School of Fortune

by Amanda Brown

  Pippa let the pages flutter to the floor. “Sure, no problem.”

  Leigh went whiter than the feathers in her peignoir. “That’s a million-buck bash. You only got ninety grand out of Moss.” She headed for the decanter on a side table. “We’re toast.”

  If they were, then so was Pippa’s diploma. “Nonsense!” She removed the decanter from Leigh’s quaking fingers. “Stay sober, signora. You’re about to make a few hundred house calls.”

  “You really think we can pull this off?”

  “It is nothing. Get dressed and meet me in your office as soon as possible.”

  Pippa went to the kitchen, where Horatio was consuming pancakes as fast as Rudi could flip them. “Please tell Madam Damon we love her proposal.”

  She sat at Leigh’s desk with a legal pad. What the heck was a snipe? If she managed to feed four hundred mouths for a hundred bucks apiece, that would leave fifty grand to play with. Booze would cost at least ten, the orchestra twenty. Flowers she could get for five. That left a measly fourteen thousand bucks for wild animals, harlequins, and gondolas. Pippa massaged the numbers this way and that. Each time she got the bottom line to work, she realized she had left something out, like the barbecue in the bowling alley.

  Leigh came in wearing one of her new Armani pantsuits. Pippa handed her fifteen pages of guest list. Delegate as much as possible to useful idiots. “Start planning your route. You’ll be visiting one hundred people each day.”

  Leigh stared at the printout. “‘Page and Zelda Turnbull of Las Vegas’“?

  “Obviously Dusi thinks she lives in Edwardian London. You’ll have to look up everyone’s street address online.” “That is a major pain in the butt.”

  “I believe that is the whole point.” Pippa removed her eyeglasses. Today they seemed to weigh ten pounds.

  While Leigh was researching addresses, whimpering about her missing bichon frise, Pippa ordered stationery from Neiman Marcus. She designed the invitation and even found a Bentley icon online. Pippa tried not to guffaw as she typed “Masqueradia Dusiana: A Surprise Party” across the top line in Olde English font. At the stroke of ten she rousted Kerry from bed. “Be in Signora’s office in five minutes.

  There Kerry was handed a map of Las Vegas and instructed to mark every one of Leigh’s addresses with a dot. “What for?”

  “You’re going to be driving to each of those dots in the next few days.”

  “I ain’t driving anywhere. I’m the linen and silver person, period.” “Would two thousand bucks change your attitude?” “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Pippa paid her immediately from her own slush fund. Downstairs,

  Rudi was just seeing Horatio out with a picnic basket. “Rudi, we’re having a party next week,” Pippa said, accompanying him to the kitchen. “It’s going to make you famous.” She presented him with the menu Dusi had proposed.

  His eyebrows nearly shot off his forehead. “Who makes diss? Too many dishes.”

  Never accept no. “It’s a historical menu prepared for English kings when they came back from hunting. Could you do it for a hundred bucks a head?”

  He took another look. “For twelf people?”

  “For four hundred.”

  “Nein! Impossibell!”

  Pippa immediately threw herself to the floor. “Please, Rudi,” she wailed, clutching his ankles. “If you don’t, I’ll lose my job. I’ll have to go back to New Orleans.” That didn’t get much traction. “My house is washed away. People beat me up down there.” No dice. “The alligators ate half my mother.” She looked up. “The top half.”

  “Okay,” he finally snapped. “One hundred fifty per person. Oth-ervise schlecht qvality, I cannot allow. Plus you must get me five sous chefs from Flamingo.”

  Pippa kissed his clogs. “Thankyouthankyou, Rudi! You’re the greatest.”

  “And you giff me five tousand bonus.”

  “Absolutely! I have it right here.” Rudi was paid on the spot.

  Pippa staggered upstairs to help Leigh and Kerry, who had narrowed their focus to the fifty-odd names on Dusi’s list with out-of-town addresses. When the blank cards arrived from Neiman’s, Pippa printed four hundred invitations. In flowery script she wrote names on envelopes and tucked those envelopes into larger envelopes. She shuddered: this was almost like getting married again. By two o’clock the delivery route was complete.

