School of Fortune

by Amanda Brown

  Pippa knew what was coming. Nonetheless she asked, “And in exchange?”

  “You will come to work at Castilio Damonia for one year. I will give you a staff of twenty.”

  “I’d rather sweep mines in Afghanistan.”

  “Six months and a staff of thirty.”

  “One month and a staff of fifty,” Pippa countered.

  “Three months and a staff of forty.”

  “Two weeks and a staff of sixty. That is my final offer. You will announce Signora’s membership tonight,” Pippa said. “At the ball.”

  “That’s impossible. The committee doesn’t meet until Monday.”

  “I’m sure you know how to make a conference call. Do we have a deal?”

  “Well—I—Cosmo, you are ruthless.” A staff of sixty! Dusi was speechless with admiration. “Yes, it’s a deal.”

  They shook hands. “How is Madam Walker today?” Pippa asked.

  “In seventh heaven. She received a little stuffed bird with a mash note. It must be a practical joke of some sort. Who in their right mind would fly to her?”

  “I sent her the bird. And the note. I find her gloriously attractive.”

  Dusi looked as if she had just been whacked in the face with a dust-mop. “You!”

  “Please don’t tell her.” Pippa knew perfectly well that hell would freeze over before Dusi did that. “I prefer to worship her from a distance.”

  “Well! Aren’t you full of surprises.” Shaken to the core, Dusi retreated. “I’ll see you tonight, Cosmo. Remember that I will be Aphrodite, goddess of spring.”

  “I thought Persephone was goddess of spring.”

  Pippa slammed the Bolivian rosewood doors. She took a deep breath then turned apprehensively to face the foyer. Unfortunately Leigh’s wilding had not been a dream: Casa Bowes looked as if Mitzi and Bobo the elephants had just trampled through. The damage easily ran into the millions. As Pippa was considering a remedial dose of arson, Kerry roared in. “Mo, get to the kitchen. It’s really bad.”

  One of the sous chefs, covered with blood, was chasing another sous chef, also covered with blood, around the island. Everyone had knives and everyone seemed to be bandaged and screaming except Rudi, who was focused on stuffing three hundred ptarmigan with a date and a filbert. “What happened?” Pippa cried.

  “He was trying to dig something out of the disposal and the other guy threw the switch.” Kerry winced as a rack of stuffed courgette blossoms crashed to the floor. “This is not good.”

  “Let’s tackle the first guy.”

  “Are you nuts? He’ll decapitate us. They’re like wild dogs.” Dogs! Hey! “I have something for that.”

  Pippa dashed to her room for the MatchMace. She tested the white button: an arc of flame shot over her bed. Obviously the black button was the Mace. She dashed back to the kitchen and blasted each of the combatants in the face: chase over.

  Outside, Cole screeched the Mercedes to a halt inches behind the Painless Panes truck. He bolted up the steps. The rubble in the foyer took his breath away. He followed the screams to the kitchen, where a couple of sous chefs were rolling around the floor, hands to their faces. Two other sous chefs were wrestling over something in the sink. Rudi was sweeping up a pile of stuffed squash blossoms, talking to himself. Pippa stood immobile as the Statue of Liberty in their midst.

  Cole hustled her to the patio. “You weren’t kidding, Cosmo. This place is out of control.” He rolled up his sleeves. “Let’s get to work.”

  Pippa would remember only one thing about the next hours: Cole was there. He not only got Casa Bowes swept up, a miracle in itself, but managed to get Antiquites de Napoleon to lend him nearly everything in their showroom. He replaced all five sous chefs and rescued about half the diamond necklace from the disposal. He took all deliveries. When Leigh and Dr. Zeppelin returned from Vita di Lago, he stashed them in an upstairs closet and told them to emerge at eight o’clock, ready to party. All smashed windowpanes were repaired. Rudi began cranking food out of the kitchen. The orchestra, the tigers on leashes, and the barbecue from Dr. Hogly Wogly arrived. The sun went down. Candles were lit.

  At ten before eight, Cole sagged onto a sofa. He smiled at Pippa, who had collapsed there moments before. “Want to flip a coin for the bathroom, Cosmo?”

  “You can go first,” she said.

  “I don’t know. You look like you need a serious bath.”

  “I need a serious drink.”

  “Later. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  No kidding. Thayne had yet to see the tents. “Where’s Moss?”

