Latte Trouble

by Cleo Coyle

  She stared, clucking at the array of fine clothing hanging there, then shook her head. “No, no, no…these clothes just won’t do.”

  Madame moved deeper into the closet, to an ornate armoire made of dark teakwood. When she opened its doors, my eyes widened. The armoire was packed with vintage clothing sealed in clear plastic—a fabulous array of textures, a cascading rainbow of colors. An Oleg Cassini evening dress in shell pink, silk-georgette chiffon beside a Givenchy dress and jacket in deep-pink wool bouclé. An elegant two-piece linen suit in blazing red, a la Chez Ninon. A pale blue Herbert Sondheim sundress. Black cigarette pants with matching black-and-white striped jacket. Pillbox hats. Capri pants. A-line skirts. And there were vintage accessories, too. A Gucci hobo bag. Real crocodile shoes. Belts. Handbags. Gloves. Jewelry. Even several pairs of oversized tortoise-shell sunglasses.

  “When I was your age, these were the clothes I wore,” Madame said with a note of pride, as she pulled out piece after piece.

  “They’re…marvelous. Simply spectacular. These clothes are thirty years old, yet they seem so contemporary.”

  “More like forty years old, my dear. But it does not matter one whit. Elegance is timeless.”

  “And your taste is impeccable. I like this black number….”

  “The crepe minidress with the pleated hem ruffle? It’s Mary Quant. A lovely dress, but all wrong for this occasion. You must wear light colors to blend in with the rich and powerful….”

  “Light colors?”

  “If for no other reason than to demonstrate to the world that you can afford the dry cleaning bills.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “That’s the rich. Ah, let’s try this Christian Dior skirt and jacket, perhaps with this white cashmere sweater. Or would this Andre Courreges A-line shift dress be more appropriate? No, no, the hemline is much too short….”

  I soon realized that much of Madame’s wardrobe mimicked the style of a highly public figure of that era, a woman known for her impeccable taste in fashion—an arguably effortless feat with all the top-tier designers of her day scrambling to dress her. Well, who could fault Madame for that? After all, what woman of Madame’s generation didn’t try to dress like Jackie O?

  We decided on a Coco Chanel wool suit in a creamy beige—jacket, skirt, and coordinating blouse. The fit was pretty good. The overall ensemble elegant and flattering. Unfortunately, at five-two, the skirt’s hemline hung too far below my knees, but Madame called in her maid and the two women were soon fussing and pinning and promising to have the hemline lifted up for the event.

  “When that suit was new, I would wear it with a pair of high-heeled pumps and this hat,” said Madame, holding up the hat.

  Uh-oh, I thought, seeing the signature Jackie pillbox with the lacy veil. I think we’re going a little too far on the time warp. “I’ll lose the hat and go with calf-high boots,” I told her gently. “It’s a more contemporary look.”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” She tapped her chin. “I suppose the white gloves are out too?”

  I smiled indulgently and nodded. Then I gazed at my reflection in the floor-length mirror, amazed at the transformation. Even without the hat, I looked like a different woman—elegant, ageless, timelessly fashionable. I also appeared affluent, wildly so. In these clothes, even my personal style changed from practical to poised. I stood straighter, my movements seemed graceful. I felt nearly as confident as I looked. But there was one problem—my head. My face and hair still gave away my identity.

  “Try this.” Madame handed me a hat box containing a shoulder-length, straight-styled natural hair wig in a color at least three shades darker than my own natural chestnut brown. The wig, and a pair of oversized Oleg Cassini tinted glasses, completed the ensemble.

  We fumbled with my hair for a good ten minutes before we got it bundled tightly enough to place the wig on my head, but with the addition of the dark hair and bangs and the glasses, the illusion was complete.

  “My god!” I cried. “I…I look just like…”

  Madame smiled, patted my hand. “I know, dear.”

  THIRTEEN

  AS I followed Madame out of the cab in front of Pier 18, Matteo was waiting on the sidewalk. He spied his mother, then did a double-take.

  “It’s Jackie O!” he cried.