  “Don’t spend more than three minutes at each place or you won’t get back for a week,” Pippa advised Leigh. “And remember to tell everyone it’s a surprise party.”

  “But it’s not.”

  “Just do it,” Pippa snapped. “You do know how to drive a Due-senberg, Kerry?”

  “A car’s a car.”

  After that expedition to Erewhon shoved off, Pippa worked with Rudi on the menu. The price of snipe, partridge, quail, eel, and lamb tongue was ruinous. Rudi insisted on renting a refrigerated truck for eight thousand bucks and began pawing through ancient gastronomic encyclopedias in search of recipes. He was showing Pippa a recipe for pressed beef in horseradish aspic when the phone rang: Dusi calling from her jet over the North Pole.

  “I forgot whelks and periwinkles,” she said. “Please add them to the menu.”

  “Thank you, Madam Damon. It will be done.”

  “Cosmo, you sound exhausted. You must be overwhelmed trying to put on this little party all by yourself. Were you at Castilio Damonia, I’d hire a staff of twenty for you. You’d barely have to lift a finger.” When that got no response, she added, “Whatever Leigh’s paying you, I’ll double it.”

  “We’re doing fine, Madam Damon. Bon voyage.” Pippa slammed down the phone. “Add whelks and periwinkles to your shopping list, Rudi.”

  “Velk? Vatt iss dat?”

  “Just get them,” Pippa shouted. The phone rang: this time it was Leigh, thirty miles away. Miscalculating a turn, Kerry had knocked over a park bench. The Duesenberg’s rear fender was history.

  “Moss is going to kill me,” Leigh wailed. “You can’t fix these cars for less than twenty thousand bucks. It’s part of the mystique.”

  “Where’s Kerry?”

  “Trying to revive the old lady who was sitting on the bench. You’ve got to come get us, Cosmo. I can’t be seen in a car with a dented fender. That would be an immediate blackball.”

  “Stay calm. I’ll send reinforcements.” Pippa called Cole. “Are you busy?”

  She sounded quite sarcastic. However, the sound of her voice sent him over the moon. “I’m waiting for Moss to finish a meeting. Sorry about last night. Something came up.”

  I’ll bet it did, you horny bastard. “Kerry and signora just trashed the Duesenberg.” Pippa provided a few terse details. “Can you fetch them?” “I’d love to, but Moss is my primary responsibility.” “I understand.” Furious, Pippa hung up. “I’ll be back in a bit, Rudi. Do not answer the phone.”

  Like Pippa, Cole had gotten very little sleep the previous evening. First he had to chauffeur Moss, Leigh, and four Lurex salesmen to a number of revues on the Strip. At midnight, after shoving Leigh upstairs, Moss had asked to be driven to the Las Vegas Country Club, where he was meeting some guy named Harlan to discuss croquet lessons. They stayed there until the bar closed. After dropping Moss back at Casa Bowes, Cole proceeded to an all-night cybercafe because Moss wanted an immediate background check on Cosmo. Leigh had hired him in a rush and something about the guy just didn’t add up.

  Cole’s investigation began with an old school chum, now a police chief in Texas. He learned that Cosmo’s blue Maserati with LOTOPO plates was registered to a Vernon Pierce care of Sheldon Adelstein, the Dallas lawyer who had sent the mustache kit. That sounded a bit convoluted so Cole had his friend run the serial number through a number of insurance databases. He discovered that the car replaced a Maserati previously owned by Lance Henderson. The Cowboys quarterback? Was he the “previous employer” Chippa had gotten over a hump in exchange for that dazzling diamond necklace? Seething, Cole Googled “Lance
Henderson.”

