Authors: Jeffrey Robinson
Inez and Giancarlo brought Cyndi onto the set.
She was barefoot, wearing a paisley silk robe.
Gennaro pointed, “In front of the chair, please.”
Cyndi and Inez went there.
“Pearls?” Gennaro called out.
Karen walked onto the set with the bodyguard next to her, handed the box to Inez and opened it. She lifted the pearls out very carefully, Cyndi opened her robe just enough and Karen placed them around her neck. When she had it right, she nodded.
Horace motioned to Karen and the bodyguard that they should stand at the back of the room as far out of the way as he could get them. He invited the second guard to stand there, too. Then he asked Alain and the two housekeepers to move there as well.
“Now . . .” Gennaro motioned to Sienna, “the single most important thing.”
She walked over to Cyndi carrying a pile of CDs.
Cyndi looked through them, then suddenly broke out into a huge grin and pulled one out. “You remembered.”
“Of course, I did,” Gennaro smiled. “I wanted to see if you did.”
She handed the CD to Sienna. “For old times' sake.”
Sienna went to an enormous entertainment center that sat under a sixty-four-inch
plasma-screen television, looked at all the equipment for a couple of minutes, then turned to Horace. “I don't know.”
“I do,” he said, took the CD from her, turned the player on, turned the speakers up to very loud and waited there.
Gennaro pointed to Cyndi. “If you please.”
She dropped the robe.
Except for the pearls, she was completely nude.
Inez began touching up Cyndi's body makeup. Gennaro did another light check. Giancarlo put a tiny towel on the chair. And when Inez said, “
C'est bon
,” Cyndi carefully sat down.
Giancarlo checked to make certain that none of the towel was showing.
Sienna adjusted the pearls, “A little to the left.”
Inez and Giancarlo moved away.
Gennaro grabbed his big Hasselblad, clicked it a few times to make certain that the lights flashed, then said, “Ready?”
Cyndi wet her lips, crossed her legs, covered her breasts and said, “Ready.”
Gennaro looked at Horace. “Ready?”
Horace said, “Ready.”
Then Gennaro yelled, “Let's go.”
Horace pushed the button, Madonna blasted through the room singing, “Like a Virgin,” and Gennaro ran off picture after picture.
He moved to his left, bent down, moved to his rightâmoving like a man who didn't need a caneâwhile Cyndi stared straight into the camera and with every shot changed the tilt of her head, or changed her expression, or changed the way her eyes looked right through the lens.
Her legs stayed crossed, and her hands never revealed her breasts, but she became someone else with each shot. Her mouth opened. She played her lips across her tongue. She winked. She smiled. She pouted. She laughed. She cried. She hated. She loved.
And all the time Gennaro kept shooting.
And all the time the lights kept exploding on.
And all the time Madonna kept singing.
Without missing a beat, Gennaro handed the Hasselblad to Sienna, who gave him a Nikon, and he continued shooting pictures of Cyndi naked on the chair, surrounded by the Johns and the window and the hardwood floor.
She made love to his camera.
And he didn't stop her for nearly twenty minutes.
Then, suddenly, just like that, Gennaro leapt up and screamed, “Cyndi Benson . . . I love you.”
And everyone in the room applauded.
Cyndi jumped up and hugged Gennaro, then hugged Inez and Giancarlo
and Sienna, and finallyânaked except for the string of pearlsâshe hugged Horace. “I love you.”
“The magic is still there.” His eyes filled up with tears. “It's still there. It's still there.”
She held onto him for a moment, then kissed the side of his face, took the robe from Inez and let the woman from Cartier take the necklace from her.
Downstairs, Cyndi took a fast shower to get rid of the makeup and stepped back into her street clothes.
“You were unbelievable,” Sienna said. “Wait till you see. It was twelve years ago, all over again. But better.”
Now Cyndi pulled Sienna aside and whispered to her, “Horace . . . what's wrong?”
“Nothing,” Sienna stared at her. “Why?”
“Tell me,” Cyndi said. “Something's wrong. I can see it in his eyes. There is something. Tell me what it is.”
“Cyndi,” she shook her head, “nothing . . . really . . .”
“Don't lie. Tell me.”
Sienna took a deep breath. “No one's supposed to know. Gennaro knows, but Horace made him promise not to tell anyone. Except he told me.”
“What?”
“You must never let on . . .”
“I won't. Tell me . . .”
“Roland . . . he has terminal cancer.”
“Oh God . . .” Cyndi's eyes got very red.
“Horace doesn't want anyone to know. It's Roland's pancreas. But you mustn't say anything or he will be furious at you and at me and at Gennaro . . .”
“How long?”
“They told him . . . a year.”
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
Now the tears poured out of her eyes.
Sienna put her arms around Cyndi and held her.
It only lasted a minute or so, until Cyndi took some deep breaths and stopped. She sniffled a few times. “You're right.” She dried her eyes. “He must never know that I know.”
“You'll be okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Let's go upstairs and look at the pictures.”
“Wait till you see . . . they're unbelievable.”
Cyndi kissed Sienna, grabbed her big, red “Dirt Cheap” bag, threw her wet towel in there and went upstairs.
Alain and the two housekeepers had put the living room back to the way Maisonneuve had left it. Every piece of furniture was in its place.
“Come here and look at this.” Horace motioned to Cyndi.
They hovered over Gennaro's laptop.
“The magic . . . the magic . . .” Gennaro clicked through shot by shot.
