Too Damn Rich (18 page)

"Look," he reiterated, "I said I was sorry.
And I am."

Zandra sighed to herself. So what if his
amends didn't ring true? That was beside the point, wasn't it? For
an apology, whether heartfelt or not, was an apology—and as such,
required a gracious response.

Etiquette came first. Personal feelings
last.

"All right, all right. Apology accepted." She
raised her hands and waved them, as if partaking in some arcane
sorcery designed to clear the air while, all around, glittering as
though in reproof, tout New York crowded her peripheral vision, a
constantly shifting, prismatic explosion of sequins, rainbows, and
jewels.

They wandered into the otherwise-deserted
Egyptian Wing. Lit glass showcases lined both walls, displaying the
plunder of ancient tombs: fragments of textiles and shrouds,
Ptolemaic bronzes and limestone steles, quartz heads of kings and
painted mummy masks, sacred cat-headed goddesses and canopic jar
lids in the form of divinities.

All once-holy icons of a long-lost culture,
now reduced to curiosities for the shuffling, daytime masses.

Robert A. Goldsmith rested his elbow, as
though to stake claim to its ownership, on the great central
sarcophagus. The cigar between his clenched teeth churned up great
indulgent clouds of smoke which gradually dissipated into a low
blue haze hovering overhead.

Sheldon D. Fairey, intending to avoid the
worst of the smoke, stood a few steps back. He found the eerie,
tomblike silence of this particular gallery claustrophobically
oppressive and disquieting. He was, above all, too aware of the
dozens of pairs of mysterious blank eyes which he felt kept watch
from behind the walls of their fragile glass prisons.

"The reason I brought ya in here," Robert
growled, "is for some goddamn privacy. What I wanna discuss is
completely off the record. In other words ..." He thrust his head
forward, a pugnacious, ferociously glaring pitbull, "... we never
had this conversation. Ya read me?"

Loud and clear
, Sheldon thought,
masking his alarm behind a carefully composed countenance. Phrases
such as "off the record" and "never had this conversation"
invariably set off warning bells—and with good reason. Having spent
his entire career above reproach, he had adroitly avoided
underhanded dealings like the plague. At least, he thought
miserably, until now. But in the meantime, what choice did he have
but to acquiesce?

"If that is the way you wish it," he murmured
tactfully, "yes. Of course this will remain entirely off the
record."

"Good. 'Cause if this goes any further'n you
an' me, I'll have your ass."

"You can count on my discretion," Sheldon,
ever the gentleman, sniffed with dignity.

Robert, luxuriating in confidence, leaned
back against the ancient tomb, churned up even greater and more
humongous clouds of smoke. Then, taking the cigar out of his mouth,
he regarded the hand-wrapped tobacco leaves with something akin to
admiration.

"My wife's best friend happens to be in town
for an unspecified period of time," he said conversationally.
"She's lookin' for a job."

He raised his eyes, pointedly met Sheldon's,
and held his gaze. "She needs a green card, too."

Sheldon felt an ominous pluck of foreboding.
"Y-yes?" he ventured guardedly.

Robert's plump ruddy features expressed a
world of disdain. "For Christ's sake, man, you're in charge of
Burghley's! Surely clinching something as simple as this is within
your capacity?"

Sheldon, attempting to deflect Robert's
stinging barb, coughed discreetly into a cupped hand. "Well, I'll
... I'll certainly look into it and give it my best shot," he said
with an almost maidenly primness.

"
You'll look into it?
" Robert
mimicked, setting Sheldon's teeth on edge. "
You'll give it your
best shot?
"

Now Sheldon's blood pounded in his ears and
the suffocating anger he felt burned like vicious indigestion.
Resolving to remain as outwardly calm and dignified as
circumstances would permit, he drew himself up and said, "As I
assured you, I'll—"

"Unh-unh." Robert's eyes flashed like
multiple razor blades. "I think you've got your wires crossed. See,
I'm not
askin
' ya to do it. I'm tellin' ya to!"

His voice stung, and with an inward smile, he
observed that he'd hit right on target. Sheldon's hands had
clenched into fists and he quivered from head to toe with
speechless indignation.

