Crazy for Cornelia (43 page)

And partners without much ability needed Tucker to make their decisions for them.

“Good time to congratulate the groom,” Han Junior smirked, as Tucker punched him playfully in the arm.

“Fuck that, Han. We’ll get on the front page of the
Wall Street Journal
on Monday morning. You and me. We pulled it off, buddy.”

Tucker hauled up his own laptop from beside the desk and fired it up, his fingers sprinting over the keyboard. “Today we consolidate
Cornelia’s shares in Lord & Company with the lots you bought. That’s us in the column that says ‘51 %.’ Here’s how bad we
just kicked Chester Lord’s ass.”

Han Koi, Jr., studied the screen that Tucker turned proudly in his direction. His face became a happy jack-o’-lantern’s.

“Your father’s going to be proud of you when he finds out.” Tucker blew smoke at his new partner. “He’ll complain a little,
but he’s a businessman.”

What a joke. Tucker believed the elder Han would view his son’s actions as sneaky and underhanded. In the best-case scenario,
old Han might blow an artery in his shock when he found out what Han Junior had done behind his back and drop dead. In the
worst, Tucker would force a split in Koi Industries. The father would be blackmailed into swallowing his son’s deal whether
he liked it or not.

Whatever.

This would be only the beginning. He’d met his first goal of thirty by thirty. On Monday, as Cornelia Lord’s husband with
her power of attorney, he would make the board of Lord & Company change the name on the door to Fisk & Company. Next goal,
push the elder Han Koi out of Koi Industries so young Han and Tucker could take over.

Tucker blew a perfect smoke ring into the air.

“Let’s go give Chester his big day,” he told Han.

“What will happen to him?” Han asked.

“After we throw him out and seal up his office?” He chuckled. “He’ll survive. Useless rich guys always do.” He didn’t add
“present company excepted,” even though he could clearly see Han’s future.

He stood up as Han rose, came around, and slapped his much shorter partner’s toadlike back. “Congratulations, big guy.”

Tucker sauntered out of the room, adjusting his tie. He rubbed his hands together.

Poor, forgetful Chester.

Chester hadn’t noticed recently that Penthouse A was put in Corny’s trust for tax reasons. Corny’s power of attorney would
even give Tucker this co-op once they were husband and wife. Would he automatically become chairman of the co-op board? Outside
the study, he bumped into a parchment-skinned woman who wore a sequined dress and tiara on her head. Lily Stern, a widow who
got lucky with a husband about ninety years ago.

“I love to win!” Tucker blurted out to Lily, full of executive helium.

“Of course you do, dear,” she cooed mechanically.

He swept through the guests, making small talk over the strains of three string quartets. In the dining room, the catering
firm Fête Accompli bustled around an eighteenth-century English hutch that groaned with treats. Waiters dressed in white tie
moved in a smooth glide pattern.

Tucker saw the mayor and his wife talking to the police commissioner. The mayor had married an editor of the
Daily Globe
, but the newspaper still stuck it to City Hall anyway. The
Globe
was owned by another guest he saw bullying his way around the room. He was a fireplug of a man with a shaved head who looked
like a professional wrestler in a business suit. He yelled something to Tucker over the crowd about condos or condoms, it
could be either.

Another media lord, a silver-haired mogul who owned several square miles in a pristine stretch of the Andes called Patagonia,
stopped to pump Tucker’s hand. “You coulda used my spread for your honeymoon.”

No, he didn’t want Cornelia anywhere near South America.

“I appreciate it.” Tucker tried to smile like a man in love. “But I took a place in the Bahamas.”

He had booked a whole private island in the Caribbean with a pristine beach and a fully staffed estate. It cost $35,000 for
a week, but the seclusion would be worth it. All hell could break loose on Monday when the law firm he had hired in secret,
that Park Avenue shark tank, took Corny’s power of attorney and their marriage certificate and padlocked Lord & Company. Although
he would never admit it to Han, he didn’t want to face Chester. He hadn’t wanted to ruin Chester necessarily, but his mentor
had left him no choice.

A player plays, Chester
.

A week on the beach would give him time to make long-term plans for Fisk & Company. Then, at the end of the day, he’d have
Cornelia’s body to explore. It was new to him. Maybe to anybody. He’d never asked, she’d never told. He genuinely looked forward
to sex with Corny, showing her his best moves. She seemed a little flaky still, but it would be worth it.

