As I was about to tell Mr. Handsome Frenchy to get his googly eyes and dirty mitts off my dame, he unwrapped Mary Catherine and my jaw dropped.
She’d been buttoned up in a raincoat when we met in the lobby of our building, so I hadn’t had a chance to see what she’d chosen to wear underneath. Now I could see that it was more like what she’d chosen
not
to wear.
Instead of the little black dress I was expecting, she was in a little red dress. A very little red strapless one that showed off a lot of back and even more leg.
Even the unflappable maître d’ looked a little flapped.
“Yes,” he said, finally recovering. “Welcome to La Grenouille. This way,
s’il vous plaît
.”
CHAPTER
61
LIKE I SAID, I’M
not exactly what you’d call a gourmet, but even I thought entering La Grenouille’s famous and fancy dining room was dazzling, like stepping into a vivid French Impressionist painting.
There were gold damask wallpaper, bloodred banquettes, waiters in white berets performing tableside service from shining copper carts, waiters in white dinner jackets bearing bright-silver buckets of champagne.
And the flowers!
They were everywhere. Yellow firework bursts of chrysanthemums in huge vases, soaring whimsical constellations of late-summer flowers and grasses arching toward the high ceiling.
The patrons at the tables were pretty impressive as well. They seemed to fall into two categories, filthy-rich-looking older men with eye-candy models or skeletal grande-dame socialites holding court under thick layers of diamonds and pearls and Chanel.
A lot of the eyes in the room, both male and female, shifted discreetly toward us as Michel sat us side by side at a rear banquette. And by toward us, I of course mean toward Mary Catherine.
She snuggled in next to me on the soft red banquette as Michel assured us that our table captain was on his way.
“Our table
captain?
” I whispered to Mary Catherine as I adjusted my tie. “I hope he doesn’t throw us overboard.”
That was when I turned and took in Mary Catherine’s thoroughly bedazzled face.
“So what do you think so far?” I said, smiling. “I mean, if you want, we could still head home. I thought I saw a can of tuna fish behind the Cheerios in the back of the pantry.”
Mary Catherine gripped my hand like a vise.
“This is…” she said, her eyes wet as she stared at the magical room around us, “…wonderful, Michael. Just wonderful.”
I did a little double take. I didn’t think she’d ever called me Michael before. And definitely not like that.
“You deserve wonderful, Mary Catherine,” I whispered in her ear. “And remember, this is just the first part of my little town-painting. I made us another reservation at the—”
Her hand flew to my mouth before I could get the word
Plaza
out. Her fingertips were warm on my lips, her shiny red nails scratchy on my cheek.
“I know, Michael,” she whispered.
The bold look she gave me next made my mouth dry as it pinned me deep into the velvet at my back. She moved a red fingernail to her own lips and held my gaze as a white-jacketed waiter approached under the canopy of flowers.
“Some things, Michael, are better left unsaid.”
CHAPTER
62
TWO AND A HALF
surreal hours later, in a glamorous fog, we finished dessert.
“I finally found it,” Mary Catherine said, gently placing her fork on her plate, now empty of Grand Marnier soufflé.
“What’s that,
mon amie?
” I said, feeling very little pain after the multiple courses paired with wine.
“The best thing I ever ate,” she said, sounding a little tipsy herself.
“But you said that was the lobster-and-tarragon ravioli,” I reminded her.
“That was then,” she said with a wink. “This is now. How about you? What would you want if you could have anything in the world right now?”
Cocking my head, I lifted my dessert wine and began to swirl it as I gave it some thought.
“For you to call me Michael again,” I suddenly said truthfully before draining my glass.
She glared at me.
“Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.
Michael
,” she said, suddenly standing.
“Hey, where are you headed?” I said.
“
I
am going to the powder room,” she announced with a giggle. “What are
you
going to do?”
“
I
am going to sit here and watch
you
go to the powder room,” I said.
As I, and every other man there, watched Mary Catherine cross the room, I was interrupted by the waiter, who discreetly brought the bill. The bill itself was not discreet. With wine and the tips, in fact, it was pretty staggering.
