“Bravo, Naga!” she cried, clapping her hands as Naga bowed deeply and left the stateroom, pulling the door closed behind him.
“A quiz,” she announced a few minutes later. “Which is closer, the moon or London?”
“Haven’t a clue, baby. You tell me.”
“The moon, silly. You can’t even see London!”
“Come here and give us a kiss,” Blackie said, feeling much restored by the restorative.
“Why should I?”
“This is a love story, baby, you have to say yes.”
BLACKFORD AVERY BLAINE, or Blackie as everybody (who was anybody) called him, had a way with women. And it wasn’t just his money, his yacht, his broad shoulders, or his dashing good looks and flashing white grin, either.
Last year a cute reporter from Vanity Fair had been assigned to follow him around New York for a few days and then write an article about him. Blackie knew she was digging for dirt, and he’d decided to dish out a little here and there, just to keep things lively.
She asked him what he thought about older men and younger women. Blackie pretended to think.
“Let me put it this way, honey. My next wife hasn’t even been born yet.”
“Good one,” she said, jotting it down. “Could you explain your much-vaunted success with the opposite sex, here in New York and abroad?”
He considered.
“Well, you see, kid, it’s like this. Most rakes can have a strong effect on certain women,” he’d said earnestly. “That’s because when a guy like me falls in love, even for that brief period, he gives himself over to the woman in a certain manner, a complete one, one that is very rare for a man. And this, I’ve found, is devastatingly seductive.”
Shortly after the Narcissus was successfully moored, a uniformed member of the crew appeared from below, carrying an overstuffed Louis Vuitton duffel bag. He went to the rail and handed the bag down to a crewman waiting in a Zodiac tender, recently arrived along the yacht’s port side.
“Oh!” the blonde cried upon seeing her luggage departing without her. “Am I leaving so soon?”
“I’m afraid so, sweetheart. Terribly sorry, but it can’t be helped. My dear mother lives here in Palm Beach, and she’s terribly ill. Conjunctivitis. I’ve asked her to come stay aboard the Narcissus so I can look after her. Won’t be with us long, poor dear.”
“Conjuncti-whatever. Is that fatal?”
“Acute conjunctivitis? Oh, yes. Always.”
“I’m so sorry, Blackie. Must be very hard on you,” she said and made wriggling into a pink and green Lilly Pulitzer shift some kind of erogenous hula dance.
“Ah, well, as the poet says, ‘For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil.’ With me on that one, sweet potato?”
“Huh?”
“Look here, one of the lads will zip you over to the yacht club docks in the Zodiac. My chauffeur Wolfgang’s waiting there, take you anywhere at all. Rolls Corniche convertible. White. Can’t miss it.”
“You’re a sweet guy, Blackie, you know that?”
“You’re not so bad yourself, kid. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.”
“Gee, that would be swell.” She gave him a peck on the cheek before boarding the waiting tender.
“Know an eight-letter word for good-bye?” she said as she stepped down into the gently bobbing Zodiac, the crewman holding her hand.
“Farewell?” Blackie said.
She laughed, and the Zodiac roared away, throwing a wide white wake to either side.
A FEW DAYS later, Blackie Blaine pedaled his bike down the flower-bordered Lake Trail, south to the western end of Worth Avenue. His PB attire consisted of a long-sleeved navy blue shirt of Sea Island cotton, pleated white flannel trousers, and a pair of scuffed white bucks, no socks. Socks, Blackie had learned the hard way, were anathema on this island. A tourist might as well put a pair of fake antlers on his head as stroll down Worth Avenue wearing socks.
He slowed at a discreet arched entrance to the island’s oldest golf club. No signs even indicated the club’s existence. The Palmetto Club’s uniformed sentries stood up as Blackie wheeled under the Moorish arch and into the club designed by the island’s first architectural genius, Addison Mizner.
“Afternoon, Mr. Blaine.” The boys all smiled. “Welcome back.”
“How’s it going, fellas? Good to see ya,” Blackie said. He biked to a stand of trees next to the croquet lawns and dismounted, leaning his bike up against the trunk of a huge jacaranda, the ground covered with its purple petals. Then he sauntered back to the Avenue.
