Crazy for Cornelia (42 page)

That eliminated his last flicker of doubt. Now Dr. Kenneth Loblitz braced himself to go to Administration. He wondered how
he would report this final discharge status of his patient Kevin Doyle to Dr. Burns.

He didn’t believe the Sanctuary even had a form to fill out for anything this horrible.

E
ight-forty Fifth Avenue, that sooty dowager, rustled its awning petticoat as guests began arriving for the afternoon Lord-Fisk
wedding.

Andrew and Vlad, both with a bounce to their steps and a special snap to their white-gloved salutes, greeted the First Families
of Manhattan. The blinding gold Rolls-Royce which Old Han Koi had shipped from Hong Kong to Manhattan jolted to a halt in
front of the building.

“The Kois,” Andrew sniffed to Vlad. “Man, no taste at all.”

Other Rollers and Mercedes and Aston Martins formed a cavalcade of imported luxury cars that snaked around the block. The
trendier women arrived draped by Marc Bower and Vera Wang, leaving Chanel for the starchy doyennes. The men wore tailored
dark suits with white shirts but not morning coats and striped trousers. Madame had harangued Chester to enforce that formality,
but Tucker Fisk had scrawled her a terse note that cowed her into silence, “No monkey suits or you’re fired.”

The lobby staff funneled the guests through the building’s narrow foyer and packed them into the two creeping passenger elevators
bound for Penthouse A.

In his ancestral co-op, Chester Lord assumed the mantle of Father of the Bride with less inner gaiety than his guests imagined.

He held court standing in his big living room, wearing a midnight-blue suit and an expression of bland geniality. The stew
of old friends, socialites, and businesspeople gushed and brayed. He could, if he chose to, overhear whispers about Cornelia.

Even as Chester mumbled through the motions, he was stricken by how his “set,” as they called it in his father’s time, had
grown profoundly tiresome over the years. That included even the new members, youngsters like Cornelia’s school friends Tina
and the two Roberts who stood in a fierce little huddle pointing and giggling at the other guests. Watching them, Chester
realized that freedom from financial worry had only doomed this aging posse to a life lived with a casual malice toward others.

“Look what the woman’s
wearing
,” one of the two boys called Robert snickered at Lily Stern’s dress. “Valentino meets Norma Desmond.”

Then the Amazing Stone Heads of Fifth Avenue appeared. He braced as the three members-for-life of the 840 Fifth co-op board,
Lily Stern, Chip Lindsay, and Tom van Adder approached.

Old Chip Lindsay, dressed in the same musty pin-striped suit from the 1950s he had worn to the board meeting in December,
led the phalanx. Their expressions looked dour even on his daughter’s wedding day.

“We have some new business,” Chip said taking Chester by the sleeve.

“Can’t it wait?”

“No,” Lily Stern barked, reminding him of Madame Marie-Claude’s foghorn voice. The old crone was in Cornelia’s room dressing
her now.

“What is it?” Chester snapped.

“We thought you’d want to know, before you read about it on the
New York Times
society page,” Tom van Adder’s eyes twinkled in merriment, “that we’ve approved Cornelia and Tucker Fisk for 20B.”

Chester nodded and took Tom van Adder’s gnarly hand. At least that formality was out of the way. He had wanted to surprise
the couple with the apartment two floors below as a wedding present, a modest
seven-room but with a view of Central Park. This starter home would do until they had a family and growing pains.

Then, in a few years, it would be time for Chester to turn the reins of Lord & Company over to Tucker, and hand over the keys
for Penthouse A to his daughter and son-in-law. The kids would keep O’Connell, if he were still useful. This rite of handing
down the ancestral co-op from generation to generation that so thrilled his grandfather and father left Chester with a stuffy
feeling, almost a sinus headache.

Where would his own home be after that? Probably Palm Beach. He saw himself as an old man in a wheelchair, sitting on the
sunny Addison Mizner–designed terrace looking out over the Atlantic Ocean through his cataracts, and shivered. At least he
would feel relieved to conclude his lifelong duty, at long last, to Lord & Company. In the meantime he would try however possible
to address his duty to his daughter. Perhaps now he could begin to pay her back, in baby steps if need be, for the damage
he had done.

