Read A Hamptons Christmas Online
Authors: James Brady
A Hamptons Christmas (11 page)
And when she grinned at such secret memories, Emma looked about as harmless and vulnerable as a scorpion.
“Bill Gates? A nerdy guy in glasses. Invented the laptop or something ⦔
“I don't really care if the wretched woman is a genuine nun or not,” the Admiral declared. “Unless someone convinces me of error, I have no intention of sending this child back to such charlatans. Child prostitutes on the streets of Manila. âHenri Dansant,' indeed, âlight in his loafers.' Religious habits being sewn up by the Maison Dior. Nuns skiing in the Alps, negotiating discounts on their lift tickets. The ramifications of a convent school being operated along such lines are simply staggering.” Then, looking Emma directly in the face, he declared adamantly, “With all due respect, young lady, you won't find Episcopalians carrying on so.”“I suppose not,” conceded Emma amiably. She wasn't terribly fierce on proselytizing for Rome.
Having gotten that off his chest, the Admiral shifted gears in a very curious way:
“Emma?” he began.
“Jane, sir,” she said, sensing the Admiral preferred working with aliases.
“Yes, Susannah. Do you by any chance know who Bill Gates is?”
The child answered right away, though why did it matter?
“A nerdy guy in glasses. Invented the laptop,” she said. “Or a search engine or portal or something. He's awfully rich. My father speaks of him in awed tones, which he does of very few, and almost never of nerds.”
“Why do you ask, father?” I couldn't resist putting in.
The Admiral gave me a mischievously jolly look, amused by my having fallen for his move, much as he enjoyed sucking an opponent into a trap at chess and crying “checkmate!”
“Simply want to know how up on current events are the middleform girls of the Couvent de la Tour Sacrée.”
I got him aside later.
“What was that Bill Gates business all about?”
“I've made some calls. I'm not quite sure what's going on. But there's a bit of a stir at Microsoft. No question of a hostile takeover or even a proxy fight, of course. Gates has firm control. It would take someone with the resources of Gates's former partner, Paul Allen, and then some, to make a serious run at Microsoft. But with these various lawsuits going on and the federal government harassing him, Mr. Gates is believed to be looking over his shoulder with more than the usual caution.”
“ ⦠at Emma?” I said, not masking incredulity.
“Don't be impudent,” he advised me. “I'm not sure. Just that my sources tell me there's a bit of concern about very large blocs of Microsoft shares on the loose. Not answerable to this clique or that, or nailed down by anyone, neither the Board or an insurgent slate. Just out there, under the control of vague trust funds managed by who knows whom. Gather sufficient of those blocs of shares and sooner or later, you've got yourself a substantial position in Microsoft stock.” He paused. “I don't follow the gossip columns as closely as you do, and I should, but even a cursory reading of the
Driver v. Driver
divorce hardly speaks well of her parents. Coldblooded and selfish. You suspect it's not beyond them to cheat young Susannah ⦔
Driver v. Driver
divorce hardly speaks well of her parents. Coldblooded and selfish. You suspect it's not beyond them to cheat young Susannah ⦔
“ ⦠Emma.”
“Oh, damn! Can't the child settle on one name or another?”
“You were saying?” I asked, trying to get him back on track.
“Yes, yes. What little I know of her parents, I wouldn't put it past either of them to cheat her out of the holdings of Microsoft, all that stock Jake Marley supposedly settled on her. Not actually steal the shares but vote them one way or another, leveraging control of the child's property to their own advantage.”
“Her trust funds.”
“Yes, Beecher. Emma's situation is hardly unique. Millions of blue-chip shares in the names of minor children. Left to them in wills. Or signed over at birth.” My father paused briefly. “You've heard of such things, haven't you? In your journalistic endeavors and inquiries?” Oh, he could be sarcastic, having never quite forgiven me for going directly from Harvard to work at the
Boston Globe
as a cub reporter, rather than becoming a banker. Or joining the CIA.
Boston Globe
as a cub reporter, rather than becoming a banker. Or joining the CIA.
The Admiral issued no additional enlightenment until, as I wrestled with the possibilities, Her Ladyship joined us again in my father's den.
