One Dangerous Lady (11 page)

Betty looked at me sheepishly. “June, I feel I have to tell you something. . . . Russell is Missy's godfather and, well, I talked it over with Gil and he—” she began hesitantly.

Just as Betty was about to confess what she had done, June's eyes casually wandered toward the entrance. Her mouth dropped open in a gasp and she cried, “
Dear God! Tell me that's not who I think it is!
”

It is the Rule of Social Inevitability that the thing one most dreads happening at a party
will
happen. Betty and I turned to look at the door and there, indeed, was Carla Cole, poised at the entrance, surveying the room.

“Oh, shit,” Betty said under her breath.

Carla looked both demure and splendid in a black suit, matching hat, with a dark green crocodile bag slung over her shoulder. Trish walked over to greet her. Other women in the room noticed her, too, and one could just feel the whispering begin. Carla was the object of intense speculation and fascination within our little set. I suddenly realized I had to give some real thought to the deeper consequences of Carla moving permanently to New York. Her appearance at this somewhat cozy lunch of Trish's suddenly hit home the realization that she was going to be a fact of my life from here on out, and possibly a sword of Damocles hanging over my head.

Betty tugged June's sleeve. “Junie, I forbid you to make a scene.”

“Please don't, June—” I warned her.

June turned on both of us. She looked like a furious parrot. “You know who you two remind me of? Those people in Germany who thought Goering was a charming houseguest! The woman is evil. She's killed two husbands. Now I don't know about you two, but my standards have not yet lowered to the point where I think it's okay to dine with a murderess—
no matter how much money she has!
”

“Shhh! Keep your voice down, for Chrissakes!”
Betty said.

Now here was a real first, Betty Waterman urging discretion.

“Think of poor Trish,” I urged her.

“Don't worry, I'm leaving,” June said in a huff. She was gearing up for a grand exit.

“If you go, it'll be worse,” Betty said. “It'll just start a big, huge rift in New York.”

“Betty's right. Please don't leave, Junie,” I implored her.

“Trish knows exactly how I feel about
that woman.
To think she could have asked her here after she roped me into buying a table for this dreary charity, whatever it is—I forget—it's cruel! She should have warned me Carla was coming. That's the
least
she could have done.”

Betty grabbed June's arm and faced her squarely. “
June, get a grip!
Don't make a scene! Can't you just chalk it up to social life?”

June shrugged her away and glanced down at the two pale blue ribbons dangling from her right sleeve, which had come undone. “Now look what you've done to my bow! Don't worry,” she said trying unsuccessfully to tie it up again, “I'm just going to slip out quietly. And if Trish should happen to ask you where I am—
not that she will, not that she cares!
—just tell her I remembered I had a funeral to attend.”

“What funeral is that?” Betty asked facetiously.

“The funeral for common decency!” June said with prim fury. “Good-bye and good luck, you two. And in the immortal words of Adolf Hitler, ‘Have a nice day!' ”

Betty and I shook our heads in dismay as we watched June steam toward the entrance, exuding such a bright aura of rage that she looked as if she might spontaneously combust. She purposely brushed past Trish on her way out. Trish looked stunned. Carla remained cool and expressionless.

Betty turned to me and said, “You think June has the makings of a suicide bomber?”

“We'll soon find out, if Carla gets into that building,” I replied.

“Thank God I live in a townhouse,” Betty sighed.

“Yes, but, Betts, what's she going to do when she finds out you wrote a letter for Carla?”

“I had to. For Russell. I talked it over with Gil and we both agreed that if Russell ever comes back and finds out we didn't support his wife, that would be the end of the friendship. I thought you were writing her one, too.”

“No . . . I decided against it.”

“Well, you don't have the history we have with them. If June wants to hold it against me, then she bloody well can. But I doubt she will. You know June. Things blow over with her quickly.”

I thought I detected a hint of remorse in Betty's voice, despite her attitude of righteous indignation.

“Somehow, I think this is different,” I said.

It escaped no one that June had left the lunch in a rage. Trish ran over to us in a state.

“I can't believe June!” she said in a loud whisper. “Did you
see
that performance? Okay, so I forgot how much she hates Carla. I should never have invited the two of them together. But I can't keep track of everyone's feuds. I can barely keep track of my own! Thank God Lulu couldn't come.”

