Too Damn Rich (88 page)

"Now, here's what's required, sweeties," Dina
was telling the attorneys. "If the child is a boy, we shall need an
affidavit confirming its sex, the exact time of birth, and the fact
that you each witnessed it, and that it came from the womb of
Princess Zandra. That's all. Here. My watch keeps perfect
time."

She unclasped her diamond-encrusted gold
timepiece and handed it to the
consigliere
.

The three attorneys compared the time on
Dina's watch with their own wristwatches, and looked at one another
and frowned.

Meanwhile, Dr. Landau was putting his hand up
inside Zandra to dilate her cervix. He felt around carefully.

Zandra clenched her teeth against the
pain.

"I can't feel the child's head," Dr. Landau
said. "The womb is blocked by the afterbirth. This won't be pretty,
but—" Swiftly he began pulling out the bloodied tissue. When the
obstruction was cleared, he broke the waterbag, and the amniotic
fluid flowed forth. Then, gently but firmly, he guided the tiny,
sixteen-inch child down the channel and out of Zandra's body.

"Eight-seventeen," the entertainment lawyer
announced, consulting Dina's watch. The others looked at it and
murmured their concurrence.

"Look!" Kenzie exclaimed. "The bleeding! It's
stopped!"

"Thank God," Karl-Heinz offered up
softly.

Dr. Landau placed the child on Zandra's
abdomen.

"Is it ..." Kenzie began uneasily. "It
doesn't seem to be breathing."

"Give it a second." The doctor gently rubbed
the infant's back to stimulate its breathing.

Nothing.

Quickly he turned the child around, put his
mouth around its tiny nose and mouth, and sucked to clear the
passages.

Then it came. A feeble cry, but a cry all the
same.

The child was alive! And breathing!

"Look!" Dina clapped her hands together in
delight. "It is a boy! Oh, Zandra! Sweetie, it's a son! You have a
son!"

"Truly?" Zandra whispered, looking up at
Karl-Heinz.

He grinned. "You'll see for yourself in a
moment."

"Scissors," Dr. Landau said.

"My Swiss Army knife has a tiny pair."
Karl-Heinz dug it out of his trouser pocket.

"If anyone has a lighter, please sterilize
it."

The divorce lawyer flicked his gold lighter
and Karl-Heinz held the tiny folding scissors into the flame. Then
the doctor took them, cut the umbilical cord, and tied it.

"Clean handkerchiefs."

Several were forthcoming, and Dr. Landau
dried the tiny, skinny red infant. It let out a thin but indignant
bleat and clenched and unclenched its tiny hands.

"It's very important you keep him warm," Dr.
Landau cautioned. "I don't know whether it's my imagination or not,
but it seems to have gotten decidedly chilly in here."

Carefully he placed the baby in Zandra's
arms. "Here you go."

"Oh, gosh. But, he's so tiny and frail!" she
exclaimed. "He feels frightfully light." She stared at Dr. Landau.
"He can't weigh more than three or four pounds!"

"I know. Keep him under the covers, but don't
smother him. He needs all the oxygen he can get. His lungs won't be
fully developed yet."

Zandra nodded.

"Also, in order to survive, he'll require
incubation. And soon."

Just then the heating vent on the overhead
duct at the back of the storeroom popped open and Charley's head
poked out, upside down. He was holding a finger to his lips and
grinning from ear to ear.

Kenzie looked back and forth from him to the
baby. It was hard to assimilate everything. Too much was happening
all at once.

Then she felt a surge of joy the likes of
which she had never known.

"It won't be long before he's incubated," she
assured Zandra confidently. "See? My Charley is radioing for help
already. Now let's quiet down and not give away what's happening.
But first, will some of you men please help Charley down? That's
quite a drop, and I don't want my hero to get hurt."

In the lobby, the police commissioner
listened to the squawks com ing from the walkie-talkie, and his
face lit up like a Christmas tree. He flashed the Fed a grin. "Your
guy?"

"That's right," the PC said. "SWAT team!"

The waiting special forces jumped to
attention.

