Wilful Impropriety (14 page)

“Now, Ghent!” Oesterlische cried.

At the command, Bob Ghent seemed to materialize almost out of thin air, though really he just magically reoriented the color of his body from the dingy gray of the warehouse’s tin walls along which he’d been hiding himself. The filthy thugs jerked their heads and guns up as the salamander took two steps forward. Taking a deep breath, the warlock blew a stream of brilliant golden fire on the closest one, the man kneeling over the suitcase. The sudden light of the oscular conflagration cast dancing shadows on the corrugated tin walls. The man’s overcoat burst into flame.

“Watch the money!” Oesterlische screamed at Ghent, visions of $50,000 in cash going up in smoke. But the money remained undamaged as, with a scream, the man who had been pawing it toppled sideways to the ground, rolling desperately to extinguish the flames that engulfed him. Behind him, the second man lifted his gun uncertainly. Ghent took another two steps forward, breathed in and spat a thin, precise incendiary stream. It blasted the gun from the man’s hand, and the man bent over, yowling, clutching his burned hand to his chest with a little whimper.

“Oh, no! Stop! Stop!” Winifred winced in terrified agony against Oesterlische’s chest. Oesterlische lifted a hand, and Ghent stopped, smoke curling from between his lips. He gave Oesterlische a quizzical look.

“Yes, I suppose you’d better stop, Ghent,” Oesterlische said, looking down at Winifred. “I wouldn’t want Mr. Lamb or Mr. Gussy to be hurt anymore than is strictly necessary.”

Winifred made a small sound, her hand going to her mouth.

“What are you talking about?” she said softly. But once again her voice held the note of a Bowery card-sharp, and Oesterlische sighed.

“Winifred, my dear,” he said. “Forgive the crudity to which I am about to subject your delicate ears. But even you should know that you can’t
bullshit
a
bullshitter
.”

•   •   •

With a growl, Winifred tore herself out of Oesterlische’s arms and hurried over to the man whose overcoat was still smoking. She fell to her knees beside him. She lifted him to sitting.

“Oh, his hair’s all burned off!” Winifred fussed. “Astor, fetch me some water, quickly!”

Nussbaum leaped to comply. Then, as if realizing that he was impeaching himself, he stopped, looked guiltily at Oesterlische. Oesterlische rolled his eyes.

“Yes, Nussbaum, I’m well aware that you’re in on this too. Go fetch the goddamn water. I’m sure you know where it’s to be found, given that you were locked in this pickle factory for the entirety of the Great Blizzard. When you get back, we need to have a
talk
, the three of us.”

Nussbaum went and swiftly returned with water in a grungy bucket, and Winifred used it to soothe the groaning Mr. Lamb. Oesterlische strode over, snatched the suitcase from her side, and stepped back, setting it firmly down at his side. Ghent stood behind him, arms crossed, burping smoke. Oesterlische watched as Nussbaum stood at Winifred’s back, his hands resting gently on her shoulders as she wiped cinders from the burned man’s face.

“So, I take it the two of you have already been introduced?” Oesterlische said frostily. Two pairs of eyes started up guiltily. Nussbaum looked at Winifred, and Winifred looked at Nussbaum.

“I met her doing good works down on the Bowery,” Nussbaum said.

“Really,” Oesterlische said, the word a drawl of insinuation. Hearing it, Nussbaum’s eyes darted up.

“All right then, I admit it! We’re in love! We’re in love, and there’s nothing you can do about it!” Nussbaum gazed down on Winifred with the most disgusting cow eyes Oesterlische had ever seen. “She’s
wonderful
! So good and kind and decent. Money hasn’t spoiled her, like it does some people. I worship the ground she walks on.”

“And I love Astor,” Winifred returned, standing and pressing close to Nussbaum and staring deep into his eyes. “He has been so shabbily treated, and yet he is so good and kind and decent. He is also manly and forthright and . . .”

“All
right
.” Oesterlische hoped sheer volume could put an end to the absolutely appalling display before him. He thought about taking the grungy bucket of cold water and pouring it over the both of them. “I get it. You’re in love.”

“How did you know?” Winifred said.

