The Wrong Kind of Money (51 page)

“I understand, Miss Hannah.”

Miss Hannah pushes her chair back from her big desk. “I'm ready to go home now,” she says. “You can fetch my things.”

“Yes, Miss Hannah.”

While Miss Hannah leans heavily on Edith's shoulder, as Edith helps her into her mink-trimmed boots, Edith thinks: Praise the Lord. Miss Hannah is actually leaving the office early. Now perhaps she, too, can leave for home early, and check in on her Little Girl.

Miss Hannah straightens up. “Thank you, uh—uh—”

“It's Edith, Miss Hannah.”

“Thank you, Edith.”

That's another thing. For all the years Edith has worked for the company, Miss Hannah has never been able to remember her name.

17

Noon

“Mrs. Liebling? This is Joanne Satterthwaite calling. I live in Twenty-nine A.”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Satterthwaite,” Carol says. “How are you?”

“I'm well. May I speak to Mr. Liebling, please?”

There is something in Mrs. Satterthwaite's tone, a certain undue formality, considering they are neighbors in the same building, that alerts Carol to the possibility that this may not be a friendly telephone call. “I'm sorry, but Noah's out of town today,” she says. “He'll be back around—”

“Well, I might as well tell you,” Pookie Satterthwaite says, “and you can relay it to your husband. There are a number of us—quite a few of us, in fact, here at River House—who are not at all happy with what's going on in this building.”

“Oh?” Carol says. “What's the matter?”

“My husband, Darius, and I have decided to head up a protest committee.”

“Oh? To protest what?”

“Your burglary.”

“Well, please put me on your committee, too,” Carol says smoothly. “I'm the one who's been most put out by it, even though nothing was—”

“It was obviously an inside job,” Pookie says. “It was obviously one of your colored maids.”

“I only have one maid,” Carol says, “and Mary was visiting her son and daughter-in-law in Islip yesterday afternoon when it happened. So Mary had nothing to do with it.”

“Well, as you know, most of us here at River House try not to employ colored. They're unreliable. They have relatives, and friends. They bring strangers into the building.”

“Mary has been with me for seventeen years, Mrs. Satterthwaite,” Carol says. “She is absolutely—”

“Obviously, we can't dictate who you want to hire and who you don't. But this situation is getting out of control, and our committee's purpose is to bring it under control. The main thing is—and I want you to make this quite clear to your husband—we are not going to let you use this inside-job burglary of yours as an excuse to slap another assessment on us for stepped-up security. And if that's what your husband's got on his mind to do, we are simply not going to stand for it, Mrs. Liebling.”

“Since Noah doesn't even know about the burglary, I'm sure he has no such thing on his mind,” Carol says.

“He will, though. We're all sure of that, because that would be just like him. One of our committee's purposes is to try to stop him before he tries to do it. I might as well tell you, Mrs. Liebling. There are a number of us here in the building who are not at all happy with the job your husband is doing as president of our board.”

“I'm very sorry to hear that,” Carol says.

“We have quite a number of other tenants on our side in this,” Pookie says. “We've lined up the Taylors, the Vadricks, the Gerridges, the Sturtevants, the LeMosneys. We've got Monica McCluskey and Graham Grenfell. They're all behind us. And I don't need to remind you, Mrs. Liebling, that Darius and I own one of the largest apartments in the building. That gives us more voting shares than almost any other tenant. In fact, we think we've got enough votes to call for a reelection and throw your husband out as president.”

“I think you ought to discuss this with my husband,” Carol says. “He'll be home late tonight. I suggest you call him at his office Monday morning.”

“And I suggest
you
tell him so
he'll
be prepared for what
we're
prepared to do, if he tries to pull anything!”

“Very well. Now, I really must hang up, Mrs. Satterthwaite. I've got—”

“And you can tell him we've got a plan.”

“What sort of plan?”

“For security.”

“Very well. I'll tell him.”

