Well Bred and Dead

by Catherine O'Connell

  29

  Payoff

  Two months stretched into four and spring rolled right into summer while I waited for the inheritance to come to me. As it turns out, Mercy Hospital was putting up a stink after all. A huge one. It seems they weren’t willing to give up their claim on Joseph Baincock’s money and had started legal action to keep it. I was in daily contact with Mr. Holstein who assured me that things would be resolved to our best interest and were just taking a little longer than he had anticipated. In the meantime, I managed to stay afloat by borrowing from various sources including Whitney, Edward, and even Armand Peckles, assuring all that as soon as a certain legal matter was cleared, I would pay them back with interest.

  The summer was steamy, both in temperature and events. Sunny learned that Nat was cheating on her, putting up his girlfriend at a geographically desirable (for him) luxury rental in the Rush Street area. Naturally she hadn’t told me, but had confided in Elsa, a horrendous mistake on her part. Elsa, starved for gossip since Ethan’s demise, and still angry at Sunny for sharing her scoop with Connie Chan way back in April, had made a thinly veiled reference to the affair in her column.

  What wealthy and prominent man is cheating on his wife and housing his paramour in a love nest so near to home he can slip out for a quick rendezvous whenever he desires? The wife is livid, but confesses she is going to play dumb. After all, with him she is Mrs. Somebody and without him, Mrs. Nobody. If she’s lucky, his girlfriend will tire of the smell of his cigars and send him back home.

  Sunny hadn’t spoken to Elsa since.

  Marjorie Wilcock and Franklin James abruptly stopped seeing each other after their divorce proceedings got serious. When Marjorie saw the pittance she would most likely receive, since her husband had been smart enough to hide most of his money, and Franklin, not being smart enough to hide his, saw how he was going to be hung out to dry, that put an end to their little trysts. Apparently financial devastation dampens even the most fiery of ardor. They were still trying to work it out with their spouses.

  After swearing he would never marry again, Armand Peckles eloped with a woman the same age as his great-granddaughter and then died shortly thereafter, leaving me to wonder if his death was due to natural causes or if the new Mrs. Peckles had just been cagier than the last. The thought crossed my mind that had I succeeded in marrying him, I would be the widow. At the same time I wondered if his estate knew about his loans to me.

  My friendship with Whitney actually grew stronger. I remained tight-lipped about her little secret, not even telling her what I knew and that I was in possession of a picture that could ruin her life. She had replaced Ethan as my best friend, and for once I knew exactly who I was dealing with. I shared my heartbreak over Terrance with her and told her the whole story of my financial situation including the money I awaited from Ethan’s estate. I swore her to secrecy and then asked if I could borrow ten thousand dollars to tide me over.

  Whitney couldn’t write me a check fast enough. She had her own personal account that she referred to as her maintenance money, and Jack told her to do with it as she pleased. I smiled inwardly every time I saw Jack wrap himself around her at some social event. If he only knew.

  As for all the women who were so jealous of her their teeth were green, yapping like Yorkshire Terriers over everything she did, the smile grew broader. After all, who would know better how to pleasure a man than someone who had once been one?

  Then one sunny day in August, when the humidity was so bad I dreaded venturing out for fear my hair would curl up like Little Orphan Annie’s, the phone rang with the news I had awaited for four torturous months. Mr. Holstein’s words were sweet as Sauternes, lingering in my ears far longer than the honeyed wine ever could on my tongue.

  “The proceedings with Mercy Hospital have been dropped. The Baincock Estate will be cutting you a check next week,” he said.

  The following Wednesday Mr. Holstein hand delivered the check to me, left hand of course. I thought it only fitting and proper that we conduct the transaction at the Cape Cod Room, both in remembrance of the many lunches Ethan and I shared there and in deference to my Bostonian companion. Over oysters and Comptes de Champagne (blancs de blancs this time) he handed me the rectangular sheet of paper that represented my salvation. Twenty-two million and change. Handel himself could not have sung a stronger “Alleluia” than the one sounding in my brain. My future would not be as a pauper. I wanted to kiss the check, but refrained from doing so in front of Mr. Holstein. The kiss could wait until later when it was only the two of us, check and I.