He was well-known at the club, a good single-digit handicap golfer; a member in good standing, as they say. So the ensuing exclamations of “Hiya, Blackie, good summer?” and “Oh, Blackie! I’m having the most divine dinner party Friday and you absolutely must come!” were met with his wide grin and a hearty “You betcha, kid!” barely breaking his stride. Again the young men seated to either side leaped up, a tradition accorded to all members.
“No need to salute, gentlemen,” Blackie said to the boys, sounding like a rear admiral. “I’ll be on the bridge for the remainder of the afternoon.”
The kids were still laughing when he stepped out onto that shining sunlit street of dreams so appropriately called Worth.
First stop, Tiffany’s.
Blackie, let it be said, loved jewelry. Had loved it since the day, as a boy of about ten, he’d accidentally witnessed his mother examining a magnificent diamond bracelet his dad had purchased from some man in New York named Harry Winston. His father, who worked on Wall Street, took the train out every evening to their home in Tuxedo Park.
Lingering in the shadows, he saw his mother go into her walk-in closet, stand on her tiptoes, and deposit the glittering bracelet inside one of her countless pairs of high-heeled shoes. Hiding it, the boy figured, from all the burglars out there, thieves in the night, second-story men, boogeymen, and the like. Blackie was still of an age where he looked in his closet and peeked under his bed before tucking in every night.
“Now you listen to Mamie and behave yourself, Blackie Blaine. No more shenanigans. Your father and I will be home around nine or ten. You’d better be sound asleep, do you hear me?”
She bent over and kissed him on the cheek, then walked out of her dressing room, a little gold evening bag swinging from her shoulder. Downstairs, his father was waiting in his favorite chair, sipping a whiskey sour, reading the day’s Wall Street Journal.
The shoes were up on the highest shelf, and he had to shove the round satin stool at her mirror-topped vanity into her closet in order to reach them.
He was always afraid of getting caught, surprised by his mother. She was unaware that she’d been observed hiding the bracelet. But fear of discovery—well, that just added to the fun. He’d take the shoe, the left one, off the shelf and shake it to make sure she hadn’t moved the bracelet to a new shoe.
Then he’d climb down off the stool and take the prized object over to a nearby window where sunlight was streaming in. Turning it over and over in his hand, the brilliant, many-faceted stones caught fire, igniting his imagination and sealing his fate.
BLACKIE STROLLED INTO Tiffany’s, winking at all the pretty young things behind the glass counters who smiled in recognition. He was hardly Tiffany’s biggest or best customer, but Blackie spent time in jewelry stores the way some men go to Ferrari or Porsche dealerships on Saturday mornings. They seldom buy, but how they do love to kick those tires.
“Look out, girls, Blackie’s back in town!” he said, headed to the rear of the store.
“Mr. Blaine! What a surprise!” the petite and not unattractive manager, Caroline Biddle, said, rising from behind her mahogany desk and offering him her hand.
“Miss Biddle,” Blackie said, bowing slightly from the waist. “It seems I require your services.” He bent forward and gave her a peck on the cheek, which made it turn bright red. The thing was, he’d asked her to dinne
r at Renato’s one night years ago, mainly to talk jewelry. She’d gotten the wrong impression that evening and never quite got over it.
“Buying or selling, Mr. Blaine?”
“Buying.”
“We don’t usually see you here this early in the season.”
“Got run out of Newport on a rail, I’m afraid. Tarred and feathered and one step ahead of the sheriff.” She smiled. “Nothing’s changed. What can we do for you?”
“Want to buy a present. An old friend is throwing a big shindig in my honor at her home tomorrow night. Like to get her a little something.”
“Not Mrs. Guest’s party at Casa Cielito Lindo?”
“Now, how would you know about that?”
“Winnie the Pooh was gushing about it this morning. ‘Kick-starting the Season at Cielito Lindo.’ The column said the Donald and Melania are even flying in from New York.”
“And who are they again?”
She laughed. “So, Mr. Blaine? Necklace? Bracelet, earrings, a beautiful brooch, perhaps?”
“Earrings. Betty does love diamond earrings.”
