The Crasher (24 page)

Not much more than a year and a half had passed since that piece extolling her courage, yet now where had
Time
run the story of Rosa-Rosemary’s death? In Milestones, the page that
contained their mini-obituaries, where they’d gone along, no questions asked, with the official “accident” verdict and her
official job description, “retired.”

Johnny stared at the backs of the people sitting with bowed heads in the front pew, one almost bald, a gray-haired woman,
a pepper-and-salt tousle-haired man.

They all knew Rosemary was no more “retired” than Clinton. She’d been on the front line right up to the day somebody had shut
her in her basement and torched the place down.

Before flying to the Coast for the memorial service, Johnny had called Rosemary’s husband, Ben Abbott, to try to arrange a
meeting. He hadn’t been able to reach him and her parents had been “unavailable,” too.

Today, no matter what, at the buffet lunch for out-of-town mourners at her parents’ house in Santa Monica, he intended to
tell them all, husband, mother and father, that if they weren’t prepared to make a lot of noise about the true facts behind
Rosemary’s death, he was going to, in his own column in
Next!
and at each and every TV opportunity that presented itself. There were more and more these days. Johnny shut his eyes, trying
to concentrate on the eulogies.

He felt old, beaten. As if finding out that all his suspicions about Dolores were true hadn’t been enough for one year. Even
now he felt ill, knowing she’d been two-timing him with the same obscenely oil-rich, much-married man, not only all through
their marriage, but even since his Albany days.

It was good riddance, there was no doubt about that. Her body had attracted him in a way no other woman’s ever had, but even
before he’d caught her in the act, the deadwood in her brain had been getting more and more in the way.

He’d had to live through his father saying “I told you so” in as many diabolically clever ways as he could think to say it,
but he’d never have to hear it again. Never. He’d learned his lesson about women. He’d never make the same mistake.

Thank God, his father couldn’t say the same thing about his job. His job had saved his sanity. His father would never
admit it, but
Next!
was soaring in popularity and so was his much quoted and talked about “unpredictable” column.

There were dozens of photographs of Rosemary to be seen in her parents’ comfortable home, as a gap-toothed, freckle-nosed
kid, as a scrawny beanstalk of a teenager, as a radiant bride. How could they live with the knowledge they would never see
their brilliant, courageous daughter again? But then, while she was alive, how could they have lived every day with the knowledge
she was out there somewhere, putting her life on the line for her job?

Since their February meeting, Johnny had seen Rosemary only once more, in New York, following another well-publicized, multimillion-dollar
heist in the summer from a heavily guarded Southampton estate.

On a tip from Freddy Forrester, Johnny had learned that if a bomb hadn’t exploded, arousing the neighborhood, the robbery
might not ever have been reported. There was some question as to who really owned the estate and Peter Licton, the alleged
owner, disappeared two days after filing the stunning list of art treasures and jewelry missing.

One of Dolores’s birdbrains had been to a couple of wild weekend parties at the estate, and Johnny, remembering Dolores’s
gossip, had passed along the names of some of the partygoers, believed to be involved with the Mafia. Was Licton a card-carrying
member, too? It didn’t make sense if the Mafia were behind the heist, as the FBI, the police, and the DEA seemed to think.
There were too many similarities between the Southampton job and the Stimson Court Place robbery to ignore.

He’d immediately called Rosemary on the Coast, asking her to get in touch with him. He felt ashamed now, remembering how irked
he’d been to discover she was already in New York.

He hadn’t asked her why she hadn’t let him know, but he’d felt peevish and probably had sounded it, too. She’d told him she’d
been following up leads on Licton for some time and
was now ready to prove he wasn’t the charming investment banker people who’d enjoyed his hospitality believed him to be. He
was the American- and British-educated Pietro Licone, a member of the Comorra organized crime family of Naples, heavily involved
in the cocaine business in Europe.

So why would one group of criminals burglarize another? Gang warfare? Revenge?

Rosemary had told him it all figured. “Thievery has become an increasingly competitive business, because the most experienced
thieves know the serious buyers are from the drug cartels, who have more money than some countries do. Pietro, I’m sure, was
sent here last year to open a lucrative branch for the family… and blood brothers or not, the American Mafia finally decided
it was time to discourage him.”

