Some Like It Lethal (32 page)

Tears sprang into my eyes. I barely managed to speak. "Should we— Is it cruel to keep him alive?"

Dr. Gilley sat on the edge of his desk. "Let's not talk about that yet. We'll take the pictures and decide what needs to be done. We can do some surgeries here, but we may have to send him to a facility with more technology at their disposal. Let me keep him for a few more hours before we decide anything drastic. He's young enough that his bones are still flexible, and we all know he's a fighter."

I tearfully thanked the doctor, and we promised to communicate again in a few hours. I asked to see Spike one more time, but Dr. Gilley assured me he would be better off if we didn't disturb him. I must have looked awful, because Dr. Gilley gave me a hug before I left.

Chapter 19

Rawlins took me home, where I washed my hand and bandaged it. Then I changed into a no-nonsense suit and boots. Dressed for business, I let my nephew drive me first to my doctor's office for a tetanus shot, then to the train station. I didn't lecture him anymore, but gave him a big kiss in the minivan and told him I was glad he was safe. I took the train into the city, trying not to think about how much Spike had enjoyed the trip just a day earlier. But my throat clogged up anyway, so I tried to study my calendar instead.

Rather than going to the
Intelligencer
offices, I consulted the address on the card given to me by the FBI agents. I took a cab from the station and reached their security checkpoint a few minutes before noon. When the agents were alerted of my unexpected arrival, they chose to skip lunch in order to meet with me.

"Show me the list of bank transactions," I said when we were seated in a bare-bones conference room. "I'll confirm whatever I know to be true."

They bumped into each other trying to get the papers fast enough.

My lawyer did not approve and tried to convince me by phone not to give the FBI any information at all, but I spent the next three hours carefully consulting my calendar to establish that Michael Abruzzo did not make suspicious bank deposits in my presence.

Nor did he pose as someone else to make deposits illegally. I could not address all the dates in question, but I was surprised to discover how much time I had spent with Michael in the last six months.

The FBI seemed disappointed with my information.

When I finished in the late afternoon, I called the vet's office. The nurse told me Spike was still sedated and they were looking at his X rays now. I raced off to two cocktail parties and called again. Spike, I was told, had been sedated for the night. Phone again in the morning. They would decide on his treatment then, if he survived.

Gulping, I headed for my last stop for the evening, a Christmas dinner at the private home of an old friend of my grandfather. The thirty-two pillars of the community who sat around the grand mahogany table set with heavy silver and lavish flowers wanted to discuss the ethics of American foreign policy since FDR. I felt as if I was choking down dinner on Mount Rush-more. I sat between a jowly federal judge and Hartz Calloway, the bow tie-wearing, tin-pot conservative columnist for the city's most widely read newspaper, who lectured me about nuclear proliferation. I found myself more worried that we all might imminently be destroyed by the two-ton chandelier that swayed ominously over the table. I developed a splitting headache.

Reed took me home, and we were both subdued during the drive, thinking of Spike. I stayed up late, writing my stories and e-mailing them to my editor for him to insert into the weekend edition. Afterward, I fired off a note to a friend at the other newspaper, offering her a tip I thought she would best know how to plant.

Then I wrote a carefully worded e-mail to Joe
Crawford, the news reporter who'd been following the Abruzzo money-laundering story. I waited until after midnight to send it, so the information wouldn't be rushed into the morning edition. Joe needed a day to absorb my statement and find other sources to make a rounded story.

Satisfied I had done what I could, I went to bed.

Two hours later, I got out of bed again, took two more aspirin and made one phone call.

Detective Bloom woke up fast and agreed with me.

On Thursday morning, I phoned the vet first thing and learned that Spike had two broken legs, a crushed pelvis and three broken ribs. One lung had been punctured, but was reinflated. His spinal cord was undamaged, but he had two injured vertebrae. With my heart beating so hard it hurt, I asked again if it would be kinder to put him down.

"Let's give him a few more hours," Dr. Gilley said. "But I'll be honest. If his liver is damaged, we may have to make a difficult choice."

I dressed in a somber black Karl Lagerfeld suit with leather piping. The matching coat buttoned Nehru-style around my throat. Reed drove me to Rush Strawcutter's funeral.

The first person I saw when I stepped out of the car was Kitty Keough, in her scraggly fur coat. Behind her stood Andy Mooney, looking sorry he'd gotten out of bed that morning. His dark suit revealed a bad case of dandruff. Kitty spotted me and steamed over.

"Do you think it's appropriate for you to be here?" she demanded, loud enough to be heard by arriving mourners. "After all, your sister killed a very promising young man!"

She swept past me and into the church. Andy cast me an apologetic glance and scuttled after her. I was
too numb to feel embarrassed. More important issues weighed on my mind.

I slipped into the church and sat in the back row. From that vantage point, I studied the crowd. Gussie sat up front, alone in a straight-backed pew, facing the coffin, which was draped with a small spray of ordinary red roses. Gussie appeared to be reading listlessly from a prayer book. Or was she contemplating the circumstances of Rush's death?

A furnace clanged beneath our feet, and I felt a blast of heated air against the back of my neck. The organist had already begun playing an uninspired selection of Protestant hymns. "Rock of Ages," for heaven's sake. The crowd was surprisingly small, considering the influential Strawcutter family. I wondered if half the people might be company employees. As the heat increased, I unfastened the top buttons on my coat.

At eleven, a last person entered the church as the service began. Tottie Boarman. From my seat, I thought he looked very ill—ashen and furious. He made no effort to locate Kitty in the sparsely filled church but sat down in the row directly in front of me, alone. He forced his shoulders square.

