One Fifth Avenue (48 page)

“Lola, it’s just not a good idea.”

“What isn’t? You asked me to move in with you, Philip. In Mustique.

If you’re saying you don’t love me anymore . . .” She’d started crying.

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Philip had buckled under her tears. “I didn’t mean that. I do care for you, Lola. It’s just that—”

“How can you say you care about me when you’re trying to tell me you don’t want me around? Fine. I’ll leave. I’ll go live on the street.”

“Lola, you don’t have to live on the street.”

“I’m twenty-two years old,” she’d said, sobbing. “You seduced me and made me fall in love with you. And now you’re ruining my life.”

“Lola, stop. Everything is going to be okay.”

“So do you love me?”

“We’ll discuss it when I get back,” he’d said resignedly.

“I know you’re not ready to say it yet. But you will,” she chirped. “It’s just an adjustment period. Oh, I almost forgot—your friend Schiffer Diamond is dating some guy named Derek Brumminger. It was in the
Post
.

And then I saw them together, leaving the building in the morning. He’s not very attractive. He’s old and he’s got bad skin. You’d think a movie star could do better, but maybe she can’t. She’s not so young anymore, either.”

For a moment, Philip had been silent.

“Hello? Hello?” Lola had said. “Are you there?”

So she’s gone back to Brumminger, he’d thought. After telling him to get rid of Lola. Why had he thought she’d changed?

“Lola,” he said now, going into his apartment. “What’s this business about your friend?”

He looked around. Lola wasn’t home. He put his suitcase on the bed and knocked on his aunt’s door.

Lola was with Enid. “Philip! You’re home,” Lola said, throwing her arms around him. He patted her on the back and looked at his aunt, who smiled and rolled her eyes. Lola went on, “Enid was showing me her gardening books. I’m going to fix up your terrace this spring. Enid says I can make tulip boxes. And then we can have cut flowers.”

“Hello, Philip, dear,” Enid said, slowly getting up from the couch. Not having seen her for two weeks, Philip realized she was getting old. Someday he would lose her, and then he’d truly be alone. The thought changed his mood: He was happy he still had his aunt, and that Lola was still living in his apartment, and that Enid and Lola were getting along. Perhaps it would work out after all.

“I want to show you what I did in the kitchen,” Lola said eagerly.

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“You were in the kitchen?” he asked in mock surprise. He followed her back to his apartment, where she showed off her handiwork. She had rearranged the contents of his kitchen cabinets so he no longer knew where anything was.

“Why did you do this?” he asked, opening the cabinet that had once held coffee and condiments but now contained a stack of plates.

She looked crushed. “I thought you’d like it.”

“I do. It’s better,” he lied, looking carefully around the apartment and wondering what else she’d disturbed. In the bedroom, he cautiously opened the closet. Half his clothes—the jackets and shirts that had hung in an orderly fashion for years—were missing; in their place, Lola’s clothing hung haphazardly, dangling from his hangers like Christmas ornaments.

“Have you forgotten about me?” she said, coming up behind him and slipping her hands into the front of his jeans. She scooted back onto the bed. With a hard-on that reminded him he hadn’t had sex in two weeks, Philip put her ankles over his shoulders. For a second, he looked down at her bare, waxed pussy, remembering that this was not what he wanted.

But it was there before him, and he dove in.

Afterward, searching through his kitchen for his misplaced wine-glasses, he said, “What’s this story about your friend cutting the Internet cables to the Rices’ apartment?”

“Oh. That.” She sighed. “It was that horrible Mindy Gooch. She’s jealous of me because her husband, James, is always trying to come on to me behind her back. She said Thayer Core did it. You remember, we went to his Halloween party. Thayer was only here like two times—he wants to write screenplays, and I was trying to help him—and Thayer keeps writing about Mindy and her husband on Snarker, so Mindy was trying to get even with him. And Thayer wasn’t even in the building when it happened.”

“How often has he been here?” Philip asked, his annoyance rising.

“I told you,” she said. “Once or twice. Maybe three times. I can’t remember.”