"In other words, Fairey, what you're gonna
do," Robert continued smoothly, "is tell me what I wanna hear. An'
what I wanna hear is that you've already taken care of everything.
That the damn woman's already got her job—in Old Masters—and the
green card to go along with it."

Robert cupped a hand around his ear.

"Well? Are you
deaf?
Speak up,
man!"

Sheldon's lower mandible dropped a good two
inches before clicking audibly shut. His cheeks were flaming, and
the heat of his humiliation seemed to radiate outward, causing the
cool glass cases and the blank- eyed, silent stone heads to ripple
as in a Saharan mirage. Never before in his professional career had
he ever been treated with anything but deference—never!

Sheldon, in an attempt to recoup some of his
lost composure, swallowed hard. What he
wanted
to say was,
"I tender my resignation. You may find yourself another flunky,"
and stalk off, dignity intact. Instead, prudence dictated he do no
such thing.

Clearing his throat, he said, "Well, as a
matter of fact there ... there just so happens to be an ... er ....
opening in that depar—"

"Good!" Robert boomed, his ebullient voice an
echo overlapping from the hard surfaces all around. Marble, metal,
glass, stone. "That's what I like to hear!" There was about him a
presumptuous, ruthless triumph. "Now then, since we've gotten that
out of the way, there's one more thing."

Sheldon, feeling everything inside him go on
full alert, mentally braced himself. What more could that uncouth
fiend want? No, not want, he quickly corrected himself,
demand
.

Robert puffed away with deceptive serenity,
freshly shaven cheeks a bellows. Then, as a conversational aside:
"I heard the head of Old Masters has retired."

"Mr. Spotts, yes," Sheldon sighed, lugubrious
as an undertaker. "I'm afraid it's quite unfortunate, losing one of
the world's top—"

"I do not concern myself with day-to-day
details." Robert brushed aside air with an arrogant wave of his
cigar. "Presumably, that's what you get paid to do?"

Despite Sheldon's clenched jaw, the scathing
sarcasm easily breached his defenses. And once again, he felt his
body betray him. His face stinging with the guilt and repressed
outrage of a child trapped by the playground bully.

"Old Masters . . . isn't that the department
where ... now what is her name ... ?" Robert, back still turned,
was pressing the thumb and index finger of his cigar hand to his
forehead, pretending it necessary to search his memory. "Ah, of
course!" His voice was ebullient again, almost a croon. He whirled
to face Sheldon. "Now I remember—Ms. Parker! A certain Ms. Parker's
employed in that department. Am I right?"

For a moment, Sheldon was stumped. Then the
name hit him with full force.
Good grief!
he thought.
Don't tell me he means Bambi Parker! What on earth could he
possibly want with her?

"Y-yes?" he ventured.

"I want her promoted," Robert decreed, once
again puffing luxuriantly. He added, "To head of Old Masters."

"
What!
" Sheldon exclaimed, the words
blurting from his mouth before he could stop them. "Good God! You
can't be serious!"

"And why not?"

"B-because ..." Sheldon sputtered, crimson
cheeks deepening to bruised purple, ". . . b-because ... well,
replacing Mr. Spotts with M-Ms. Parker is ..." He swallowed hard.
"... is simply out of the question!"

"Sez who?" Robert's eyes had become flat as a
reptile's. "
You?
"

Inwardly, Sheldon quailed. He found it all he
could do to suppress the impulse to admit defeat and surrender;
even harder, to squelch a far greater urge—to prostrate himself and
become obsequiously oily. Instead, he summoned the mustered
remnants of his dignity and made one valiant last stand.

"This ... this is extremely awkward, Mr.
Goldsmith," he said, the strength of his voice surprising even
himself, "but you must ... we must ... bear in mind the, er, the
experience and knowledge, the ... the expertise, as it were, which
that position requires."

The reptilian eyes blinked sleepily.

"Not that I have anything personal against
Ms. Parker," he was hasty to add. "She simply does not possess the
necessary qualifications. In fact, it pains me to have to say this,
but ... well, on several occasions, we ... we very nearly had
to—"

"Are you quite finished?" Robert interrupted
testily. "I thought I made myself perfectly clear. I only concern
myself with the big picture. To put it bluntly, Fairey, I don't
give a rat's ass about in-house politics or day-to-day
minutiae."