  “He’ll show up at the stroke of eight.” This was not the time to reveal that, having received an emerald necklace with a love note for Moss’s wife, Bing Bing had driven to Fine Feather and caused a lot of faux fur to fly. “Tell you what. You stay here and rest. I’ll change.”

  Pippa shut her eyes. As long as Cole was in the house, she felt safe. She had never felt that with Lance or Andre. Maybe she should ask for his help in keeping Thayne out of the tents. Short of tying her mother up, Pippa had no |idea how to keep her from wandering into the backyard.

  Some time later, warm breath grazed her ear. “Your turn,” a voice whispered.

  Cole was leaning over her. Freshly shaven. He wore a handmade tux. He looked stupendous. “I must have dozed off,” she said. “That was the point, Cosmo.”

  Pippa showered and changed into a fresh uniform. She added a few extra drops of glue to the tips of her mustache. She cleaned her eyeglasses and opened a small red box that had materialized on her dresser. From Cartier with a note: “Have a ball tonight.” Presuming she had been the third beneficiary of Moss’s guilt complex, Pippa removed the diamond pin that spelled COSMO from its velvety perch. It fit perfectly on her collar. Feeling a little reckless, she daubed her neck with Thayne perfume. Before returning to the ballrooms she slipped MatchMace into her pocket in case that Asian assassin returned.

  “Nice,” Cole said. That was the understatement of the year. “New cologne?”

  “I just have a few drops left. It’s for special occasions.”

  “We’re going to have a great party, Cosmo. If this doesn’t earn you a diploma, nothing will.” For some reason that made her shudder. “Let’s do one last cross-check before the deluge.”

  Pippa almost took his arm as they promenaded through Casa Bowes. “How do you know so much about parties?”

  “I observed my mother in action, same as everyone else.”

  Vintage Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, Hudsons, Packards, and Morgans began arriving at the stroke of eight. Casa Bowes filled with women dressed as cougars, pintos, falcons, impalas, and jaguars. Their men had almost all dressed as chauffeurs, albeit with heavy doses of sequins and paisley. A few wore goggles. Bonhomie bobbed on rivers of Champagne. Pippa found Leigh circulating in the tent with her therapist. She would remain there all evening; Moss would remain inside the house. Under no circumstances were they to get within two hundred feet of each other.

  “Signora, you look spectacular,” Pippa said. She really did. Leigh’s headdress of ostrich plumes towered three feet above the horde. Thousands of yellow, white, and black feathers shingled her outstanding curves. Only on close inspection did one notice her eyes were red.

  “Another bauble from your mistress?” Leigh asked, noticing the pin. “You must be one hell of a stud, Cosmo.”

  Pippa squeezed her hand. “This will be a triumphant night.”

  Leigh floated away with Zeppelin and a glass of Champagne. Whatever sedative he had given her was working perfectly, so Pippa went to Leigh’s bedroom and slipped four pills into her pocket. She slogged through the Lurex to the Bolivian rosewood doors, where Moss was glaring at people as they invaded his house. He looked like an undertaker in black livery with solid gold buttons. Pippa noticed two parallel scratches on his cheek and teeth marks on his earlobe. “How are you managing, Signor Bowes?”

  “No comment.”

  “Thank you very much
for the pin.”

  “I can do without your sarcasm.” He shook a woman’s hand so tightly that she winced. “Delighted to see you.” Ditto the husband, who also received a shove inside. “Look at these doors,” Moss snarled once they had passed. “They look like they were in a bullfight.”

  Pippa had to admit that Leigh had done significant damage with her ladle. “Signora was very upset.”

  “Hello,” Moss said, crunching another woman’s hand. He shoved the husband inside. “All these chauffeurs are giving me the creeps.”

  “Pay attention, signor. You have to give one of them a prize for best costume.”

  “Oh, God. Look who’s here. The bride of Frankenstein.”

  Dusi’s face and upper body were covered in green/gold paint. Her breasts, crammed into a golden bustier, looked like a pair of tarnished Lombardi Trophies. She wore gold harem pants. A green organza robe hovered over everything like smog over Mexico City. Her jewelry, a flock of hand-hammered gold butterflies, was more plague than adornment. In her waist-length wig were silk flowers and a tiara that redefined the term “fender.”

  Moss took Dusi’s green-gloved hand. “What a vision.”

