Popping to her feet, Zandra announced: "Darling, I know ,exactly what you need!"
"You do?" Kenzie's voice was laced with skepticism.
"Yes, luv, I do." Zandra paused for a beat. "Food."
"Food!"
"Oh, Kenzie. I mean, honestly. Don't you know anything at all? Food's the antidote. Real food. Italian comfort food. You'll see. Now, let me think ..." Her voice took on a dreamy tone. "We'll start with a heavenly tartine con il gorgonzola . . . follow it up with some frivolous tagliatelle alia romagnola, or perhaps you'd prefer risotto coi carciofi?— whichever. And, Kenzie, while we're making such absolute pigs of ourselves, we might as well go whole hog and splurge on the most divine bottle of really good Chianti, after which we'll top it all off with espresso, amaretto, and the most sinfully rich gelato di cioccolato in town."
She paused, eyes aglow.
"Well, darling? What do you say? Shall we? Oh, Kenzie, let's! You'll see. Nothing's ever so bad on a full stomach!"
"What you're proposing," said Kenzie inexorably, "is removing the symptom but not the cause."
"Well, at least it works. I mean, if you had a headache, you'd want to get rid of it. Wouldn't you?"
"Yes, but my headache happens to be one Officer Fer-fucking-raro," Kenzie sighed. "It's not lunch I need, but some way to kick his ass in gear, and without leading the horny bastard on!" She gnashed her teeth in frustration. "Where, oh where," she demanded plaintively, "are the police when you need them?"
"Oh, Kenzie, will you stop? Now, do you want to go and have lunch, or don't you?"
"Lunch?" sniffed Kenzie, wounded. "I think I'll pass."
Zandra threw up her hands in despair. "Have it your way, then. Really!" She eyed Kenzie with disgust.
And whirling around, she left the vault.
Watching her depart, Kenzie snorted under her breath, hit the lights, and pushed the armored door shut. She punched the electronic lock code, from force of habit testing the door to make certain it was secure. Already, she could hear the nearby slam of the service elevator; the unmistakable whir of hydraulics.
It was Zandra, ascending.
Kenzie didn't bother waiting for the elevator to return. Nor did she head for the nearest stairwell. For some unfathomable reason, perhaps because it had been awhile, she was possessed of a sudden urge to cut diagonally through the building via the convoluted, subterranean labyrinth.
Most people avoided venturing far into the bowels of Burghley's, and not without just cause. Even the newer engineers were constantly getting lost down here, and anyone unfamiliar with the layout would have required a ball of string to find their way back.
Not Kenzie. Long ago, her spirit of adventure and fascination with all things Burghley's had compelled her to explore every last nook and cranny of this neo-Renaissance palazzo, and she'd committed to memory all six above-ground floors and both subterranean levels.
The uppermost, Bl, was equally divided between "Burghley's Basement" galleries and Auction Towers's underground parking garage.
The subbasement, B2, through which she now unerringly picked her way, was where the various departments had their storage vaults.
Here, in this maze of tunnels making up ninety-six thousand square feet, could be found the expected—all the unsightly machinery necessary to keep a building this size humming: malevolent furnaces and boilers, noisy pumps and silent backup generators, Baby Bell terminals and Con Ed conduits, garbage rooms, and machine shops.
And here, too, could be found the unexpected—a cavernlike area for a vast collection of garden statuary, small temples, fountains, and pergolas, at once mysterious and enchanting in a menacing kind of way.
And farther on was another, even more dreamlike space where chunks of antiquities too big for the vaults—a pair of secretive sphinxes, fragments of columns and carved friezes, statues in Parian marble, larger-than- life bronzes, and a gargantuan head of Medusa positively writhing with stone snakes, even a giant Roman foot broken off at the ankle—had found a temporary sepulchre.
There was something appropriate about the tomblike atmosphere, about the relics of past millennia reposing underground. The sight never failed to quicken Kenzie's heart, as though she were the first to stumble upon some hitherto inviolate temple, such was the power of the illusion emerging from ruin.