I tried to think about Rush during the dreary service, but the music and the spoken words did not celebrate his life or uplift my heart. I felt sadder than ever that Rush had not been appreciated during his too-short time on earth. Except perhaps by Emma, who was prevented from saying good-bye to the first man she truly cared about since her husband's death.

When the congregation stood to drone through "Amazing Grace," I couldn't stand it anymore. I slipped out the back door. The fresh air was cold, just what I needed.

A moment later, I was surprised to hear footsteps behind me, and I turned. Tottie Boarman came toward me, obviously also driven out by the banality of the service.

I paused under the stone portico of the church. He nearly strode past me without a word, but suddenly realized who I was and stopped. He seemed startled to find himself willing to linger.

Equally surprised, I didn't know what to say. But here was a man like every other in my family—incapable of expressing emotion and substituting stern control in its place. I had stood in silence with my grandfather in many times of crisis, and mute endurance had always been the preferred method for coping.

I took a chance this time and said, "I'm sorry for your loss, Tottie."

His fierce eyes fixed on my face, and I saw his jaw tighten. He drew a long breath and mastered whatever he had been feeling inside. Then he said, "Thank you."

And he walked away.

I didn't stick around, either.

I stopped for a bite of lunch with a friend at Rouge where we discussed Red Cross committee work and her eight-year-old daughter's rapid progress in her Suzuki violin class. I was glad to put all other thoughts out of my head for a short while. Afterward, my friend invited me on a January getaway to her New York pied-a-terre.

"We'll spend a week hitting the after-Christmas sales," she suggested. "And there's an orchid show, too, I think."

I made no promises and kissed her good-bye. Next I headed off to the Dollar Bill Club. A hundred years
ago, a feisty band of ladies gathered to discuss a woman's right to vote. They eventually established a club, moved their headquarters out of their suffragette leader's parlor and into a lovely brownstone. They had flourished ever since, and were still a hot-eyed bunch eager to discuss politics and world affairs over their Earl Grey tea and mushroom sandwiches. My grandmother had been a member, and I had a soft spot for them all. I was only sorry that so many such active women's clubs were dying out. Young women had careers and busy family lives and little time to devote to organizations like the Dollar Bill Club, founded by women from another era. I wondered how much longer the group might remain vital.

Their Christmas tea wouldn't rate even half an inch of space in any newspaper, but I enjoyed myself. Looking at all those elderly, intelligent faces, full of energy and life, I was glad I'd come.

Reed drove me to two more parties that evening. Neither made me feel especially festive.

That night, I spent the night at my friend Lexie's house.

"Sweetie!" she cried when she opened the door. "You're here for our annual slumber party!"

I mustered a smile and held up my overnight bag. "I brought my pajamas, but I didn't have time to buy
Tiger Beat
magazine."

"We'll make do without somehow. I've got everything else we need coming first thing in the morning— my manicurist, Seth the orgasmic masseur, and the wonderful new girl from that crazy rock and roll hair salon. I've got all my lotions and potions ready. By tomorrow night, we'll be stunning. We'll be the belles of the ballet gala!"

The ballet gala was the Christmas party of all
Christmas parties. The
uber
event. Always the affair to remember. It was the most glamorous party of the season and attracted the beautifully dressed, the most connected and the oldest and newest money in town. Everybody came for the razzle-dazzle, and nobody went home disappointed. People from the arts, the medical community, politics, professional sports, the financial world and charitable institutions put aside their petty differences and came together for the ballet gala every year to see and be seen. Powerful CEOs danced with kooky artists, malpractice lawyers drank with their doctors, and everyone admired the lush flowers, the extravagant decorations, the world-class entertainment and the sumptuous food.

For the gala, Lexie took her beautification process very seriously. She actually refused to go to her office for the day—although she made dozens of phone calls just to "keep tabs." Otherwise, she hired the best beauticians and devoted herself to relaxation. I spent the night at her place so we could start the beauty treatments early.

"Breathe," she advised when I called the vet for the third time and still received no satisfactory answer. "We're going to get rid of those circles under your eyes if it takes every tube of Preparation H in the city. How about a nap while my dressmaker makes the final nips and tucks in my dress? You can't help your poor puppy by working yourself into a state, so let's concentrate on calming down."

Her doorbell rang, and Lexie's assistant Samir called me to the door. A large package had been delivered with my name on it. The elderly chauffeur said he'd been to Bucks County to drop the package at Blackbird Farm, but "some crazy woman" told him I was staying in the city, so here he was.

"Libby," I guessed.

When we'd thanked the driver and he went back to his Rolls Royce, Lexie leaned close. "What is it?"

I read the card. "It's from dotty Dotty Dubose. She says I'll get more use out of these than she will."

"I love presents from rich people with good taste. Open it!"

We look the large package into her dining room and put it on the table. Samir brought scissors, so we cut the packing tape and opened what turned out to be a faded box marked
PATOU.

"Oh, my God," said Lexie.

Gabrielle, the dressmaker, began to murmur in French, and when I lifted the lid she was soon babbling incoherently.

Packed in the thinnest tissue paper lay six opulent vintage dresses, two fine suits and something made of lace that looked like a body stocking. The fabrics were weightless silks, airy chiffons, burnished taffetas and the finest wool I'd ever touched. Overwhelmed, I ran my trembling fingers along shimmering embroidery, iridescent beadwork and invisible stitching.

"See?" Lexie cried. "You can't regret selling that old Mainbocher! You've got all these glorious things to choose from now."

"They'll never fit me!"

Gabrielle cried, "We will make them fit!"

"Fashion show!" Lexie yelled. "I want to see them all!"

Samir fled as they stripped me down to my underwear right in the dining room. For the next hour, they threw dresses over my head, fastened buttons, adjusted bodices and hemlines and demanded pirouettes.