Blue Heaven (27 page)

Many thanks for the honor of your company. Might I hope to enjoy it again soon? I will call from Europe this week.

Your servant,

Frederick Bombelli

"Oh
Mummeeel"
sang Moira.

The Voice of the duchess issued weakly from behind the locked door.

"I don't feel well, deah!"

"Winnie, it's okay. It was just a delivery."

Winnie emerged from his room, bit his lip, and tottered down the hall. In that moment he looked to me like an enormous child of four. All he needed was pajamas with feet.

"What lovely flowers!" said Winslow, daubing his eyes with a hanky. "Who sent them? Your parents?"

Moira glowered and handed him the card. He scanned it quickly and dropped it as if it were on fire. He sank into a chair, shook his head madly and required three dozen syllables to convey the word "No."

"Winnie," said Gilbert, "you'll be fine! Really you will. Don't you know how good you were last night?"

"No. It, it's all a big blur."

"You don't remember
anything?"
asked Claire.

"I remember the end of the night, dancing. I remember thinking how hard it was to let Serge lead."

"Well, you were just fine, Winnie," said Claire, maternally. "There's no need to panic. He knows you're a married woman. I'm sure his intentions are honorable. Stop giggling, Gilbert."

"The hell his intentions are honorable!" said Moira. "The old fool is smitten! Don't you two get it!"

"Get what?"

"It's like one of his stupid romances! Deirdre Sauvage and all the rest of them! They're all full of lords and ladies and countesses falling for high-spirited commoners! When the duchess started flirting with him the romantic idiot felt like he was in the middle of one of his books!"

"Oh, dear," clucked Claire.

We all looked to Winslow who was staring at the roses and sucking pensively on his index finger. No one said a word for a moment. Then Moira got up, strode purposefully to the phone, flicked the speaker off and dialed.

Winslow spoke softly.

"You know, when I was ten, in Bayonne, I used to have a dog named Lana. Mom fed her K9 because it was cheap and all my friends
used to tease me that I was feeding my dog informers. Then, when I got older I read stories about Freddy the Pooch and all his gambling parlors and prostitutes and all the people he killed and made dog food from."

He picked up a rose and sniffed it.

"I never dreamed that someday I would date him."

"Hello, Brooks, darling?" chirped Moira on the phone. "I was just calling to thank you for the Ecstasy. It was
marvelous!
Just what my little soiree needed . . . Well, yes, I
do,
you mind reader you!"

She paused and cast an appraising eye at Winslow and the roses.

"Brooks, dearest, I hate to be tacky, but do you offer a discount if one buys in quantity?"

Our little meeting broke up not long after this. The remaining bone of contention concerned Claire's refusal to stay involved if success was to hinge on turning Winslow into a "drug addict." She would not be a party to such callous victimization. Winnie would face the Cellinis and Freddy unopiated, or else. Moira agreed to this, though the minute Claire's back was turned, she gave Winnie a smile which succinctly conveyed that she'd secretly supply him with Ecstasy, coke and, should he request it, the blood of unbaptized infants-anything that would get him through the trials ahead.

The only remaining question was what to do about the Gunther threat. The answer for now: nothing. He was hell-bent on vengeance; pleas for mercy would only enhance his appreciation of the awful destructive power he possessed.

Gilbert walked me home that day. If our sense of a shared romantic destiny had been growing gradually till now, these latest events had made it swell to Shakespearian dimensions. We were star-crossed lovers, beset on all sides by treacherous enemies and unfeeling friends.

"We're alone, Philip! No one understands what we feel, what we mean to each other!"

"I think Gunther's figured it out."

"That's right, Philly! Make jokes! Be brave!"

The next day, the duchess made her second appearance. She shared a pleasant lunch with Maddie at Trader Vic's, where they discussed
catering plans. Maddie's swift consumption of three zombies, combined with her natural naivete, rendered the challenge to Winslow's nerve and acting ability so minimal that Moira decried the exercise as a waste of good drugs.

