“I believe you, Frank. That’s why I told you. I had to tell somebody. Had to get it off my chest. I knew you’d never tell another living soul. Because you’re loyal. Loyalty is your middle name. Frank Loyalty Stokes, who’s never cheated on his wife.”
“Now, don’t be sarcastic, Noah. I meant it. I am loyal.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean it to sound that way. You are loyal. But me, I’m a full-fledged, licensed, card-carrying bastard. Of the first order. So let’s drink to that.”
“Listen, Noah, the first thing you’ve got to do is get yourself out of this mess. I mean, I’m sure she’s a nice little piece of ass. She’s a cute little trick. Nice tits, nice bod, but—”
“Please don’t talk about her that way, Frank.”
“But you gotta get yourself out of this mess, Noah. I mean, she’s a minor, and—”
“What if I don’t want to get out of it?” he says.
Frank stares at him. “You mean—?”
“What if I’m in love with her, Frank? What do I do about that? What if I’m thinking about chucking Carol, my job, my career with this company, my whole life and family, and just—”
“Jesus H. Christ, Noah. That’s crazy talk! You don’t mean that.”
“Shit, I don’t know what I mean,” he says. “I don’t know what I think. I don’t know what I feel. If I’m in love with her, that means I’m also a crazy bastard on top of everything else, doesn’t it? The only thing I know is I’m piss-assed drunk.”
“I’m really worried about this, Noah,” Frank says earnestly. “I’m really worried hearing you talk like this. It worries me seeing you like this. In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you like this before, letting something get to you like this. It scares me, Noah.”
“Scares you. It scares me, too. But I’m glad, Frank.”
“Glad about what?”
“Glad I told you, Frank. I’m drunk, but I’m glad I told you, anyway. I’m glad you’re my best friend. It’s good to have somebody to talk it over with. Especially you, Frank. You don’t seem to be blaming me. Not particularly, anyway, and I’m glad of that, Frank. I’m grateful for that. Your loyalty.”
“No, I don’t blame you, old buddy,” Frank says.
“Thanks. Let’s drink to that. One more.” He rattles the ice cubes in his empty glass.
But Frank does not stir from his chair. “She sure must be some hot little piece of ass, this girl,” he whispers.
“Don’t—” he begins. Then he says wearily, “Don’t let’s talk about this anymore. Let’s just drink. Okay?”
But still Frank does not move. “And I thought I had problems,” he says at last. “But jeez, you’re in even a worse mess than I am, Noah. You’re in a helluva worse mess.” He strikes his forehead with the heel of his palm. “Oh, jeez, jeez, why’d I mention Estelle to Beryl?” His head inclines slightly to one side, and the tears stream freely from his eyes.
When he enters the bedroom, she is standing by the window, looking out. The curtains are parted, and the throbbing lights from the neon sign outside illuminate her profile in alternating colors: white, yellow, blue. “I heard what you said,” she says without turning to look at him. “I didn’t hear it all, but I heard most of it, and I didn’t stand with my ear to the keyhole, either. It’s true. A maid came into the room the other day while I was typing your script, even though the Don’t Disturb sign was on the door. And I do sing in the shower.”
He stares at her across the darkened room.
“You told him about us. You didn’t have to. You promised not to. You broke your promise. You promised not to tell another living soul until you and I had figured out what we were going to do. You said it was to be our secret. Well, it’s not our secret anymore.” She sighs. “I’m disappointed with you, Noah.”
“Jesus, Melody—I had to tell somebody. Frank’s my—”
“Your best friend. Yes, I heard that. Then what am I? I heard you say, ‘What if I’m in love with her?’ That’s not quite the same as saying you’re in love with me, is it? It’s just ‘What if?’ I know what you’re doing, Noah. You’re looking for an escape hatch—a way out of this. I heard what you called this. You called it a mess.”
“He said that, Melody!”
“But I didn’t hear you disagree! I don’t want a mess. I didn’t come here to make a mess.”
“What do you want, Melody?”
