2 Death of a Supermodel (30 page)

When they sat, Fifteen Summers glared at Ruby and didn’t even acknowledge Laura’s existence. Laura wished she had the opportunity to not hire the girl, but her spite wouldn’t be satisfied that season, or the next. Or possibly ever.

A glance from Pierre sent Fifteen Summers scuttling away.

“You’re not thinking of repping models now, are you?” Laura asked.

“And cross Roquelle?” he answered, putting down his phone. “I’d start writing my suicide note now.”

Ruby pushed away the dirty cups. “You need to find us something. My sister is going to break down. Look at her.”

Pierre looked at her, which was incredibly uncomfortable.

“I’m fine,” she said.

He cleared his throat and watched the door as it opened, but it was apparently no one he wanted to speak to. “I may have something of interest. Tomorrow morning. Saturday. You need to be here. At this table.”

Ruby clapped, but Laura held her own as the jaded one of the pair. “Who is it?”

“I can’t say.”

“You’re just popping them on us? How can we prepare?” Ruby asked.

“You can start by making sure you both look presentable and have something to talk about. Besides the bodies falling all around you, of course. The news already has too much to say about that. You’d think Greyson was pulling strings. Bring nothing for design. They don’t want to see it. They know what you do. Do something stylish with that sling. My God, did it come in another color?”

“You mean we’ll keep getting to do what we like without rhinestone buttons?” Laura asked, hoping against hope that her life would be restored.

The busboy rushed over and picked saucers and teacups off the table. Laura caught a glimpse of something on a saucer that didn’t belong there.

“No promises,” he replied, sipping from his little chintz teacup. He pointed at Laura. “You need to just make sure there’s no more chasing around after murders unless that murder is your own. No?”

“I understand.” But when the busboy turned to leave, Laura said, “Excuse me?” and picked the foreign object off the saucer. It was an eyedropper. “Is this Penelope’s?” she asked, remembering the vitamin boost at Baxter City.

“Ah.” Pierre held out his hand. “She was here. Give it to me; I’ll return it.”

“No, I’ll do it. Come on, Rubes. We have to go.” She shoved Ruby out of the booth and out the door.

“What?” Ruby shouted once they were on Third Avenue. “Why are you pushing?”

Laura held up the eyedropper. “It doesn’t matter who was in the cab with her because that’s not where it happened. It was in Marlene X.” Laura filled in the blanks for Ruby. “Penelope had a really tough time when she became a model. Like really tough. Like rape tough. That’s why she’s hell-bent on protecting models from themselves. So what do you think happens when she finds out Thomasina’s importing sex toys and telling them they’re going to model? And then finding out she can’t do anything about it because Rolf’s covering his tracks?”

“She’s not crazy.”

“Oh, yes, she is. And she droppers her tea with vitamin D and sat at the same table with Thomasina that morning because they all sit in that corner. So how hard would it be just to put something else in it? Something that’s the same as what she knows Thomasina’s already taking, but strong enough to kill her?”

“So, what do you want to do? Because I know you’re not calling that detective.”

“Let’s go return this dropper.”

On the way to Central Park, she realized that Stu had gotten into a brawl with a psychopath dangerous enough to frighten a hedge fund manager out of his ivory tower. She called him.

“I wanted to tell you what I found out about Rolf.”

“You mean Sabine?”

“He’s scary.”

“You have no idea. Where are you?”

“On the way to the shows in the park.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

Laura had a plan for their trip to Garmento Ghetto, naturally, and it involved going to the MAAB table in the administration tent. All the models had to register there, get weighed in, and have a good talk if they were new or a pat on a bony shoulder if they were old hands. If Penelope wasn’t present, there should be more than a few acolytes to direct her to the correct show, interview, or weigh-in.

The street running through the park was closed off and well-populated with coffee-holding buyers and fashionistas with cellphones and damp hair. There were the usual altercations between joggers and cyclists and the oblivious ditzes with zero situational awareness who walked in front of their well-scored paths. Collisions, altercations, elbowings, and fistfights were reported daily. Rather than move the shows, yet again, to a different venue, the city sprayed Central Park with police.