It was a good story that nobody else had, but it was too early. More would come and hopefully, like Rosemary, with patience,
one day when the time was right, he’d be able to expose and cripple some major players in the drug business himself.

She’d returned to Los Angeles without finding Licton—or Licone, as she was sure he really was. “He’s probably back in Italy,
trying to recover his ego,” she said bitterly. “But he’ll try again. Those kind of people never like to lose.”

“Shall I keep in touch?” he’d asked like an eager rookie, inspired as he always was by her tirelessness in fighting for a
better drug-free world.

“Oh, please, Johnny, please, but promise me you’ll be careful,” she’d replied. He had been careful; she hadn’t been careful
enough.

He saw Ben Abbott go into the garden into the sunshine. Following him, feeling the golden warmth on his face, Johnny thought
of the wind and gray he’d just left behind in New York, an early announcement of the winter ahead.

Soon he’d be a free man. Perhaps he should base his column in California for a few months, getting to know these people, earning
their trust as he’d earned Rosemary’s? Above all, getting the real story behind her death. It wasn’t because
of the story either, although with what he already knew, it would surely be the kind of cover piece
Next!
wanted from him. No, he would write it to vindicate her death.

“Ben…” Johnny put out his hand. “John Peet. I’ve tried to reach you…”

He was startled to see the man’s eyes full of tears. He felt his own begin to prick. “I’m… I’m so sorry, Ben.”

Abbott’s handshake was hard, almost brutal, as if he needed someone to stop him falling down.

“Thanks, John.” The tears were gone and in the brilliant sunlight, Johnny saw that Abbott’s eyes were as blue and as piercing
as an acetylene torch.

“Can we talk?”

“What’s there to talk about? I’ve got to go on with my life…”

“But it wasn’t an accident, you know that. For two years they must have been planning—”

Ben Abbott interrupted him harshly. “Who’s been planning? You’re treading on dangerous ground, sonny. You don’t know what
you’re talking about.”

Johnny could feel himself flush. He was twenty-nine years old. Ben Abbott may be fifteen or twenty years his senior, but only
his father had the right to call him sonny, and he didn’t like it from him, either.

He controlled his anger. “Ben, don’t you know I was in contact with Rosemary? About the Stimson Court Place robbery last Christmas,
then the Licton job this summer and its link to organized crime, the Comorra family and Cali—”

The blue eyes flashed, then, “Stay away, sonny,” Abbott snapped. “Stay away from my business. If that piece hadn’t appeared
in
Time
and then your fucking follow-up on Joan of Arc heroines,” he spat on the ground, “Rosemary wouldn’t have been burned alive;
she’d be here right now, making you one of her fucking famous margaritas.”

Joan of Arc. Johnny had used the phrase in his
Next!
piece. He hadn’t connected Rosemary’s death by fire with the piece until now. No wonder this man hated him. But he wasn’t
going to blame himself; he’d get nowhere that way. He wasn’t going to be beaten down by anyone, not even a grief-crazed husband.
“So you agree she was murdered and it’s not too difficult to guess who did it,” Johnny snapped back. “Why the hush-up? If
you don’t want to go after—”

Abbott grabbed Johnny’s arm. It was as if he’d caught it in a vise. Beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. He thought
it was going to break.

“Listen to me, Peet, one word out of you in your fucking magazine and you’re going to be found accidentally dead, too. Understand?”

Johnny didn’t answer. He was in too much pain.

“We’re serving lunch now, won’t you come in, Mr. Peet, Ben?” Rosemary’s mother was calling from the door.

His hold on Johnny hadn’t relaxed, but to Johnny’s amazement, he saw Abbott smile a warm, relaxed, perfectly normal smile.
“Okay, May, we’ll be right there.”

“Capito?”
he said to Johnny.

Johnny nodded, afraid he might be about to throw up.

Abbott gave the same warm smile to him. “Look, I know you’re trying to help, but Rosemary died in a tragic accident. When
I find out who was responsible for the faulty wiring, I’ll let you know if I need any help, okay?”