Everything conspired to trick the eye. The outsized proportions of the artifacts, their haphazard arrangement, the way they seemed to give a deep, false perspective, a perfect symmetry disappearing into gloom. That was what she loved down here. That haunted secretiveness; the feeling, however ridiculous, that there were many more such wonders waiting to be discovered.
On she walked, her clicking footsteps echoing, gradually fading like phantoms as she made her way along the shadowy concrete corridors. Wall-mounted bulbs, protected by wire mesh, punctuated the dark at regular intervals, made dusty white pools of light.
Overhead, the ceilings were a hodgepodge of tortured pipes and conduits and stealthy ducts which branched off into tributaries at each bisecting corridor.
Yet despite the overwhelming ominousness, Kenzie felt no fear. Nor was she the least bit claustrophobic. Her explorations had familiarized her with every square foot, and she was certain she could have found her way around even in a blackout.
As she continued, she alternately shivered or perspired, for unlike the interiors of the room-size vaults, climate and humidity control did not extend to the rest of the subbasement. The air was perpetually dank, always stuffy or chilly, depending upon the vicinity of the heating ducts and hot water pipes.
Not once did she run across a soul, but she knew she was never entirely alone, either. Video cameras were everywhere—mute, ever-vigilant sentinels panning each corridor with Cyclopean eyes and sending her image back to the control room of security, where walls of television monitors were manned 'round the clock.
Pulling open a gray steel door with a glass-and-mesh inset, she stepped into a cinderblock stairwell. Behind her, the door closed automatically; B2 was painted on it in huge red letters.
She started up. On the next floor, she passed an identical door labeled BI. Above that, another marked G. TWO landings later, and she was on 2.
She pushed that door open.
After the dimness of the subbasement and stairwell, the carpeted hallway seemed bright to the point of blinding. Recessed fluorescents cast diffused, shadow-free light, and warm air circulated from vents along the baseboards. Cream-painted doors punctuated both walls at regular intervals.
Each was identified by a Lucite plaque with burnished gold letters. The third one down was it: OLD MASTERS
Underneath, a smaller plaque with slide-in slots held three nameplates:
A. LI
M. TURNER
Z.V. HOHENBURG-WILLEMLOHE
Opening the door, Kenzie announced, "I'm ba-ack!"
No one greeted her. No one was here. A quick glance at the coathook confirmed that both Zandra and Arnold had gone to lunch.
Which is just as well, she thought. Some things are best done in private ... especially things like stretching the truth . . .
Shutting the door, she sat down at her desk and eyed the phone accusingly. It seemed to sit there, taunting her with smug superiority.
"Well," she sighed, "might as well get it over with." And grabbing the receiver, she jabbed redial.
One ring ... two ... three—
"NYPD," the female voice answered. "Art theft squad."
"Yes. This is Ms. Turner again. It's imperative that I speak with Officer Ferraro."
"I'm sorry, but Officer Ferraro is in the field."
"The field? What field?" Kenzie demanded in outrage. "I'm calling from Burghley's on official business. Now, why don't you be nice and go scare him up?"
"Because he's not in the office, ma'am. If you'll kindly leave a number where—"
"Oh, for crying out loud! Look, this is a bona fide emergency, okay? Now, will you, or will you not, patch me through to
wherever Officer Ferraro might be? Otherwise, I can save myself a lot of trouble by going directly over his head." Kenzie paused. "Which'll it be? The choice is yours."
There was a moment's hesitation. "What did you say the emergency was?"
"I didn't. It's a stolen work of art with an estimated value of twenty- five million dollars."
No argument now. "Please hold," the voice said briskly. "I'll transfer you."
Within fifteen seconds, Kenzie was patched through.
"This'd better be an emergency," Charley snapped, with irritation. "The shit's been hitting the fan. Or haven't you heard?"
"Heard what?"
"I'm at the Artisteria Gallery. Bunch of perps tied up the staff and made off with art to the tune of half a mil. Can you believe it? Right in broad daylight."
"Some thieves." Kenzie had to laugh. "What did they steal? Ertes?"
"That's not funny."
"No, I guess it isn't."
"So ... what's your reason for calling?"
"Mainly," she said stiffly, "because Sheldon D. Fairey ordered me to."
"And?"