But I smiled as I dropped my Amex card on top of it. You get what you pay for, and what I’d just paid for was truly a New York, New York, once-in-a-lifetime sort of night.
Now for the good part
, I thought as I caught up with Mary Catherine by the door.
After we got Mary Catherine’s coat and said
au revoir
to La Grenouille, we saw that it was raining cats and dogs outside and that more than half the restaurant’s hoity-toity patrons were huddled under the narrow awning waiting for taxis and town cars and limos.
Breathing in Chanel No. 5 and shoe polish as we waited with the movers and shakers, I looked across the street at the diamond-filled windows of Cartier. Then I quickly looked away. Because I was off tonight.
I’d even gone and done the unthinkable in this modern and insane 24/7 wired-up world we lived in. I’d turned off my cell phone. The city, both uptown and downtown, would have to take care of itself. At least for one measly night.
“Your cab,
Monsieur et Madame
,” suddenly called the house manager as he scored us a taxi.
I hooked elbows with Mary Catherine, and we jogged into the rain for our cab.
CHAPTER
63
MARY CATHERINE AND I
both laughed as we fell into the back of the taxi.
“Excuse me, nice young people, but where to?” said the middle-aged little cabbie with an Indian accent.
“The Plaza Hotel. On the double!” Mary Catherine yelled out before I could open my mouth.
I stared at her, my mouth gaping as the cab pulled out.
“Oh, that’s how we’re going to play it, are we?” I said as I began to tickle her. “What happened to all that ‘things better left unsaid’ stuff?”
“That was then,” she said, laughing, and then she did it.
Mary Catherine leaned in and gave me what I’d wanted more than anything since the night started.
A nice long taste of her red lips.
“This is now, Michael,” she said, pulling me closer.
We kissed slowly as the lights of the city swept through the windows and the rain pounded hard on the cab’s roof. We came up for air as we stopped before a dripping red traffic light.
“Sorry,” Mary Catherine said to the cabbie.
“No, please. Perfectly fine, in fact,” the cabbie said, looking at us in the rearview. “I like to see people in love. And I know the real thing when I see it.”
I watched Mary Catherine reapply her lipstick as there was a hum. But it wasn’t my phone, for a change—it was Mary Catherine’s.
“Hello?” she said.
I watched her listen. After a second, her expression changed as she sat up straight.
“What is it?” I said.
“It’s Brian,” Mary Catherine said. “Something’s wrong. It’s Seamus.”
I grabbed the phone.
“Brian, what is it?”
“He’s not talking, Dad,” Brian managed to say through his bawling. “I just came out to say good night, and Gramps is on the couch and all he does is just stare at me.”
“Is he breathing?”
“Yes, a little, I think.”
“We’re on our way, Bri. Hang in there. I’ll call the paramedics and call you back.”
I turned toward the cabbie. “Change of plans,” I yelled as I dialed 911. “Ninety-Fifth and West End Avenue. Please hurry.”
CHAPTER
64
FIVE MINUTES LATER, BRIAN
called and told us the EMTs were taking Seamus to the emergency room, so instead of going home, we redirected the cabbie to St. Luke’s Hospital on Amsterdam Avenue.
Another day, another hospital
, I thought as we pulled up outside. My stomach churned as I considered the worst. That the inevitable had finally happened to my grandfather. That Seamus was already dead.
Please, God, let me be wrong
, I prayed as we came through the revolving doors into the waiting room.
We still need him more than you do
.
They let us upstairs to six, where Seamus had just been admitted.
But surprisingly, when we entered his room, instead of being laid out on a gurney, he was sitting up in bed with his arms crossed and one of his patented scowls on his face.
“Seamus!” I said, beating Mary Catherine to him by a half step to hug him. “You’re OK! Jeez, you scared the heck out of us! What happened?”
“He had a stroke,” said a short, handsome young doctor as he stepped into the room.
“See, here on the MRI where it’s gray?” Dr. Jacob Freeman said as he held a readout up to the light. “Regions in both the parietal lobe and the gustatory area have damage from blood loss.”
“Oh my goodness, Seamus! You’ve had a stroke?” Mary Catherine said.