The more serious challenges lay ahead. Dinner at Paradiso on Thursday, lunch at Casa Cellini on Friday and dinner at Freddy's Long Island stronghold upon his return from Europe Saturday. Freddy's invitation was extended by phone from Switzerland while the duchess was lunching with Maddie. Moira graciously accepted on Mummy's behalf.

"Saturday, six o'clock, his place. All right?" Moira had said when Winslow staggered in from the Trader's.

"Ducky, my idiot child," Winnie had replied, tottering off to take a nap from which he awoke five hours later, unrefreshed.

The next day I opened my mailbox and inside, along with the usual bouquet of bills, subscription offers and flyers for shows featuring friends who haven't called in two years, there was a flat twelve-inch manila envelope with no return address. I knew at once what it was.

My heart pounding, I raced the three flights up to my apartment, peeled away the Scotch tape that covered the little clasp, and opened the envelope. Inside was the photo of me and Gilbert.

There we were, naked and busy, looking mildly stoned and extremely recognizable. The camera had caught us in that brief muddled instant before we realized the camera was catching us. Our expressions, as such, betrayed not shock but bovine bewilderment, like a pair of Trobriand Islanders getting their first look at television.

There was no note in the envelope, only the photo. Why, I wondered, were there no threats, no dark hints of what he intended to do with his pornographic trophy? Perhaps he just wanted us to know that any hopes we may have had about unfocused lenses were unfounded. And perhaps the stomach-churning suspense I was feeling was itself the point of the exercise. He wanted us to sweat.

I duly phoned Gilbert to tell him the photo had arrived and that, if it was any consolation, Geoff had caught his good side. Then Moira took the phone and asked if Claire and I could stop by God's Country for a drink after work. I accepted and called Claire, who kvetched a bit about the lateness but said she'd be there.

Winnie was already there when Gilbert and I arrived and Claire came a few minutes later. Moira ushered us into the dining room where we noted, to mild murmurs of surprise, she had prepared a light supper. A watercress and endive salad, slices of peasant bread, a piece of chèvre and a pâté with pistachios in it. A magnum of wine was chilling in a bucket.

"Well! How nice, Moira!" said Claire through a cautious smile.

"What's all this about?" asked Gilbert, not bothering, as Claire had, to conceal his suspicion that we were in for a major performance.

"Well, I just wanted ..." she said and paused. For effect? Probably, but it was hard to say for sure. She seemed different in a way I couldn't put my finger on. Subdued and embarrassed.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Nothing. It's just . . . well, it's hard to talk when you know in advance that everyone's going to think you're full of shit."

"Moira," said Gilbert shrewdly, "are you trying to tell us you're sorry about everything you've done and you want us all to be friends now?"

"That's
exactly
what I'm talking about, Gilbert!"

"Now, Moira," said Claire. "You can hardly blame any of us for refusing to take anything you say without a shaker or two of salt."

"I know. That's what depresses me," she said and sat, her eyes cast downward and her hands folded daintily in her lap. "Because I
am
sorry. I really am. I
know
I've been dreadful. I've done awful things and I've said even worse things. But there were reasons for all of it. I'm not saying
good
reasons. I'm talking about problems of mine and these . . . fears I have."

"Fears?" asked Claire, casting a dubious glance in my direction.

"I've been thinking it over since that fight we all had after the party. And I've finally realized what it all boils down to is ... I don't know how to
trust
people. Don't roll your eyes, Gilbert; it's the truth. I always assume people are going to take advantage of me unless I outmaneuver them first. So I lie, and I make up stories, and I do everything I can to preserve some kind of advantage. And I
always
get found out, and people scream at me, and I scream back at them and try to make out it's
their
fault when I know perfectly well it's mine. But I have to be honest, now. Really honest. I
hate
fighting you guys. I hate knowing you're all together against me because you're scared of what deceitful thing I'm going to do next."