In the apartment next door, Enid picked up her gardening books and shook her head in frustration. She’d tried everything she could think of to get rid of Lola—forcing her to go along to three upscale supermarkets on Sixth Avenue in search of canned flageolet beans, taking her to a Damien O N E F I F T H AV E N U E

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Hirst retrospective of dead cows and sharks, and even introducing her to Flossie—all to no avail. Lola claimed that she, too, had a love for flageolets, was grateful to Enid for introducing her to art, and was not even put off by Flossie. Begging Flossie to tell her about her old days as a showgirl, Lola sat rapt at the foot of the bed. Enid realized she’d underestimated Lola’s tenacity. After the Internet Debacle, when Enid confronted Lola once again about her relationship with Thayer Core, all Lola did was look at her innocently and say, “Enid, you were right. He is a scumbag. And I’m never going to talk to him again.”

Unlike Mindy Gooch, Enid did not believe Thayer Core had cut Paul Rice’s cables. Thayer Core was a bully, and like most bullies, he lacked courage. He was far too fearful to take physical action, instead striking out at the world from behind the safety of his computer. Mindy’s accusation was an attempt to divert attention from the real culprit, whom Enid suspected was Sam.

Luckily for Sam, the police made only a cursory investigation. The incident was a prank, they said, due to animosity between residents. These pranks were becoming more and more common even in high-class apartment buildings. They received all kinds of complaints about neighbors now—from residents banging on ceilings with broomsticks, or ripping down each other’s Christmas decorations, or insisting that a neighbor’s cigarette smoke was drifting into their apartment and putting their children at risk for cancer. “I say live and let live,” one of the officers said to Enid.

“But you know what people are like these days. There’s too much money and not enough space. And no manners. Makes people hate each other.”

There had always been petty issues between residents at One Fifth, but until now, they had been countered by the collegial air of pride the residents took in living in the building. Perhaps the balance had been tipped by the Rices, who were so much wealthier than anyone else. Paul had threatened to sue, and Enid had to give Mindy a severe talking-to, reminding her that if Paul Rice went through with a lawsuit, the building would be forced to pay legal fees, which would be passed on to the residents in the form of an increase in monthly maintenance payments. After she saw the matter in financial terms that could directly affect her, Mindy agreed to back down and even wrote Paul and Annalisa Rice a note of apology. A tense truce was established, but then detailed items 332

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about these skirmishes began appearing in Snarker. Enid was sure the information was coming from Lola, but how could she prove it? As if Enid herself had something to do with it, Mindy took every opportunity to harass Enid about it, stopping her in the lobby to see if she’d read it and forwarding the blog to Enid’s e-mail address.

“This can’t go on. Something has to be done,” Mindy exclaimed that morning.

Enid sighed. “If it bothers you so much, then hire the young man.”

“What?” Mindy said, outraged.

“Hire him,” Enid repeated. “He must be a hard worker if he puts so much effort into writing about One Fifth. He’s at least halfway intelligent—I’m assuming he knows how to form a sentence, otherwise you wouldn’t be so angry. Pay him a decent salary and work him hard. That way he won’t have enough time to write anything on the side. But don’t pay him so much that he can save up money to quit. Give him insurance and benefits. Turn him into a corporate drone, and you’ll never have to worry about him again.”

If only, Enid thought, all problems could be solved so easily. She went into the kitchen and made a cup of tea, sipping it carefully to avoid burn-ing her mouth. She hesitated, then took her tea into the bedroom. She turned off the phones, pulled back the covers, and for the first time in years, got into bed during the day. She closed her eyes. She was finally getting too old for all this drama.

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The recent events in One Fifth had made Paul Rice more paranoid and secretive than normal, and he was continually losing his temper over things he might once have ignored. He screamed at Maria for folding his jeans the wrong way, and then one of his precious fish died and he accused Annalisa of killing it on purpose. Fed up, Annalisa went to a spa in Massachusetts with Connie Brewer for six days, and Paul was left facing a lonely weekend. He spent most weekends pursuing his own interests anyway, but he liked the comfort of having Annalisa around, and the fact that she’d left him, even temporarily, made him fear she might someday leave him permanently.