“She certainly does. And lucky to have a husband as generous as Mr. Guest, as you well know. Let’s go take a look,” she said, leading the way to the private paneled room where they brought out the heavy artillery. It looked like a little French sitting room with a kidney-shaped walnut desk in the center of the room, and three spindly gilded chairs pulled up to it.
“Have a seat and I’ll be right back. Something to drink? Fiji water? A glass of champagne?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
Blackie felt silly sitting all alone on the poofty little gold chair, but what the hell was a guy supposed to do? Business is business. And, technically anyway, Blackford Blaine was in the jewelry business.
Returning with a large rectangular box covered in black velvet, she took the single chair opposite Blackie, used a key, and lifted the lid.
“What do we have here? Oh, these are pretty.” She held up a pair of earrings that looked like two large diamond chandeliers. Blackie examined one under the halogen lighting.
“You think she’d like these?”
“Any woman would. I warn you, Mr. Blaine, they are quite expensive.”
“Really? What’s the most expensive pair you have?”
“Well, that would be Tiffany’s Extraordinary Diamond Drop earrings, pear shaped and set in platinum. Aren’t they lovely? E-Flawless. They weigh in at 30.1 carats together. Do you want the good news or the bad news, Mr. Blaine?”
“Let’s get the bad out of the way,” Blackie said, picking one up and examining it carefully.
“The cost of these earrings is well in excess of one million dollars.”
“And the good news?”
“Mr. Guest gave his wife these exact earrings for their twentieth wedding anniversary just last month.”
“Darn the luck!”
“Sorry.”
“I’m not. How much are these diamond studs?”
“Those are twenty-five thousand, Mr. Blaine.”
“I’ll take those, I think.”
“Perfect for daytime wear. Shall I have them gift wrapped?”
“Please. I’ve got to make a few more stops along the avenue. Say, half an hour?”
“Delighted, Mr. Blaine.”
BLACKIE SPENT THE afternoon hitting balls on the Palmetto Club’s driving range. When the sun got so low he couldn’t see where his drives were going, he biked over to Michael McCarty’s joint. An old-fashioned saloon for regular guys who never asked about your kids or where you’d “summered.” Good steaks, too, and he joined a couple of pals for a late dinner before heading back to the Narcissus around midnight.
Blackie wheeled his slightly wobbly bike into the deserted parking lot at the Marlin Club. Couple of lights still on, only one or two cars parked under the trees. He walked to the seawall, paused a moment to enjoy the sight of the Narcissus riding the swells, her masthead light twinkling, towering above the smaller yachts in the harbor. Just another beautiful night in Paradise.
The moon threw a ghostly road across the water. Times like these, under the tropic stars with the soft rustle of wind in the palms, he would come close to serenity. Times when he’d think, You made it, kid. Had to crawl across a thousand miles of broken glass to get here, but by God, you made it.
He shook out a cigarette and lit up.
He heard a noise to his left, a grunt, and looked over to see a very heavy man on his hands and knees, crawling around the rear of an old Bentley, which was parked along the seawall, peering underneath it. The car was as black as the shadows; he hadn’t even noticed it.
Blackie flicked his smoke into the water and strolled over.
“Need a hand? What seems to be the problem?”
“Lost my damn car keys. Sure I had ’em in my pocket. Must a dropped ’em. Damn, these pebbles hurt!”
“Let me take a look. Got a handy-dandy little flashlight on my key chain.”
He went around to the side of the car, dropped easily to the ground, swinging the beam from side to side. “There they are. Right beyond the rear axle.”
“Yeah, yeah, I see ’em but I can’t—damn it—slide under there to—”
“Don’t worry, pal, I’ll slip under there for you.”
Blackie stretched out, snatched the keys, got to his feet, and dropped them into the man’s hand.
“Awfully sporting. But, look, you got your white trousers filthy. Least I can do, send ’em to the—”
“Buy me a nightcap, and we’re square.”
“A drink. Splendid idea.”
Weaving a little bit, the grossly overweight man climbed the steps leading from the docks up to the bar with Blackie right behind him, ready to catch him if he stumbled. Guy’d had a snootful.
The man collapsed in a chair, saying, “Bes’ table weren’t for that damn plug ugly Cut Bait blocking half the view.”