“Okay.” It wasn’t, but it wouldn’t help anyone, least of all him, to let Abbott think otherwise.

As they strolled toward the house, Ben caught his arm again, not viciously, but with it still throbbing from the last encounter,
enough to make Johnny wince.

“I’ll say this for the last time, Peet. Stay off our turf. It isn’t a place for amateurs. If you really want to help what
Rosemary and a helluva lot of others are trying to do, keep your word processor shut and your fucking mouth, too.”

By day Ginny scoured the want ads, taking part-time jobs through a temp agency as a receptionist, a spritzer of scent at department
stores (providing they weren’t owned by Svank), a hotel operator, and, swallowing her pride, a hand model. It
had to be her new self-confidence, she told herself, for her nails had never looked better. In the new year, when people started
to want help with their income tax, she’d earn still more money, and this was the way she would keep her head above water
until that elusive prince charming turned up, the one who was going to back her business.

If crashing hadn’t produced him yet, she was far from giving up. She’d thought she’d found him after only three months of
regular crashing, meeting a venture capitalist at a reception for the Council of American Fashion Designers at Lincoln Center.

For the first time since Ricardo, she’d worn her silver birdcage jacket with the inside-out seams, and this thin, tall version
of the polished Svank had come over to introduce himself, because he was so impressed by what she was wearing. He was heaven-sent
(she’d thought), that rare creature, a money man with such a finite knowledge of fashion, he’d been able to price her original
design accurately, right down to its last silver button.

They’d had an animated discussion about the profit and loss situations of many well-known designers. He’d understood what
had happened to Gosman. “No financial controls,” he’d said.

As if she didn’t know. Old man Gosman hadn’t cared that she had a finance degree, had never been willing to listen to her
about money, because “whatsaslipofagalikeyouknowboutbusiness?”

The venture capitalist had given her his card and she’d called to set up a meeting to discuss her financial needs. On the
day of the meeting, she’d opened the paper to see his photograph above a story reporting his arrest for swindling thousands
out of their life savings.

“Bad luck,” was all Alex had to say when, calling from Europe, he’d listened to her sad story. And Alex was right. She had
to look at it that way and concentrate on her good luck.

Lee Baker Davies, thinking that Poppy was taking her everywhere, was “thrilled” that at last Ginny was being noticed
by the mainstream press. “I’m so proud of you, my protégée,” she said fondly. “It won’t be long before you’re in business
for yourself.”

What was the point of disillusioning her? Ginny knew she’d be worried to death if she knew her “protégée” was crashing events.
Instead, she told Lee the truth, that a number of affluent-looking women, admiring her clothes, had asked for and received
her business card (Ginny Walker Fashion, dark gray letters on pearl gray vellum).

No one had called yet, but “they will eventually,” said Lee. Ginny was sure they would, too, just as she was sure she’d run
into Arthur Stern again, the man she’d sat next to at the Waldorf the night of her first crash, the man she’d dismissed too
quickly as an obvious lecher.

If she’d only known then what she knew now from concentrating more on the business pages of
WWD
and the
New York Times
… that Stern, who’d jokingly passed himself off as a “teddy bear manufacturer,” who might like to diversify into “teddies,”
was married to one of America’s richest women (the daughter of the man who’d invented noninflammable children’s clothing).
Together they sought out and backed promising small fashion businesses. “Always on the lookout for talent,” one headline had
said. Now, she was on the lookout for Mr. Stern; one more chance was all she needed.

Svank was another matter entirely. She’d made no more attempts to meet the terrible tycoon, nor would she. Poppy hadn’t volunteered
to help anymore in that direction either. It was probably just as well. Her luck would change, if not tonight, next week,
next month. It had to happen.

“Has Poppy Gan arrived yet?” (Poppy’s incorrigible unpunctuality was a godsend to crashing, as was the fact she frequently
didn’t turn up at all.)

The girl at the door hastily looked down the list. “No, eh, you are…?”

“Ginny Walker.”

Cool, looking only slightly put-out, Ginny stared over the
girl’s shoulder. She was in the lobby of the great stone mansion on Fifth Avenue, home to New York’s National Academy of Design.