“Of course I had a stroke,” Seamus said. “So what? Don’t go measurin’ me for a pine box just yet. I feel fine. Whaddya think? This many years on this old rock, the plumbin’s
not
goin’ to get the occasional clog? Where’s me clothes? What is it that Eddie always says? Time to blow this clambake!”
“A stroke is very serious, Mr. Bennett,” the doctor said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, but you can’t leave now. You need to stay overnight for observation, and we still have more tests to run.”
“Tests,” Seamus said, rolling his eyes. “You seem like a nice little fella, but I’m in no mood to hear any more of your medical school mumbo jumbo. I made a call and my personal physician is on his way. If he says I’m good to go, I’m good to go, agreed?”
“Is he always this way?” the doctor whispered to me. “Your grandfather seems quite disoriented.”
“Actually,” I said, smiling sheepishly at Dr. Freeman, “this is normal, believe it or not.”
CHAPTER
65
“PARDON ME! COMING THROUGH!”
said a bellowing Irish voice from the hall a moment later.
It was time to roll
my
eyes when I saw the skinny old man who walked in. It was no doctor, but Jimmy “Dowdy” Dowd, one of Seamus’s drinking and poker buddies. Actually, I think he had been a doctor, but, like, in the 1970s. He was well into his eighties now. How the heck was he still practicing medicine?
“If you would all step back and give us a little room. Thank you, thank you,” Dowdy said as he rummaged in the big old-fashioned black leather doctor bag he’d brought and put on a huge ’60s-era black stethoscope.
Dowd started out the examination by getting Seamus to stand. The second Seamus was upright, Dowd started snapping the bony fingers of both hands loudly and rapidly in Seamus’s face.
“What in the world are you doing?” said Dr. Freeman as Seamus jumped back.
“Testing his reflexes. Getting him to look alive,” Dowd said.
“Easier said than done with you for a physician, James Dowd,” Seamus said, clutching his chest. “Where’d ya learn your bedside manner? The enhanced interrogation team at the CIA?”
“Enough of your squawking,” Dowd said, giving Seamus the peace sign. “How many fingers would I be holding up?”
“That’d be two last time I checked,” Seamus said. “Though I’m surprised it isn’t one, considering how badly I took you at the end of our last poker game. All in on pocket threes? What were you thinking?”
“Ah, he’s obviously fine,” Dowd said to me. “Strong as a stubborn donkey and still about as charming, which I don’t have to tell you fine long-suffering people about. I’m sure I don’t see any brain damage. Well, any more than usual, that is.”
“This is highly unusual,” Dr. Freeman said almost to himself.
Dowd turned to him.
“Enough of that now, Doctor, please. His physical coordination is fine, right? He’s thinking fairly straight. His tongue’s as sharp as ever. Therefore, I hereby deem this man fit to go home, and that’s where he’s goin’ to go. Now, be a good lad and fetch a wheelchair, would you? And bring back the paperwork while you’re at it.”
Freeman opened his mouth, then quickly closed it before leaving.
“OK, now that he’s gone, time for a little medicine,” Dowdy said, producing a pint of Jameson’s and a couple of little steel cups from his bag of tricks.
I shook my head and then shared a laugh with Mary Catherine as the two tough, nutty old men shared a stiff belt of the good stuff. Obviously, I would have felt better if Seamus had stayed for some more tests, but I knew it would be fruitless to try to persuade him. He did look OK. Plus the fact that he was back to his old Emerald Isle vaudeville routine was definitely positive.
When I turned on my phone to tell Brian the good news and that we were on our way home, I saw that I had several new texts. Three of them were from Starkie.
The gist of his messages was that he’d recently been fielding complaints about me from the jewelry store owners, Bruno Santanella and his wife, Ellie. The Santanellas were claiming that I’d left the crime scene at their store even faster than the thieves. Which was completely unfair. I’d stayed at least five minutes. The thieves had been out in, like, two.
Starkie concluded that he wasn’t real happy with the investigation so far. Or with me, for that matter.
Fair enough
, I thought, filing the aggravating criticism in the memory hole with a tiny flick of the Delete button.