“It's a three-part plan. First, every servant who works at River House will be required to be photographed, full-face and in profile, and to wear these on a photo-ID badge while working in the building. Second, each servant will be fingerprinted, and the fingerprints will be kept on file in the front office. They'll have all this done at their own expense, of course, so it won't cost any of us a penny. And third, if any servant is given a key to an apartment, these keys must be turned in to the front office before the servant leaves the building, and picked up when he comes back in again. This will prevent them from going out and having their keys copied, and handing them out to all their friends.”

“I don't think you could get anybody to work in this building under conditions like that,” Carol says.

“Well, if they want the privilege of serving families who live at River House, that's what they're going to have to do,” she says.

“The privilege of serving people like
you?”

“What do you mean by that crack? I've never understood how people like
you
got into this building in the first place. I thought there were supposed to be certain
standards
at River House.”

“At least my apartment has
furniture,”
Carol says.

There is a little pause. “Our furniture is all being hand-made in Manila,” she says. “That takes time.”

“Since nineteen eighty-four?”

“Wait a minute. You've never set foot in my apartment. How did you know we're still—waiting for a few pieces? Did your husband tell you that? That's tenant confidentiality. Your husband has violated tenant confidentiality! We can nail him with that one, when I tell my committee that. He'll be off this building's board so fast he won't know what hit him!”

“Oh, shut up!” Carol says.

“Kike!”

Carol slams the receiver down.

“It sounds like you really blew it, sweetie,” Patsy says. “You'll never get anywhere with her now that you've picked a fight with her. And you won't get anywhere with that Stokes woman, either, if she's Carol's best friend.”

“She started it! She made a crack about how my apartment is decorated. I wasn't supposed to take that lying down, was I? She's never been inside my apartment!”

“Hmm. Now that you mention it, neither has anybody else. It's funny, Pookie. In all the years I've known you, you've never once invited me over.”

“It's not
finished
yet! As soon as it's finished, we're going to have a big party and invite everybody.”

“Hmm. Well, if I were you, I'd get after that decorator of yours, whoever it is you're using.”

“It's not his fault. It's Darius's. We can't seem to agree on a color scheme.”

“Hmm. Well, it sounds as though you really blew it this time, sweetie.…”

“Carol? It's Roxy Rhinelander at the
News.
How are you, my darling?”

“Fine, Roxy. How are you?”

“Just wonderful, my darling. Say, a little bird tells me there's a big feud brewing over at River House. Anything in that for my column?”

“No, Roxy. There's no feud.”

“You sure, my darling?”

“Absolutely.”

“Something about security, I was told.”

“Really? Who told you that, Roxy?”

“Confidential sources, my darling! Well, if anything breaks, you'll make sure I'm the first to know, won't you? Don't forget, I've given you
and
your daughter quite a lot of nice ink lately.”

“There's no feud, Roxy.”

Damn her,
she thinks. She can see the column item now: “Carol Liebling hotly denies rumors of a big feud brewing over security at oh-so-exclusive River House.…” Could Pookie Satterthwaite be behind this? Noah will be furious.

“I'm quittin', Miss Liebling.” Mary stands with her feet planted squarely in the doorway, her hands on her hips.

“Oh,
no
!” Carol cries. “What's the matter, Mary?”

“Girls downstairs in the laundry room. They be giving me fishy looks. They be saying I robbed your apartment. I ain't been robbing no apartments.”

“Of course you haven't, Mary!”

“I'm quittin', Miss Liebling.”

“Now, Mary,
please.
You've been with us so long. We get along so well. We need you, Mary. Don't do this just because of what some silly girls in the laundry room are saying!”

“They say we all got to have mug shots taken and wear badges to get in and out. They say we all got to be fingerprinted, like criminals, Miss Liebling! All account of me.”

“Nonsense, Mary. You don't have to be fingerprinted because you haven't done anything wrong. Nobody can make you be fingerprinted.”

“I'm quittin', Miss Liebling. I ain't workin' in this building no more.”

“Look, Mary. When something happens in a building like what happened here yesterday afternoon, people get kind of—hysterical. They get crazy, and they say crazy things. When all this blows over—”

“Mr. Roger, in the front office. He even axed me if I done it.”