“My ward Jane wants to know if anyone's in the mood for a hand of poker?” Alix asked amiably.
The Admiral's bluntly growled “No!” was shocking in its vehemence. He must have seen Alix's stunned reaction and my face. As for me, I wondered if his hearing had suddenly gone, and as old men do, didn't realize he was yelling.
“Sorry,” he said mildly, “didn't mean to shout.”
“Quite all right, Admiral,” Alix said, her voice cool as cucumber sandwiches at tea. “Only a suggestion, y'know.”
“I know, I know ⦠it's simply that I did play with her the other afternoon.”
“And ⦠?”
The Admiral set his jaw.
“She cheats,” he said.
Lefty Odets “nearly” helped break “the Westies” and “almost” went on Letterman â¦
So the kid was a card sharp. But where were her parents, whose chill indifference had sent a child careering halfway across the hemisphere in search of a spare room at Martha Stewart's B & B, and just what mischief were they truly up to?Her father, it so happened, was easy to trace, having just (yet again) been profiled in
People
magazine, the news peg this time Dick Diver's recent and astonishing disclosure of his plans for the afterlife.
People
magazine, the news peg this time Dick Diver's recent and astonishing disclosure of his plans for the afterlife.
“When my latest building (the tower on Sutton Place) is up and running, surely one of the seven wonders of the modern world, I intend to designate it my final resting place.”
The plan?
“One of my few heroes is Jeremy Bentham, the legendary English don who founded and headed University College London. I expect to emulate Bentham.”
The reporter shook his head. Just what was it that Bentham did, actually?
“He had himself mummified and set up in an appropriate
setting at University College and, to this day, functions as the institution's totem and principal tourist attraction.”
setting at University College and, to this day, functions as the institution's totem and principal tourist attraction.”
Being still alive, and not yet embalmed, Emma's father was scarcely a hundred miles away in the penthouse suite of his Manhattan tower, fresh from a few days golfing with Prince Andrew at Lyford Cay, assiduously poring over architectural renderings of yet another future Manhattan tower intended to blot out what little remained of urban sunlight. As Dick Driver worked, a gorgeous young woman, his girlfriend
du jour
and the last Miss Lithuania but one, sauntered into the paneled study bearing a silver serving tray, the crystal goblets and ice bucket in Waterford, his Diet Dr. Pepper freshly uncapped, her split of Moet not yet uncorked, and Miss Lithuania high-cheeked and prettily barefoot in a vast terrycloth robe bearing the logo of the Paris Ritz.
du jour
and the last Miss Lithuania but one, sauntered into the paneled study bearing a silver serving tray, the crystal goblets and ice bucket in Waterford, his Diet Dr. Pepper freshly uncapped, her split of Moet not yet uncorked, and Miss Lithuania high-cheeked and prettily barefoot in a vast terrycloth robe bearing the logo of the Paris Ritz.
“A little bite of lime, darling?” she asked.
“Without.”
Dick Driver was fierce and disciplined about the small things. Diet, for one: a chunk of lime today, soufflés tomorrow. That's how such things went. If you lacked discipline, life was a slippery incline indeed. For beautiful women, Driver cut a little slack.
“How's your kid?” the girlfriend inquired. “You gonna see her for Christmas?”
“She'll be with her mother.”
“That's good, Deek. Kids oughta be with their mothers. Specially for Christmas. In Lithuania we're very strong on shit like that.”
Driver pursed his lips in disapproval. He wished she wouldn't curse. Even people who thought him a louse admitted Dick respected the old, established values. Consider that, out of deference to the prince and sensitive about possibly compromising royalty, he'd not taken his girlfriend to Lyford Cay for the golfing.
But when he corrected the Lithuanian, she protested.
“You like it when I talk dirty in bed, no?”
She had a point there, he conceded. Yet it was nice to know she too respected the old, traditional, bourgeois family values. So
many American cover girls, thinking only of themselves, their own pleasure. At one time he'd believed Nicole shared with him those same established values, but by the time he realized his mistake, well â¦
many American cover girls, thinking only of themselves, their own pleasure. At one time he'd believed Nicole shared with him those same established values, but by the time he realized his mistake, well â¦
“Let's not argue,” he said, sipping at his Diet Dr. Pepper as she popped the champers, her lovely but scornful face half-smiling its superiority at a man who could buy, and sell, her. And had.
