by Peter Israel
It was, in any case, Kitty’s show. She said she had always wanted to be married in June and outdoors, in a long white gown with a lace veil and a bouquet of orchids in her hands, and the men in morning suits, and a string quartet to play the Handel. And so it came to pass, on a warm and lovely Sunday, with her brother to give her away and her mother, a rather crabby old woman, in attendance with, as they say, a hundred or so of Kitty’s closest friends.
Why, one might ask, did we marry? The stormy passion of our “courtship,” if that is the word, had not abated, and in fact the Thorne affair had locked us into each other more than would any prayer or sworn vow. Why bother, then? Kitty said she needed the respectability of marriage. There was a part of her, she admitted, that craved the normalcy of the hausfrau. Having proved that she could succeed in the business world, and though she had no intention of giving up her company, she yet wanted something else out of life. Something more. Even that there be people in the world who knew her as Mrs. Thompson instead of Ms. Goldmark. Beyond herself, she wanted respectability for us, too, wanted us to be Mr. and Mrs. Stark Thompson openly.
“In other words,” I remember saying to her sotto voce as we greeted our guests, “I’ve finally earned you.”
“And I,” she answered back, laughing up at me with her eyes, “have just married an elephant.”
Of course, in hindsight, Kitty had other things in mind as well. As for me, if I took to telling people flippantly that it was just in the genes (people, that is, who could appreciate my father’s marital record), the truth was even simpler: I wanted Kitty. Therefore, I wanted what Kitty wanted. And if that included the bonds of matrimony, so much the better.
The Thorne affair—that was how we referred to it—had put an end to the network’s activities. For the time being, at least, we were shut down, even though, as far as anyone could tell, we were clean on the various ongoing Safari investigations. The paper trail that had led people to Thorne ended in the North Shore cove. While my own activities might still be investigated independently, there was no way I could be linked to Thome, no reason I couldn’t stonewall, and this because, as Kitty pointed out, she hadn’t budged on revealing the network to me. Knowing could only harm me now, she said, and, in theory, put other people at risk. There would be no benefit to anyone, she said. And the only response I got from her, when it was announced that Mr. Henry Angeletti had joined Braxton’s as an associate managing director, reporting directly to Mr. Theodore Goldmark, was: “If you want to know, why don’t you ask Teddy yourself?”
I will come back shortly to my new brother-in-law.
The police investigation into Thorne’s death brushed against us and then, like the shadow of a cloud on a windy day, moved on. The authorities, it seemed, were no closer to determining whether suicide, accident, or foul play had been the cause, but in the course of following leads, a Suffolk County detective visited the offices of Katherine Goldmark Enterprises. Why? For two reasons. One: Thome and Kitty Goldmark had once been romantically linked. Two: Thorne had paid Katherine Goldmark Enterprises considerable sums of money on several different occasions, going back months, even years, before his death. But Thome, it turned out, had been a great party giver, and Kitty’s catering services, which had been properly billed in each instance, did not come cheap. In addition, Kitty pointed out to the detective, the romance between them, such as it had been, had long since ended.
In fact, the Thorne affair had other, potentially more troublesome consequences for me. My success with my blue-haired ladies had brought me new clients, which had meant expanding my practice, hence my staff, and both new and old clients now expected repeat performances from me. Wanda Russell, for instance, embracing me after the wedding ceremony, said, “What’s happened to us, Tommy? It’s been so quiet since Safari, I’m positively bored!” As I explained to Wanda, and others, opportunities of that kind didn’t come along every day. I counseled patience. No one complained—for the moment. But I foresaw the day when I would have become just another estate manager, no more or less effective than the rank and file but with the single difference that, while the rank and file charged the same management fee in good times and bad, I profited only when my clients profited.
“So?” Kitty advised. “Start charging a fee like everybody else. Only make yours larger.”
Knowing my Wanda Russells, though, I postponed that day.