“Well, the two of you are standing right there pawing each other . . .” Oesterlische began.

“No. I mean how did you know that it was me? Or us?”

“It was a lot of little things,” Oesterlische looked at Nussbaum. “The fact that you knew that I’d come from the Wildish party that night, when I’d never told you I was going . . . then later, you behaved as if you’d never even heard of Miss Wildish! And Marinus. Why kidnap him? Why wouldn’t a bunch of Black Hand thugs just take the scroll and be done with it? Why bring him here, and then so conveniently let him go, unless a
witness
was needed?”

Oesterlische paused. His fingers dipped into his pocket for the little pink envelope.

“Then there’s this.” He opened it, his eyes swiftly scanning the contents. He nodded. “I didn’t even have to
read
this to know that it would tell me exactly where to find you. Which you’d have no way of knowing, given that any kidnappers worth their salt would have moved you to a different location once Marinus slipped their grasp.”

Winifred swore under her breath, a most unmaidenly combin ation of words streaming from her lips.

“But it was that poor fellow lying at your feet, Winifred, that put the frosting on the pastry. He was one of the fellows who walked you home that night . . .
and
one of the same fellows who were chasing Nussbaum outside of my club.” Oesterlische leveled an accusing finger at Mr. Lamb, at his smoking overcoat. “I never forget a houndstooth, no matter how shabby.”

There was a long silence. Nussbaum sighed.

“I knew her father would never consent to our marriage,” Nussbaum said. “So I swore to better myself. And honestly, for a while there I really did think I could use the scroll to make a fortune. But we soon discovered that the scroll has no commercial value whatever. So we resolved to get some money another way, so we could live even after he disinherited us.”

“You were going to try to
live
on $50,000?” Oesterlische goggled. “That has to be the most crack-brained plan I’ve ever heard of! Winifred, $50,000 wouldn’t keep you in dresses for a week.”

“I don’t need dresses!” Winifred lifted her chin resolutely. “I’ll wear rags and eat bones to be with Astor! Plenty of people do, Peter. But of course
you
wouldn’t know that. You don’t have a heart to feel with.”

“Leaving my heart aside,” Oesterlische said, “I know that rags are uncomfortable and bones make a most unsavory broth. You may think it’s noble and attractive to cast your lot with the teeming masses, but you won’t like it quite as much when you’re shivering in a cold garret and picking lice out of Nussbaum’s hair.”

“You’re wrong,” Winifred said fiercely. “I’ll love him and his lice forever and ever!”

“And what a bunch of convoluted nonsense.” Oesterlische continued, not bothering to comment on Winifred’s defense of Nussbaum’s imagined lice. “Scrolls and kidnapping and all of that. And what precisely do you mean, the scroll has no commercial value whatever? What brought you to that conclusion?”

Winifred and Nussbaum exchanged guilty glances.

“We already had a warlock look at the scroll,” Nussbaum admitted. “A very educated fellow at Harvard, an old chap with bad eyesight. He figured it all out for us. He said it is indeed a very powerful teleportation spell, but that it will only return a person to their true love. That’s why I always ended up wherever Winifred was.” He smiled down on her, she smiled back.

“So that’s why
you
took that jaunt to Boston,” Oesterlische said, looking at Winifred. She looked surprised. “I saw the ticket in your purse. You must have been hiding around Faneuil Hall somewhere. Because you both knew I wouldn’t be impressed enough to hit old Wildish up for $50,000 if the scroll had teleported us to some soup kitchen on Mott Street.”

“If we couldn’t make money off the scroll directly, we had to find a way to get money some way else,” Winifred said. “I knew that you’d figure something out, Peter. You have my father wrapped around your manicured pinky.”

“Quite a dirty trick, all things considered,” Oesterlische frowned at her. “Played both on me, and your father.”

“Well, how could we make money with a limitation like that?” Winifred snapped at him. “We had to do something!”

“My dear, it’s obvious that your father’s business brains were not handed down to you. No way to make money on a true love scroll? A scroll that lets wives check up on their husbands while they’re off on business? That allows parted lovers to reunite for passionate assignations in the blink of an eye? The possibilities are
endless
!”