  “Ouch!”

  Moss crushed Harlan’s hand next. “Where do you chauffeur? Star Trek?”

  “Harlan is wearing the uniform of the Swiss Guard,” Dusi divulged. “Pope John Paul the Second personally blessed this entire outfit.”

  “I don’t care who blessed it. He looks like a wind sock.”

  “Your costume is divine, Madam Damon,” Pippa bowed.

  “Thank you, Cosmo. Your opinion means something to me.”

  “Signor Bowes,” Pippa whispered after they had swept inside. “Please restrain yourself. I have made a deal with Madam Damon but she could still change her mind.”

  Moss’s eyes were riveted on a cumulus of white silk, lace, crinoline, and satin inching up the steps of Casa Bowes. Marie Antoinette couldn’t have proceeded to her own coronation with more hauteur than did Thayne Walker, whose three-foot-high wig, white-powdered face, diamonds, brooch, and earrings were already causing jaws to drop. Pippa’s stuffed bird perched in her wig like a cherry in a yard-high mound of whipped cream.

  “Good evening, madam,” Pippa said, bursting with pride. “You look radiant.”

  Ignoring her, Thayne sniffed the air. Someone’s perfume smelled awfully familiar. No females in the area: perhaps her own hair spray was inducing an olfactory hallucination. Thayne offered the host her hand. “Good evening, Moss.”

  For once he didn’t squeeze any fingers to a pulp. He simply gazed, awestruck, at the bird in Thayne’s wig. “That’s a Venezuelan black-hooded red siskin. Carduelis cucullata. I never thought I’d live to see one.” He kissed Thayne’s hand. “May I touch it?”

  Thayne rolled her eyes. “I wear rocks worth two million and all he notices is the bird in my hair,” she sighed in mock despair to the couple standing behind her.

  “That ‘bird’ is worth twice your rocks, my dear. Less than five have been sighted in the last half century.”

  Color rushed to Thayne’s floured cheeks as the crowd forming around her murmured in excitement. She had almost tossed Pippa’s gift into the trash this morning. At the last moment she had decided to stick it in her wig so as not to look too pale next to Dusi. “I am well aware of its rarity, sir.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “You ask such a question before even offering me a glass of Champagne? Ruffian.”

  Pippa took a flute of Roederer from a serving tray and slipped four tiny pills into the bubbly. She didn’t know where this siskin business was going but she wanted to make sure Thayne didn’t focus too squarely on Rosimund’s tents and gondolas: those fragile high spirits might come crashing down for good. “Champagne, Madam Walker?” Forgive me, Mama.

  “Black-hooded red siskin,” Thayne repeated, swallowing everything. “Is there such a thing as a red-hooded black siskin, Moss?” “No. There isn’t.”

  Frowning, disappointed in God Almighty’s lack of creativity, Thayne lifted a second glass of Champagne off a passing tray. “I do hate singletons.”

  “Come to my library. I’ll show you the definitive canary encyclopedia. Take over the welcome wagon, Cosmo.” Folding Thayne’s arm over his, Moss led his prize away.

  “What car is that woman’s costume?” the next woman inside asked.

  “A Grand Marquis, I believe.” Relieved that Thayne and Moss would be out of circulation for a while, Pippa remained at the door greeting flocks of incoming guests. Cole cruised by every fifteen minutes. Pippa invariably asked him if he had seen Moss and Madam Walker emerge from the library. The answer was always no.

  “Things are heating up in the tent,” he eventually reported. “Dusi’s dancing.”

  “Where’s Signora Bowes?”

  “Sitting in the fountain. Thinks she’s Donald Duck.” Pippa was aghast. “What’s her therapist doing about it?” “Sitting next to her. Quacking. Love your pin. From the old hump again?”

  “None of your business. Could you please find Kerry? She can greet for a while.”

  Kerry was never located, not even in the bowling alley with the bodyguards. At quarter to twelve, desperate, Pippa planted a harlequin at the front door. “Don’t let in any Asian women with guns, okay?”

  Leigh was indeed sitting in about four inches of water, playing patty-cake with Dr. Zeppelin. “Signora,” Pippa whispered, wading over. “Get up. We’re about to make the Frequent Bentley presentation.”

  “I think Leigh should stay where she’s happy,” her therapist said.