  “We’re calling her Margot Gray, this evening,” Madame whispered. “You remember Margot and her husband Rexler, from Scarsdale? We saw a lot of them when you were a teenager.”

  Matteo grinned. “I remember their daughter much better.”

  “You are incorrigible,” his mother replied. She took her son’s arm. As darkly handsome as ever, he had abandoned the black Armani tonight for a more approachable look—a cream V-neck sweater outlined his athletic, broad-shouldered torso beneath a caramel-colored camel-hair jacket and chocolate brown pants.

  “Son, tell me about this business venture of yours. Margot has been quite evasive about the subject.”

  Matt’s uneasy gaze attempted to find mine through the oversized tinted tortoiseshell glasses.

  “I haven’t been evasive,” I protested. “I haven’t said a word.”

  “I was hoping you’d be surprised by my presentation, mother,” he said smoothly, “pleasantly surprised.” He glanced at his watch. “Maybe we’d better get to the dock. We wouldn’t want the boat to leave without us.”

  We moved through a sheltered space to the dock area where signs directed us to Tad Benedict’s seminar. At the gangplank, a table was set up to greet potential investors. A blond woman in a Fen pantsuit and one of Lottie Harmon’s coffee swirl brooches on her jacket lapel took our invitations and wrote down our names and addresses.

  “Margot Gray of Scarsdale,” I said in a nasal drone that I thought sounded suitably snobbish. The woman wrote down my name and fictitious address, then handed me a spiral bound prospectus. On the cover were the words “TB Investments.” Perched on the lettering was a spot of art that looked like a butterfly—or was it a moth?

  “Welcome aboard the Fortune,” Clipboard Lady said in a faux-friendly tone. “When you go up the gangplank, make a right. In the main ballroom cocktails are being served.”

  The Fortune was a dazzlingly white seventy-five-foot pleasure yacht transformed into a Hudson River sightseeing and party boat. The entire superstructure below the boxy pilot house was glass-enclosed, offering a panoramic view of the New York skyline. From the deck, the view was impressive. The sun had already set, and the lights of midtown Manhattan reached into the clear evening sky. I’d had to push my dark glasses down to the tip of my nose just to make it out.

  The grandly named main ballroom was basically a carpeted space approximately the size of a two-car garage—a crowd circled a table of hors d’oeuvres and a well-stocked bar, where a young bartender deftly mixed adult beverages to order. I asked the man for a Long Island iced tea (for courage), which I sipped judiciously as I moved among the group.

  The forty or so people were mostly in their fifties and sixties and mostly paired up. Many of the older men were displaying, on their arms, young, blond trophy wives (Tom Wolfe’s “Lemon Tarts”); a good many older women were chatting in small clusters; and two gay May/September couples had gravitated to each other. A few quite elderly investors had come, as well, including a rather imperious man in a wheelchair who seemed to take pleasure in ordering his nurse to fetch him drink after drink.

  I saw no sign of Tad Benedict, but the chic, faux-smiling blond who’d signed us in appeared with her clipboard under her arm. I watched her tap Matteo on his shoulder, then crook her finger and lead him through a bulkhead door behind the bar, which was where, I presumed, the entrepreneurs with start-ups to pitch (i.e., the debutantes of this gala) were probably being prepped by Tad.

  I began my snooping with a study of the people in the room. The rich, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, are very different from us (“they have money”), and that legendary observation held true for this affluent flock. In my experience
, any other social gathering of this size—even one packed with total strangers—would become somewhat lively as copious amounts of expensive liquor were being consumed. But not this bunch. Even as they imbibed, the group wondered about, leafing through Tad Benedict’s prospectus, looking a little lost.

  “They’re all so quiet,” I whispered to Madame.

  “Yes, my dear. Well, some people are just used to letting their money speak for them, and in my opinion, money alone has absolutely nothing to say.” She smiled, leafing through Tad’s prospectus. “Look at these obviously high-risk investment opportunities: a new restaurant, an independent film. Why do you think these people are here, Clare? Not for money. They have that. What they don’t have is excitement. They’re bored, you see. These start-ups are the kind of thing that makes them feel they are participating in the world.”