“I want a man I can love and believe in and respect—the kind of man I thought you were, Noah.”
“I’m sorry, Melody—”
“You’re sorry? I’m much sorrier than you are, Noah. That’s how much you’ve let me down. I’m leaving tomorrow, Noah.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere. I’ll find somewhere to go. I obviously can’t go back to River House.”
“But Carol and I are supposed to be—”
“In charge of me?” She laughs harshly. “Nobody’s in charge of me! I’m in charge of myself and always have been.”
“Let me give you some money.”
She laughs again. “Buy me off? I don’t want your money. I have plenty of money—as much as I need.”
“But you can’t just—go. Not like this.”
“Don’t tell me what I can do and can’t do. I want to stay and hear your presentation tomorrow. After all, it’s as much mine now as it is yours. I’ll sit somewhere in the lobby near the ballroom, where I can hear it. After it’s over, I’ll go.”
“Melody, please. I think—I think I am in love with you.”
“That’s not enough! If you love me, you’re going to have to prove it in some important way. Until you do, I’m leaving.”
“I’ll try … I’ll try …”
“Then try! Try now.” Her tone now is imperious.
“Too drunk,” he says. “Can’t think. But just don’t go, Mellie. What if—”
“What if something awful happens to me? Then it will be your fault, won’t it? You’ll have to bear the guilt for whatever happens to me, won’t you?” She shrugs. “It’ll be your mess, not mine.”
“Jesus, Melody, don’t talk like that. Melody, just tell me what you want me to do!”
She turns and looks straight at him for the first time, the colored lights alternating across her face. “Do?” she says. “I’ll tell you exactly what I want you to do. I want you to go home tomorrow night and tell Carol you don’t love her. I want you to tell her that you never loved her. I want you to tell her that you love me, that I’ve done things for you in four days that she’s never done for you in twenty years of marriage. I want you to tell her that you want a divorce, and that you want to marry me!”
With a sob he flings himself across the king-size bed. “Oh, Jesus, Mellie,” he says. “I just can’t … I just can’t do that.…”
“Then you’re not the man I thought you were,” she says.
“Jesus … Jesus … piss-assed drunk,” he says.
“Come back to me when you’ve had time to grow up!” she says.
In the apartment at River House, the telephone is ringing, and Carol answers it somewhat distractedly. The telephone has been ringing steadily all evening. Her mother-in-law, who in telephone calls always dispenses with such formalities as salutations and farewells, begins speaking immediately in her distinctive voice with its double-syllable vowel sounds. It is a voice, Hannah Liebling assumes, that anyone who even remotely knows her will instantly recognize, and so she never troubles to identify herself. “I know it’s late to be calling you, Carol,” she says. “But I’ve been thinking all evening about our conversation this afternoon. About the Met. Do you really think that if you could get the Van Degans to give them their collection, the Met would really put you on their board? Would that really be enough to do it? Because that would really be a wonderful honor for us, Carol, for this family and this company. Nobody’s ever honored me like that. The biggest honor I ever got was having a hybrid white dahlia named after me by the
Garden Clubs of America, and my husband never got any honors at all. When he introduced Ingraham’s Majestic Bourbon, he sent a case of the stuff to King George the Sixth, but we never heard boo from Buckingham Palace. The best thing we ever got was to get an ex-king and his snooty duchess to come to dinner at Grandmont. Oh, he got that honorary doctor of science degree from that college, but that was because he gave them a new hockey rink. But from a p.r. standpoint, Carol, this would do wonders for us—Mrs. Noah Liebling on the board of trustees of the Metropolitan Museum. The prestige. The publicity. That’s the kind of image we’ve always been after, and you just can’t buy that sort of thing. But my question to you is, can you really pull it off? Can you guarantee this, Carol? If you can, it would be worth buying bottles from those anti-Semites, even if their bid is on the high side. After all, bottles are bottles, and we have to buy them somewhere.”
“Nana, I really can’t talk now,” Carol says. “Something terrible has happened.”