Another adverse financial situation could, however, no longer be postponed. Despite their efforts, the agency I’d hired to investigate Susan had come up virtually empty-handed. Our divorce agreement had scarcely precluded her from seeing other men, even sleeping with them, and while we knew she had a steady lover, we couldn’t prove anything resembling “cohabitation.” Meanwhile, her lawyer had started to press me to renegotiate. Meanwhile, Kitty and I had decided to get married.
“Settle it,” Kitty advised me. “Don’t show them financial statements if you don’t want to, but make them an offer, knowing that whatever you offer won’t be enough. But do it now.”
“You mean because we’re going to get married?”
“Exactly.”
“But she and I have been divorced for six years!”
“It doesn’t matter. The minute she hears you’re remarrying, she’ll feel scorned all over again and the price will go up. And if you insist on having your children at the wedding, though I still don’t see why, then you’d better be generous.”
In the end, against my own better judgment, I was more than generous, but when I told Susan I was remarrying and that I was going to invite the children to the wedding, I ran, as Kitty had predicted, into a wall.
“Who’s the lucky woman?” Susan asked acidly over the telephone.
“I don’t think you know her. Her name’s Kitty Goldmark.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of her. I mean, she’s the woman who does parties, isn’t she? But isn’t she Jewish?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Well …” Pause. “Well, you’ll never cease to amaze me, Tommy.”
“I want the children to attend.”
Another pause. “Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Just what I said. I mean, it’s traumatic enough, their father marrying someone else, but, I mean—”
“I think they’re old enough to decide for themselves whether they want to come or not.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Look, Susan,” I said, trying to control myself and only half succeeding, “we’ve just completed a negotiation that has turned out to be pretty generous for you. Do you want to continue to get your checks on the first of the month? Or do you want to have to go to court to get them?”
“You bastard.”
“Maybe I am, but I want the children to come, if they want to—and without your poisoning the well.”
And so they did.
Why was it important for me that they be there? Good question, the more so when Kitty, to put it in its brutal form, clearly had no use for them. And my link to them, as described, had been at best tenuous for some time. Still, for a man who was burning most of his bridges, in fact already had, the few that remained seemed worth preserving.
So my children attended the wedding too. And felt, I thought, awkward and out of place, knowing no one. But they were there, and heard their father blessed in Hebrew and in English, and saw him dance with his bride, their new stepmother, to the corny old Berlin tune “Always” (the string quartet having by then been replaced, or augmented, by the instruments of a swing band), and they stayed until Kitty tossed her bouquet, when I saw them off in the chauffeured car I’d hired for the purpose.
We had decided—Kitty’s one departure from tradition—not to go off on a honeymoon. The timing was wrong for Kitty’s business. Then, too, she hated the custom of the bride and groom leaving, thereby abandoning their wedding guests to their fate. It was her party, after all; she wanted to be there when the last one went home. S
o, after Mary Laura and Starkie left, I wandered back across the lawn, looking for her among the dancers under the striped awning and the people sitting at the shaded little tables that dotted the grounds. And, not finding her, made my way toward and into the house.
We had bought what the real estate people called a center-hall Colonial, a large redbrick affair of Georgian inspiration, with tall white columns and white trim and shutters. It had been constructed in the 1920s. The gardens were of English style, lovingly tended, and included a trellised and slate-paved rose arbor, which was in full, glorious bloom for the wedding. Kitty had chosen the place and had virtually stripped the interiors. Few of our old possessions adorned the main rooms, which, though they had been tastefully redecorated, still had that new feel and look, that smell of paint, stain, wax, which only a few seasons of living would dispel. For myself, I liked it well enough, but I scarcely felt as though it belonged to me, or I to it.
I walked in on what I assumed was a family council. More row apparently than council. Ted Goldmark had just shouted something as I entered—some taunt or gibe, I gathered, for his face was twisted into a sardonic smile, and Kitty, having burst into tears, rushed past me in the doorway, head down. She glanced briefly in my direction, without apparent recognition, then ran on up the center staircase, tripping on her gown as she went.