Then he brightened as a new guest arrived, drawing rapt stares from the men and narrowed eyes from the women. Roni, the carriage
driver, entered wearing a form-fitting dress. It exposed her firm shoulders, draped with an explosion of jet-black curls.
Her eyes were lightly made up to accent their almond shape, resembling exotic characters he’d seen in storybooks.

“Excuse me.” Chester left Chip Lindsay muttering some hollow pleasantry.

“… her father’s date,” Tina whispered to the two Roberts as they passed Roni, seeing Chester on his way toward her. “Chester
has that fifth-grade-crush look, doesn’t he?”

And the Pack stopped to gawk at Roni. All three of them had to look up.

“Who are you?” the meaner Robert, No. 2, asked her.

“My name is Roni.”

Robert No. 2 put his hand out, glanced to see that Chester was still out of earshot, and leaned up to whisper in her ear.
“How about meeting me on the terrace for a drink?”

Roni took his hand and squeezed it slowly until it made little crunching noises and Robert’s mouth turned down in painful
stages.

“If I see you outside,” she promised Robert, “I’ll field-strip you like a cigarette.”

As Roni led Chester away, Tina tried to shake some pink back into Robert’s fingers.

“What did he say to you?” Chester asked her when she let him take her arm.

“Nothing.”

He could only nod, feeling somehow vital in this woman’s presence, feeling her warmth through her sleeve.

“So, Chester,” she said, “did you really talk to your daughter? Listen to her?”

“Ah…” He had tried at breakfast, but she had gone off in an unexpected direction.

Her almond eyes begged him. “You have a little time still. These people don’t need you now. She does.”

Two blocks away on Lexington Avenue, the Emergency Medical Services ambulance pulled to a stop, double-parking on Madison
Avenue.

Marne Doyle, still wearing her borrowed EMS uniform, stepped out of the passenger seat and ripped large strips of sticky-backed
black tape off the sides and backs of the van. The words they obscured, “City of New York,” would have given them away at
the Sanctuary. The back doors opened up from inside and Kevin Doyle stepped out, muscles stiff and sore.

“Thanks again, guys.” Kevin jumped out of the back door and shook hands with each member of the EMS team his sister had mustered
from Brooklyn. He hugged Marne. “How do I look?”

“Not bad for a dead guy,” she told him, stripping off her EMS vest. “How’d you get over the fence?”

“Corny told me it was high-frequency current and wouldn’t do much damage.”

“You still took a big chance.” Marne gave Kevin a look.

“First time for everything.”

Marne checked her big watch with twenty dials and gauges. “Guess you better get to the church on time.”

“Marne,” Kevin said as he kissed her cold cheek. “I owe you.”

She mussed his hair and whipped him a kidney punch just hard enough to take his breath away. “You watch yourself.”

He kissed Marne and jogged off for the front door of 840 Fifth. His getup of jeans, EMS work boots, T-shirt, and cheap nylon
jacket smelling of mothballs and emblazoned with “New York Bets” across the back, an old nickname for New York City’s off-track
betting parlors, was hardly impressive. A fine figure of a prince, galloping up to save Cornelia Lord on her wedding day.

At the door, he squeezed in front of a couple with mahogany tans. Kevin caught a whiff of what he imagined as golf course
gardenia about them.

“Hey, Andrew. How’s it goin’, Vlad.”

Andrew clutched.

When he planned this out, he’d carefully weighed how the other doormen would take the shock value of his just showing up unannounced.
He counted on Vlad to nurse his old romantic fantasies. Andrew, sworn keeper of the status quo, was the wild card.

Vlad’s eyes bulged and Andrew’s forehead crumpled into confusion. Neither spoke for a moment as Kevin started past them.

“Guess I’ll just head on back, get changed. Thought you could use a little help today, the wedding and all. Me, I’m feeling
great. Really needed the rest.”

Andrew stepped directly in front of him.

“Son,” Andrew said, as kindly as he could manage. “It’s good to see you back in one piece, but we’d better talk. See, you
are what we call persona non grata around here, meanin’ you’re about as welcome as a rat in the wedding cake.”

Kevin raised his hands in a wide shrug. “Hey, I’ve just been on sick leave. I left a message for Gus, told him I was punching
in today.”

He had Marne call the building manager earlier, believing correctly that Gus Anholdt would make himself scarce on a busy day.
She got his answering machine.

Andrew took out a white handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

“Vlad, watch the guests.” His watery eyes searched Kevin’s. “Son, Gus said you were fired. He sent us a memo.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say why.”

