pulled off her
gloves and shrugged off her sable. Finally, placing her elbows on
the table, she leaned forward. "There!" She smiled brightly.

"Gosh, Dina. But darling, you look
smashing—it's so great to see you ... seems like it's been yonks!
Life treating you well?"

"Oh, you know me, sweetie," Dina said, with a
negligible wave. "Life always treats me well. Oh, I am glad you
could make it—especially on such short notice!"

Dina's aquamarine eyes couldn't stay still
but kept snapping here, there, everywhere. She was like a feverish
bidder at auction, except that she exchanged little finger waggles
and long-range air kisses with half the lunchers.

"Haven't you heard?" Zandra grinned. "Us
working girls will go anywhere for a free meal."

"Pshaw! As if you eat much more than a
bird!"

A young waiter appeared. "Would you like
something from the bar?" he asked.

"Mineral water." Dina looked at Zandra. "And
you?"

"I already have mine."

Dina smiled dazzlingly at the waiter. He was
back in no time and poured from a little green bottle. Dina ordered
salmon with ginger, and Zandra chose the chicken paillard.

"So what brought you out today?" Zandra asked
when the waiter had gone.

Dina took a tiny sip of water. "Shopping,
sweetie," she said cheerfully. "Tons of shopping. You wouldn't
believe how exhausting it is!"

One certainly couldn't tell by looking at
her. Besides, as Zandra well knew, Dina positively thrived on
shopping marathons.

"Yes, tons of shopping. Thank God for the
car. It's packed full, and there's still the whole afternoon left!
Oh. Speaking of which ... here. I got you this." She passed Zandra
the little red shopping bag.

"Carrier! What's this?"

"Oh, just a little something. Take it! When I
saw them, I knew they had your name written all over them."

Zandra gave her one of those
I-wish-you-wouldn't-have looks and accepted the bag and peeked
inside it. She took out three boxes wrapped in white paper with red
ribbon.

"Well? Open them!" Dina, finished scanning
the restaurant, placed her chin on her hands and smiled with
anticipation.

Carefully Zandra undid the ribbon of the
smallest box and pulled away the wrapping paper. She eyed the tiny
padded red box.

"Dina," she protested again.

Dina rolled her eyes in mock
exasperation.

Slowly Zandra lifted the lid. She let out a
little gasp. Nestled in a bed of white silk was an exquisite gold
ladybug minibrooch in red and black enamel.

"Likee?"

"Yes, but—"

"No buts. I saw it when I got these. See?"
Dina extended a limp wrist to show off her carved onyx bracelet,
then fingered her matching necklace. "Now, do go on." She gestured
with barely suppressed excitement. "Open the rest!"

Zandra dutifully unwrapped another box. It
contained lady- bug earrings.

"Di-
na
!"

"Hush, sweetie. One more to go."

With a sigh, Zandra opened the longest of the
three boxes. The breath caught in her throat. The bracelet,
consisting of delicate gold links interspersed with enameled
ladybugs, was the most exquisite piece of all.

"Gosh. I—I don't know what to say ... they're
... fab! Dina, you are a darling, but I couldn't possibly—I mean
... it's not even my birthday!"

"They're yours, and that's the end of it,"
Dina said with finality. "The subject is closed." Her voice dropped
to a whisper. "Look! There she goes already."

Zandra frowned. "There goes who?"

Dina tilted her head toward a bone-thin
socialite who was leaving the room. She leaned across the table.
"Haven't you ever noticed?" she whispered. "Really, sweetie! The
way she runs back and forth to the ladies' room, I'd say it's time
she stops taking laxatives!"

Zandra giggled. "Goodness, Dina ... is there
anything you don't know about these people?" The salads arrived.
"Oh, super. Thanks."

Dina continued to dispense gossip until the
entrees arrived. The noise level had swelled by decibels;
table-hopping had begun in earnest.

Suddenly, without warning, the dining room
fell completely silent.

Dina, glancing beyond Zandra toward the door,
murmured: "Goodness!" Her eyes had widened. "So that's who's
getting the A table!"

Who ... ?

Zandra twisted around in her chair.

Karl-Heinz had just entered with Becky V, two
members of a superior species seemingly indifferent to the
sensation they created.

Zandra, mouth falling slightly open, felt a
disturbing collision of emotions, and stared at him in surprise,
her ears tuning out Dina's running, whispered commentary:

"... well, he would be accompanying her,
wouldn't he ... I mean, considering all her titles and his ..."

Zandra's fingers tightened around her fork;
brandished it in the air as if the piece of chicken were some
freshly speared trophy. Curiously, time did the impossible:
contracted—compacting the past three months, during which she'd
neither seen nor heard from him, into a split millisecond.

Oh, dear God—Heinzie! What was it about him
that made her go all weak—

The room blurred, as with fog, everything
going shapeless and out of focus. In the silence, Zandra could hear
her heart thundering like a piledriver.

And then the roar and clatter of the diners
resumed. Her vision sharpened.

Oh, Lord, it can't be happening! she thought,
guilt closing around her like a trap. I can't be falling for him.
Christ, he's my bloody cousin—/

Her breast heaved, as if her lungs were
struggling for air, and her heart continued to pound deafeningly,
arrhythmically.

What is wrong with me? Why am I acting like
some silly, infatuated schoolgirl?

"Zandra?"

His voice startled her, jerked her like the
strings of a marionette.

"Zandra! Why don't you and your friend join
us? Look, the table's laid for four. Zandra?"

She stared at him.

He stared at her.

Neither of them noticed Dina and Becky
exchanging barely perceptible, knowing looks.

All they had eyes for was each other.

"Ms. Turner?" said Sheldon D. Fairey, popping
his head in the door. "Emergency. A client's asked for an
appraisal. Afraid she wants it done yesterday, which means this
afternoon. Could you be so good ... ?"

Kenzie pulled a face. "It has to be
today?"

"Afraid so. It's a special VIP case."

"All right." She nodded. "I'll take care of
it personally."

"Good. I really appreciate it." He handed her
a slip of paper. "Don't want to lose this one," he said. "Well, I
have to dash. Lunch with a potential client. Huge collection."

And he was gone.

Kenzie stared at the slip of paper he had
given her. Then slowly she unfolded it.

Suddenly she sat up straight, eyes
bulging.

Certain she was imagining things, she shut
her eyes, counted to ten, and looked at the note again.

Kenzie's years in New York might have jaded
her, turning her into a cynic and a skeptic whom nothing, and no
one, could impress. However, just when she had developed the blase
indifference of the true cosmopolite, what should pop up but an
exception.

She was floored—who wouldn't have been by the
name Mr. Fairey had jotted above the address and the appointed
time?

Lila Pons

447 E. 52nd St.

4:00 p.m.