Cyndi looked at the photos of herself, showing nothing but a lot of skin and a fabulous set of pearls and diamonds.
The tagline for the photo, which would run in magazines and on billboards around the world would be, “All a woman really needs is her pearls.”
Gennaro clicked through the more than one thousand shots he'd taken of Cyndi.
And all that time, Cyndi held Horace's hand.
They left the apartment and rode together in the stretch, emptying the first champagne bottle and opening another.
At P. J. Clarke's on Third Avenue, the six of them sat around a big table, eating and laughing about the Chanel days.
The party ended a little after five.
“We're on the nine o'clock to Paris,” Gennaro said.
“And I'm on the eight fifteen to Phoenix,” Horace said.
“Nothing's changed,” Cyndi said, as they made their way back to the limo. “I get naked, everyone has food and then you all leave the country.”
They dropped her off first.
She kissed them goodbye, hugged them, then kissed them again. Everyone promised to stay in touch.
Horace even said to her, “Don't wait another three years.”
Smiling, she got out of the car and stood on the curb while they drove away.
Then the tears started again, and she rushed upstairs to her apartment.
It took a little longer this time to pull herself together. When she did, she phoned her agent. “Arthur, it was great.”
“If you want to keep working . . .”
“Not a lot,” she confessed. “But this time . . . thanks.”
“Thank you,” he said. “That's a pretty sizeable paycheck for a Monday morning.”
She thought about that. “Horace threw the agency people out.”
“Fuck âem,” Arthur said. “They weren't supposed to be there to begin with.”
“And, hey, it wasn't only the morning, we were there until two.”
He laughed, “For four hundred grand, some people would have stayed until six.”
She thought about the money again. “Arthur . . . I need to call Sydney Feinberg. I love you.”
He said, “I love you too. Good work today,” and hung up.
Now she dialed her lawyer and his secretary put her straight through. “To what do I owe a phone call from my most gorgeous client?”
“Hi, Sydney, I need some advice.”
“Of course.”
“A very old friend of mine . . . his lover is dying. They live in Arizona. He doesn't know that I know and he must never find out. I don't know what their money situation is and I don't know what sort of treatment he can get . . . maybe none. But he must have whatever he can get. I'll e-mail you his name and address and phone number. I made some money today. Minus Arthur's commission . . . I'll wire you three hundred and forty thousand dollars tomorrow to pay for whatever they need. Buy them anything and everything they need or want. Whatever it takes. I don't care what it is or what it costs. If we run out, I'll send more. Tell them they won the lotto. Tell them it comes from a fund for experimental medicine. Tell them it's the Tooth Fairy. Tell them anything they'll believe. But they must never know that the money is from me.”
“Wow, that old friend must mean a lot to you.”
“He does.”
She hung up, lay down on her bed, wrapped her arms around a pillow as if she was cuddling someone, and cried herself to sleep.
T
here was a lot of paperwork necessary to set in motion Tomas' permanent dismissal.
Belasco spent the rest of the morning dealing with that upstairs on the twenty-fourth floor, e-mailing several key people, sending a brief personal message to the entire Tower staff of 265, then sending a long, personal memo to both Donald Trump and Anthony Gallicano to explain what had taken place and how he'd handled it.
“When does Shannon come back?” He asked Brenda, the woman who dealt with the residence side of the towers.
“Next Monday,” she said.
“Her temp replacement . . .”
“Gilbert,” she nodded. “I've taken care of the goodbye gift . . .”
“Tell him that there's an opening on the elevators. I think we've promised to move Ricardo off weekends and nights, so we'll let Ricardo take over from
Tomas and Gilbert can fill Ricardo's place while he's waiting for something to open up at the concierge desk. How's that?”
“He'll jump at it,” Brenda said. “I know he will.”
“Good.” Belasco headed for the door. “Oh . . . and tell him I said he can keep the going-away presents.”
A
T ELEVEN O'CLOCK
, Bill Riordan walked into Belasco's office with Carlos Vela. It was just the two of them. No one was there from the union. There was no lawyer.
Short and in his midtwenties, Vela stood with his head down, staring at the carpet.
“This is not a pleasant task,” Belasco said, standing in front of his desk.
“Mr. Riordan already informed me,” Vela said in a soft voice.
Belasco glared at Riordan, then told Vela, “I want you to know that the decision was made above my head. I also want you to know that I believe you . . . that you did not steal the coat.”
Vela looked up at Belasco, “I did not steal anything . . .”
“For Chrissake, Pierre,” Riordan bellowed. “He's guilty. He's fired.” He turned to Vela, “You're outta here.”
Belasco gave Riordan one of his looks of disdain, then turned to Vela, “There's paperwork you'll need to fill out. Mr. Riordan will walk you through the procedure upstairs.” He extended his hand, “I'm very sorry about this, and I wish you good luck.”
Vela was now in tears. “I didn't steal that coat.”
“I know you didn't,” Belasco said.
“The hell he didn't,” Riordan said loudly. “The hell he didn't,” and escorted Vela out of the office.
Throwing himself in his chair, he shook his head, “Riordan, you're an idiot.”
That's when an e-mail came in from Antonia. “Pierre, I'm following up on a couple of queries from Anthony. Can you confirm, please, that Carlos Vela has been dismissed? And about the overdue rent at Scarpe Pietrasanta. Can you confirm, please, that it's been dealt with?”
He started to reply with one word, “Yes,” but didn't push send. Instead, he picked up his phone and dialed Anthony Gallicano.