"You ... you can't do this!" Sheldon
whispered, raking a manicured hand through his perfect silver coif,
the sum of all his frustration and fears transparent in that one
childlike gesture of mussing his hair. "Don't you realize Ms.
Parker might well
ruin
the department ... possibly sully
Burghley's reputa—"

Robert, leaning in close, gestured at his own
mouth with the wet end of his cigar. "Read ... my ... lips. As of
immediately, Ms. Parker becomes head of Old Masters, my wife's
friend gets the position she vacates, an' that's that. Now, will
you, or will you not, execute my order?" His bushy brows
contracted. "A simple 'yes' or 'no' will suffice."

Sheldon gave a shuddering sigh. It was
useless to resist, that much was clear. If Goldsmith was hell-bent
upon promoting Bambi Parker, then by God, promote her he would,
everything else—Burghley's included— be damned!

"If you insist, sir," Sheldon managed,
stilling his tremor by clenching his teeth.

Robert accepted the acquiescence with a
magnanimous nod. "Well, then, since everything's settled, what do
you say we get back to the party? Perhaps cement our new
relationship with a toast, eh?"

Numbly Sheldon nodded, his self-loathing
having rendered him speechless, his feet virtually immobile. He let
himself be guided out, his mind a maelstrom of self-incriminations.
For the first time in his career he had knowingly done the
unthinkable—the unimaginable!—had, after all these irreproachable
years, consciously compromised and betrayed the venerable
institution which had been placed in his trust.

Was this to be his epitaph after leading
Burghley's with formidable rectitude through a veritable jungle of
economic climes—wild fluctuations he alone had uncannily, almost
psychically, foreseen? Impossible to think that his dozens of
proudly incorruptible triumphs were suddenly reduced to,
what?

Betrayal? Treason?
Whoredom?

He felt like a Judas.

No, he told himself, that wasn't quite right.
He felt like—a gelded Judas.

And the man who'd chopped off his balls had
the nerve to drape his arm, buddy-buddy style, around his
shoulders.

Not as an act of friendship. Oh, no. Robert
A. Goldsmith, he was all too aware, had a far more immediate and
transparent motive: to convey one last mocking and
not-so-subliminal message:

Making it crystal clear which of them was the
puppet.

And which controlled the strings.

In the Blumenthal Patio, Prince Karl-Heinz
had finally left his post by the entrance. He was circulating,
chatting attentively with his guests when a sudden murmur, like a
tidal wave gathering momentum, swelled through the crowd. Then, as
if a switch had been thrown, all conversation abruptly ceased and
the room fell silent. Except for the elegant strains of Mozart's
Quartet in G Minor, one could have heard a pin drop.

The focus of attention was the arrival of two
fashionably late guests.

He was a bicontinental investment banker of
colossal proportions, exophthalmic eyes, and an air of
old-fashioned grandeur—and was instantly dismissed.

She was another story. After Princess Di and
Queen Elizabeth, inarguably the third most famous woman alive; this
rare descent from the heights of Mount Olympus, was greeted with
the awe and reverence due a living legend.

For Rebecca Cornille Wakefield Lantzouni de
la Vila was precisely that, plus a whole lot more.

A blue-blooded Daughter of the American
Revolution, she and her rival twin sister, now the
Vicomtesse
Suzy de Saint-Mallet, had been born into genteel
poverty in the beautiful hunt country of rural New Jersey. Luckily,
the Cornille Twins, as they were to become known in society
circles, were two of the great beauties of the world. More
important, both were blessed with that most practical of all
gifts—an exceptional ability for choosing brilliant husbands, a
brilliant talent in and of itself.

Suzy, the elder by six minutes, married and
buried the exceedingly wealthy French
vicomte
before
latching onto the richest of all Hollywood producers, a wedding
which ended in divorce and a huge financial settlement, after which
she continued using her first husband's title.

Rebecca, the greater of the two beauties,
married and buried
three
husbands and, like her sister,
remained childless, as is often the case with fraternal twins. But
if Suzy's marital matches were brilliant, Rebecca's verged on pure
genius.

Husband number one was William Winterton
Wakefield, III, that most stolidly Republican of all United States
Presidents, who left his widow a social position second to none,
and a fortune estimated at between twenty-five and thirty million
dollars.