“I spoke to Mr. Roger. I told him I knew you hadn't done it. I told him you couldn't possibly have done it. I told him you were out in Long Island yesterday, visiting your family.”

“He axed me their name. Their address. Their telephone number. So he could check up on me, see if I was lyin' to him.”

“Mr. Roger was just trying to do his job, Mary.”

“They don't like colored here.”

“Now, Mary, that's just not true. There are quite a few black people working here. There's Cecil, the porter. There's Hilton, the building's engineer. There's—”

“That don't matter. They don't like colored here. I known that all along.”

“Listen, Mary. Mr. Liebling is coming home tonight, and I'm going to talk to him. I think it's high time you got a nice raise, and I'm sure he'll agree.”

“No, ma'am. I'm quittin'.”

“Oh, Mary,
please
! Don't do this to us. Now look what you've made me do. You've made me start to cry, damn it!”

“I'm sorry, Miss Liebling. I'm quittin'.”

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Van Degan,” Anne says, looking up from a stack of museum correspondence she is filing.

“You mentioned you were working here,” Georgette says. “And I just happened to be in the museum to see the Diana Vreeland show, so I thought I'd just stop by and say hello. Is it a fascinating job?”

Anne smiles. “Well, I wouldn't call it fascinating, exactly,” she says. “But every now and then an interesting letter comes through—though if I stop to read it, it slows up my filing, which is what I'm supposed to be doing. I call it a Catch-22 job.”

“Catch-22?”

“If I'm going to get anything out of this job in terms of Bennington, I've got to learn something about how an art museum works. But if I try to learn how the museum works, I can't do the job properly.”

Georgette Van Degan looks at her watch. “It's twelve-thirty,” she says. “Have you had lunch?”

“Not yet, Mrs. Van Degan.”

“Good. Let's have lunch. There are some things we need to discuss about the party. If I can use your phone, I'll call Le Cirque.” Then she looks down at what Anne Liebling is wearing: faded jeans, a sweatshirt with the words
GOTCHA COVERED
emblazoned on the front, and a pair of bamboo chandelier earrings. “Well, let's not bother with Le Cirque,” she says. “I live just across the street. I'll have my cook fix us something. Soup and a salad okay?”

“That would be lovely, Mrs. Van Degan,” and she reaches for her down-filled parka, while Georgette Van Degan buttons herself into her fisher jacket.

“Aunt Carol, it's Becka Hower,” the woman's voice says, and for a moment Carol has no idea who this is. Then she remembers Ruth's estranged daughter from California.

“Oh yes, Becka.”

“Aunt Carol, I'm here at Mother's house, and things are in a terrible state. I just don't know what to do.”

“What's wrong, Becka?”

“It's Mother. I've got to get back to California, but she won't let me go. She says she's been desperately lonely. She wants me to stay and live with her. I can't do that, Aunt Carol. But she says she'll kill herself if I leave! And she sounds as though she means it!”

“Now, Becka. Tell me exactly what's been happening.”

“I came here to see her because she asked me to. And because I was curious. I never really knew her, and my father would never talk about her. But ever since I got here, there's been nothing but—craziness. Do you remember that young man, Ector, who she brought to your house on New Year's Eve?”

“Of course.”

“Well, he's still
here,
for one thing. I think she's paying him to stay here. I don't know that for sure, but it doesn't seem like Ector has anyplace else to go. I don't know what their relationship is supposed to be. I don't think they're lovers, because she's given Ector his own room. Actually, Ector turns out to be rather sweet. He's done everything he possibly can to help. He's even offered to marry Mother, if that will help.”

“Oh, dear …”

“I don't think she'd do anything as crazy as that, but I don't know. She reads to him. They watch old movies together. But whenever I try to slip out of the house, she says she needs me. She says she needs us both, for the companionship. She wants us to stay with her for the rest of her
life,
Aunt Carol. She's offered to pay me a lot of money if I'll spend the rest of my life with her, but I can't do that. And if I say I've got to go, she says she'll kill herself. And Ector—poor Ector—is caught in the middle of it. And then, two days ago, that Mr. Luckman came to call.”