“No open. No open. Tonight.”
“I need to use your telephone.”
“No open.”
“Telephone.”
He took a drag on his cigarette and stared into space. I took a five out of my purse and placed it front of him. He shrugged, took it, and told me the pay telephone was in the back. You can get anything in this town if you know how.
The phone was behind a red curtain. I made it through to Sitwell’s secretaries, then his assistant, and then was put on hold. The kitchen door swung open and the guy munching on the end of his cigar, now carrying an empty tray, walked out. Before the door swung back, I glimpsed a sinewy young man. A scarf printed with the rising sun was wrapped around his forehead. He held a knife above the pile of meat. The door closed.
“Graham Sitwell speaking.”
“This is Maggie Hill.”
“Maggie? I thought you and Claire had already left for Los Angeles.”
I told him in general what had taken place.
“Dead client? She has no business sense. I’ve asked her repeatedly to come on board here. She’d be set for life.”
“Yes, well, I think she wants to stay based in L.A. In fact I think she wishes she were there right now. Look, can you put in a word to somebody with influence on the NYPD? Maybe the commissioner? Even the mayor?”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be done.”
I thanked him and dialed Bonton. Nora Brown was not available. I left a threatening message, making sure she understood it was in her best interest to get Sarah Grange over to the hotel to see Claire Conrad. The Chablis-colored secretary informed me Nora couldn’t possibly be anywhere before five. I informed her that if she and Sarah weren’t at the hotel by five-fifteen, I was calling the tabloids and the cops. Then I got Gerta and told her we were expecting two visitors and I would be there as soon as possible.
I made my way out of the restaurant. I started walking, keeping an eye out for a cab. I could still hear sirens, but that was nothing special. It was the Muzak of the city. The sun was out, but that didn’t seem to mean anything either. I don’t trust a city where the sun comes out and you don’t need to put on your dark glasses. Okay, so they’ve got seasons back here. But at least in Los Angeles we can tell the difference between night and day. I waved down a cab and got in. “Bergdorf Goodman.”
“What?” A red knit cap was pulled down just to the top of the cabbie’s bushy black eyebrows.
“Bergdorf’s on Fifth near the Plaza Hotel.”
He pulled out into the traffic.
“You’re not from here, are you?” Liquid black eyes studied me in the rearview mirror.
Oh hell, he was going to talk to me. I leaned my head back against the seat, closed my eyes, and thought of Goldie and Jackie and carnations. The cab smelled of some kind of strange sharp herb. I rolled the window down a bit. The cool air, mixed with exhaust, rushed in over my face.
“I can tell you’re not from here,” the cabbie continued. “It’s the way you walk.”
Walk? Don’t say anything, Maggie. Walk?
“New York women got this funny little walk. I think it’s their short legs.”
Don’t speak, Maggie. New York women can take care of themselves.
“And their short arms. They all got short arms and short legs and funny hair.”
“Short?” Shit. “Short? All New York women have short arms, short legs, and funny hair? All of them? Is that what you’re saying?!”
“Yeah. They walk just like Mickey Mouse.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t say Minnie.”
“Minnie who?” He craned his neck around and looked at me.
“Mouse. And watch where you’re going.” Oh God, why was I in this conversation?
He looked back at the street. “No, Mickey. They walk like Mickey.”
“I don’t want to hear how they walk.” I leaned forward, holding on to the strap. “I don’t want to hear if women have short arms or long arms. I don’t want to hear if we look like Mickey or Minnie. I’m tired of what men think about women. I’m tired of what women think about women. And I especially don’t want to know what you think about women. I just want to go to Bergdorf’s.”
“I’m taking you there. Don’t get so excited. I love women.”
“I’m sure you do.” I leaned back and closed my eyes while he explained to me why he loved women.
Sixteen
THE BRIDAL DEPARTMENT WAS on the sixth floor. Three puffy white gowns that looked like they could’ve made it down the aisle without the brides hung on a rack next to a dainty sofa. A saleslady sat behind a knockoff of a Louis Quinze desk. Its gold-leaf corners were chipped. She searched through a box filled with white lace garters. Brown age spots smudged her hands. Her dulled diamond ring and wedding band needed cleaning. I looked in the box. Tiny blue silk rosebuds decorated the lacy garters.
I thought of all those awful coy photographs of brides holding up the hems of their gowns to show off their legs and garter. I hadn’t worn one when I got married. Of course when I got married I hadn’t worn a bridal gown either. Something about all that virginal white in a Las Vegas chapel.
“Is Alison Reynolds here?” I asked.
“She’s in the last fitting room through the curtains.”
“Thanks.”
I went through the curtains and knocked on the last door.
“Come in.”
Alison stood alone, wearing a wedding gown of white brocade. Rows of baby seed pearls lined the bodice and hem. A veil of Chantilly lace draped softly over her curly auburn hair, cascaded down her back, and trailed onto the floor. More baby seed pearls glistened like frozen teardrops in the lace. She was beautiful in a cultivated, old-fashioned kind of way—like the subject of a Sargent painting. Her eyes shone with promise. Surprised, she blushed like a bride when she saw me.
