Elsinore (13 page)

Mrs. Vanderwelle didn't eat at Mansions or Mortimer's. She would sit in some far corner of a Chinese restaurant on Third. Holden would spy on her from the window. And that's when he began to fall in love with little Judith. Her isolation troubled him. He wanted to send her flowers at the restaurant, but it would have broken his cover, and he wasn't ready to come out of the dark.

He continued to stalk. His own life had narrowed down to nothing. He existed on the borders of her own stark agenda. There were no friends around little Judith. Not a single rendezvous. He would haunt the places where she shopped. He would visit
her
movie houses while she was at the office with Howard Phipps. He'd never adored anyone from such a distance. And he was out of practice as a Pinkerton man. He couldn't have told you what all her little pilgrimages were about.

She'd call him at Aladdin. “Howard would like to see you, Mr. Holden.”

“I'm too busy counting all my fur coats.”

What else could he say? That he was in love with her shadow? She would have laughed at him.

He saw a man enter her building one night. Dr. Herbert Garden of Elsinore. Garden didn't stay very long. Not more than five minutes. But Holden was still jealous. Garden could have kissed her a hundred times in those five minutes, or fooled with the bow in her hair.

Holden grabbed him once Garden got out the door.

“Hello, Doctor. How are you? I've really missed Elsinore. A little country home in College Point. I could use the vacation. It's a pity you're not practicing anymore.”

“Wait a minute.”

“Herbert, come with me.”

Garden accompanied Holden to the fur market. They went upstairs to Aladdin and walked through a line of fur coats. Then Frog locked the two of them inside his office. They had tea together and some digestive biscuits that were shipped to Aladdin from a London grocer.

“What's your real name?”

“Garden … I swear.”

“You're not a medical man. You're a member of the Mimes.”

“That's how I earn my living.”

“I thought the Mimes never perform in public. Little séances for select audiences.
Macbeth
without words. Who's your sponsor?”

“Howard Phipps.”

“Don't tease me, Dr. Garden. Did Phipps pay you to do your little comedy at College Point?”

“I'm not sure. I get my instructions from Gloria Vanderwelle.”

“What else do you get? Lots of kisses?”

“She's not interested in men.”

“Then what were you doing in her apartment. I clocked you. You were upstairs for five minutes.”

“I was getting instructions for our next installation. That's what we do. Installations.”

“Like Elsinore.”

“Yes. We stage events. Always built around a particular client.”

“Sucker, you mean. You put together a madhouse in Queens and waited for me to open the door. The clock didn't start until I arrived. How did you know about Fay Abruzzi?”

“Gloria told me everything.”

“But Fay was there. I talked to her.”

“No, that was Judith Church.”

“Big Judith? Don't play with me, Herbert. I could crack your bones and who would listen? It's an empty house.”

“But it was Judith. That's her particular genius. She can mimic anyone on earth, male or female.”

“Not Fay. She couldn't do Fay. I would have sensed the difference.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Holden. You saw what you wanted to see. It wasn't Fay.'”

And Holden seized Dr. Garden by the pockets of his pants. “How does it feel, Herbert, to have all that power? To fool around with someone's grief? Were you happy when I started to cry over Fay?”

“It's my job,” Garden croaked. “We're illusionists.”

“That's a lovely name. Illusionist. Takes care of everything, doesn't it? But I'm also an illusionist. And I could turn you into an illusion in about half a minute. No one would remember you, Herbert.”

Frog let go of Herbert's pants and threw him into a chair. “Now tell me about your next installation.”

11

He flew Bronshtein in from Paris. The furrier had been his enemy while Holden worked for Swiss. But now there were no more alliances. Bronshtein had spied on Aladdin because he understood the value of Aladdin's designer, Nick Tiel. Nick had been the Michelangelo of the fur market before he went insane. Swiss had his own dividend of Nick's designs, but he'd lost Aladdin, and a Nick Tiel coat was nothing without the Aladdin label. And so Bronshtein had come at Holden's expense to bargain over merchandise. His mouth was made of gold. He was the richest furrier alive. He didn't need Holden. But he couldn't resist the idea of getting some Nick Tiel. And he adored that Holden had paid for his trip.

He stared at that curious forest of coats in Aladdin's factory. “Holden, you shouldn't display your merchandise like that. You're doing an injustice to Nick.”

“Bronshtein, why should I con you? This is what I have.”

“You can call me Solomon, Solly, or Sol. We'll be partners in another minute. But I can't put so many Nick Tiels out on the market. We'll kill the demand.”

“I don't care how you parcel the coats. But I'm not selling in bunches. You'll have to take the whole lot.”

“But if I move this many coats around, word will leak. I can't afford that to happen.”

“I'll warehouse the coats for you,” Holden said. “Take as many or as little as you like.”

“What kind of sum did you have in mind?”

“Two million a month. But it has to be liquid. I won't take checks.”

“And no one, absolutely no one, will have access to Aladdin's label?”

“I'm giving you an exclusive. What else do you want?”

“My partner to call me Sol.”

“Bronshtein, you would have had me killed if you could.”

“You were dangerous, Holden. I was doing my job.”

The furrier left without a single coat. No lawyer knocked on Holden's door. Holden had nothing to sign. Six messenger boys arrived that afternoon with six enormous hatboxes. Holden didn't look inside. He marched the messenger boys across town to Phipps' private kingdom, piled the hatboxes on Phipps' desk, and handed each of the boys a hundred-dollar bill.

The old man was gloomy. “What's that?”

“Profits from Aladdin.”

“Then it ought to go into Aladdin's till.”

“Phippsy, Aladdin has no till. I brought you all the liquid I could lay my hands on.”