It occurred to Driver that except for answering the Lithuanian's question about Emma's whereabouts, he hadn't recently given his daughter much thought. Maybe he ought to look into it, see how Emma was making out, spending the holidays in Europe with her mother. “The bitch.”
Who was skiing at St. Moritz, believing their daughter was in Manhattan dining at Le Cirque with her father. “The bastard.”
But for all his espousal of traditional family values, it wasn't Dick Driver but his wife, Nicole (“former wife?”), three thousand miles east of Further Lane, who first became uneasy about their child. Was that maternal instinct? Or simply the accustomed paranoia of the self-absorbed?
To review the bidding, which had confused even my father, the master spy:
In order to sneak off to East Hampton and hang her Christmas stocking from Martha Stewart's mantelpiece, Emma Driver had concocted a scheme requiring her to lie shamelessly to everyone but Ken Starr, telling her mother she was spending the hols with daddy, telling her father, well, she was with mummy, and assuring the convent (and her merchant bankers) she was with ⦠someone, the entire sham bolstered by a raft of phony E-mails dispatched into cyberspace. And abetted by the fact that neither parent really seemed to give a damn.
As transparent as all this seemed in retrospect, it had been pretty effective for young Emma Driver. Who hadn't yet been arrested, bumped off, accused of juvenile delinquency, kidnapped, or, worst of all, sent home. And who was in fact living off the fat of the land in out-of-season East Hampton.
Except that now, the week before Christmas, questions began
to be asked by a visiting nun, launching mysterious investigations from a suite in the American Hotel.
to be asked by a visiting nun, launching mysterious investigations from a suite in the American Hotel.
It was Nicole who began to ask herself just where and with whom her daughter might
really
be spending the Christmas hols. Not that she even missed the child; simply that she feared that, in some devious way, her husband (ex-husband?) might possibly be gaining an edge. Her daughter's dutiful E-mails about “fun with Daddy,” which had been arriving from the time Emma left the convent in mid-December, were reassuring, detailed, upbeat. But true? Nicole wouldn't put anything past Dick, not even milking their mutual daughter for PR value as Christmas neared.
really
be spending the Christmas hols. Not that she even missed the child; simply that she feared that, in some devious way, her husband (ex-husband?) might possibly be gaining an edge. Her daughter's dutiful E-mails about “fun with Daddy,” which had been arriving from the time Emma left the convent in mid-December, were reassuring, detailed, upbeat. But true? Nicole wouldn't put anything past Dick, not even milking their mutual daughter for PR value as Christmas neared.
On Further Lane, we knew nothing of all this, of course, nor would we for several days.
In St. Moritz Nicole sprang vigorously into action.
“Aux armes!”
she cried aloud, rousing the Impaler from his midday torpor. (Count Vladimir wore ski clothes beautifully but didn't actually ski. Never had. He spent his days tanning.) Within hours they were en route in a hired Mercedes to the airport at Zurich and a flight to Paris.
“Aux armes!”
she cried aloud, rousing the Impaler from his midday torpor. (Count Vladimir wore ski clothes beautifully but didn't actually ski. Never had. He spent his days tanning.) Within hours they were en route in a hired Mercedes to the airport at Zurich and a flight to Paris.
But only following a brief tantrum from the count. “Why not flying from Milano?” he argued. “Same distance but Italian airport snack bars be more yummier, you know. The chocolates gooder!
mein Gott.”
mein Gott.”
She was astute; he was stupid, but Nicole was brutally aware that she was five years older than the Transylvanian and feared losing him when her looks went. Especially considering how the book royalties had gone dry and how Dick felt about sending support checks. So she allowed her lover to make minor decisions (airport snacks and the like) and retained the big ones for herself. “Yes, Count,” she said equably, “next time we'll fly via Milano. You're so clever.”
He preened and wondered if he might travel to Paris in the flattering new ski clothes she'd bought for him. “I look so good, no?”
“Of course, darling. Very chic, indeed.”