“What? What’s happened?”
“The apartment’s been burglarized.”
There is a long silence. Then Hannah says, “The Sachs family silver. It’s gone, of course. It belonged to my great-grandmother. By now it’ll be all melted down.”
“No, the silver wasn’t taken. In fact—”
“Have you counted it?”
“Yes, yes. The fact is—”
“Have you called the police?”
“No, because the fact is that nothing really seems to be missing. I’ve called the building’s security, of course. But the last thing this building wants to have is police cars lined up outside. And since nothing was taken—”
“Have you called Noah?”
“No. I don’t want to worry him with this, Nana. He’s got that big presentation tomorrow—remember?”
“Oh, that.”
Oh, that. Again.
“And since nothing was really taken—that’s the weird part. But the mess, Nana! You won’t believe the incredible mess they made. Dresser drawers emptied out on the floor. Closets dumped. Beds pulled apart. My jewelry scattered all over my dressing table, but nothing missing, not even the ruby lavallière you gave me. Nobody can figure out what they were after. In fact, the only thing that seems to be missing from my desk is my address book.”
“How did they get in?”
“Nobody can figure that out, either. The front door was locked on the chain. The service entrance was locked. Nobody came up to this floor today who didn’t belong here. There’s no sign of a break-in. That’s what’s so weird about it. There’s nothing except this awful, unbelievable mess everywhere.”
“It’s obviously an inside job,” Hannah says. “It’s that maid of yours. That Mary.”
“But, Nana, Mary’s been with me for seventeen years!”
“But they all have boyfriends, those people. The boyfriends are all on cocaine. They’ll do anything for their boyfriends—anything their boyfriends ask them to.”
“But Mary’s happily married. Her husband works for the post office.”
“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a boyfriend. They all do, and they’re all on cocaine. This is New York City—remember? It was definitely Mary.”
“The building wants to question both Edna and Mary tomorrow, but I’m not going to let them. After all, Mary’s been with me for seventeen years, and Edna for twelve.”
“Oh, it wouldn’t be Edna. She’s white.”
“But why would somebody like Mary ransack my apartment to steal my address book? She knows where I keep it. If she wanted an address, she’d either ask me for it or just copy it out of my book.”
“Well, I guess you have a point,” Hannah says begrudgingly.
“Anyway, the security staff at River House isn’t very happy with me at this point. One of them even went so far as to suggest that I’d made this godawful mess myself, as part of some sort of insurance scam. Can you imagine that?”
“Dreadful! If nothing was taken, where’s the scam?”
“Anyway, I’ve got to get this mess cleaned up before Noah comes home tomorrow night. I don’t even want Edna or Mary to walk in and see this place looking like this tomorrow morning.”
“Is Anne there to help you?”
“No, she left to spend the weekend with a friend—thank God! She’d be no help. I know where everything belongs, and she doesn’t.”
“Well, I guess you’ve got your work cut out for you, Carol.”
“I’ll call you about the other business tomorrow. I’m working on a little plan. But meanwhile this burglary thing has just been so strange—and scary. I suppose I can’t really call it a burglary, since nothing was taken. It’s more like some terrible invasion … like vandalism … like my home has been raped. If you could just see this place, Nana …” She continues like this for a moment or two longer before she realizes the line is dead. Hannah, as is her custom, has hung up. The conversation is over.
In the bedroom, she decides to tackle Noah’s closet first. His suits, shirts, neckties, and belts have all been thrown in a heap on the closet floor. She picks up the articles one by one, replacing them on their wooden hangers in the order in which her tidy husband likes to keep them: business suits on one rack, sports jackets and slacks on another, business shirts on a lower shelf, sports shirts on the one above. Carefully, she tries to smooth out any wrinkles. Perhaps, she thinks, I won’t even mention this awful invasion to Noah at all. It would only upset him. She lines up his suits on their racks according to color: dark blues, dark browns, lighter browns, grays.… It is an oddly satisfying work, creating order out of chaos. Performing this wifely chore, restoring her husband’s closet to its original symmetry, is indeed a labor of love, and she finds herself falling in love with him all over again. She lifts his familiar things tenderly, one by one.