  “I’m can’t tell you how good it feels to have this money in my hand. Mercy Hospital was causing me many a sleepless night,” I confessed.

  He surprised me by saying, “I’d ven-chah to say I was losing more sleep than you. Remembah our agreement says I foot the legal bills. They threatened to fight to the bittah end and it was costing by the day.”

  “So why do you suppose they suddenly caved in?”

  He pulled at a bit of fabric, a small blue nub on the right sleeve of his jacket, “I’m afraid it took a bit of creative investigating on my paht.”

  I put my oyster fork down.

  “Creative investigating?”

  “Yep. I was beginning to get feahful they might possibly win, so I started digging into the hospital’s history for something that they might prefer remain buried. I found it in a former nurse whose grandson needs an operation. It’s amazing what you can learn when you spread enough money around. She was all too willing to tell me about some disturbing goings-on at the institution back in the thirties, the kind of thing that would bury Mercy in lawsuits if it was evah unearthed—even now. Would most likely wipe out the bequest several times ovah.”

  He stopped talking, one of his peculiar games. I had learned from dealing with him that he loved to be coaxed into giving up information.

  “Well, are you going to tell me or not?”

  He clasped his good hand over his bad and let an elusive trace of a smile bend his narrow lips. “Remembah, when Daniel was born, Mercy was an indigent hospital, not the fancy institution it is now. Well, it seems back then there were some unethical doctahs who took advantage of the poah immigrant women who came to the hospital to give birth. Some of them were so destitute they simply couldn’t afford to care for another baby. Others were unmarried. So when the children were born these doctahs would issue death certificates for the babies and then sell them for adoption on the black market.”

  “That’s reprehensible. I can’t believe how low some people will stoop for money.”

  “So when I pointed this out to a couple of Mercy’s board members, they dropped their lawsuit. But, there’s more to the story, I’m afraid. In reality, Daniel Kehoe’s estate could have been half what we received.”

  “I don’t believe I understand what you are saying,” I said, looking at my beautiful check, not wanting to think of it divided by two. Then he dropped a bombshell announcement that most likely would have put me back on the floor again were it not for the numbing properties of the champagne.

  “Moira nevah knew it, but she gave birth to twins.”

  “Twins! Ethan was a twin? How do you know this?”

  “The nurse kept a record of all the babies that were sold off. She was afraid if they ever got caught she might be able to save herself by helping to unravel the mess they were creating. Daniel’s twin was adopted by a Pennsylvania couple who are long since dead. I was able to trace him to Florida, but didn’t contact him.”

  “Does he have any claim to the inheritance?” I asked, suddenly panicked. The check hadn’t been in my possession for an hour and I was already worried about keeping it.

  “Wouldn’t even know it exists. He has no idea who his real father was. Even if he somehow managed to trace his roots, it would only lead him as far as Patrick Kehoe.”

  “Well, thank God for that,” I said, greatly relieved. “But if you’re so sure about this, then why are you tell
ing me?”

  “It’s peculyah, but people have a way of coming out of the woodwork when money’s involved.”

  True to his promise, Mr. Holstein allowed me to pick up the check this time. The very moment we parted I marched, well took a taxi actually, down to Thomas Slattery’s office in the Loop. I handed him the check. Even in the raging climate of people making money hand over fist, he was impressed by the sum. So much so, he picked up his phone and told his secretary to hold his calls.

  “Now, aren’t you glad you didn’t close my account at John Meeker and Sons,” I ribbed, feeling unusually generous and forgiving.

  “Pauline, we need to talk about what to do with these funds. In this hot market I can take this money and triple it for you. I’ve got twenty ideas right off the top of my head…we can put half of it into growth companies. The momentum right now is incredible.”

  “What’s a money market paying?”