“We can call it the Love Hole!” Sudden inspiration lit Nussbaum’s eyes. Oesterlische winced, thinking once again about that wide-awake young copywriter he was going to have to find. He encompassed Winifred and Nussbaum in his sorrowful gaze.

“You see, why didn’t you just come to me in the first place?” Oesterlische said. “We all could have avoided a lot of indigestion.”

As if punctuating that remark, Ghent hiccuped, issuing quite a quantity of blue smoke.

•   •   •

The wedding of Winifred Wildish and Peter Oesterlische took place the next spring.

It was, unquestionably, the event of the season. The bride wore white satin trimmed with alencon lace, and carried a bouquet of waxy orange blossoms. Everyone commented on how radiantly happy she looked.

The elegant morning service, held at Grace Cathedral, was followed by a sumptuous lunch at the Wildish Mansion that featured Westphalia Ham
à glace
,
Ailes de Poulets à la Hongroise
, and canvasback ducks stuffed, rather improbably, with lobster. Oesterlische’s mother cried through the whole thing, even the canvasback ducks.

Oesterlische, in a beautifully cut morning coat, comforted his weeping mother, shook hands soberly, and greatly enjoyed receiving the little bundles of money those hands pressed into his. He spoke of the regretful resignation he’d tendered at Rudnick & Culpepper, and how he was looking forward to his new position as Senior Vice President with Wildish Shipping & Mercantile & Magical Transportation. His new father-in-law hovered behind him and beamed, slapping him on the back at various appropriate intervals, heartily pleased to have such a pleasing new son-in-law.

Astor Nussbaum, who’d been hired as Oesterlische’s personal secretary, served as best man. While he made every effort not to frown throughout the ceremony, his persnickitude did get the better of him once or twice. Indeed, Oesterlische had to kick him in the shins while they were watching the bride come down the aisle.

“I don’t know why you’re being such a pill,” Oesterlische had hissed at him furiously, as everyone had oohed and aahed at Winifred’s approach. “It’s just the ultimate culmination of our Plan, after all.”

Nussbaum had been against the Plan from the start. But Winifred had seen the advantages, and once Oesterlische had managed to get Winifred to agree, Nussbaum had no choice but to grudgingly accept.

In outlining the Plan, Oesterlische explained what they’d already figured out for themselves—if Nussbaum and Winifred got married, they’d certainly be disinherited, and there’d be bones and rags and garrets and lice and all that.

“So that’s out,” Oesterlische said.

But if Winifred
didn’t
get married to someone eventually, Wildish was sure to leave her a rather small spinster’s portion, and pass the bulk of his estate and thriving business concerns to his brother’s sons.

“I know how men like your father think,” Oesterlische had assured her gravely, “because I happen to think quite the same way. And then you don’t have the money
or
Nussbaum, so that’s double out.”

But, if Winifred married Oesterlische, then everything would work out just fine. He assured them that he would press no matrimonial claims—not physical ones, at least—and that he’d promise to love and cherish the $30 million he’d gone through so much to get.

“I’ll see that you both have plenty of money to go feed beggars with,” Oesterlische said. “We’ll set up a foundation, and I’ll let Nussbaum here run it. Think of the good you can do!”

In short, if Winifred married Oesterlische, they could all enjoy the fruits of the Wildish fortune in their own particular ways. Nussbaum and Winifred could live happily ever after (and who would dare question the devotion with which Nussbaum served Mr. Oesterlische’s wife, if Mr. Oesterlische himself deemed their relationship above reproach?). Oesterlische could smoke Cuban cigars, take blonde bank clerks to shows, and generally continue to live his life as he liked it.

“Here’s to scrolls and salamanders!” Oesterlische said, after the trio had repaired to the Honeymoon Suite of the Fifth Avenue. He lifted a celebratory glass of champagne as Nussbaum carried Winifred over the threshold of the bedroom. “Here’s to love, magic, and $30 million!”

Nussbaum slammed the door in his face, rather sharply, Oesterlische thought.

Oesterlische laughed to himself as he sipped his champagne. Then he retreated down the hall. He was going to find himself a poker game in a smoky room with the old men.