Betty's eyes widened. “Trish, you invited
Lulu
to this lunch? With
Carla
?”

“Well, I just didn't think,” Trish said, clearly unnerved. “And besides, if you only invite the people who
like
each other to a lunch, no one will come! Or very few, anyway.”

“Calm down, Trish. June was wrong. But she'll get over it,” I said.

“You'd think she'd have some compassion for
me!
Dick's about to go on trial. He might have to go to
jail
, for heaven's sakes. And poor Carla, with Russell missing and all! June's behavior is an absolute disgrace. I'm never speaking to her again.”

“Let's all calm down, have some lunch, and get drunk—not necessarily in that order,” Betty said.

I tried my best to avoid Carla, but no such luck. She glided over and thanked me for writing the letter to Hadley Grimes. I didn't disabuse her of the notion that I had. I figured, with any luck, she would think I'd done her a favor. Why did she need to know I'd chickened out? Maybe I could have my cake and eat it, too. She didn't linger long. She seemed far more interested in talking to Marcy Ludinghausen. The two of them walked off and stayed huddled together in a corner until lunch was announced. Fortunately, Carla and I were seated at separate tables.

All anyone at my table could talk about was Carla. She was an object of intense interest—not just for the obvious reasons, but also because she was rumored to be moving permanently to New York. At first, the women at my table were all quite careful in what they said about her because it was widely assumed that she and I were friendly. Word had leaked out that I was down in Barbados at the famous bridal dinner she hosted and that Betty and I were the first ones she turned to for help after Russell vanished. The group tiptoed around the topic during the crabmeat appetizer, feeling me out on the subject of Carla before firing any direct shots at her.

“Well, of course, Carla's a great friend of Jo's, isn't she, Jo?” one of them said, obviously probing.

My response was purposely tepid. I didn't particularly want people thinking I was such a great friend of hers, nor did I want it getting back to her that I disliked her in any way. I basically wanted to steer clear of her. When I said I didn't know her all that well, there were glances all around and the verbal tiptoeing ceased. People hunkered down for a good, old-fashioned gabfest.

“You don't think she had anything to do with it, do you, Jo?” another woman whispered across the table.

The “it” in question was, of course, Russell's disappearance. If I'd had to venture a guess at that time, I'd have said that nearly all the women in that room believed Carla guilty of something—whether it was man stealing or manslaughter, depended on their own sense of the macabre or how close they were to Lulu, who had been a fixture on the New York social scene for years.

I tried to think about how my great, late friend Clara Wilman would have dealt with this situation, she being the standard by which I measured all impeccable behavior. Clara was a great believer in the art of silence—rarely practiced these days. People always seemed to be aching to tell their sides of any story whether they had any involvement in it or not.

“This may not be the appropriate moment to discuss that particular subject,” I said.

Old New York saw: You can lead the girls to discretion, but you can't make them shut up. The subject was just too juicy. Leave it to one of the most badly behaved women in New York to get the criticism of Carla really rolling. Sue-Sue Moran piped up first. Sue-Sue was always having affairs with men—both married and single—hoping to segue from the humdrum investment banker to whom she was married to a richer, more interesting catch. She was of the old school that believed it is always better to find your next husband while you are still married, thus avoiding the indignity of the dicey singles market in New York. According to June, Sue-Sue had made an unsuccessful play for Russell Cole back in the days when he was unhappily married to Lulu. It was Sue-Sue who once proclaimed with a slightly too-intimate certainty, “Russell Cole will never leave his wife.” When Carla and Russell ran off together, Sue-Sue was among the first to condemn the fugitive couple. That day at lunch, her venom, stored for years in an old vial of rejection, was lethal.

“Well, I hear that Carla went to a party the very night she knew poor Russell was missing,” Sue-Sue said, referring, of course, to the disastrous wedding dinner. “All I can say is that woman must be tough as nails,” she went on. “I mean, she obviously doesn't care a thing about her husband. If my husband were missing, I certainly wouldn't go to a party,” she said sanctimoniously.