He had already decided that he would stick with her for as long as it served his interest. Why not? Controlling Corny would
be like molding putty. He could put his own spin on his Lord & Company takeover.
Good for your dad, he’s been so stressed lately
. Her memory was totally blown out. And he believed that good-hearted Cornelia would make a fine mother. Family values really
did matter. At least until they worked the bugs out of cloning.

As he crossed the foyer, he found Chester on the antique French phone, his face a crimson blob.

“He’s off-limits,” Chester was muttering into the telephone. “Call the police if necessary. Mr. Doyle is fired.”

Tucker’s stomach flopped over in a brand-new way. For the first time in his life, he actually felt it knot with a tiny glimpse
of the F-word.

F-F-F-Failure
.

“Chester,” he kept his voice low, “what’s going on?”

Chester covered the receiver. “Andrew the doorman called up to say that Kevin Doyle is downstairs. He’s demanding his job
back and he wants to speak to me.”

The little dick
. But he needed to calm down. Doyle must not get into this apartment.

“I’ll take care of it,” he growled.

Chester wagged his head. “This could spiral. He’s citing some union regulation, claims he’s entitled to work.”

“The police commissioner’s here,” Tucker said. “We’ll arrest Doyle for fraud, mayhem, who cares? By the time they let him
go, Corny and I will be in the Islands.”

“No.” Chester seemed calmer than he ever had during a crisis. “I’ve met his uncle, the union delegate. Get back to the guests
and let me handle this.”

Well, Chester taking charge. Tucker smiled thinly. “As long as you have it under control, Dad.”

He smirked at how the old man winced when he called him that.

In the staff room, Andrew stood over Kevin while he called Eddie Feeney.

“Don’t count on him to back you up, son,” Andrew prophesied, looking glum at this social breakdown at his workplace.

“Eddie!” Kevin talked fast into the phone. “I just reported back to work, and Chester Lord says I’m fired. Listen, I’m covered
by Regulation 247, right?”

The pause felt like sudden death at the other end. Then Eddie came back.

“You listen to me you little son of a bitch. Whatever you’re trying to pull, I’m not helping you.”

“Forget it’s me, Eddie,” Kevin said. “I’m a union guy. Just do the right thing.”

“The right thing?” Eddie sounded mean and spiteful as usual, but with a rehearsed quality. “Your old man’s a lout and a layabout,
without me he couldn’t even provide for my sister. And you’re worse. No union rule’s going to cover you, lad.”

Kevin held the receiver away as Eddie’s bile spilled out. He knew.

“So what did Chester Lord offer you?” He slammed the phone down. “Andrew, I’m not going to rant and rave or anything. I’m
just going to lay out the facts, let you decide for yourself. Uncle Eddie got
bought off. He says the union rules don’t matter here. He’s not going to help me.”

For once, Andrew didn’t seem certain.

“Something stinks about that.” The doorman’s forehead remained marbly. “The rules are pretty clear. You still got a job here,
till the union says you don’t. Chester Lord can’t change that. Fact is, Eddie never did shit for the guys, ‘less we leaned
all over him. Hate to say this, but I don’t see no real cause to fire you, Kevin.”

“There isn’t, Andrew. Right now, I just want to put my uniform on and go to work. Anything wrong with that?”

Andrew mulled it over, the kind eyes seeming to flare with resentment of Eddie. “Don’t see how that’s out of line.”

Good, Kevin thought. “If Chester Lord and Eddie can pull this on me now, they can do it to you or Vlad next week, right?”

“Maybe.” Andrew studied his white gloves. “You gettin’ at something?”

“If I ask you to take a side, would you go with me or Eddie?”

He saw the embryo of defiance in Andrew, disturbing his years of keeping a positive attitude. “I dunno, son. Just get your
ass in gear, suit up and get to the lobby.”

“Andrew, maybe you could send Vlad in for a second while I get dressed. I just want to talk to him.”

“Cornelia, is everything all right?”

Her father’s voice crept through the bedroom door like an anxious fog.

“I’ll be out soon, Daddy.”

This stubborn need to sit alone and collect her thoughts interfered with her duty to Tucker and the rest, but especially to
her father. She felt a damp itch in the small of her back. The perfect folds of her dress seemed as hot and cumbersome as
an astronaut’s suit.