"We're not crazy about it either, hon," said Winslow, his mouth full of pâté.

"I don't get it, Moira. Why should
you
find it difficult to trust us?"

"It's not just you guys. It's everyone I know. Like I said, it's a problem of mine. Always has been. I mean ..."

She paused and smiled in that twisty sort of way people only smile when they're absolutely mortified.

"Well, as you can probably figure out from my mother's current address, my 'formative years' weren't too heavy on stability. We moved all the time and it seemed like anyone I got to like cheated me or disappeared overnight and . . . Oh, fuck it! I don't want to get into that. It's none of your business. And it has nothing to do with its. Now. All I'm trying to say, guys, is I want a truce. It's been four against one and I'm sick of being alone in this thing."

"Moira," sighed Claire, "if you want to convince us you really mean well-call it off."

"
No
, Claire. I've been through much too much to quit when we're this close to it. Winnie's an absolute genius and Scentinels is going to make a fortune. I'm putting every dime I make into it and if you're smart you'll do the same. Isn't that right, Winnie?"

Winnie agreed that when they write the book on body odor control in the twentieth century, the name of Winslow Potts will be writ large.

"Look," said Moira, "I don't expect you to get gushy and hug me all over. You'd be idiots to trust me after what I've done. Be as careful as you want to, but please stop hating my guts. Just give me a
chance,
okay?"

We could only agree, and we did. But as we ate and joked and chatted the same questions loomed in all our minds: What the hell was she up to? Or was she actually being sincere? And why was the second option somehow more displeasing than the first?

Gilbert and I talked it over late that night and realized it came down to this: Moira was our villain and, so far as we were concerned, she had no right to abdicate the post. For her to suddenly beg to be seen not as some imp of Satan, but as a poor greedy mortal, prey to all sorts of fears and needs, struck us as a horrid breech of etiquette. Listening to her plea, we'd felt the same resentment you'd feel if, in the middle of a Star
Wars
film, Darth Vader sat down and began to recollect his sad childhood at the space orphanage while clutching
the locket his mother had pressed into his hand just before she'd attached his bassinet to the asteroid.

While we're usually willing to see others as, like ourselves, a mixture of faults and virtues, some people seem so utterly bad (or good) that we're refreshed by their unity of nature and loathe to admit into evidence anything that contradicts it. Moira was such a person. You thought you could know her for a hundred years and never once be compelled to empathize.

Now we had to wonder to what degree our Moira was just that:
our
Moira, a creation of our own fear and paranoia. Oh, there was no doubting she was a lying, mercenary, social-climbing bitch, but did this mean she was completely incapable of anything like affection or loyalty? We preferred to think so, but it was this very preference which made us now question our judgment.

Over the following weeks she did nothing to make us feel that our old image of her as a woman of complete self-sufficiency and unlimited mendacity was the real Moira. To the contrary, she was considerate and helpful, and displayed an almost embarrassing eagerness to be liked by us. Gilbert and I were touched, greatly relieved and bitterly disappointed.

Twenty-four

W
ith the wedding now a mere eight weeks away, preparations accelerated into high gear, posing fresh perils and conundrums for our jittery quintet. Invitations were due to go out that week, which forced us to confront the problem of the duchess's guest list. Moira's immediate family, as she'd so touchingly explained at Maddie's Christmas party, was minuscule, but surely the duchess had
some
friends she wished to invite, either here in the States or off in Little Chip-perton.

The duchess, of course, being imaginary, had few friends indeed. But how could we ask Maddie and Tony to believe that a woman of her gregarious charm lived a monklike existence, never venturing beyond the walls of Trebleclef to enjoy the mad social whirl of Little Chipperton?