“What’s going on?” I asked, but Goldmark had already turned away and Kitty was on her way up the stairs.
I caught up with her on the second-floor landing.
“What’s going on?” I repeated, taking her by the arm.
“Nothing’s going on!” she said hoarsely.
“Hey, wait a minute. This is me, remember? Your lover and admirer and brand-new husband?”
This didn’t make much of a dent. Kitty turned toward me, her face small in a grimace of tears, and her expression told me that having to deal with me, too, right then, was more than she could handle.
“It’s nothing, Tommy. Family. My brother’s a son of a bitch. What else is new? Just leave me alone now, please. I just want to be left alone.”
“But what did he say?”
At this she pulled free of me, not for the first time in our relationship, and stumbled off in a blur of white to what I thought was our new bedroom, where she slammed the door behind her.
I retreated down the stairs, shaking my head, and found Ted Goldmark pouring himself a Scotch at the bar in the living room. For some reason this irritated me.
“What happened between you and Kitty?” I asked him.
“Oh, nothing. Nothing, really. What did she say?”
“She called you a son of a bitch.”
“Is that all?” he said, laughing. “Usually she calls me worse. Look, Tommy,” he said, “I don’t have to tell you this, but she’s a very emotional woman. I think probably the wedding’s gotten to her. Can I pour you one?”
He gestured with the bottle of Laphroaig. I shook my head.
“What do you mean, ‘The wedding’s gotten to her’?”
“Oh, you know,” he answered with a shrug. “Women cry on their wedding days. And she had one bad marriage. I myself advised her against it, but you know Kitty. A long time ago anyway, and that sure doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you, old man. I know she does.”
Goldmark, if it needs pointing out, was the kind of man who’d never miss an opportunity to impress you somehow—in this instance, I suppose, with his knowledge of brides in general and his sister in particular. I’d once thought it was the short-man syndrome: he was only a few inches taller than Kitty. Or because he was, after all, Jewish in an all-Wasp outfit. Until quite recently, remember, Wall Street had had its Kuhn, Loebs and its Lehmans on the one hand and its Paine Webbers and Smith Barneys on the other, and ne’er the twain shall meet, and the fact that Goldmark had reached the topmost echelon in a place like Braxton’s still brought everything he did or said into a kind of limelight—a fact he himself seemed to relish.
He was known in his trade as a shark. Depending on who said it, that could be taken either pejoratively or complimentarily. He was considered good-looking: he had a mass of curly black locks and dark, busy eyes to go with his quick, glib manner. I’d heard him called both a workaholic and a skirt-chaser—when he appeared in public, it was always with some new model on his arm—but I’d also heard some speculation that he was gay because, now in his mid thirties, he’d never married.
Facing him there, in my new and as yet unlived-in living room, in our matching morning suits with boutonnieres, I felt a keen antipathy. By my quick calculation, when “he himself” had advised Kitty against marrying Sprague, he’d have been in his teens. And here he was, reassuring me that Kitty loved me and sipping my Scotch as though he himself owned the place.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I said.
“Shoot.”
“How come you hired Henry Angeletti?”
I watched him for a reaction but saw only the characteristic half smile.
“Henry?” he said. “Well, he’s an excellent recruit for us at Braxton’s. And he was pretty much buried, working for good ole Thatch.”
I could guess without asking what Goldmark would think of Thatcher.
“Is that the only reason?”
“Sure. Henry’s brilliant, hard-working—what more do you want? But why are you asking?”
“Because Kitty suggested I should.”
“Oh?” His eyebrows raised.
“Yes. I asked her if she thought it had anything to do with Safari and certain other related matters. And she said if I wanted to know I should ask you.”
“Did she really?” The eyebrows again.
“Yes, she did.”
He seemed to think over his answer before giving it. I understood, I thought, why Kitty had contrived to keep us apart, and why she never spoke of her brother without a certain edge to her voice.