“What’ll you have?” Blackie asked, walking toward the bar.
“Brandy. Jus’ put it on my account.”
The bartender, glad to see Blackie, said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Blaine. Last call, though.” Back in his sportfishing days, Blackie had won the Rybovich Cup for the biggest blue marlin caught since the late fifties. The large silver trophy stood on the mantel in the Members’ Room, and the record still stood, too, with Blackie’s name on it. The Rybo, they called the old cup.
Blackie got a beer and a brandy and sat down opposite the bleary-eyed fat man. He’d seen him around the club over the years but had never felt any overwhelming desire to meet him. The fellow took a swig, then shot his hand out across the table. Blackie shook it, meaty and damp as cold ham.
Staring at Blaine from beneath heavily lidded eyes, glassy in the light of the red ship’s lantern flickering on the table, he said, “You look vaguely familiar, sir. I’m Cholly Forsythe.”
“Blackford Blaine.”
Forsythe dropped Blackie’s hand almost as fast as the smile dropped from his jowly red face.
“Blaine, huh?” he said. “Well, well, well.”
“Something wrong?”
“I’ll say.”
“What?”
“You.”
“Sorry?”
“I look into things. Recently, I’ve been looking into you, Mr. Blaine, into your shadowy, wholly invented past. Google, you know. A phony bum like you cannot hide from Google. Sources of mine ’round the country, too. A few phone calls. Universities, the Racquet & Tennis, other clubs in New York and Long Island. The IOOC in Geneva, et cetera. No Blackford Blaine anywhere. All is not as it appears, is it?”
“A parallel universe, perhaps?”
“A fake and a liar,” he hissed wetly, his protuberant Hitchcockian lips quivering. “Your kind come down here all the time. Common as dirt. Lowlife poseurs playing at a gentleman’s game. Seducing the innocent, young and old, living off their kindness. But we always uncover you; lift enough rocks and we find you.”
Blacki
e was slow to anger, but he was starting to seethe. “What’s your name again, pal?”
“Forsythe.”
“You’re drunk, Forsythe, or I’d ask you to step outside.”
“Les’ see,” the fat man said, ticking off the items with his stubby little sausage fingers. “St. Paul’s? Hmm. No record. Harvard grad? No Blackford Blaine in the graduating class of seventy-nine. Racquet Club in New York? Never heard of you. Odd. Nor has the On-on—wensh—”
“Onwentsia Club?”
“Onwen-sha-ma-call-it Club in Lake Forest, any membership record of the much vaunted Blaine family. Was a Blaine from Tuxedo Park, I discovered. A partner at Dillon, Read & Co. Jumped out a window on the thirtieth floor after millions went missing. Your esteemed father, I take it, the noted embezzler?”
The words were razors through raw nerves. His father’s tragic death had wiped out his family, caused Blackie to drop out of Harvard, to take a job to support his devastated mother and his siblings.
Blackie stood up, reached across the table with his right hand, and grabbed Forsythe’s shirtfront, lifting him straight up six inches, like a doll out of its high chair.
“The hell do you want, you ugly son of a bitch?”
“Only the satisfaction of seeing you squirm when your sordid little tale appears in the local papers.”
“Guys like you make a whole lot of enemies, I’m sure. But remember this, Forsythe. I’ll be the very worst one you’ve ever made.”
“Don’t you dare threaten me. You can’t afford the publicity, Blaine. B’lieve me.”
“Good night, Forsythe. Do your worst.”
“No worries about that,” Forsythe sneered, a strangled laugh in his voice, throwing back his brandy. Like any serial killer, he loved closing in for the kill.
Blackie dropped him like a sack of manure and strode out into the moonlight, taking a calming breath of fresh air. Walking down to the floating dock, he saw the Zodiac where he’d left it that morning. He stepped under a dock light and lit a smoke, leaning against the pole.
His chest was heaving with anger. He didn’t give a hoot in hell about the rumors, stories, and myths that had attached themselves to him over the years. True or false, he’d heard them all. But to survive, he depended on those myths for access to the world in which he operated. To sue some fat snob for libel in the local courthouse would be bad for business.
Mystery Writers of America Presents the Rich and the Dead Page 4