"And nothing. I just didn't want you to get the wrong idea. It wasn't my choice."
"Kenzie, I really am pressed for time. Now, either cut to the chase, or I'm hanging up. You've got one minute."
"Jesus, will you cool it? For your information, this painting happens to be worth a fortune."
"This concerns that Holbein, right?"
Her eyes narrowed with unease. "What makes you say that?" she murmured cautiously.
"Because I read the papers, Sherlock. Shit, Hans is gesturing. Gotta go. I'll be in touch once the mess down here's—"
"Don't you dare hang up! Charley, if you refuse to work with us on this, so help me God I'll ... I'll ..."
"You'll what?" he asked calmly, yawning with bored amusement.
"I'll call 'Page Six.' Yes! And New York magazine! And the News and Newsday and ..." Kenzie smiled dreamily, wondering what other threats she could possibly pull out of her improvised grab bag.
"Kenzie?" he drawled.
"What?"
"Blow it out your—"
"No, you blow it out yours, Charles Gabriel Ferraro! Either we meet to discuss this today, or your public affairs officer'll be working overtime. In fact, I wouldn't rule out a special mayoral investigation. Who knows? With the stink this has already raised between D.C. and Bonn, maybe the secretary of state will personally give the police commissioner a call. So do yourself a favor and wear your Cerruti suit. You'll want to look your best for TV."
"Why, you ... you bitch!" he whispered with a kind of grudging awe. "You do know how to fight dirty, don't you?"
"I'll take that as a compliment," she said loftily. "And one more thing, Charley," she added inexorably. "Do try to avoid wearing one of those awful garish ties which are all the rage? I think your red Hermes will look best on camera."
He threw in the towel. "All right, all right!" he snapped, in disgust. "You win. But I'm running late. It'll have to be sometime after seven."
"Sometime after seven's fine. But don't come here; I'll be at home. You do remember the address?" she asked, heaping on the syrup.
He replied by slamming down the phone.
Smiling, Kenzie replaced the receiver. There! That wasn't so difficult!
No, indeed. She had Officer Ferraro over a barrel, all right, she thought smugly. She knew it. And more important, he knew it, too. But the one thing he didn't know was that she now had a roommate. And with Zandra present, there'd be no danger of his libido acting up.
Not that any amount of sex appeal was going to help Charley this time. Because, whether he knew it or not, she, MacKenzie Turner, was totally immune to his charms. In fact, she felt absolutely nothing for him.
Nothing at all!
Theater, real theater, Zandra had discovered during the past three months, was not found On or Off or even Off-off Broadway so much as it was on the teeming streets and sidewalks of Manhattan.
This held true even on the posh Upper East Side, where despite the prevalence of vast wealth the cast was likely to comprise an egalitarian mixture: the sable-coated socialite hurrying past a ragged panhandler, the daredevil bicyclist in neon Spandex narrowly missing the custom-suited banker, the leggy supermodel giving the obscenity-screaming maniac a wide berth, and, oblivious to it all, the unflappable black nurse's aide pushing a wheelchair-bound elderly.
Zandra, whose experience on stage had been limited to beauty contests, always felt as if she'd blundered onto the set of the real greatest show on earth: the constantly running theater that was Manhattan, a directorless hodgepodge of Marat Sade, Barefoot in the Park, Private Lives, and The Three-Penny Opera, the exact allotment of each play depending upon such vagaries as the weather, the economy, the time of day, and even the phases of the moon.
However, this thousand-ring circus was not on her mind as she now drifted, content and purposeless, along Madison Avenue in her new black cashmere-blend coat, an after-Christmas markdown which she'd enlivened with a crinkle-pleated Issey Miyake tricolor scarf, to indulge in a lunch hour of window-shopping, that spectator sport necessitated by the most stringent of budgets.
As always, the unabashedly rich store windows drew attention and enticed. Not that Zandra envied the flush shopper darting out of Gianni Versace, or the collector frowning at a Francesco Clemente in the window of the Gagosian Gallery, or the tourists poring over frivolous bric-a-brac at Mabel's. Having been raised virtually penniless, she had early on learned the value of a farthing and to pinch it till it bled while simultaneously observing from her vastly rich, spoiled cousinage that happiness was the one thing no amount of wealth could buy.