No—you'd
give
one, I thought to myself, marveling at how scandal always seemed to bring out the piety in people, especially the naughtiest ones. Scandals are a tried-and-true way of displacing one's own unhappiness by diverting it to a more impersonal subject. I didn't join in the subsequent conversation, which seemed to invigorate all the women at my table with deliciously malicious energy. I just listened and thought my own thoughts, knowing that no one at that ladies' luncheon could possibly have imagined what they were.

 

Chapter 12

A
lmost any opening night at the Metropolitan Opera is a glittering occasion, but the new production of
Tosca
, with lavish sets by the great Italian set designer Gianfranco Brignetti, and the incomparable Swedish soprano Nellie Bergsen in the title role, was an occasion not to be missed. Tickets were almost impossible to come by. Scalpers commanded upward of a thousand dollars for a pair of second-rate seats.

I took great pains with my appearance that night, not only because it was an important opening, but because I was going with Max. I had a professional makeup artist and a hairdresser come to the house to help me look my best. I chose the couture burgundy velvet sheath to match the blood-red rubies of my stunning signature piece of jewelry—an exact copy of a necklace that had once belonged to Marie Antoinette. The original had been smashed to pieces in an unfortunate accident, but I had salvaged some of the stones and had the copy made. When the doorman rang up to say that Lord Vermilion was downstairs, I felt as resilient and confident in couture as any medieval knight in a suit of armor.

Max was outside, standing in front of a rundown taxi. He greeted me warmly, complimenting me on my appearance. As I slid uncomfortably across the ripped vinyl seat in my sable-trimmed opera coat and long gown, carefully avoiding some rubbish on the floor, I must confess I was a little surprised he had not hired a private car for such a gala evening. However, I figured that when you're as grand as Lord Vermilion, you don't have to worry about impressing people with the superficial trappings of life.

As the taxi lurched its way though the thick traffic heading toward Lincoln Center, Max absently stroked the sleeve of his topcoat and talked about
Tosca.

“Now I know you're not fond of the opera, Jo, but I always think it's a bit more fun when you know something of the players,” Max said.

That was certainly true. One of the reasons I didn't mind going to the opera with Ethan Monk was because it was like going to a baseball game with the manager of the Yankees. Ethan knew all of the behind-the-scenes gossip. During any given performance, he might point to some soprano singing her heart out onstage and whisper to me that she was sleeping with so-and-so, or give me some other tidbit of gossip regarding the cast or crew. Max knew other kinds of gossip.

“
Tosca
premiered on January fourteenth, 1900, in Rome,” he went on. “Got rotten reviews. Not as bad as
Madame Butterfly
, but almost. But Puccini was quite a determined young fellow. My grandfather became rather good friends with him actually, right around the time of the scandal.”

“What scandal?” I asked.

“Oh, well, Puccini was quite a ladies' man, you know. He once described himself as ‘a mighty hunter of wild fowl, operatic librettos, and attractive women.' His wife accused him of having an affair with one of their young maidservants. The girl was so upset she committed suicide. But when they did an autopsy, they discovered she was a virgin, poor thing. So, you see, the one crime Puccini didn't commit was the one he paid for most dearly, both privately and in the press. Typical,
what
?”

Max was full of all sorts of historical trivia like this, and his delivery was wry and oddly self-effacing. He casually peppered his conversation with personal references. In some way or another, one or more of his ancestors had known, financed, or been in contact with all the great and gifted personages of their times. Max wasn't at all boastful about this. It was simply a fact of his life. He never sounded like he was name-dropping, but simply recounting family history—just as I might have told people my father was a chiropractor in Oklahoma. His light touch and knowledge of a wide range of subjects made him wonderful company. And yet, there was something distant about him—as if there were an invisible partition between him and the world, which prevented anyone—including myself—from getting too close.

We arrived at Lincoln Center, which looked like a huge diamond lit from within on this gala opening night. Max paid the cab fare and I noticed the driver grumbled at the meager tip. That, of course, was another sign that Max was rich. He was stingy.

Max and I joined the throng of well-heeled patrons filing into the building. Photographers snapped our picture at the entrance. Max regarded them with a slightly imperious look, as if their attentions were both his due and yet a slight inconvenience at the same time.