“Maggie, what are you doing here?”
“I need to ask you some questions.”
“Sit down. I’m waiting for the seamstress. The hem’s too long. I have to remember I have feet.” She laughed.
I took her tote bag and purse off a chair and sat down, trying not to look at myself in the mirror. But I did. Yes, I looked like somebody who had just seen a dead man. Perhaps a little lipstick?
“I look a little silly,” she said.
“No you don’t. You look lovely.”
“Why do we still wear white?” she asked. “It’s such a lie and yet nobody seems to mind.”
“Wear it with a wink. With a sense of irony,” I suggested.
“I can’t. If you think of white as a commitment, then it does have meaning. I’m going to make it mean something.” She stopped, fidgeted with her veil, then turned to the mirror. “Not like my parents. What did you want to ask me? Is it about Cybella?”
“Yes.”
“When you visited my mother, did she tell you that Sarah is my half sister?”
“Now I don’t have to ask the question. Your mother thinks you don’t know.”
“It’s easier for Mother to believe I don’t know certain things.”
“And your father?”
“For him too. It’s not as if I was told not to ask questions about Cybella. I just knew I couldn’t. Mother was always so fragile. I never wanted to upset her. And Father was my father. I was afraid I’d lose him if I mentioned it. I always lived with the fear that he’d leave us and go off with her.” She smoothed her dress.
“Did he tell you that?”
“Mother did.”
“So you’re going to make a better marriage than your parents.” My voice lacked confidence.
She heard it and stared defiantly at my reflection in the three-way mirror. “Yes. Isn’t that what all parents want for their children? To do better than they did?”
“Do you have to marry to prove that?”
“That’s the battleground, Maggie. That’s the ground I have to win on.” Her fingers stroked a row of baby seed pearls.
“Who told
you about Sarah?” I asked.
“You have to promise me you won’t tell Mother.”
I decided to quote Claire. “If there’s no professional reason to tell her, then I won’t.”
“Cybella.”
“When?”
“I went to see her a couple of weeks before she died.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know if I can explain it. I think because I’m getting married, because my life is changing. I wanted to somehow come to terms with her.”
“And meet your muse face-to-face?”
The hazel eyes questioned me. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Not at all. I’ve just begun to realize that I’m an assistant to my muse.”
“Claire Conrad’s a detective. I have to remember that. I don’t have many friends, Maggie, anyone I can confide in. It’s easy to talk to you. I have to keep reminding myself that you could hurt me, my family.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
I didn’t want to hurt her. I wanted to leave her here. Perfect. Still untouched by her choices, by her decisions, by Paul Quentin with his self-deprecating, self-serving smile. But I didn’t. I asked her another question. “What did Cybella say to you about Sarah?”
“She told me there were two things she regretted about loving my father: the hurt she had caused Sarah and the hurt she had caused me. She never mentioned Mother.”
“Did Cybella strike you as depressed?”
“More confused.”
“About what?”
“Sarah. She said that her own daughter made her feel uncomfortable. Cybella blamed herself. But she thought Sarah was afraid of her, afraid to reach out to her. She wondered if she might even be in some kind of trouble.”
“How did it make you feel to find out you had a half sister?”
“I wasn’t shocked. It was as if I already knew. And maybe I did in some vague way. As I said, my parents argued all the time, especially when I was a child. I’m sure it was in one of those arguments I heard Father had another daughter.”
“Did you tell Cybella about going to the library and studying her pictures?”
“No. I couldn’t.”
“That would be a betrayal of your mother.”
“Yes.”
Before I could ask her how that was a betrayal, the door opened. A wide-hipped, heavyset woman, with pieces of white thread clinging to her black skirt, came in and knelt before Alison as if she were the Virgin Mary. Instead of praying she took a box of pins from her pocket and began to pin the hem.
“Not too long,” Alison ordered.
The seamstress nodded. Glistening pins jutted between her colorless lips. Her thick legs were covered in beige knit stockings. Black shoes shaped her bunioned feet. Her nimble fingers moved expertly along the hem of the gown as if they had a happy life of their own.
Alison glanced in the mirror and quickly adjusted something that didn’t need adjusting. “I have your picture with me, Maggie. It’s in my bag.”
“Picture?”
“The photograph I took of you yesterday. I was going to drop it by your hotel later.”
“May I look at it?”
“It’s in the white envelope.”
I found the envelope slipped in next to her camera. I pulled out the photograph. The curve of my lips was much too arrogant and my eyes far too sad. It was a brutally honest picture.
“What is it? Timing?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
The seamstress moved slowly around Alison. I could hear the sound of her thick legs rubbing together.
“How do you manage to capture the right expression?”
“You take a lot of pictures and hope.”
“You’re too good just to snap and hope.”
“Have you ever been married?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Yes.”
“Were you happy and excited about it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think it would last?”
“Yes.”