Thus, confronted with temptations ranging from a floral springtime confection at Givenchy to a dazzling Art Deco suite of bijoux at Fred Leighton, she felt quite content merely to browse and ... well, to be honest, perhaps indulge in just a wee bit of dreaming. Otherwise, she was quite satisfied.
And why shouldn't she be? New York had been exceptionally good to her. What more could she possibly want?
Well, two things actually, the only two things missing from her life. One was a steady boyfriend. The other—far more important and disturbing—was the fact that Rudolph, her brother, had yet to surface.
Zandra sighed. His absence had the habit of stealing up on her, like a guilt, at the most inopportune moments.
Every call she had made to England—by her last reckoning, nearly two thousand dollars' worth—had proved a dead end. Either her brother had gone to ground so successfully that he couldn't be found, or else he—
He—what? Occupied a shallow, unmarked grave somewhere? Lay, weighed down with lead, at the bottom of some obscure body of water? Was part of some unspecified landfill?
Sighing more loudly, she slammed a mental door. She wouldn't allow herself to contemplate his fate. To do so would drive her stark, raving mad.
Pulling the lapels of her coat tighter around her throat, she moved on, until a female's fluty Oxbridge tones called out:
"Zandra? Zandra von Hohenburg-Willemlohe?"
Startled, Zandra whirled around. Her brows knitted as she frowned, trying to place a familiar face in unfamiliar surroundings. Then her mental circuits connected; memory cells clicked.
"Oh, gosh. Penelope. Penelope Gainsborourg! Is that you?"
"In the flesh!" giggled the lanky, carrot-curled thing in the humongous bag lady coat by Fendi, all strips and balls of various pelts, leathers and suedes in every conceivable shade of brown.
The requisite hug, and kisses strategically aimed past each other's cheeks, followed.
Then, holding each other at arm's length: "My goodness, Penelope. Darling, you are looking well. And how's Dicky?"
"Gone," came the cheerful reply.
"Gone!" Zandra's eyes widened, became dramatic saucers. "What ever do you mean?"
"The name's not Gainsborourg any longer, darling—that's the clue. It's Troughton now. Mrs. Alex Tro
ughton." Penelope affected the same disjointed, fractured speech patterns as Zandra. "And ... here's twenty- two flawless carats to prove it. See?" She extended a limp hand.
Zandra stared at the giant diamond. "Why, it's ... it's huge."
"Grotesquely huge and absolutely bourgeois!" Penelope giggled happily. "Still, diamonds are a girl's best friend. Never return one, that's my motto ... make a scalp bracelet—necklace is more like it the way I'm going. I mean, third divorce and fourth marriage? All Mexican quickies and me only twenty-six? Can you imagine? Anyway, you should have seen the scandal. Everybody boffing everybody else! First Lucinda Troughton running off—God only knows where—with another woman, then Dicky with Alex's butler ... can you imagine anything more awful ... I mean, running off with someone's butler, of all people! And finally me with poor sweet Alex, well—"
"Goodness, Penelope. How absolutely frightful. I must say, I don't know when I've heard anything quite as convoluted."
"What?" Penelope stared with open-mouthed astonishment. "You mean ... you hadn't heard?"
"Oh, Penelope, I'm afraid not. I'm terribly out of touch, you know."
"You must be! God. Last time we talked ... I remember! You rang to ask about Rudolph ... yes ... hear he owes Dicky tons, not that I give a fart. Fact is, I hope Dicky never sees a shilling—that's just deserts for running off with Alex's butler, wouldn't you say? Especially with decent butlers heading the endangered species list ... or are they extinct already? Anyway! Imagine. Bumping into you here, of all places. Darling, what on earth are you doing in New York?"
Zandra, trying to keep abreast of the loquacious twists, turns, and detours, said, "Oh, gosh. Well, that's a terribly long story. I live here now." At a loss for a more detailed explanation, she deftly turned the conversational tables. "But, darling, what about you? What brings you here? Still hiding from Fleet Street, are you?"
Too Damn Rich Page 25