  Eighty million links appeared. Few of them related to football. Cole was shocked to see a picture of Lance and . . . that woman . . . the bride ... he zoomed in . . . Chippa? She was ravishing! Blond. No glasses. Those diamonds circled her delicious neck. What a dress! Her name was Pippa Walker. Big oil family. Wedding of the century. Mesmerized, Cole read until four in the morning. He learned that Pippa had disappeared after jilting Lance at the altar. Grandfather shocked stiff. . . mother berserk . . . father AWOL . . . mother-in-law rabid . . . media circus . . . who could blame her for evaporating? Apparently she had dumped the quarterback for someone else: that was weird, considering how hard she had hit on Cole in Phoenix. Granted, it had been a brief, bizarre conversation at the Ritz-Carlton but he would swear that the ditzy blonde drinking rusty nails was unattached. On the other hand she had offered him ten grand to have it off with Marla. Were they some kind of gender-bending psychopaths? That was an unpleasant concept.

  At breakfast Cole reported back to Moss. First and foremost, he said, Cosmo was totally on the level. The employment agency, the references, everything checked out. The boy looked bizarre but he got the job done. Moss should quit worrying about him.

  Moss looked up from his soft-boiled egg. “I still say there’s something off about the guy.”

  “I’ll stay on his tail, sir.”

  Cole had been parked outside Fine Feather, Inc., when Pippa phoned with the Duesenberg problem. To his regret Cole couldn’t assist: he’d be fired on the spot, and Moss was his priority. When Pippa hung up on him, he felt impaled. The ice in her voice wasn’t just about the car. Sighing, he returned his attention to the conversation transmitting through his earbuds. Reception inside Fine Feather headquarters was loud and clear.

  “Account 8020347-2,” he heard Moss say into the tiny microphone hidden in his lapel. “Bangkok General. You’ll have it tonight.”

  Cole entered the numbers in his BlackBerry. “Gotcha.”

  When Cole and Moss finally returned to Casa Bowes, the Duesenberg was parked with its smashed fender facing the wall of the garage. The Maserati was gone along with Cosmo, Leigh, and Kerry. Rudi was in the kitchen whipping through piles of old cookbooks. He looked like a smallpox boil about to explode. “Rudi says the ladies went for a joyride,” Cole reported to Moss. “May it be a long one.”

  While Moss settled into the Jacuzzi, Cole inspected the damage to the Duesenberg’s fender. He drove the car to the body shop, then called Cosmo’s cell. “Where are you?”

  “Delivering invitations to the masquerade ball.”

  That was the first Cole had heard of it. “Here?”

  “A week from now. Four hundred guests.”

  No wonder she sounded frazzled. “How can I help?”

  “Fix the car.”

  “Way ahead of you, Cosmo. I’m calling from the body shop. Tell me about the ball.”

  “Not now. We have six more invitations to deliver. Under no circumstances ask Rudi to make dinner.” She hung up.

  Cole got Thai food on his way back to Casa Bowes in a courtesy vehicle. He was serving Moss on the patio when the ladies finally returned. “Do you two have something against postage stamps?” Moss asked.

  Leigh dug into a carton of pad Thai. “You obviously know nothing about style.”

  “Nor do you, or you would have taken the Duesenberg instead of that wopmobile.”

  “My Maserati gets excellent mileage,” Pippa objected. “We’re on a strict budget, if you recall.” Mere mention of the word “budget” tied her stomach in knots: extra sous chefs, the refrigerated truck, bonuses for Kerry and Rudi, not to mention whelks and periwinkles, had already shot everything thirty-four grand overboard, and that was just day one. “Have a pleasant evening,” she said, leaving. “Be careful of the new windows, signora.”

  Cole caught up with Pippa as she was knocking, to no effect, on Kerry’s door. “Where’d she go? She was supposed to start polishing silver after driving the car back this afternoon.”

  “Maybe she ran away. It’s not an insignificant repair.”

  He stood only inches away. Overcoming a violent urge to close the gap, Pippa took a step backward. “When will it be fixed?”

  “I’ll pick it up at six tomorrow morning. Moss won’t see a thing. Don’t worry about the bill. I’m in charge of a small discretionary fund.”

  She went into her room and shut the door. Cole put his nose to the wood. “Cosmo? Did I say something wrong?”

  “I’m just tired,” came her weary voice. “Please leave me alone.”