  He tapped something into his computer and rubbed the top of his balding head. “Today’s rate is five and a half percent.”

  “So quick math tells me that’s roughly one million, two hundred ten thousand a year in income. Does that sound right?”

  He nodded.

  “Put it in the money market.”

  The look of disappointment on his face was measurable. “Are you sure? We’re in the hottest market ever, you can do better,” he taunted me.

  I recalled my derivative debacle. “Cash will do fine for now, Thomas. We can talk about other options when I get back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Paris.”

  After leaving Thomas’s office, my next stop was the travel agent Henry and I had used for so many years to book all our luxury travel. She was excited to see me, her long lost prodigal customer. I booked a first-class seat on Air France and the finest suite at the Crillon. My happiness was beyond belief. Paris in September defies description. The flowers are abloom. The heat of the summer has abated, and the city takes on a relaxed feeling as the hordes of summer tourists return home. I was already thinking of the friends I was going to look up, and my mouth watered for the duck confit at Tour D’Argent. The only thing lacking was a lover to share the world’s most romantic city with me, but in lieu of that, unlimited shopping funds would do rather nicely.

  I stopped at Neiman’s to buy some travel clothes and arrived home in a taxi filled with boxes and bags. Jeffrey was on duty and met me at the door to help transfer my bounty into the lobby.

  “Jeez, did you leave anything in the stores, Mrs. Cook?” he asked. “It looks like you bought out Michigan Avenue.”

  “There’s actually more coming, Jeffrey. Can you have this all brought up when the other packages arrive?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh, and Jeffrey, I’ll be going to Paris next week. Could you look after Fleur for me?”

  “Of course, Mrs. Cook.”

  “I’ll give you the details later,” I said, and feeling especially generous, I handed him twenty dollars for handling my bags. He stared at it as if it was the first time he had ever seen money.

  30

  Never Talk to Strangers

  My bedroom looked like a Bedouin marketplace, mounds of clothes, shoes and handbags strewn about as I tried to narrow down what to take with me to the City of Light. My goal was to pack lightly, since I planned on doing a lot of pent-up shopping. A trill of excitement shimmied up my spine at the thought of it. Nothing in this universe competes with French couture, and no words tickle one’s ears more delightfully than the phrase uttered upon entrance to any shop along the Rue Montaigne, “Madame desire?”

  The customs man would get his piece of flesh from me this time.

  Two years having passed since my last visit to Paris, I was listening to French language tapes while packing, hoping to bring my fluency level back up to par. I had also engaged a delightful young woman from Toulouse to tutor me. Since we were scheduled for a two o’clock phone session, when the phone rang at 1:55 I went directly into my library to take the call, answering with the most flowery of bonjours. The responding accent was to French as chicken liver is to foie gras. Or perhaps I should say Dublin to Dunkirk.

  “And a bonnie-jour to you, too.”

  Though one wishes it wouldn’t, the heart skips several beats before coming to a suffocating stop somewhere in the middle of the throat.

  “Who may I ask is calling?” I said, stirring up the frostiest tone I could find.

  “Ah, you’ve gone and forgotten me already, have you now?”

  My heart resumed beating, but with unsettling irregularity. Lowering myself shakily into my chair on legs that had turned to gelatin, I said, “No, I haven’t forgotten you, Terrance, although I would like to.”

  “Now why would you go and say something like that?”

  “Let us leave it at I don’t care to associate with criminals.”

  “I see you’ve spoken to the Graces.”

  “I have and they informed me of what a scoundrel you are.”

  “Me a scoundrel? Faith and…his lordship’s got his knickers in a knot because I caught him trying to cheat me and beat him to the punch.”

  “Those are my friends you’re talking about,” I said firmly.

  “That lot? They’re nobody’s friend unless it involves a few quid. Lord G. and his crowd, they’re the criminals. Don’t kid yourself about what they’re like. They’d dump you faster than ale flowing in a Dublin pub if they didn’t think there was something you could do for them.”