  I couldn’t fault Madame’s slightly disdainful attitude—because I knew where it came from. She may have married a wealthy second husband, but she’d spent decades running the Blend—initially with Matt’s father and then by herself. It was hard, disciplined work running any business, rising at dawn every day, tracking and checking up on thousands of details, wrangling employees. And, over the years, Madame had done much more than simply roast and pour coffee for the people in the neighborhood. She’d become intimately involved in the lives of many of the people who’d come through the Blend’s door—the actors, artists, writers, dancers, and musicians who’d always populated Greenwich Village—giving them the Blend’s second floor couch to sleep on when they’d been evicted from their cramped studio apartments, pouring black French roast for the borderline alcoholics, holding the hands of emotionally fragile souls who’d come to one of the most brutal cities on earth to peddle their talents. So, it didn’t surprise me that Madame wouldn’t think much of a group of people who simply wanted to throw money at a business to feel as though they were a part of it. In Madame’s experience, blood, sweat, and tears made you a part of something, not simply placing ink on a check.

  I felt the deck rumble under my heeled boots as the engine roared to life. Then the yacht bumped, sloshing the drink in my hand, and a moment later, a deckhand cast the mooring lines aside and we pulled away from the pier. The boat moved along the Manhattan skyline, its towers of lights shimming in the Hudson’s dark waters.

  Speakers crackled, and an amplified voice filled the room. “A million lights. A million stories. A million opportunities for those who know how to find them, use them. My name is Tad Benedict, and I can show you how. You can participate in a number of ways—put a little bit down on every opportunity I will offer tonight. Or you might want to invest only in a single start-up…that’s up to you. There are no losers here, I assure you. The amount you gain depends on how aggressively you choose to invest….”

  The interior lights dimmed, and everyone turned to face Tad Benedict. The stocky man with the elfin face stood in the center of a white spotlight, microphone in hand.

  “Thank you all for coming,” he continued. “I thank you now because I can afford to be generous. Why? Because I know you are all going to thank me later.”

  Then Tad launched into a spiel that was one third Tony Roberts can-do optimism, one third Wall Street get-rich-quick pep talk, and one third awkward metaphors—basically a lot of drivel about flames and moths being drawn to them, which explained the logo on the prospectus, at least. I had always found Tad Benedict likeable, but the result of this bizarre combination was bullish—and not in a good way.

  “Madame,” I whispered, “this sounds like nothing but bull—”

  Madame touched my arm. “A lady does not use such language, Margot. Hogwash will suffice. To tell you the truth, the only thing that really bothers me are his constant references to flying insects.”

  Tad continued speaking another twenty minutes or so. Finally, he directed everyone’s attention to his prospectus while he began a Power Point demonstration featuring logos and growth charts of the investment opportunities represented there. Suddenly, the distinctive stretched L and H of the Lottie Harmon logo appeared.

  “TB Investing holds fifty percent shares in the phenomenally hot Lottie Harmon accessory line,” said Tad. “Lottie Harmon is a resurrected designer label that has seen over two hundred percent growth in the last year, a tiny caterpillar that’s come out of its cocoon, unfurled its wings, and really flown….”

  Tad moved on to other names and logos, but I hardly paid attention. How could it be, I asked myself, that Tad Benedict is touting a fifty-percent share in Lottie Harmon stock if he owns only twenty-five percent?

  Lottie had told me herself that only she, Tad, and Rena were shareholders—with a tiny percentage going to Fen—because that’s the way she’d wanted it. Lottie had waited decades to be able to express herself through creative designs, and maintaining control of her own label meant more to her than money. So either Tad was lying, or he had managed to gain control of either a portion of Lottie’s shares, or all of Garcia’s stock.

  Finally, Tad wrapped things up.