“Are you still married?”
“No.”
“Did you love him?”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“No. How long have you known Paul?”
“Ever since he came to work for my father. About three years.”
“Was it love at first sight?”
“I’ve only experienced love at first sight through the lens of my camera.”
“You mean only in your art?”
“I don’t consider what I do art.”
“Why are you afraid to give it value?”
“You thought you were in love and then you weren’t. You can’t give anything value, Maggie. It might be taken away.”
The only sound was the rustle of the white wedding gown and the heavy movements of the seamstress.
“You said white was for commitment,” I reminded her. “That’s a value.”
“It’s the only value I have left.” Her small, pale lips pressed together. The delicate chin thrust forward.
The seamstress got painfully to her feet. She lowered the veil over Alison’s face.
We were all going to make it work, I thought. All young brides looked through a veil whether they wore one or not. Each believed she would be the bride who could reach back to the time when marriage meant something. When men and women knew how to love one another. When we each knew our proper place in love. They would make it work, better than their mothers had. The seamstress pinned the veil. Her fingers danced their way down the train. A simple plain wedding band shined.
“Okay?” she asked Alison.
Alison turned, her image reflected over and over in the three-way mirror as if she were not one bride but a thousand.
“Perfect.” She was a shadow behind the veil.
The seamstress made some notes on a card and left. The saleswoman swept in and started to help Alison get out of the dress.
I waited outside. Alison appeared, all breathless.
“I’m meeting Paul at the Plaza for tea.”
I looked at my watch. I had time before meeting Sarah and Nora at the hotel. “I could use a cup of tea,” I said. But what I really wanted was to take another look at the man behind the smile.
She stared at me, unsure. “You don’t like Paul, do you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I can tell.”
“He’s a lucky man to have won the heart of such a talented artist.”
“Maggie, I’m not an artist.” She sounded like a schoolgirl saying, “I’m not pretty,” when she knew she really was.
We took the escalator down. The mannequins with their bald heads and sexless eyes watched me. They knew I should have left her wearing her wedding gown, standing alone in that dressing room.
Seventeen
THE PALM COURT IS in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel. A red floral carpet is scattered with small round tables draped in pink linen. White marble columns are surrounded by enormous potted palms. A violinist was playing music that could soothe a migraine, or cause one, depending on your taste. He dipped and swooped around the tables. Like a mortician guarding the dead, a maître d’ stood at the entrance to the court. Crystal chandeliers dazzled. A line of people waited to gain access, their faces strained with feigned patience. They looked like a wealthy breadline.
Alison walked straight up to the maître d’ and announced her name.
“Right this way.” He tucked some menus under his arm. We followed him to a table in the corner. A palm in a large ceramic cachepot held out its leafy arms, brushing the back of my head and neck as I sat down in a red velvet chair. Alison ordered tea for three. When he left she leaned forward with an impish look on her face. “Was your ex a good lover?”
“To me and to every woman he met.”
We laughed.
“What did he do?” She brushed her unruly hair back from her face.
“He’s with the LAPD. Is Paul a good lover?”
She continued smiling but something happened to her eyes. The brightness faded.
“The best,” she said.
We fell silent. Okay, so it wasn’t lust and passion that was driving her to marry Paul Quentin. I looked around the room. Chic women—so sharp-edged and thin you might get a paper cut if you touched them—leaned toward one another over their teacups. I knew they were confessing, minutely going over every inch of their lives. They say confession is good for the soul, but I think women never get out of that dark confessional box. They’re always peering through the grille, waiting for the next priest in the form of a friend to go over it with them all again. There is no redemption for these women; there is only the hope of another lunch, another tea.
The violinist did a low dip toward a table where a man and a woman sat in habitual silence. The leaves of the palms fluttered ever so slightly, as if stirred by the music, the voices, and the clattering of china.
The waiter placed our tea on the table with all the grace of a well-trained prizefighter. I watched Alison pour with the studied skill of a well-trained debutante. I liked her. What was I doing in her life? It was no different from being in Peep Thrills or the Horizon Club. I didn’t belong here either. We smiled at each other over our teacups. The violinist sawed through a waltz.
“I wish I’d met you under different circumstances, Maggie.”
“Just because I work for Claire Conrad doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. Why are you so nervous about me? Who are you protecting?”
“No one. Why do you keep asking me so many questions?” Her eyes moved from mine; I could feel the presence of another person.
“Paul!” she said. “You remember Maggie Hill.”
He moved from behind me, his smile in place, his hand extended. I took it. “Of course, how are you?” Then he took Alison’s hand and kissed it. “How was the fitting?”
“The dress is so beautiful. Wait till you see me floating down the aisle into your arms,” she said dramatically, her eyes fixed on him as if she were never going to let him out of her sight. He, however, was looking the room over.
“I didn’t know you were going to be meeting Maggie,” he said, still trying to see if he knew anybody else. “You don’t mind if I call you Maggie?” He settled into a chair.
Beauty Dies Page 13