Laura kept her wits about her when she crossed the road, guiding Ruby by the elbow because her sister was texting. They’d been lectured by Stu numerous times on how hard it was to be a cyclist anywhere in the city, and Laura didn’t want to be a part of the problem.

The Garmento Ghetto had been moderately crowded on Tuesday, when she’d been there for Sartorial’s show, and the volume had increased steadily for the three days following, culminating in a balls-out fashion blowout Friday night. The last show was the monster, as it led directly to parties, and there were no showroom meetings after. That had traditionally been Jeremy’s spot. But since he’d taken a season off after Gracie’s death, he’d lost his treasured place. He had bought the second to last spot, and the two before it, which pissed off any number of designers, and used the time to rebuild the runway.

Barry Tilden had partnered on the change. On Seventh, that might have been seen as a sign of weakness, because if you weren’t cutting someone’s throat, you were a weakling, but surprisingly, it had strengthened both of them. They actually seemed to like each other, and as two designers with lifestyle brands, Barry having done it already and Jeremy striving for it, they developed a runway design they could sink their teeth into.

They tore down the bandshell’s center runway and replaced it with a design that splayed out like petals on a daisy. The center was a lazy Susan that spun the models onto one of the petals as they came out from the back. Each petal was meant for a buying category. So a model would come out with a special bag or shoes, and the lazy Susan would stop on the petal with seats for accessory buyers and photographers for accessory trade magazines. If she also had on an outfit meant for sportswear, outerwear, makeup, or textile buyers, she would return to the center and get spun onto that petal.

Easier said than done, of course. The choreography was positively mathematical. Jeremy and Barry had spent weeks planning how it would work. Even though their shows weren’t combined, they found their efforts were more valuable when they worked together.

Ruby drifted over to a klatch of garmentos she wanted to stroke. Laura beelined past the construction teams hastily building Jeremy and Barry’s stage, to the admin tent, which was half information desk meant to turn tourists away, and half actual administration. The MAAB desk was hidden way in the back.

She walked in as if she owned the place, which if she counted the dues she paid to the CFDA, plus her taxes, she kind of did. “What do you mean I can’t come in?” she asked the guard at the front.

He wore a tight T-shirt and sprayed on black jeans. He looked at his clipboard, then held it up for her to see. “Right there.” He cracked gum when he spoke, leaning on one foot as if he were planting bulbs and his boots were better than shovels. “It says, and I quote, ‘Admin tent for show day: patrons only.’ So, no tickee. No shirtee. Having a show Tuesday means you can’t come in on Friday. Do you want the MAAB office number? It’s right on 40th Street. They’ll be back on Monday.”

“Penelope said I should come.” Lying was bound to go poorly, and it did.

“Did she write you a yellow ticket?”

“She must have forgotten.”

“Call her and get one, and I can let you in.”

Laura scanned the crowd for her sister and found her outside the biggest tent for the Ricardo Ofenhelb show. She stood with a fashion writer from
Bazaar
, the editorial director of
Black Book
, a reviewer from
Apparel News
, and a klatch of buyers from the juggernaut of Federated. They were laughing at something the VP of sales from Brandywine Girl said.

That was why she needed Ruby, and why she resented her. That was why taking Debbie’s order seemed so right and so wrong. Because doing that sort of business meant Ruby’s skills were unnecessary, but
cultivating
as a business required exactly what Ruby had that Laura lacked.

“Can you stop?” Laura whispered. “I just got turned away at the admin tent and don’t want to stand outside by myself like a loser.”

Ruby said quick goodbyes.

Stu showed up in front of the admin tent soon after. Laura thought that by the time she saw him, she’d at least know where Penelope was sitting for the next show, but she had nothing, and she felt crummy about that until she got a look at him. He wore his grey mis-buttoned cardigan, but it didn’t look intentional. It looked like the product of a disheveled mind.

“You okay?” Laura asked. “They didn’t give you a hard time in jail or anything, did they?” He waved the notion away, but didn’t say anything. “What? It’s something.”

He gave her a slight shrug. It wasn’t like him to avoid telling her anything, even if he were mad at her. So when he shrugged off a simple question, Laura worried.