  “After a short break, I’ll be introducing several clients of TB. These visionary entrepreneurs are here to personally offer potentially lucrative shares in their start-ups and to answer any questions you might have. This is a rare opportunity to get in on the ground floor of exciting new businesses—a soon-to-be hot restaurant, two new magazines, a theatrical production, a coffee bar franchise, two designer clothing labels, a shoe boutique’s expansion, and an independent film are among the dozens of opportunities about which you’re going to hear. Rarely are investors offered a chance to board a train before it even leaves the station, just before it takes off for the wild blue yonder—”

  Madame sighed. “These mixed metaphors are annoying me.”

  “Yes, Madame.” I whispered nervously, secretly glad Madame’s eyes had glazed over enough to have apparently missed Tad’s mention of a “coffee bar franchise” start-up.

  “Meanwhile,” Tad continued. “I’m going to circulate among you. Please feel free to approach me at any time with questions, or offers….”

  I huddled with Madame as we formulated a plan. A few minutes later, as Tad mingled with his potential clients, Madame strolled up to him.

  “I so love Lottie Harmon’s designs,” she began. “I wonder…would it be possible to make a block purchase of that stock?”

  Tad turned on the charm. “Of course, Miss…”

  “Mrs. Dubois. And this is my friend, Margot Gray.”

  “So delighted you’ve come,” he said, taking my hand. Behind my wig and tinted glasses, I held my breath, praying Tad wouldn’t recognize me. He didn’t. He simply turned and faced Madame. “Of course, the shares of Lottie Harmon are not cheap, Mrs. Dubois.”

  Madame waved her hand. “Money isn’t a problem. But I don’t want to be selfish. I’m only interested in twenty or thirty percent….”

  Tad Benedict nearly choked on his sparkling water.

  “Of course, if the stock is reasonably priced, I might be convinced to purchase more.”

  Tad set his water glass down and took Madame’s hand. “Please follow me, ladies,” he purred. “I’d like to handle the details regarding this transaction personally.”

  FOURTEEN

  WITH Madame on his arm, Tad Benedict led us across the packed ballroom. He threaded through the crowd so fast I had trouble keeping up. Fortunately, Clipboard Lady stopped him near the busy bar.

  “Should I start the presentations?” she asked.

  Tad looked around, nodded impatiently. “Yeah, let’s get the show on the road. Bring out one presenter at a time—and hold everyone to a five-minute limit. We’re due back at the pier in a little over an hour.”

  Clipboard Lady’s brow wrinkled with concern. When she spoke, her whisper was loud enough to reach my ears. “There’s kind of an issue backstage about who gets to go on first. Two men are arguing…It’s getting out of hand.”

  He waved the woman aside. “Do the job I pay you for
.”

  “But—”

  “Send them out alphabetically, the way their names are printed on the roster. Who can argue with that?”

  For a moment the pair huddled in conversation. I managed to pull Madame aside.

  “This is so thrilling. What do we do next?” she asked.

  “Press him,” I whispered. “We need to find out how many shares of Lottie Harmon stocks he’s willing to part with. If it’s more than the twenty-five percent I know he owns, then there’s something fishy going on.”

  Suddenly the Clipboard Lady hurried away and Tad reached for Madame’s arm once more.

  “I must apologize for the interruption. There’s just so much to do, and I only have a few associates here to take care of things.”

  Tad said this over his shoulder as he hustled us through a door, and into a wood paneled hallway. We passed three other doors, one obviously a bulkhead that led outside to the deck. Tad opened a door at the end of the narrow hall. On the other side there was a small stateroom with a wall-sized window that offered a spectacular view of Manhattan’s towering lights, bordered by dark water and black sky.

  Tad directed us to chairs, and when we were both settled he sat down across a narrow table from Madame and I. Behind him, a computer rested on a small desk. On its monitor, a screen saver with the stylized logo of TB Investments flickered. Tad smiled at us both and leaned forward.

  “So, Mrs. Dubois, you’re interested in purchasing a large block of Lottie Harmon shares?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Benedict,” Madame replied, quite convincingly I thought. “I own shares in several large concerns, most of which I patronize in my daily life. You see, I believe in that old adage—one should only invest in businesses and products one would patronize or understand. I do purchase high-end fashions, so when I heard the Lottie Harmon name…”