I called Nicky at Chapel’s. He arranged for a courier to come and pick it up. At the door of my apartment, I said good-bye to the necklace like I would have said good-bye to a cherished old friend, hugging the box one more time before handing it over to the messenger.
The “Marie Antoinette Necklace” was featured alone on the front cover of Chapel’s “Important Jewelry” catalogue for April 1999. Shown to advantage against a white velvet background, it was the talk of the sale. The piece was listed as “the Property of Mrs. Lucius Slater” and accompanied by a picture of myself in happier times wearing the necklace to the opening of the opera. There was no point hiding the seller’s identity. Everyone knew it was mine. Inset into the middle of Nicky’s brief essay on the necklace’s historic provenance was a small oval portrait of Marie Antoinette. The estimate was $200,000 to $250,000.
None of my friends could believe I was selling my most beloved possession. Through Ethan, I soon got wind of the fact that Monique was planning to bid whatever it took to get the necklace.
“She’s going around town telling everyone she’s absolutely got to have it. She told Roger she was willing to pay a million dollars.”
I subsequently heard the same thing from June, Betty, and Trish. The million-dollar figure kept cropping up, which gave me an idea. I started hatching a plan. But I needed to do a little research first.
I went to see Jerry Medina, the proprietor of Nolan Pearce, Ltd., one of New York’s most elegant, most expensive jewelry stores. I’d once been a good client, though it had now been a few years since I could afford to shop there. When I entered the glittery boutique, the bald, heavy-set Medina was behind the counter showing an Art Nouveau cobra bracelet to a mousy, crop-haired woman in black. They were both admiring the way the enamel serpent coiled down her forearm, its jeweled head resting on the back of her slender wrist.
“Lalique designed it for Sarah Bernhardt,” Medina was saying.
“Who?” the young woman asked.
“Sarah Bernhardt . . . The famous old actress? You never heard of her? A real character. She slept in a coffin.”
“Before or after the reviews?” the young woman said with a straight face, as she examined the bracelet. “Gee, I’m not sure, Jer. It’s pretty cool, but I think the diamonds are more her.”
Medina waved a discreet hello to me without walking over to greet me. I confess I felt a bit slighted, thinking how in the old days he would not have kept me waiting.
I wandered around the shop looking at the jewelry gleaming under the bright lights. Exquisite as some of the pieces were, not one of them compared to my Marie Antoinette necklace. My feelings of deprivation at having to part with it suddenly exhausted me. I sank down on the beige suede couch and lit a cigarette, eavesdropping in on Medina’s conversation. Apparently, the woman he was waiting on was a stylist for a rock star who was borrowing jewelry for her client to wear on an upcoming MTV special. When the woman finally left, Medina sauntered over to me, carrying a copy of the Chapel’s catalogue featuring my necklace on the front cover.
“Mrs. Slater, you should’ve come to me first,” he said in a mock scolding voice, tapping the glossy cover. “By the time you pay that gonif auction house’s commission and get the money, you’d’ve been better off with me.”
“That’s actually why I’m here, Jerry. I need to talk to you about the necklace.”
“Yeah?” He sat down next to me on the sofa. “So what can I do for you, Jo, honey?”
I flinched a little, taken aback by his unexpected familiarity. “Jo, honey” sounded jarring, even coming from the amusing, irreverent Medina, who cultivated the air of a jovial cocktail party host to disguise the consummate salesman and jewelry aficionado he was. In the past he had always addressed me as Mrs. Slater.
“There’s a woman who wants that necklace very badly,” I told him.
“There are several I can think of,” Medina said, flipping through the catalogue. “It’s gorgeous.” He admired the inside photograph of the necklace, in which it was set against a darker background and looked even more dramatic. “Estimate is two to two-fifty. Sounds about right. They always lowball the good stuff. You’ll get four. Four-fifty. Maybe five.”
“I believe this woman will go to a million.”
Medina guffawed. “A million? What is she—nuts? I could’ve gotten you five. Five-fifty maybe. But a million? Forget it.”
“It belonged to Marie Antoinette,” I said.
“Could a belonged to the Virgin Mary. It still ain’t worth a million bucks.”
“It’s worth it to her. Believe me.”
“Fine. And what idiot’s gonna bid against her?”
“Well, I thought maybe . . . me.”
“You?” Medina looked at me suspiciously.
“That’s what I came to ask you about. In strictest confidence, of course. Is it legal for me to bid up the price?”
“In strictest confidence? No.”
“Why not? The only risk is that I buy back my own necklace and I have to pay a big commission to the auction house.”
“It still ain’t legal. It’s called being a shill, Mrs. Slater.”
At least we were back to Mrs. Slater. I thought for a moment.
“Okay, well then, what if someone else—not me—bids the price up?”
“The law’s pretty clear on this. Neither you, nor any member of your family, nor any agent of yours can bid up the price of an object on your behalf.”
“But what if they don’t know I asked this person to bid it up?”
“Let’s put it this way. Some thieves don’t get caught.”
A long silence ensued. Medina stared at me. I knew he knew what I was thinking.
“Take my advice,” he said. “If you’re up to what I think you’re up to, you better be damn sure this person is a really good friend—discreet, you know? Who won’t blab.”