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Apparently, Sandy Brewer didn’t have the same concerns about his own wife. “Dude,” he said, going into Paul’s office, “the girls are away this weekend. Thought you might want to come to my house for dinner.

There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Who?” Paul asked. Ever since Sandy had flipped out about the two-minute delay in launching the algorithm, Paul had been watching Sandy closely, looking for evidence that Sandy was trying to replace him. Instead, Paul had found payments to an escort company that revealed Sandy had been paying prostitutes to service him during business trips.

With Annalisa away, Paul wondered if Sandy would try to introduce him to a hooker.

“You’ll see,” Sandy said mysteriously. Paul agreed to go, thinking if Sandy had invited one of his prostitutes, Paul could leverage the information to his advantage.

Sandy loved to show off what his success and hard work had brought him, arranging for a formal dinner for three in his wood-paneled dining room, where two enormous David Salle paintings hung. The third dinner companion wasn’t a prostitute after all, but a man named Craig Akio.

Paul shook Craig’s hand, noting only that Craig was younger than he and possessed sharp black eyes. They sat down to a glass of a rare white wine and a bowl of seafood bisque. “I’m a big admirer of your work, Paul,”

Craig Akio said from across the polished mahogany table. “Your work on the Samsun scale was genius.”

“Thanks,” Paul said curtly. He was used to being called a genius and took the compliment as a matter of course.

“I’m looking forward to working with you.”

Paul paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth. This was unexpected. “Are you moving to New York?” he asked.

“I’ve already found an apartment. In the new Gwathmey building. A masterpiece of modern architecture.”

“On the West Side Highway,” Sandy joked.

“I’m used to cars,” Craig said. “I grew up in L.A.”

“Where’d you go to school?” Paul asked evenly. But he felt uneasy. It struck him that perhaps it would have been normal behavior for Sandy to have told him about this new associate before hiring him.

“MIT,” Craig said. “You?”

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“Georgetown,” Paul replied. He looked past Craig’s head to the David Salle paintings on the wall. Normally, he didn’t notice such things, but the paintings were of two jesters with terrifying expressions—both jovial and cruel. Paul took a gulp of his wine, feeling inexplicably like the jesters were real and mocking him.

For the rest of the dinner, the talk was of the upcoming political election and its impact on business; then they moved into Sandy’s study for cognac and cigars. Passing out cigars, Sandy began talking about art, boasting about his dinner with a man named David Porshie. “Billy Litchfield, he’s a good friend of my wife’s—when you get married, he’ll be a good friend of your wife’s as well,” he explained to Craig Akio. “He set us up with the head of the Metropolitan Museum. Decent fellow. Knows everything about art, but I suppose that’s not surprising. He got me thinking about improving my own collection. Going for the old masters instead of the new stuff. What do you think, Paul? Anyone can get the new stuff, right? It’s only money. But no matter what they tell you, no one knows how much it’ll be worth in five years or even two. Might not be worth anything at all.”

Paul just stared, but Craig nodded enthusiastically. Sandy, sensing an audience for not only admiration but awe, opened the safe.

Connie had done what Billy had asked. She had put the cross away—

into the safe in Sandy’s study—so she could visit it anytime she liked.

Nevertheless, she’d managed to keep the cross a secret. Sandy, however, was a different story. When Billy first came to him with the opportunity to buy the cross, Sandy hadn’t thought much about it, considering it nothing more than another piece of old jewelry his wife wanted to acquire. Connie told him that the piece was important, a true antiquity, but Sandy hadn’t paid attention until that evening with David Porshie.

David approached art on a whole different level. After returning home that evening, Sandy had examined the cross again with Connie and began to understand its value, but was more taken by the coup he’d scored in obtaining it at all. It was something no one else had, and unable to keep this spectacular possession to himself, he had taken to bringing one or two select guests into his study after dinner to show it off.

Now, untying the black cords that bound the artifact in its soft suede wrappings, he said, “Here’s something you won’t see every day. In fact, O N E F I F T H AV E N U E

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it’s so rare, you won’t even find it in a museum.” Holding up the cross, he allowed Craig and Paul to examine it.

“Where do you get a piece like that?” Craig Akio asked, his eyes glittering.