Their Paris stopover was brief, efficient. Dancing at Castel's, a
night at the Crillon, a visit to an old flirt at the Sûreté, another to a man she knew at Interpol. And Nicole Driver was swiftly and authoritatively put in touch with the most reliable private detective agency on the Continent, whose Paris headquarters would, within the hour, assign their best, their highest-paid, their subtlest yet most ruthless operative, to what seemed on the face of it the simplest of assignments: To help a concerned mother involved in a bitter custody battle track down a small child who was supposed to be with her father in America for the holidays.
night at the Crillon, a visit to an old flirt at the Sûreté, another to a man she knew at Interpol. And Nicole Driver was swiftly and authoritatively put in touch with the most reliable private detective agency on the Continent, whose Paris headquarters would, within the hour, assign their best, their highest-paid, their subtlest yet most ruthless operative, to what seemed on the face of it the simplest of assignments: To help a concerned mother involved in a bitter custody battle track down a small child who was supposed to be with her father in America for the holidays.
When they found the child, Nicole Driver wanted instant notification. No instructions about retrieving the kid and getting her back to a loving mother. Just where she was and with whom.
The operative assigned to the Driver case by Paris was named Mademoiselle Javert.
And as part of her briefing, Nicole had provided Mademoiselle this crucial item of information: if Emma Driver was indeed spending Christmas with her father in Manhattan, dining at Le Cirque and the Four Seasons as her E-mails suggested, why was the kid charging on her platinum card ice creams from a place called the Candy Kitchen on Long Island?
Dick Driver, goaded by Miss Lithuania, had also grown curious about his daughter's whereabouts. Like Nicole, he had his sources (she bribed people at the credit-card companies; he paid off hackers who scoured the Internet for private E-mails). Since he employed security people on a more or less permanent payroll basis, he didn't have to go through Interpol or the Sûreté. He retained as a private eye the celebrated Lefty Odets, who talked such a good game that even Driver occasionally was said to be “waiting for Lefty.”
Lefty was a former cop who very nearly made the special squad (under legendary NYPD detective Joe Coffey) that broke the notorious West Side Irish gang called the Westies and put Mickey Featherstone behind bars. A man who “almost” broke the Westies was not to be trifled with. Trouble was, Lefty was “almost” a lot of things. He had Knicks tickets that were “almost” courtside. He palled around 21 and P. J. Clarke's with a broadcast exec who
“nearly” became head of ABC. Lefty was “almost” on Letterman the season Dave had the bypass. And he was “almost” a regular on the
Imus in the Morning
radio show. Except that Imus preferred another ex-cop, Bo Dietl. Now here was a chance for Odets to distinguish himself on a project of personal, rather than financial or commercial, importance to Dick Driver.
“nearly” became head of ABC. Lefty was “almost” on Letterman the season Dave had the bypass. And he was “almost” a regular on the
Imus in the Morning
radio show. Except that Imus preferred another ex-cop, Bo Dietl. Now here was a chance for Odets to distinguish himself on a project of personal, rather than financial or commercial, importance to Dick Driver.
His orders: Find the kid and determine whether Nicole was using their daughter to gain advantage in their never-ending legal scrum. Whether Nicole was or not, Dick might also “need” to have his daughter for PR reasons at some point over Christmas. The purloined E-mails, perused in Manhattan, pointed east. But oddly, not to Nicole and the Impaler in their European playpens, but to a closer and decidedly unseasonable East Hampton.
Neither parent seemed worried about a young, helpless child's well-being. Only that she not be used to profit the other. Talk about
schaudenfreude
!
schaudenfreude
!
But then again, how helpless was young Emma Driver? Wasn't there a naive, but in ways fiendishly clever, agenda at work here on the kid's part? Reuniting her parentsâat least for Christmas?
So off she went, the trail of E-mails and credit-card receipts (her latter-day equivalent of Hansel's bread crumbs and, all to the good, not eaten by birds!) could easily be picked up by even the clumsiest of private eyes. To Lefty Odets, and to a Frenchwoman named Mademoiselle Javert (now doing business as Sister Infanta de Castille), the task was laughably simple. Or so it seemed.
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