The first thing we did was have the duchess seize control of the invitations. The invited would be asked to RSVP to God's Country. The duchess would keep her guest list to a minimum since those on it would also be fictitious and unlikely, as such, to attend. Over the following weeks the duchess could inform Maddie that none of her twenty or so overseas chums would be able to come, owing to as many reasons as we could dream up. The general excuse would be age. The duke, or Nigey as she took to calling him, was an old poop in his sixties and their social set was confined to even older poops, none of whom was much disposed toward transatlantic travel.

Claire gamely agreed to be Moira's maid of honor. She was leery of putting herself into so active a role but it seemed the safe thing to do. The fewer "outsiders" underfoot the better.

Besides, following Moira's "Hath not a bitch eyes?" speech, an atmosphere of detente had developed. Real trust was still out of the question; we'd seen too often what Moira could accomplish given only the benefit of a doubt. But some degree of civility and team spirit was a welcome alternative to the rancorous infighting which had characterized relations so far. So, when Moira asked Claire if she'd consider bouquet duty, Claire shuddered briefly and said she'd be honored.

The duchess dined at Paradiso with Moira, Maddie and Aggie. They took a table in the small room and, while I was not in on the girl talk, it seemed to go swimmingly if the staccato outbursts of mirth from Aggie were any indication. Mummy, without Claire's knowledge, did Ex again, though not coke, as the last time she'd combined the two Maddie had said, "My goodness, Gwen, do you have trouble digesting? I've never seen a woman chew her food so carefully!"

Christopher waited on the table, which did little to ease my mood of apprehension. He'd been much friendlier of late but his frequent smile was the smile of a man relishing some delicious private joke and, given our history, I couldn't shake the suspicion that the joke was on me.

At one point that night he slithered up to the bar and motioned for me to lean forward.

"She's a fake!" he hissed, through a thin-lipped grin.

"Who?" I murmured, seconds away from renal failure.

"The duchess! Do you know what's underneath that flashy dated dress and the wig and the jewelry and the six pounds of makeup?"

"What?"

"A fat broad from Secaucus who made good! Well, she doesn't fool me. Not one bit. Are you coming down with something, dear? You look dreadful."

The meal went off without any snags or false eyelashes falling, like Joey Sartucci, into the soup. Brunch at Casa Cellini also passed without incident, except for some brief confusion on Mummy's part regarding the geography of Great Britain. Tony, baffled, had asked her how Little Chipperton could be both
south
of London and
north
of Liverpool.

"No, dear," the duchess had replied patiently, "the
other
Liverpool."

You might suppose that this string of successful appearances did something to diminish Winslow's overwhelming bouts of stage fright. You would, however, suppose wrong. No amount of success could
shake his belief that discovery and death were imminent and, while he always came through and seemed, indeed, to be having the time of his life when playing Her Grace, hysterical crying jags preceded and followed each performance. Every day on which the duchess appeared was
a
comedy parenthesized by tragedy, and the effect was, to say the least, harrowing.

One result of Moira's rehabilitation was Vulpina's reentry into the picture. Moira claimed to be consumed with guilt about the phone calls she'd made when she believed Pina was responsible for the letter, and now she began seeing Pina again. Pina told Moira of the agonies she'd endured not only as a result of the psychopathic phone calls, which had haunted her sleep for weeks, but also of the amused disbelief of her so-called friends. Moira assured Pina that she believed unquestioningly in the truth of her tale, and told Pina that if the calls were to recur, she would have her powerful employer pressure the district attorney to see that the matter was investigated and the culprit apprehended before tragedy struck. Pina was so grateful that when Moira asked her to be a bridesmaid she accepted, even though this entailed her wearing a gown not of her own design but one identical to that of the other bridesmaids, Betty Sartucci and Cousin Steffie.

Things, in short, were proceeding with a smoothness that was too good to be true. Then Gunther tired of waiting and pounced.

A letter addressed to Gilbert arrived at GC late Saturday morning. The envelope, which bore no return address, was printed in nondescript block letters. The note inside, in keeping with years of extortionist tradition, was composed of letters cut from newspapers and glossy magazines. It read: