Blue Heaven (34 page)

"You
told
her!" said Moira, glaring indignantly at Gilbert and me.

"What's the difference?" said Gilbert.

"Oh, none, I'm sure! God, Gilbert, I can't trust you at
all!"

Gilbert just stared aghast and collapsed his head onto my chest. "Oh, Philly," he sobbed, "I'm
married
to this!"

Just then a bullet whizzed over our heads, shattering a mirror on the wall behind us. Moira shrieked in terror and, grabbing Winslow to pull him in front of her, grabbed too hard and pulled his wig off.

Aggie stared, her eyes growing huger by the second.

"She's . . .
she's
. . . !"

The four of us nodded grimly as Winnie frantically adjusted his wig.

"That's why we were still upset when you said we'd be okay as long as she married Freddy."

Aggie goggled a moment, then out it came in a great loud torrent:

"HAH HAH HAH!"

"All right, dear, it's not
that
funny," sniffed Claire.

But Aggie could hear nothing. She was totally convulsed, doubled over and pounding the floor with her fists, as bullets ricocheted over our heads.

"Aggie!
Please!
You're drawing their fire!"

"You did all
this
for some lousy presents! Hah hah hah hah!"

Moira suddenly clambered to the front edge of the table and raised her head enough to see over the rim. What she saw galvanized her enough to make her leap up with a reckless disregard for personal safety.

"Nooooo!"
she screamed in pure, animal rage.

Unable to imagine what had so moved her, I peered over the table and saw Charlie and four soldiers crouching behind the gifts. Other men were shooting at them from behind tables.

"No!"
shrieked Moira, as a flashbulb exploded in the middle distance. "Not behind the
gifts!"

A bullet narrowly missed her and she dropped, cursing violently.

"Gilbert, they're shooting right at our
gifts!"
she wailed.

"Hah
hah hah-!"

Claire pointed out that there were numerous people here not fond of our little contingent and they now knew exactly where to aim. The tablecloth would not protect us.

Claire leading the way, we all waddled a short distance behind the camouflage of some overturned chairs, Aggie's uncontrollable laughter a beacon for the bullets that whizzed over our heads every inch of the way. We reached the narrow space behind the bandstand. And who should we find there but Holly Batterman, who'd been wooing the flautist when mayhem struck. He knelt there shaking, blood soaking his shirt from a flesh wound in his shoulder.

"I wish you had
told
me it was going to be this kind of wedding!"

Gilbert apologized and we fell silent, even Aggie. Ricocheting bullets struck the metal of the music stands and the wall over our heads.

"Oh Lord!" said Claire. "This is no good either!"

"Well," I said, "I don't see where else we can go!"

"I'm not moving!" whispered Holly.

"There!" said Claire, pointing to the door to Tony's study which stood a few feet beyond the far edge of the bandstand.

"We can't!" cried Holly. "It's too far!"

"Well, we're going to, Tubby," said Aggie, removing a pistol from her beaded bag. "Who wants to ride shotgun?"

Moira immediately offered to take it.

"I'm going to give
you
a weapon! Fat chance, honey. I'll do it!"

Suddenly we heard a terrible crash that sounded like Tiffany's exploding. In an instant the room went dark as the great chandelier shattered on the floor.

"Now!" said Claire, and we all bolted out from behind the bandstand and through the door into Tony's study.

From then on, Gilbert, who knew the house best, took over. He led us to a corridor where there were back stairs to the second floor. We raced through the house, Winslow tripping on his high heels, until we'd reached the safety of my guest room.

"Out!" said Claire, closing the door on Holly.

"No
way,
honey!" he said, charging the door and easily pushing her aside. "You're not leaving me alone in this slaughterhouse!"

She tried to assure him he'd be safe in any of the other bedrooms, but he refused to budge. Finally, Claire just threw up her hands, let him in and closed the door. We all collapsed nervously onto chairs, the floor and the bed.

"Well, so far so good, kids," said Aggie, "but you're going to be in some very hot water when this gets out."

"Whatever do you mean?" said Her Grace, daubing her eyes.

Aggie patiently explained what we had not yet had time to realize. The spectacular self-destruction of the Bombelli clan would, without question, produce a media circus of the first magnitude. It would come out that the fighting had been triggered by Freddy's engagement to the duchess. And in the constant glare of media scrutiny and government investigation, would our little secret stay secret for long?

"What secret!" said Holly, perking up considerably.

Worse still, said Claire, when the survivors found out over whom their loved ones had gone to their graves, they would not be pleased.

We all sat there silently as the horrible truth sank in. The deaths of Freddy and Chick and, we hoped, Lunch had not brought us one bit closer to real safety.

Then Claire stood up and said: "Then there's nothing to do but murder the duchess."

"What!"
shrieked Holly.

"C'mon, Winnie! Off with the dress!"

"In front of all these people!"

Claire stepped toward him and wrenched the wig off his head.

"I said
off
with it, Winnie, and I mean
nowl
We don't have time!"

"Stop it!" cried Winnie.

Claire turned to Gilbert and me, and said, "Strip him."

We advanced on Winnie, who, sensing we meant business, tearfully demanded a robe and undressed himself. He then padded into the bath where he scrubbed his face clean and did what he could with his limp curls.

Holly sat on the bed staring, almost trembling with joy. Here, unfolding before his eyes, was the most spectacular scoop in the history of mankind. It was like he'd died and gone to dirt heaven.

We paid him no heed. We hardly dared for we knew at any moment someone might walk in and see the transformation before it was complete.

The makeup removed, we dressed him in the pants and sweater I'd worn the previous evening; they were extremely tight, but looked acceptable under my trenchcoat. Gilbert's sunglasses completed the disguise.

Claire then took the dress and ripped it in several places to give the impression that its occupant had suffered a violent assault. She then turned the dress inside out, took it over to Holly and, begging his pardon, smeared blood from his shoulder wound all around the tears.

This done, she addressed Holly with chilling authority.

"What you have just seen, Holly, is ours and the Mafia's darkest secret. I don't care how juicy it is or how much you ache to tell it- if you breathe a word to one single soul you're a dead man. Do you understand?"

He nodded, trembling.

"I have to get Winnie out of here. We'll take the back stairs and use my car. I'll leave this gruesome trophy plus one of her shoes behind the bushes on the grounds. The rest I'll take home and burn. Philip, if in the future Gilbert ever assures you you can make some easy money, please ignore him. Good-bye."

Holly had to stay behind to wait for the ambulances which would surely arrive soon. Gilbert and Aggie had to stay behind to see what
had become of their family, I had to stay because Gilbert was staying, and Moira was just a wreck about the gifts. Claire and Winslow left, and not a moment too soon, for minutes later the police arrived and no one was allowed to go.

When we heard the sirens we ran downstairs. Gilbert found Maddie and Tony, who were unhurt, and there was much hugging. Moira ran straight for the gift table and what she saw made her crash to her knees as if stabbed straight through the heart. There was not a single unperforated package in the lot. Moira rose and tearfully shoved the body of a slaughtered mobster aside, looking for something,
anything,
that was not shattered, bullet-riddled or soaked with blood. As for the envelopes containing the cash and checks, these had mysteriously vanished.

It was then that the police entered and shouted "Freeze!" Those mobsters who were still alive and unhurt offered no resistance. They seemed, if anything, relieved.

We were all taken in for questioning which went on until seven the next morning. Nineteen men, including Lunch, Chick, Ugo, Serge and George Lucci were murdered, and no one had seen anything.

Gilbert and I told all we had seen without fear of reprisals since no one we'd actually seen murder anyone had not been killed himself. The police, sensing we were out of our depth and only peripherally related to the principals, pressed no charges.

We were ushered out a back door to avoid the clamoring press. Moira looked so ghastly in her blood-splattered gown that we were given a police escort to Manhattan. Gilbert and I asked to be let out on Broadway so we could get a bit of air, and the policeman obliged, taking Moira on to God's Country. As we strolled in the cold morning breeze we came to the newsstand at Eighty-sixth Street. All the morning papers carried screaming headlines about the historic mob massacre.

The
Post's,
in red ink, read simply BLOODBATH! Beneath this headline was a picture of Moira.

It showed her with her fingers splayed frantically against the sides of her face, her eyes wild with dread and her mouth wide open as she screamed the words, "No! Not behind the
gifts!"

The caption beneath the photo read A
BRIDE'S ANGUISH.

Epilogue

T
he roar of inquiry has died down now, but for quite a while we were the darlings of the media. Especially Moira, or the "Bride of Death" as the press dubbed her. The interviews came thick and fast, and not a single reporter failed to be charmed by her warmth and obvious sincerity.

Yes, she said, she'd known that her boss, Freddy, had once run a crime empire, but she'd believed, as had so many, that he had become a frail, repentant man who wished only to spend his twilight years sitting in his little garden, hearing her speak the words of the immortal Tolstoy. Yes, she'd known, too, that the Cellinis were widely rumored to be mafiosi, but they'd all been so kind to her, and Mummy had taught her not to judge lest she be judged.