  Cole went to the kitchen. Nearly beside himself, Rudi was still ripping pages out of cookbooks. He didn’t even notice Cole putting together a supper tray. Outside on the patio, Leigh and Moss were mired in another fracas. She hadn’t located Titian at any obedience school and Moss wasn’t about to reveal the dog’s location until his ribs healed. “You hired a hit man, you bastard!” she cried. “You never liked him!”

  “Why pay someone to wipe out a dog when I could just drown it?” Not the best reply.

  Cole smiled: Casa Bowes was paradise. He knocked on Pippa’s door. “I brought supper, Cosmo.” He waited. “Come on, be a sport.” He had to chew on his fists not to break down the door. “Are you sure you’re not mad at me?”

  “No. I mean yes.” Nevertheless she opened the door. “Come in.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t help this afternoon,” he said, sitting on the corner of her bed. “Moss has been running me ragged lately. I was up until five doing a security check for him.”

  Pippa slowly blinked: so he hadn’t been with a woman. Ten tons of mud lifted from her psyche. “I’m sorry I was so short with you.”

  “You have a lot on your mind. Here. Eat.” He handed her a plate of roasted peppers. “Smell that garlic. Yum yum.” When she only wrinkled her nose, he offered her a crock of pickles. “My favorite food group.”

  “So I notice.” She took the Waldorf salad instead. “May I ask you a personal question?” “Shoot.”

  “What are you doing here?” “In your room?” That was obvious, wasn’t it? “No, here at Casa Bowes. You seem overqualified to be a chauffeur.”

  He didn’t answer at once. “The pay’s good and the work’s easy. Plus I like Vegas.”

  “You seem the sort of man who prefers a more challenging job.”

  “Believe me, this one’s a challenge.” Especially now that you’ve arrived. “Why are you here? You’re obviously not a run-of-the-mill majordomo.”

  Pippa blushed. Her fingers flew to her lip, checking that the mustache was still on. “I know my uniform is strange.”

  “I love the uniform. I was referring to you. Personally.”

  After a brief internal debate, she decided not to add more lies to the pile between them. “Can you keep a secret? I’m interning. In a week, if all goes well, I’ll get a diploma from the Mountbatten-Savoy School of Household Management.”

  “Congratulations. Then what?”

  I can start repairing the damage I’ve done. “I can raise my rates.” That seemed to amuse him. “You think I’m kidding?” “Sorry, Cosmo, I didn’t realize you were that hard up.” “What about you? Do you plan to stay here?” “Maybe.”

  The silences were becoming long and dangerous. Get the damn diploma, Cosmo. Pippa slid off the bed. “Do you mind if I take a bath? It’s been a long day.”

  “Go right ahead.” As he lay in bed listening to the water swishing on the other side of the wall, imagining her without clothes and especially without a mustache, Cole composed the huge thank-you note he was going to send Lance Henderson someday.

  The next day, as Leigh fretted about her missing dog, Pippa engaged forty waiters with harlequin costumes. She got a deal on flowers from the very people Thayne had used for her nonnuptials. However, every gondola and festive tent in Nevada was spoken for. In the middle of another erotic dream involving Cole and a bearskin rug, Pippa had a brainstorm. First thing in the morning she called a number she h
ad sworn never to call again.

  “Henderson residence,” a familiar voice answered on the first ring. “This is Harry.”

  Pippa affected a French accent. “Alio. I am Cosmo du Piche, majordomo at Casa Bowes in Las Vegas. In ze near future we will bee having a party for four hundred guests. It has come to my attention zat you have recently purchased four tents representing ze four seasons plus bandstands, two gondolas, clouds, bocce equipment, fountains, and cages of birds. I would like to rent zem from you.”

  Harry was too stunned to reply. Following the wedding debacle, he had stashed all that junk at a remote ranch, where it would stay until Lance’s little sister got married off.

  “Five zouzand dollars.” Pippa waited a moment. “I do not see zat you need to inform anyone about zis private matter between majordo-mos. I am happy to send cash vizzin ze hour.”