“This isn't a charity ward.”

“Who's talking charity? I danced with Solomon Bronshtein. He's distributing the Aladdin label.”

“That crook? He's been trying to steal Aladdin for years. You're naive, Sid. I don't think you have the stuff to be president. It was a mistake. Give Bronshtein back his money.”

“Naive, huh? Scratch yourself, old man. I made a deal. You're getting six hatboxes a month, like it or not.”

And Holden walked out of the office. That old man knew nothing about the homicidal quicksand of the fur market. Frog had Bronshtein and no one else.

Someone stood in Holden's way. He could sniff perfume. But he had hatboxes in his head. “How are you, Mrs. Vanderwelle?”

“You could have made an appointment instead of barging in like that.”

“But I didn't want an appointment. I found a buyer for all the coats.”

“Would you like to have dinner, Mr. Holden?”

He couldn't say yes. He couldn't say no. “I'll think about it.”

“Say seven o'clock. At my apartment. I believe you know where I live.”

He returned to Aladdin. He considered ordering a turkey sandwich. He wasn't going to eat with little Judith. She'd engineered that Elsinore at College Point. She was the queen of installations with her own mama as headmistress. And Frog was their clown. He wasn't going to eat with little Judith.

He arrived with six pink roses and one of his Windsor suits, forged by his very own tailor.

She didn't have her bow tonight. Her hair lay on her shoulders like magical silk. He wanted to press his teeth against her mouth, give little Judith a love bite. He didn't dare. They had dinner at her apartment. Her kitchen was as tiny as a water closet. Her windows faced a wall. She lived in some kind of cozy dead end.

“Who was Mr. Vanderwelle?” he asked over his spaghetti, from a cushion on the floor. The roses sat in a vase on one of her raw windows. Holden enjoyed the desolation.

“A boy I loved from college.”

Her whole history could have been inside the string of that sentence. He was reluctant to ask her anything more.

“His name was Charles.”

Holden ate his salad and listened.

“He killed himself.”

Little Judith had baked a pear pie. Holden kept worrying about Charles. The pie crumbled in his mouth as little Judith reached across the cushions. Their noses bumped. “I've never been with another man.” Holden couldn't tell if it was one more isolated island of words … or a declaration of love.

She started to bite his mouth. She undressed Sidney Holden. He was utterly naked without Windsor's wool. He couldn't remember being so passive around a woman. What did it mean? He was like some helpless animal in her touch. Then it was Holden who started to bite.

They woke like a married couple. She'd already squeezed some orange juice. They drank it together in that apartment without a view. Holden didn't mind the brick wall. He had little Judith. She was wearing a flannel robe. He didn't question her about the fall of Phippsy's empire. He wasn't S. Holden, president of Aladdin Furs. He wasn't Phipps' companion. He was the boy who'd traveled out of Queens and landed in the country of Manhattan, with excursions to Paris, Rio, Rome, London, Madrid, and Pescadores. He was comfortable in their morning silence.

He watched her dress, arrange the bow in her hair. She handed him a key. Holden bathed and put on his billionaire's suit. He locked little Judith's apartment with his key. A sadness fell over him. He knew he'd never use that key again.

He took a cab to the Flatiron Building. It looked like a building that belonged in Cairo. Holden had never been to Cairo. The Flatiron Building had Egyptian columns and rippled stone that could have been rubbed by a lion's paw. There were hieroglyphics in the walls, stone faces that must have told a story. But Holden didn't have the right key.

He rode up to the fifth floor and searched for a particular suite: THE JUPITER COMPANY. Holden waited until five after ten. Then he opened Jupiter's door. He passed the receptionist and entered the inner office. He saw Herbert Garden. He saw big Judith, wearing the cape of a corporate queen. He saw half a dozen other Manhattan Mimes, in the costume of young execs. He saw an older man, Herman Branley, the bauxite baron, one of the last allies Howard Phipps had left. Holden recognized him from a portrait in
Manhattan, inc
.

“Mr. Branley, whatever they're peddling, don't believe it. They want you to hate Howard Phipps.”

Branley tightened his silver eyebrows. “Do I know you, sir?”

“I'm Sidney Holden, president of Aladdin Furs. We're specialists in sable and mink.”

“I have nothing to do with sable,” Branley said. But while he moved his lips, the Mimes closed their little shop, stuffing all the contents on their desks into briefcases, and disappeared.

“I don't understand,” Branley muttered. “I don't understand. I thought I was …”

The entire suite had been picked clean. Could Frog tell Branley that he'd broken up one of big Judith's installations? That Herbert Garden had become his own little spy? It would have taken a month, and Branley would never believe him.

“Who are these people?”

“Swindlers, Mr. Branley. They're employed by Howard Phipps' competitors.”

“And you, sir. You're president of …”

“Nothing really. I'm just a Pinkerton man.”

“I thought so,” Branley said.

The Kronstadt
Case

12

He felt orphaned, sitting alone at Aladdin Furs. Then his bumper's intuition came back. Mrs. Vanderwelle had given Holden her key a little too fast. He hadn't met any bauxite barons. “Branley” was one of the Mimes. The installation he'd broken up had been staged for Frog. Another Elsinore. He returned to little Judith's flat, convinced the key he had would no longer fit the lock.

He opened the door. Little Judith was inside.

“What took you so long?” she said. Her mouth was red as midnight. She didn't look like a foundation lawyer. She was some kind of sweetheart. But Holden couldn't tell. He was never wise around women.

“You stuck Herbert Garden in front of my nose, didn't you? He led me to the Flatiron Building like a dog.”

“But you wanted to be led. It's part of your nature. How did you ever survive so long?”