I left the shop feeling disconsolate. Ethan was discreet, but he wasn’t rich. Betty and June and Trish were rich but God knows they weren’t discreet. Wait . . . what about Dick Bromire? Dick was rich and he was always helping people. Why not me? He’d helped me before. But no. He was already under investigation. What if he told Trish? She was bound to talk. Who did I know who was rich and discreet?
Gil Waterman was a possibility, but I didn’t dare keep another secret from Betty.
And then it came to me: Charlie Kahn.
Charlie was better than discreet. He was practically lobotomized. He never opened his mouth if he could help it. I’d lived with Charlie. I’d been through entire meals with him where he’d said only three words: “Pass the salt.” June always complained he never talked to her about much except golf and the stock market and forgot any gossip he heard. I knew he could keep a secret, mainly because he would probably forget it. But it was absolutely essential he not tell June. He’d have to swear on his life he’d keep his mouth shut.
I asked Charlie to meet me for a drink, telling him I had a “private matter” I wanted to discuss with him. He suggested the Knickerbocker, where he was a member. As a boy, Charlie Kahn, a native New Yorker, had been in the Knickerbocker Greys, whose membership was then restricted to prominent old New York families. We sat upstairs in one of the reception rooms of the venerable club, overlooking Fifth Avenue. Staid portraits of past members dotted the walls. Social chitchat wasn’t Charlie’s forte, to say the least, and with the auction just days away, I was far too distracted to be charming. I got straight to the point.
“Charlie, I need to ask you a big favor.”
I explained the situation as he sipped his Dubonnet. He looked like a mummy, dry, desiccated, bound up tight in a three-piece suit and bow tie. I tried to cast my request in the most innocent possible light. He listened expressionless until I stopped talking. I seriously wondered whether he had taken in what I had said. You could never tell with Charlie.
“So you want me to bid up the price so you can soak her, eh? That’s illegal.”
Not as
dumb as he looked, old Charlie.
“Strictly speaking, I guess you could say it is,” I said. “But, say you were bidding on the necklace as a present for June, who would know?”
“I would know.”
“That’s true.” I was a little ashamed at having asked him.
“What if your friend stops bidding and I get stuck with it?”
“I’d buy it back from you.”
“Forgive me, Jo, dear, but with what?”
“Well, I get the proceeds when you buy it. It’s my necklace, after all. The only thing I’d have to come up with is the auction house commission and the tax. You’d have to trust me for that. I’d pay you back, I promise.”
“But you don’t get your money until I pay the house. So I’d have to come up with the full amount.”
“Right.” Now I felt even more sheepish at having to persevere with the idea. But I was desperate. “Look, Charlie, I can almost guarantee you that won’t happen. Monique really covets that necklace. She’s been going all around town telling everyone she has to have it.”
“It’s been my observation that what people say and what they do are often two different things,” Charlie said.
“That’s true, too. But I can tell you this, Charlie. She definitely has this thing about me. She’s obsessed by me. Look how she’s stepped into my life. That necklace is my trademark. When she gets her hands on that, her conquest will be complete in her eyes.”
“And in yours?” he said, probing my face.
It was a fair question. Charlie, perhaps without meaning to, had picked up on my obsession with the Countess. The two of us sat in silence for a long moment.
“Okay,” I said at last. “I understand you don’t want to do it. I’m sorry I put you on the spot, Charlie, dear. I just didn’t know who else to turn to who I could trust. Please don’t say anything.”
Charlie had a faraway look as he sipped his drink. I was about to get up from my chair when he flicked his eyes onto mine.
“Who said I don’t want to do it? Did you know I got suspended from St. Paul’s for making book on the Kentucky Derby?”
“Did you?” I said, not having the vaguest idea what that had to do with the price of eggs.
He cleared his throat and said proudly, “I once put a dead shark in our neighbor’s swimming pool in Manhasset. Bastard dived in for his morning swim and nearly had heart failure,” he said with a snort.
I was beginning to view old Charlie with new eyes.
“I know no one thinks I have a sense of humor,” he went on. “But I enjoy a good prank now and then. I really do. Haven’t had one in ages.”
“Well, this is good prank.”
“Sure is.” He paused. “I’ll do it,” he said, slapping the table with his palm.
I knew he’d die if I hugged him so I blew him a big kiss. “Thank you, thank you, Charlie. But listen, one thing? You absolutely cannot breathe one word of this to June. Not one word, I beg you.”
“I never tell my wife a thing. But I warn you: What she doesn’t find out she makes up.”
“She won’t find out if you don’t tell her, Charlie. And you have to swear to me never to tell her. Do you swear?”
He put his hand on his heart. “We who are about to bid, salute you.”
I took that for a yes.
There was no way of knowing whether or not Monique planned to attend the sale in person or not, but Charlie had to bid over the phone in order to preserve his anonymity. I was anxious to watch the proceedings so I sneaked into Chapel’s the day of the Important Jewelry auction in disguise, wearing a black wig, no makeup, and an ill-fitting mauve coat. This disguise was just in case Monique showed up. I pretended to be viewing the upcoming sale of Americana Furniture currently on display in one of the adjoining galleries. The battered weathervanes and grim, thin-lipped early American portraits were depressing.