“Well, now that we've gotten past all the little Cerberuses, we can breathe easy,” he said, readjusting his posture.

“Uh-oh. I hope the opera's not going to be hell,” I said with a little laugh.

As with any opening night, the atmosphere was electric and full of expectation. As Max and I wended our way with the crowd up the red carpeted staircase to the boxes on the first level, we ran into June Kahn, who was descending. She was reminiscent of Faberge's Imperial lily-of-the-valley egg in a bright pink dress trimmed with little, white organza flowers and sparkly gold braid. June halted abruptly, causing traffic problems on the steps. When I introduced her to Max, she practically genuflected.

“Oh, yes! Lord Vermilion! I've been to Taunton Hall, to a wonderful ball,” she said. “Do you have a lot of balls?”

“Just two, last time I checked.” I stifled a giggle. “Oh, you mean at my
house
!” he said facetiously. “One a year. To raise money for the trust.”

This all went over June's head, but she persevered.

“And how is dear Lady Vermilion?” she asked.

“Which one?” Max said.

June flushed and laughed nervously. “Oh, I forgot! You're divorced now, aren't you? Sorry!”

“I'm always divorced or divorcing,” Max said. “But Mother's fine. She's ninety and going strong. And all my other ex-ladies seem to be thriving quite happily on my money, thank you.”

Titles of any sort impressed June, especially English titles—though those of any monarchy, living or defunct, would do in a pinch.

“Anyway,” June went on, “do you believe, they
found
Russell Cole?”

Max and I looked at each other, then back at her. “
What?!
” we said, practically in unison.

“Dead or alive?” I asked her.

A look of beatific happiness illuminated June Kahn's thin little face as she spoke the five most treasured words in her vocabulary, “You mean you haven't
heard
?”

When both of us confirmed our ignorance by shaking our heads, June immediately changed direction and accompanied us up the stairs, eagerly telling us the story. She seemed particularly excited to be telling Max, whose grand aloofness only heightened June's eagerness to please.

According to June, two local fishermen had picked up Russell in Bridgetown, Barbados, two days after he disappeared. The fishermen said they noticed him because he was acting strange, “like he was drunk,” and he stood out from the largely local crowd on the wharf. They said he asked them if he could work for his passage and they took him on as far as Saint Lucia, where they dropped him off. The reason they hadn't come forward sooner was because they'd been at sea for two weeks and it wasn't until they returned and spotted the photograph of Russell Cole, which the authorities had circulated all over the island, that they understood who their passenger might have been. They claimed to have had no knowledge of the million-dollar reward Carla Cole was offering for the recovery of her husband, which made their story even more credible. They had simply come forward in order to help.

“So anyway, there's a man fitting Russell's description being held in the jail in Castries. He has amnesia and the police are trying to find out who he is.”

“Are they sure it's Russell?” I asked her.

“I think so. I mean, who else could it be?”

Suddenly I smelled June's talent for exaggeration. “Where did you hear this, Junie?” I asked her.

“It's going to be in the papers tomorrow,” she said. “Reporters have been calling Lulu all day, asking her to comment. Carla's apparently flown down there, playing the dutiful wife. It's all a big fat act, if you ask me.”

June suddenly looked at her watch and cried, “Oh my God, the time! I've
got
to go find Charlie. He's always late. We're in Lulu's box, too. Tell her not to worry. We won't miss the curtain!”

June turned around and pushed her way downstairs through the ascending crowd. I stared at Max.

“Are we in
Lulu
's box?” I asked him, dreading the answer.

“We are indeed,” he said in a chipper tone.

“You're kidding.”

“No, my dear. Why? Is there a problem?”

I pulled Max over to the side of the corridor. “Max, I think I mentioned to you that Lulu and I don't get along. And besides, didn't you two used to go out together?”

“You asked me that in Barbados,” he said with a smile. “And I told you then, Lulu and I are just friends.”

I was flustered. I didn't quite know what to think, or to say.

“Won't she think it odd, your bringing me?”

“On the contrary, she was thrilled I was bringing you. Look, I understand that years ago you two had some sort of misunderstanding. But I think that's all water under the bridge now, at least as far as she's concerned.”