“Where are you, child?” the French-accented foghorn rumbled through the door.

Dear Madame, that frail tyrant, would probably want to crucify her at the Wedding Bower if she could see her bride, sitting
on her bed in her dress, no doubt creasing the taffeta.

“Cornelia! Everyone’s waiting.” Her father’s worried wail broke
through and nearly jerked her stocking feet to respond, but she would not allow herself. Not yet.

Something needed remembering.

Or not really some
thing
, since she had taken inventory of all her essentials. Only her lacy white shoes still lay on the velvet-cushioned hassock
like lovebirds, waiting to be slipped on.

No. Some
one
needed to be remembered, she felt certain.

Cornelia held the framed photograph of her mother tight and closed her eyes. She imagined her mother saying “I do” to her
father. Then a blizzard of rice and good wishes as he swept her away in… a carriage?

A horse-drawn carriage came to mind quite suddenly. White with a black landau roof.

“Daddy, how did you leave the church on your wedding day?”

She endured the long silence.

“An MSG,” she thought he said.
Monosodium glutamate?

“A what?”

“An MG. A car, darling. A little English sports car. Someone stuck white ribbons all over it. Cornelia…”

“I’m almost ready.”

She sounded more reassuring than she felt, her fingertips pressing white on the silver frame that held her mother’s picture.
She kept her eyes closed tightly. It seemed so necessary to finish the image she tried to make out of the faintest traces
and shadows.

Something to do with a heart, hers or somebody else’s.

But that would be Tucker, wouldn’t it?

The three doormen stood alone in the lobby, now that all the wedding guests on their list had been deposited in Penthouse
A. They formed a huddle. Kevin argued and cajoled while Andrew, arms behind his back, pursed his lips in mighty conflict,
and Vlad the Self-Impaler cleared his throat for an announcement.

“Da!” The Russian doorman brandished the old newspaper from December with the headline, “Doorman Saves Deb from Dad.” Kevin
had kept one copy of it in his locker and another cuddled under the pillow of his bed in Alphabet City.

“What?” Andrew asked him, cranky from inner turmoil.

“It’s the downtrodding of a young worker,” Vlad barked to Andrew, summoning up all the phony communist party platitudes ever
hammered into him. “The boy has been trampled by the owners. Eddie Feeney is a traitor. We must stand together.”

“Vlad.” Andrew blew out air, frustrated. “Even if Kevin got screwed, what do you expect us to do about it?”

Kevin answered, “I think we ought to go see Eddie up at 2000 Fifth.”

“Yes! No one will watch the door!” Vlad stood at attention, his chest stuck out. “We will make our stand and fuck the owners!”

The three strode out the bronze doors of 840 Fifth Avenue, Vlad and Kevin holding their chins high and propelling Andrew forward
with them. For the first time in the seventy-five-year history of 840 Fifth Avenue, the lobby stood unattended.

Out on 65th Street turning uptown on Fifth, Philip Grace hurried toward them, his battered leather camera bag slung over his
shoulder.

“Kevin Doyle! Got your call, man.” Philip looked at the three doormen, then peered into the empty lobby. “Seems to me, two
of you oughtta be on duty. You leavin’ 840 Fifth to the workin’ press?”

“I told you, Philip,” Kevin said. “You want a real story, come with us.”

She could only feel around the fringes of her memory, stringy and peripheral. There was definitely a person in uniform, then
the vague image of a picnic enjoyed with a man, perhaps the same one but out of uniform, on the rooftop of a big stone building
that seemed a little like Notre Dame. Or someplace. But in all these images, never a face to match.

“Corneeee!”

The reedy uncontrolled shriek tore through her bedroom door, collapsing her structure of half-captured memories.

“Corny, you’re making us crazy out here. If you don’t come out this minute, I will shave my head.”

Uh, oh. She realized how critical the wedding situation must have become for her father and Madame to pluck poor, delicate
Tina from the line of bridesmaids to intercede. Well. She sighed her father’s familiar
sigh of obligations heeded, hearing it like a strange voice trapped somewhere in her soul, and got to her feet.

She slipped her feet into the lily-white shoes. Then she opened her maiden’s bedroom door for the last time.

Eddie Feeney, in a uniform too long for his legs and too small for his arms, glowered as he spun the revolving door of 2000
Fifth Avenue.