Part 5 (1/2)
”I'm taking it with me.”
”But you just said...”
”I can use it in the airports. I might be able to use it on the ground. I don't know which number this moron has. I need you to cover the house.”
”Have the house calls forwarded to me.”
Elinor tapped her foot. She had no patience for her sister right now. ”What's the problem, CJ? Can't you just come over here? Pick a guest room. G.o.d knows we have several.”
”What about Luna?”
”Bring her. Or leave her with that boy. It's not as if you never go away.”
”And I always feel guilty about that. Poor Luna needs a family. Not just inattentive old me.”
Then silence again.
”Please, CJ. No one has to know. Malcolm has gone to Was.h.i.+ngton. If he finds out you're here, tell him you're renovating the cottage or something. He never goes there, does he?”
”No. Of course not. But won't he wonder why you've left the country so close to the party?”
”Don't tell him I'm out of the country. Say I'm in Philly. That my dress needed last-minute alterations.” She knew that her words sounded fabricated. She didn't remember whether or not she'd ever told Malcolm that her preferred seamstress now lived in Philadelphia, that she was the daughter of the woman who had been their mother's seamstress, the one Dianne Harding had depended on for every special event.
”Oh, E, I don't know...this involves so many lies.”
”It's not just the phone call I'm worried about, CJ. I'm afraid the blackmailer will show up at my door. You could handle it. No one else could.”
So CJ, of course, finally agreed. After all, she was the dependable one. Elinor knew that someday she should tell CJ that she was her anchor, that she was her strength. Someday, but not now. There simply was too much to do.
Eleven.
Monday morning the temperature climbed toward the low nineties, and it was raining in Manhattan. Cl.u.s.ters of ghostly ectoplasms waltzed on the asphalt, a reminder that though it was almost September, the weather could still simmer like summer. Behind the wheel of her Esplanade (Neal only bought American), Alice had begun to sweat-or perspire, they'd been taught to call it at the McCready School for Girls, long before menopause had erupted and turned her into a near-nymphomaniac, as well as a perpetual swamp.
They'd come in on the Henry Hudson and taken a left up West Seventy-second, which brought them now to Central Park and Strawberry Fields, the area landscaped in memory of John Lennon. They were two and a half blocks from the Lord Winslow, the scene of Elinor's crime.
Alice wondered if Yoko had ever worn La Perlas.
In the seat beside her, Poppy twitched. She'd already told Alice that by the time Duane had come home last night, the b.l.o.o.d.y Marys had worn off and she'd chickened out of asking what he knew about Elinor. Chickening out, of course, was more in keeping with Poppy.
”We'll be done before you know it,” Alice tried to rea.s.sure her.
”I still think we're too early,” Poppy said. ”No one will believe we've come to town to shop. Not at ten o' in the morning.”
She was right, of course. Wealthy women never shopped until after lunch, which had more to do with filling the hours between lunch wine and evening c.o.c.ktails than with the digestive system.
They couldn't say they were in town to have their hair or nails done because on Mondays the best salons were always closed. Besides, that wouldn't have seemed right, what with Yolanda in the backseat.
”No one will care why you're in town,” Yolanda said at that same moment, poking her head through the small opening between the cushy leather front seats. At the last minute, she'd decided to go with them, announcing that once at the Winslow, Alice and Poppy could get out and Yolanda could get behind the wheel and drive around the block until the mission was complete. It would save having to locate a garage or, worse, valet parking, which could be disastrous if a quick getaway was required.
”Do you have the picture?” Yolanda asked.
”You already asked her that,” Alice said. Sometimes, for a hairstylist, Yolanda could be pushy.
”I have the picture,” Poppy said and plucked the yellow envelope from her Miu Miu handbag, which was quite big and too heavy looking for her. She'd bought it on a whim one day when she and Alice had been in town for lunch and they'd seen Duane with a woman.
”Darling,” he'd said when they'd approached his table at Gramercy Tavern, where they'd gone because Poppy had an appointment at her lawyer's in Union Square, which she'd said had something to do with her trust fund and her mother's private companions. ”Do you know Mandy Gibbons? From the Gibbons-Gibbons firm?”
Well, of course Poppy hadn't known her, had never heard of Gibbons-Gibbons, which Duane probably made up on the spot.
”I'm trying to convince her to take part in next month's charity ball in New Falls.”
Duane's choice of words had been nearly as ridiculous as the spandex worn by Mandy Gibbons that clung to every pore and was not exactly office attire even for someone who was twenty-five, give or take a few.
But Poppy had been her social self and said h.e.l.lo-how-nice-to-meet-you, then after lunch she'd dragged Alice into one shop then another, buying the Miu Miu and scores of other things she did not need and were neither appropriate for her wardrobe or suited to her taste.
Pulling up to the canopy at the Lord Winslow now, Alice pushed away the reminder of Duane's no doubt delicious p.e.n.i.s. G.o.d, she thought, I must need a shrink, or at least hormone replacement therapy. ”Okay,” she said with a small sigh, ”let's get this over with.”
The doorman approached and opened the curbside door.
The reception desk was actually a counter, long and dark and gleaming, reminiscent of a hunt club or other good old boys' gathering place where brandy and cigars and perhaps a rendezvous or two were neither unexpected nor discouraged. Atop the desk sat an old-fas.h.i.+oned leather blotter, a cla.s.sic fountain pen, and a dome-shaped silver call bell.
Alice decided to speak for them because Poppy's hand quivered as it touched the bell.
Ding-ding.
A young man came around a corner and took his place behind the counter. He was about the same age as Jonas, but he was thin and pretty.
”h.e.l.lo. My name is Alice Richardson,” she lied. Yolanda had recommended they not give their real last names. Using their first names, however, would help avoid slipups.
”How may I help you, Ms. Richardson?” His skin was s.h.i.+ny and dark, his accent lightly Caribbean.
She smiled her best smile, the one she saved for meeting the strangers in the other towns. ”Larry?” she'd say. ”How nice to meet you.” Or, ”Parker? Why, you're as enchanting as your e-mails.” And the next one in Orlando, ”Bud? Oh, my. You don't look like a theme-park magician.”
Of course, there would be no Bud in Orlando if Kiley Kate backed out. Alice frowned and turned back to the business at hand.
”I am a friend of Elinor Harding,” she said, as Poppy nudged the photograph toward her. ”She was here last week. Thursday. Perhaps you remember her?” She showed the picture to the young man, whose nametag read Javier.
He smiled back, which was good. ”I am sorry,” he replied. ”I see so many faces. We have so many guests.” He didn't ask if there had been a problem.
”She stayed in room four-o-two,” Alice said. ”She overslept and packed in a hurry. She had a flight to catch.” Alice made up that last part because she thought it added to the believability. It was not unlike the fabrications she'd become so adept at telling, such as, ”I'm from Topeka,” where she'd never been but liked the sound of. Middle America. Middle cla.s.s. Middle everything. A few good talking points but not worth the bother after she left town. Before her first encounter, she'd researched Topeka online and learned about its Jayhawk ”Air Refrigerated” Theatre and its wheat farms and tornadoes and the fact that Annette Bening hailed from there. (She'd later bragged that they'd been in the same high school cla.s.s. What the heck, Alice had figured, once you'd told one fib, why not keep going?) Javier looked at her blankly, his smile still in place.
Alice s.h.i.+fted on one foot and refrained from fanning her face with her hand. ”Our friend left a few things behind. She asked if we'd collect them.”