Each auction always attracts its own brand of bidders. The Americana collectors were as drab as colonial paint compared to the jewelry crowd, who, with the exception of some black-clad dealers, were mostly shiny, well-heeled individuals in designer clothes. I parked myself behind a life-size carved wooden Indian, keeping an eye on the incoming crowd, in case my nemesis showed up.
A full hour into the jewelry auction I spotted Monique and Nate Nathaniel walking up the stairs. I followed them inside, careful to keep my distance. They seated themselves off the center aisle near the front of the room. I found myself a place on the sidelines near the back where I could observe the unholy pair without being seen.
The room was packed. The sale was up and down, as sales go, with some lots going for triple and quadruple their estimates and others being bought in. I watched Monique and Nate closely, peeved by their smug intimacy.
As soon as Lot 333 was announced, Monique sat up attentively, her paddle poised for action. This is it, I thought, praying Charlie was standing by on the telephone.
The auctioneer gave a brief description of the necklace, mentioning it had belonged to Marie Antoinette and to “that great patron of the arts, Jo Slater.” I heard what he said. But it was as if Jo Slater were another person entirely. In disguise as a bag lady, about to witness the sale of my most precious possession, I felt no kin whatever to the Jo Slater whose name was supposedly an inducement to buyers.
Bidding got off to a brisk start. The necklace reached the three-hundred-thousand mark in seconds. Paddles and hands popped up all around the gallery. I spotted several women I knew vying for the necklace, women whose idea of a blunt force trauma was being outbid at auction. At four-twenty-five, several people dropped out. The bidding slowed. There was a lull. Monique raised her paddle for the first time for a four-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollar bid. Silence. She put down her paddle and flashed Snake Nathaniel a victorious little grin.
I watched the grin fade as the bidding resumed. A phone bidder made it four hundred and seventy-five. Charlie. Yes. Monique upped it to an even five hundred thousand.
The suave auctioneer crooned: “I have five hundred thousand dollars . . . Do I hear five hundred and twenty-five?”
Monique sighed and raised her paddle again . . .
It was between Monique and the invisible bidder, whose agent was a blond, businesslike woman standing, along with other Chapel’s representatives, behind a bank of phones, whispering into a black receiver.
Back to the phone bidder.
Back to Monique.
Back to the phone bidder.
Back to Monique.
Phone bidder.
Monique.
Phone.
Monique.
Back and forth like a tennis match. The price went up and up and up. The live Theater of Greed was in progress. An excited hush gripped the room.
I knew Nate Nathaniel was getting anxious by the way he tugged occasionally on his starched white collar. I saw him whisper to Monique as Charlie’s efficient agent raised her charm-braceleted hand yet another time.
The bidding soared to eight, eight-fifty, nine, nine-fifty . . .
“I have nine-fifty . . . On the phone . . . I have nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars . . . Nine-fifty . . .”
Monique lowered her paddle. Poised on a blade of anxiety, I craned my neck to try to make out what was going on. Why was she hesitating all of a sudden?
The auctioneer stared directly down at Monique.
“Make it a nice round million, Countess?” he said playfully, bringing home to me yet another unpleasant realization, namely, that this auctioneer knew my nemesis on sight. Which meant she was a bidding regular. Which meant she was spending lots of money. My money.
Monique smiled and coyly shook her head no.
My heart was thumping so hard it hurt.
In the ensuing pause, I suddenly wondered if I’d been had. Had Monique gotten wind of my plan? Did Jerry Medina spill the beans? Or Charlie? Had Charlie told June? June was one of the ones who told me Monique would pay a million dollars for the damn thing. Had I been set u
p? No, wait, that didn’t make any sense. My head was swimming. Then the dreaded words bled through my panic: “Going once, at nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars . . .”
A hush in the room.
“Going twice, at nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the phone. Fair warning. At nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the telephone then . . .”
I squeezed my eyes shut, held my breath, and stuck my fingers in my ears, like I was about to hear an explosion.
“Sold to the telephone bidder for nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
The room burst into spontaneous applause.
I’d just bought my own necklace back for close to one million dollars, roughly one million two hundred thousand, if you added in the sales tax and commission.
Monique must have known. Somehow she must have gotten wind of my scheme. My very first thought was that Jerry Medina must have tipped her off. He was the only one besides Charlie who knew what I was up to.
I flew out of the sale room over to Pearce’s. The guard buzzed me in through the two security doors one at a time. I was so agitated, I pushed the second door before the catch had released and hurt my hand when the goddamn thing didn’t open. There were no customers in the shop. I demanded to see Medina. The young saleswoman called him out of the back office.
At first the portly jeweler didn’t recognize me. “You wanted to see me?”
I pulled the wig off my head. I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the mirrors. My hair was matted down like a thatched roof. I looked godawful.
“Mrs. Slater?” Medina said with a guffaw. “What’s with the getup?”
“You didn’t mention anything about our conversation to anyone, did you?” I asked, trying to remain as calm as possible.
Social Crimes Page 24