“Leave him alone,” Ruby said.

“Tell me what you have since last night,” Stu said in a flat voice.

She didn’t like it. Not one bit, and though she had let their romance slip through the cracks, she would not let their friendship. “No, you have to at least tell me the general area of what’s bothering you.”

“Tofu,” he said, pronouncing it exactly the way it was spelled, and with relish, as though he wanted to insult.

“She didn’t like you getting arrested?”

“Not when I was out gallivanting with you, she didn’t.”

Laura couldn’t tell if he was angry at Tofu or himself.

Ruby, not content to sit in a mystery for too long, interjected, “You set her straight, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, “and she went straight for the door. Anything else you want to choke out of me? Because you can see how much I want to talk about this.”

It was out of character for Stu to behave that way. Typically, nothing was too painful for him to admit, and she was torn between being happy he was free of the catty bitch and angry at Tofu for treating him so shoddily. She also thought for a second that it might be the perfect time for her to slip in. He was free. Technically, she was free. Except for Jeremy. She knew she didn’t have it in her to juggle two men.

She changed the subject. “So, why did you get arrested yesterday and not me?”

“I told them I told you I had access to the office.”

“And they believed that? Even Cangemi believed it?”

“We believe what we already have in our heads. Isn’t that what you say?”

“Did he tell you about my team of female Eastern European staffers, running around, doing my bidding?”

While they dodged crowds and circled tents all over the Garmento Ghetto, she explained the immigration laundering at White Rose, the origins of the purple pills, the social strata at Marlene X, the eyedropper, and Bob’s exit from his overdesigned penthouse.

“He’s right to leave,” Stu said. “Rolf, Sabine, he’s both. He’s wiggled out of at least four murders in his home country. Brutal, all of them.” He pointed at Laura and dropped his voice half an octave. “You need to stay away from him. I have never been so serious in my life.”

“I get it.”

“I wanted to tell you in person. The next time we meet this guy, you’re not pissing him off, and you’re running into a crowded place, and then you’re changing your name and moving out of state.”

“Jesus, Stu.” She didn’t appreciate the drama, not when they had so much else going on, nor did she appreciate hearing the message again from yet another person who wanted her to sit and sew.

As they made their way across the park to a food court, the schedule began, and the tent city that had been so full of bodies emptied like a crowded highway after a popular off ramp.

They stopped at the tent marked “Café Couture” and ordered three four-dollar coffees.

“Okay,” Stu said, “what I’m hearing is that Thomasina was given the poison sometime between when she saw Ruby in the morning, and when she got to the tent to do your show.”

“Right,” Laura answered.

“And what you’ve put together, so far, is that she left home and then what?”

Since Ruby didn’t correct Thomasina’s point of exit, Laura decided not to either. “Marlene X, then the tents. Poisoned somewhere in there. She saw all her high-end buddies at Marlene X, and I think she was in the cab with Rolf.”

“And from the cab to the dressing area? Something could have happened then.”

“Ruby walked her in; I saw them.”

Ruby interjected, “I saw her outside the MAAB offices, and we walked back together.” Laura noticed her sister’s cheeks redden.

“Right back all the way?” Laura asked.

Her sister reddened further, and Laura realized it was because Stu was there. “No,” Ruby said, “we made a pit stop. Uhm, there’s this corner behind the generator for the makeup tent, and ah, we…”

Stu’s face was blank. Either he had no idea or he had on his journalist face. Laura wanted to fill him in, without awkwardness, and knew she’d failed in her mission before the words even left her lips. “You guys had a make out session or something?”

“Little bit,” Ruby said into her cup.

“Wow,” Stu said with his face still emotionless. “Big wows.”

Ruby tightened like a drum. “ShutupStuIhateyou!”

He leaned back. “No, come on. She was hot. Nice going.”

“Stu! Are you baiting her on purpose?”

He looked incredulous. “She was
not
hot? Am I supposed to say that? Or like I should pretend it’s not a big deal?”

Ruby balled up a napkin and threw it at him. “I can
see
your freaking imagination. Stop it.”