Mummy, of course, was that rara avis for which tabloid editors have been known to light candles and offer prayers: the Mystery Woman. Moira professed tearful ignorance as to why Mum had pretended to be a duchess, though she imagined she'd only wanted her daughter to be proud of her. As for her whereabouts, Moira feared, as did most, that despite the police's inability to locate her remains, the evidence offered little room for hope. This tragic probability sometimes caused Moira to break down in tears, and once she had to be comforted by Sue Simmons on "Live at Five."

Moira's real mother, of course, got wind of it all and hush money was duly paid, though Gilbert and I refused to contribute a penny.

The countless photos published in the days following the event made Gilbert's face so recognizable that I and I alone had to schlep all over Manhattan and the boroughs, buying up every available issue of
Himpulse.
The expense and embarrassment were staggering.

As for Gilbert's media coverage, it was of a less desirable sort than Moira's. Within weeks no fewer than three of his former lovers had come forward and sold their reminiscences to, respectively, The
National Enquirer,
the
New York Post,
and
Torso.
These revelations only generated more sympathy for poor brave Moira, who received mountains of letters advising her to dump Gilbert and find a man more worthy of her unselfish affection.

As the Bombelli trials wore on, Maddie was shocked and disappointed to learn that her beloved Tony had been engaged in money laundering and insider trading. "Think of it, Gilbert!" she said. "All those months I was a moll and never knew it!" Tony's lawyers got him off with a light sentence and Maddie asked for his assurance that once released he would never steal again. He gave her his promise and that was good enough for her.

Aggie fired Christopher but asked us to continue working at Paradiso, for the publicity in those first weeks generated phenomenal business. Later, after Gilbert's former beaux started coming forward in droves, she decided that the abusive jokes and prying questions of drunks at the bar were more than she had any right to subject us to and she let us go.

I don't suppose any of us who survived "Blood Wedding" suffered half so much in its wake as did poor Holly. Faced with daily headlines screaming questions about "Moira's Mystery Mom," he was never more than a breath away from claiming the scoop of his lifetime. Yet he dared not speak after Claire's warning, and dared still less after Moira sent him the threatening note wrapped around a dead pigeon. And so he trudged through his days, a sad chubby Tantalus with a tale he could never tell.

Scentinels, the world's first ingestible deodorant, got off to a promising start. Moira, by contracting lucrative magazine accounts of her wedding, raised the rest of the seed money. With Winnie she formed a company and won FDA approval to run clinical tests. The trials went swimmingly and the subjects were uniformly delighted with the product. But just as it seemed they'd win approval to market it, disaster struck. A small percentage of the subjects found themselves suffering ghastly side effects months after they'd ingested the tablets. People
would wake one morning to discover they suddenly reeked of rotting fish or overripe gorgonzola. Lawsuits rained down on the company and it folded faster than a sofa bed.

Claire and I finished our musical. We're shopping for producers.

As for Gilbert and me, well, I hate to disappoint the romantics among you, but things didn't quite work out for us-though the days just after the wedding were about the happiest we ever shared. Nothing, not the strident reporters, or incredulous detectives, or even Moira, could dampen the exhilaration we felt at being alive, together and out of danger.

Rapture at merely being alive is not, however, an emotion one can cherish indefinitely. The sense that death is
not
apt to come crashing down on you any second is a nice one, but after a while the thrill fades. So, with danger no longer spicing our romance, Gilbert and I were forced to occupy ourselves in the same pastime new couples have pursued since time immemorial-the search for fresh incompatibilities. He did not see why I insisted on writing when he was lonely and bored. I did not see why he didn't want to write at all, especially after his pretty speeches about our shared literary destiny. He did not see why I was incapable of "having fun" and I did not see where the fun lay in club-hopping till four a.m. with his wife and the ever-changing army of "new friends" they'd acquired in the wake of their sudden infamy. (Most of these friends were the sort of unspeakably chic trendoids who, asked what they do for a living, reply, without a trace of a smile, "I'm an aesthetician.") There was also the small matter of our sex life, which needn't interest you, since it did not, after a point, interest us.

When the revelations of his checkered past hit the papers, Gilbert suggested we cool the affair for a while. A while stretched into weeks, then months, and we realized that neither of us was exactly crying himself to sleep at night. Each content that he'd gently let down the other "before it ruined our friendship," things returned to their old footing. There was a sticky in-between period, but that receded as these things do. I'm happy, once more, to love Gilbert, not too well but wisely, and to enjoy his bracing company as often as he's willing to share it.

Though I confess that, just lately, I have avoided him assiduously,
leaving my machine on and peering down at the street before leaving the apartment. This is because of the last time I spoke to him. My early-warning system was operating well enough this time for me to slam the phone down almost immediately, but the few blood-chilling words I heard before doing so still haunt my sleep.

"Hi! S'me! Philly, I have a little proposition for you, and please don't say no till I've finished--"