  Fine. Pippa went into the tent. Guests were fressing pressed beef, oysters, lobsters, jugged hare, puddings, melons, and steamed vegetables as if their jaws had been wired shut for months. Dusi, drunk, trailing chiffon, was prancing about the dance floor, foisting herself on any male she could pick off from the herd. Her green makeup had rubbed off in spots, rendering her a scrofulous pastiche of Salome and Norma Desmond. Harlan, not surprisingly, had abandoned ship.

  “I’m Parsippany, goddess of spring,” she cried, unlacing her bodice another inch, dragging another chauffeur onto the parquet. “Dance with me!”

  To pass the time onlookers had placed bets regarding when Dusi would have a wardrobe malfunction, with which breast. Pippa knocked on the library door. “Signor Bowes, it’s time for the presentation.”

  Cole appeared. “Should I start moving everyone to the grandstand?”

  “It’s very quiet in there. I’m worried.”

  Her perfume was driving him crazy. He fought another roaring urge to peel Pippa’s mustache off with his teeth. “They’re probably making out on the couch,” he suggested.

  “That’s ridiculous! I’m going in.”

  Pippa flung open the doors. Moss lay on the floor, groaning. He looked as if he had been attacked by a dozen vultures and a baseball bat. Thayne lay on the leather couch, asleep.

  Cole spoke into his collar. “He’s down. In the library.”

  Dusi bustled in. Her rigorous dancing had not done wonders for her complexion. “Cosmo, it’s five of twelve. I want my presentation to be at the stroke of midn—” She stared at Moss, then unleashed a shriek audible in three time zones.

  Moving fast as a cat, Cole clamped a hand over her mouth. Dusi elbowed him in the stomach until, out of patience, he karate-chopped her neck. She went down like a mud slide. “That’s better.” He dragged her to an empty chair.

  Meanwhile Pippa tried to roust Thayne, without success. She detected a weak pulse beneath many layers of silk and lace. “She’s been drugged.” When Cole just stood there looking dubious, she added, “I did it.”

  He put two fingers on her neck. “She’ll be fine.”

  “Call the damn ambulance,” Pippa screeched.

  Leigh and Dr. Zeppelin, dripping wet, made their entrance. Leigh vaguely recognized the cabochon ruby parure but Thayne’s wig befuddled her. “Is that Bing Bing?” She took a few menacing ste
ps forward.

  “Stay away! It’s Madam Walker!”

  Presuming that anyone with such a chalky complexion must be dead, Leigh swooned. Dr. Zeppelin, a hand covering his mouth, ran out.

  As Cole was propping Leigh in the last available chair, a harlequin strode in. She whipped off her mask and knelt over Moss. Pippa recoiled, recognizing the redhead she had seen hopping into Cole’s limo the other day. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “Special Agent Ballard,” Cole replied for her. “FBI.”

  The woman removed a tiny memory card taped to Moss’s foot. “Who did this?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Is he going to make it?” Pippa cried. “He’d better.”

  The library became very quiet after the woman left. “What’s going on?” Pippa said in a dull voice.

  Cole took a deep breath. “I work undercover for the FBI. We’ve been investigating Moss for months. Trafficking in endangered species. Money laundering. I’m just the valet, okay?”

  Two cops came in with an emergency medical unit: Pippa had learned from Thayne to always have an ambulance handy for parties over fifty. “They’re all okay,” Cole said, referring to the trio of inert females. “He’s not.”

  Moss left on a stretcher. “What happened?” a cop asked.

  “We don’t know yet.” Cole introduced himself as the valet. “His name is Moss Bowes.”

  “He’s the chauffeur here?”

  “No, he owns the place. All the male guests are dressed as chauffeurs tonight,” Pippa said.

  “Who are these three ...” Call girls? Two of them were way over the hill.

  “That is Signora Bowes, Moss’s wife. That is Dusi Damon. That is Thayne Walker. Friends of the family. They are unhurt.” “And you would be?” Girl, guy, what? “Cosmo du Piche, majordomo at Casa Bowes.” “Any drugs involved here?”

  “Only alcohol,” Cole quickly said. “Cosmo and I found Bowes lying on the floor. Madam Walker was asleep on the couch. The other two came in and fainted.”

  “That’s a lot of fainting.”

  Leigh revived and saw two men in uniform. Thinking they were bodyguards, she said, “Beer’s in the bowling alley, guys.”