  “I resent that and in fact, I resent you calling me at all. Forget about the Graces and whatever wrongs you did them, where on this planet of ours did you ever get the gall to run that ad in The Charlestonian and promise that I would provide reward money?” There was a shrillness in my voice I couldn’t help. My emotions were getting the better of me, as vulnerable to him as Achilles’ heel was to Paris’s arrow.

  “Well, it worked, then? You got an answer to the ad?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know! You should have called sooner. I might have told you then.”

  “Pauline, on St. Patrick’s staff, I’ve been meaning to call you. Time just got away from me.”

  “Four months?”

  “Please, hear me out. I dialed you up because I’ve got business in Chicago in a couple of days, and I want to see you. At least give me a chance to explain.”

  “It’s a shame, Mr. Sullivan, but in two days at this precise hour I shall be sipping Taittinger on a flight to Paris, seat reclined and foot-rest up.”

  “I’ll come in tomorrow then.”

  “I’m afraid I’m busy all day tomorrow.”

  “C’mon, Pauline, be a sport. I promise…”

  I cut him short. “Your promises are worthless. Now at risk of being rude, I really do have to go.” Summoning up more resolve than any woman in this world should ever have to, I slammed down the phone. Then I stared at it mournfully, wondering if I had done the right thing. As if in answer, it began ringing again. I answered in my coolest voice. “You have a great deal of nerve.”

  “Je regrette, Pauline,” came the soft French accent. “I was delayed.”

  “Oh, Monique.” My ego deflated like a spinnaker in the doldrums. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

  The tutorial was an utter and complete waste of time, for me at least. Monique would still collect her two hundred dollars. My mind was a vast wasteland, barely able to complete a coherent sentence or recall some of the most common conjugations. Even the verb for “deceive” escaped me until Monique prodded me along.

  “C’est tres simple, Pauline. Tromper comme trompe l’oeil.”

  Of course. How could I forget. To deceive the eye.

  After the worthless session, I went back into my room and tried to continue packing. But my enthusiasm had waned and Paris now seemed like any other dull city. In a gesture of frustration and anger, I started tossing clothes over my shoulder onto the floor.

  I met Whitn
ey and Elsa for a bon voyage lunch the next day, Elsa having cozied up to Whitney after I saw fit to befriend her. Since Elsa was always more than insufferably late, I arrived on time so as to have an opportunity to speak with Whitney in private. Sipping wine in a corner booth at R.L., I poured out my heart with my forlorn tale of unrequited love.

  “You poor dear,” she cooed as tears rimmed my lower lid. “What a brute! How dare he come in and out of your life as if you have nothing better to do?”

  “What’s worse was that for one insane moment I nearly agreed to see him! I must be crazy.”

  “No. Just normal. Sometimes we fall for the ones who abuse us the worst—the real bad boys, you know. That’s before we get smart.” She tapped at her temple and then signaled the waiter to bring two more glasses of wine. I wondered just how many bad boys she had known. And what her gender had been at the time. She continued, “Now you are to run, not walk, onto that plane tomorrow. He’s no good and you’ve said so yourself. He is history, which means he is the past. You need to think of the future. Go and have an affair with some sexy Frenchman.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “I deserve that, don’t I?”

  “You certainly do,” she said, giving me a girlish hug. Then trying to take my mind off the man who was now the future past, she asked, “Are you all ready for your trip?”

  “Almost. After lunch I’ve got to pick up something to wear on the plane, and some time tomorrow I have to drop Fleur off at Cat-a-Lina. I was going to have one of the doormen watch her, but she got so angry with me last time I left her, I’ve decided a month alone is just too much for her. Jacquie Washington recommended it. She leaves her cats there when they go to Puerto Vallarta for the winter. This Natasha I spoke with assured me they’ll spend quality time with her each day. It’s outrageously expensive, but worth it for my peace of mind.”

  Our wine arrived at the same time Elsa made her entrance through the revolving doors. Her chapeau du jour was a jaunty red beret with red and blue streamers. In honor of my trip, no doubt.