“Look, Tommy,” he said smoothly, “you’re a very smart man. You don’t need me to tell you that. And you’ve just married a very smart lady. I’d have thought both of you were smart enough to understand that sometimes it’s better not to dig into things after the fact.”
“Let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak?”
“Exactly.”
“Like one hundred eighty million dollars’ worth of sleeping dogs?”
He frowned at me over the rim of his glass, not answering.
“And Thorne, too?” I said.
“Poor Thorny,” he said coolly, his eyes still on mine. “But done is done.”
He’d have done well, I suppose, to leave it with that epitaph. After all, it wasn’t he who’d pushed Thorne’s car into the North Shore cove. But Goldmark, as I’ve said, couldn’t resist an opportunity to impress.
“Anyway,” he went on, “I understand congratulations of a different kind are in order.”
“What for?”
“The Stark-Thompson Funds.”
“Yes? What about it?”
“Well, I hear you’re going to be named Trustee.”
“Oh? Where’d you hear that?”
“I’ve got my sources,” he said, smiling.
I couldn’t say which antagonized me more: the fact that he knew (and I didn’t) or the way he told me.
“I’m sorry,” I retorted. “That’s not good enough. I want to know where you heard it.”
“Hey, hey,” he said, holding up his hand in a stop-sign gesture. “Don’t forget that we at Braxton’s handle a piece of that business. I hope we’ll hold on to it in the future, by the way. But there’s no need for you to get into such a sweat, old man. It’s quite an honor. And more than that, it’s big bucks time for you. Corky Stark’s become a very rich man doing it.”
The truth, and I’ll come to it, was that the family Council had put the question off. More to the point, the only person I’d so much as mentioned it to was Kitty, and it struck me as inconceivable that she’d have discussed it with her brother. It was, I judged, none of his damn busin
ess.
We were interrupted then. Some guests were leaving, friends of Kitty’s. I told them I didn’t know where she was, and in the course of their well-wishing, I saw Goldmark lift his glass to me in a silent toast and walk away.
I didn’t see him again that day. Kitty reappeared shortly thereafter, pale of mien and unaccountably irritable toward me, but she joined me in seeing off our guests, flashing smiles and exchanging embraces amid the white columns of our front entrance. At some point I invited her to take a last turn with me on the dance floor, but she declined. She said she didn’t feel up to it. Then the band packed up, at dusk, and the last of the guests were gone. The cleanup crew wouldn’t come until the next morning. And we were alone.
The one room in the house Kitty had decided to leave untouched was our master bathroom. It was, she said, simply too extraordinary and too kitsch to change. An enormous affair in pink marble, heavily mirrored, with floodlamps embedded in floor and ceiling, its pièce de résistance was a great circular hot pink tub, big enough for two or more, with a Jacuzzi and an entire, as it were, control panel, and one of those rolling trays that spanned the tub like a bridge and was long enough to hold a small library in addition to soaps, sponges, oils, lotions. Kitty had said that, provided she could wear tinted glasses to subdue the pink, she could imagine spending the rest of her life there, soaking, and it was there that I found her, after I’d taken a last shirt-sleeved stroll around our empty and shadowy grounds.
The latter act, I suppose, constituted my own male version of brides bursting into tears at their weddings. Grooms, too, feel a sense of foreboding, however unfocused, at the finality of what they’ve just done. On the one hand, I felt I knew Kitty more intimately than I ever had any other person. Or ever would, for that matter. On the other, there were times when she seemed a total stranger. This last, I confess, held the upper hand in my consciousness that evening when I patrolled the grounds. Yes, the conversation with Goldmark had unsettled me, and yes, the new house unsettled me. But beyond these was Kitty, my co-conspirator, now become, if you will, my co-conspirator till death do us part. Yet all I could see of her was that empty expression, devoid of recognition, when she’d rushed past me in the doorway to the living room, crying, and burst up the stairs.