Now, toward the bottom of the pile, she comes upon a pale blue lacy garment that at first seems totally unfamiliar, a piece of lingerie. Lifting it, she sees it is a woman’s nightie. She turns the label: Victoria’s Secret. Now she remembers seeing Melody wearing this. As she lifts the nightie, out from its folds falls a pair of women’s panties. She kneels to pick these up. These are neither hers nor Anne’s, and once more she inspects the label: Victoria’s Secret again. Kneeling there on the floor and turning these in her hands, she sees that they are stained with what appears to be fresh blood.
The doorbell rings with such unexpected stridency that she freezes with fear. The intruder has returned. She jumps to her feet and nearly falls forward into Noah’s closet. It is after eleven o’clock, too late for any ordinary caller, and why wasn’t the visitor announced from the lobby downstairs? For several moments she is too terrified to move.
But then, she thinks, it is probably just the building’s security people again, with more questions, or more theories.
She drops the objects in her hands and goes to the door. Making sure it is on the chain, she opens the door a crack and peers out.
But she sees that it is just Mr. Nelson, Hannah Liebling’s chauffeur, in his full daytime livery.
He tips his cap. “Mrs. Liebling thought you might be nervous, staying alone in your apartment tonight, after what happened,” he says. “She thought you might like to borrow this.”
Through the opening in the doorway, he passes her Hannah Liebling’s Smith & Wesson .38-caliber automatic pistol with its bone handle. He offers it to her politely, with a little bow, handle first.
“Please be very careful with this, Mrs. Liebling,” he says as she stares at the gun in her hand. “It’s fully loaded. And if you need to use it, it’s safest to fire from a crouched position.”
16
Morning
William Luckman is enjoying a hearty breakfast at the Yale Club, slathering butter on one of the club’s famous blueberry muffins, and rereading the letter that was in his box this morning. “My precious darling,” it begins. “You asked me to write you a letter …”
I miss you desperately, my darling. I
miss everything about you—your handsome face, your beautiful body, your rippling pectorals, our hours of lovemaking. Never in my life have I felt so completely dominated by a lover! So completely overcome and overpowered by a man. I never thought it was possible to have multiple orgasms, but you’ve opened up the true, basic woman in me. It is so different from poor Frank, who has never really been able to “turn me on.” I’m still amazed that you remember me from the eighth grade, when you were still a bright, sweet-faced, rosy-cheeked kid, but already with such palpable promise.…
Bullshit, he thinks. The fact is, I don’t remember you at all.
Since you left, I have been having the wildest thoughts about you, darling. I have been thinking of what it would be like if you and I were to run away together, to some secret place, where the two of us could spend hours and hours, days and nights, just making uninhibited love. I’m quite serious, my love. I feel nothing for Frank anymore, and would gladly leave him and run off with you, if you would just give me the tiniest of “green lights.” …
Fat chance. Haggard old bitch.
After you left, I had a long talk with Frank in A.C., and I finally “laid down the law” to him. Now I think he knows exactly where I stand. But before that I found out a little more about “the situation” down there.…
Now she’s getting to the good part, he thinks.
It seems that Noah L. has been acting most peculiarly down there! It seems that there’s a “Do Not Disturb” sign hung on his door most of the time, and he hasn’t been “socializing” with the other men the way he usually does. And then—this cinches it for us, darling—Frank said one of the hotel maids told him Noah had a girl in there—young, with long dark hair. Frank says the maid is just trying to be a troublemaker, but we know who that girt is, don’t we, darling? It’s got to be Melody Richards, since we know she’s not in New Haven, where she said she was going to be. Just to make sure, I phoned the Shubert Theatre, and you’re right. There’s nothing playing there, and won’t be until March. Why would she lie unless she was going to A.C. to “shack up” with Noah Liebling?
The Wrong Kind of Money Page 36