Vlad whispered in Andrew’s ear, loud enough for Kevin to hear. “The boy defies authority. Is that so bad?”

Andrew spoke solemnly and stubbornly. “All I know is, you’re through here. It’s no good, son. Chester Lord himself left standing
orders, we can’t let you in the building.”

“Chester Lord doesn’t cut it.” Kevin folded his arms. “This is a union thing.”

“Say what?”

“Go back to the staff room, check the bulletin board. International Brotherhood of Portal Operators Regulation 247. ‘No Union
employee shall be discharged except by due process. Wrongful discharge shall be cause for a Job Action.’ They can’t fire me.
Let me get my uniform on, and I’ll talk it out with Chester Lord myself.”

“He’s a little busy today, Kevin.” Andrew gave him a minimal smile.

Kevin planted his EMS boots a foot apart and crossed his arms again. “I think when you tell him I’m down here, he’ll find
the time.”

On his way to see his daughter, Chester found Han Koi, Sr.

The Hong Kong pirate popped out of a huddle of businesspeople misted in cigar smoke and planted himself in Chester’s face.
He grabbed Chester’s hand and pumped it violently, his droopy wattles shaking in mirth.

“Congratulations, Chester. We are so happy for you.”

Han showed his teeth, revealing lots of his receding gums. The studied absence of any malice at all in the old predator’s
face was too much for Chester to abide.

“Are you?” Gimlet-eyed, he withdrew his hand and spoke softly. “You lose your run on Lord & Company now, you two-faced son
of a bitch.”

And Han did seem to have two faces now, sucking in and out like an aquatic plant, moving between stunned and bellicose.

“Chester,” old Han finally wailed, “how can you insult me?”

“Insult
you
?” Chester labored to keep his voice down. “For God’s sake, I got you into the Hamptons Bath & Tennis Club when they tried
to blackball you.”

Han glowered. “And I took you to the races in Hong Kong, our
special box. You didn’t even have a top hat. Typical ignorant American.”

Oh, the venom would come on now if he let it. Instead, Chester drew his shoulders back.

“Enough. This is my daughter’s wedding day.”

Then he noticed O’Connell tapping him on the arm.

“Mr. Lord,” the butler whispered, rolling his r’s. “It seems there’s a problem to sort out with the building staff.”

Chester fumed. They were circling him like buzzards, on what should by all rights be a day of bliss. “I can’t handle that
now.”

“I do think you might wish to address it personally, sir.” O’Connell insisted, holding his head down to avoid eye contact
with the Father of the Bride.

The phone rang in Chester’s study, but Tucker ignored the soft jangle. He ushered his guest into the room first and locked
the door behind him. Tucker motioned him to one of the wing chairs across from Chester’s desk.

Tucker removed from the pocket of his shantung-lined black suit Cornelia’s power of attorney and placed it on the desktop
near the picture of Chester, Elizabeth, and Corny at age nine.

“This,” he pointed out, “gives me control of Cornelia’s voting stock the minute we finish the marriage vows.”

“Very good,” Han Koi, Jr., nodded, glancing over the document.

No, Chester won’t need to buy a partners desk now, Tucker chuckled, recalling his mentor’s unease. Chester’s business career
just ended. He settled into the well-worn burgundy leather chair, pulled open Chester’s humidor, and removed two of his cherished
Romeo y Juliet robustos.

“Han,” Tucker offered. “Have a cigar on me.”

“Ah.” Han Koi, Jr., took the fat Romeo y Juliet. He leaned toward the heavy gold table lighter that Tucker held for him and
puffed hard.

Tucker lit the tip of his own cigar and put his head back to stare at the mahogany paneling on the ceiling. He released dense
rings from his rounded lips to create a cloud cover inside Chester’s sanctum sanctorum. A good cigar, he believed, forced
others to gag in his presence.

Han Koi, Jr., sat back across the desk from him, ramrod straight,
holding his own Koi laptop. Bringing it to wedding, for God’s sake. Tucker had to smile. Maybe there was some good in him
after all. If anybody should consider himself even luckier than Chester Lord that his father had come before him, it was Han
Koi, Jr. No wonder the old man never let him make any decisions. But Han Junior had discretionary power over just enough Koi
cash to buy up Lord & Company voting stock without old Han finding out.