“Well, it's not as far as I'm concerned.”

He tilted his head back and said slyly, “Oh, that's right. I forgot about your motto, You may not remember, but you
never
forget.” Then he took my hand, looked deeply into my eyes, and said seriously, “Would you rather not go, my dear? I can easily make our excuses.”

I swallowed hard. I didn't want to make a scene. I loathe scenes. I didn't want Max to think I was being difficult. I also remembered that Ethan would be there and I could always turn to him for moral support.

“No, that's all right. I'll be fine, thanks. But if the opera's boring, I'm leaving.”

“Frankly, Mrs. Slater, I doubt anything could be boring with you.”

I was flattered. Max had a way of making one feel special. As he opened the door to the box, he whispered to me, “Do we really think they've found poor old Russell Cole?”

“With
June Kahn
as the source? Are you kidding? It's probably Jimmy Hoffa.”

“We'll ask Lulu,” Max said.

“Won't that be tricky?”

“How so?”

“Well, won't it smack of intrusive concern to assume that Lulu would be interested in the fate of the man who had once so publicly humiliated her?”

Max shrugged. “I don't think it matters a bit.”

The presidential box was dead center in the grand horseshoe. With its lofty view of both the stage and the audience below, the seats in this prominent aerie were supposedly the best in the house—although Ethan Monk, a real aficionado, said he much preferred the orchestra for sheer quality of listening. However, the center box was certainly the best place to be seen if not to see, and as we walked in, I could feel all inquisitive eyes upon us. Ethan was there as promised, and didn't seem surprised to see us. Lulu had obviously tipped him off. He said hello to Max and greeted me warmly, giving me a surreptitious wink.

Lulu Cole was standing down front, talking to friends in the neighboring box. She cut her conversation short and swept forward to greet us. Dressed in a honey-colored sheath shimmering with hand-sewn bugle beads, Lulu had changed quite a bit since the days when I first knew her. Thanks to artful plastic surgery, she still held some claim to the wholesome prettiness everyone had remarked upon when she first moved to New York, but her wide-eyed, little girl face was clearly older, harder, and sadder. Her smiles looked like frowns and her laughter often sounded like sobs.

Lulu was one of those women whose perfection of dress makes them oddly less chic than they suppose themselves to be. Everything fit perfectly; everything matched. Consequently, there was nothing unexpected or offbeat to amuse the eye, which is the hallmark of great style. Her place on the Best-Dressed List was due to the vast amount of money she spent in the couture houses, and not because she was truly chic. What she did have, however, was a lean and well-proportioned body with exaggerated good posture. She held her black-haired head very high, with her little nose angled upward. I have to say she always looked to me as if she were sniffing the air, trying to detect the source of an unpleasant aroma, but others thought her regal. In fact, there was a certain innate arrogance about her which may have been beyond her control. Even her cordial welcome to us came across a bit like the benign boredom of a duchess viewing a delegation of tradespeople. She gave Max a kiss on both cheeks. I quickly stepped back to prevent even that perfunctory intimacy. She got the drift.

“Jo, I'm so happy to see you,” she said, shaking my hand. “Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for including me,” I replied coolly, unable to forget how badly she had once treated me.

“Such an exciting night,” she said. “Nellie Bergsen is my favorite opera singer, and
Tosca
, well . . . heaven, no?”

Silence.

Sensing the tension between us, Ethan piped up and said, apropos of nothing, “I used to have a cat named Tosca!”

Max then complimented Lulu on her showstopping antique pin—a stalk of diamond flowers cascading down from the left shoulder of her dress. The petal clusters were
en tremblant
so they moved slightly, sparkling softly as they caught the light. Lulu touched it automatically, without thinking.

“Thanks. I love it, too,” she said. “Russell gave it to me for our fifteenth anniversary.”

Ethan shot me a sidelong glance. The nostalgia in her voice was evident. For the first time, I saw traces of genuine emotion streak Lulu's hard face. I could see that even after all these years, she was still carrying a torch for the husband who had left her. This didn't seem to bother Max at all. On the contrary, he patted her arm and said, “There, there, my dear, don't worry, they'll find him. What about this man in Castries?”