"Listen up good!"

He relayed Charley's information.

"Any questions?"

There were none.

"Go!"

The assembled squad rushed the stairs with a
clatter, heading toward the open vent on the floor above. The
cavalry was on its way.

In the painting storeroom, time was passing
with excruciating slowness. For everyone, the wait for the SWAT
team seemed the longest and most difficult of their lives.

Out in the gallery, the obscene mockery of an
auction had resumed. The air of mutiny had given way to
resignation, and "lots" two through eleven had capitulated. The
high and mighty, reduced to fear and power- lessness, were on the
telephones, arranging for the delivery of bearer bonds.

No one wanted to join Mildred Davies. Lot
number twelve was being called.

In the storage room, time seemed to have come
to a complete standstill.

Behind one of the rolling racks laden with
sideways stacked paintings, Kenzie was keeping Charley company, the
two of them sitting on the floor.

"You risked your life being the first one
through!" she marveled. "What made you do it, you lovable
fool?"

"Keep your voice down," he whispered, raising
his revolver and chancing a moment's glance around the corner
before ducking back out of sight. "Last thing we need's for one of
those thugs to come investigate."

"Is that any way to answer a question?"

"If you must know, I have a personal stake in
this," he said.

"Oh?" Her eyebrows, raised in amusement,
disappeared up under her bangs. "And what might that be?"

"What do you think, you amoral, heartless,
infuriating, two-timing, prick-teasing pain in the ass?"

"Why, Charles Gabriel Ferraro!" she said
huskily, staring at him in pleased, wide-eyed wonder. "I do believe
that's your way of saying you love me!"

"Maybe," he said, holding his revolver with
both hands and keeping it pointed ceilingward in readiness.

"And to think," she murmured, "how much
misery I put you through. All because I was unable to decide."

He squinted at her. "This mean you finally
made up your mind?"

"Oh, I think so."

"And?"

She held his gaze. "First, why don't we see
about getting out of this alive."

"This your way of saying yes?"

"Could be."

"Still afraid to commit," he said in
exasperation. "That it?"

She shook her head. "You're my number one
hero," she said.

"What does that mean?"

"Oh, really, Charley! Don't you ever pay
attention to the movies? The hero always gets the girl in the
end."

"Takes a tough man," he cracked, "to win a
tender woman."

Intuition told Dina not to press her luck by
interrupting the "auction" yet again. "We have pens, sweeties," she
informed the attorneys, "but no paper. In order to be legal, the
affidavit doesn't have to be written on paper, does it?"

The divorce lawyer shook his head. "So long
as the wording's correct, and it's properly signed and witnessed,
it can be written on most any surface."

"Splendid!"

Dina looked around, spied a small gilt-framed
painting in the nearest rack, and appropriated it without giving it
a glance. She placed it up- side-down atop the rack, the back of
the aged, stretched brown canvas facing up.

"Here you go, sweeties," she purred. "You can
write up the appropriate legalese on this."

The three men looked at one another and
shrugged.

"Why not?" said the consigliere. He gave Dina
a solemn look. "Just so long as the prince buys the painting. If
anyone else winds up with it, he's out of luck."

"Oh, he'll buy it, sweetie," Dina assured
him. "Don't you worry about that."

The men huddled around the canvas, deep in
whispered conversation about the precise wording of the
document.

Zandra, holding her newborn under the warmth
of the jackets which covered her, lay with her head cradled in
Karl-Heinz's lap.

"You see?" he whispered, smiling down at her.
"Did I not tell you everything would be fine?"

She stared up at him. "Yes," she said softly,
"you did." Then her voice took on an anxious edge. "But, darling,
what about an incubator? He needs one in order to survive!"

"You heard Kenzie," he said. "Help is on the
way. Give it a few min—"

He was interrupted by the chirrup of his
cellular phone. Reaching out to where he'd dropped it, he picked it
up, and took the call.

"Yes?"

"Your Highness? It's Dr. Rantzau."

Karl-Heinz instinctively tensed, bracing
himself for bad news. "Yes, doctor?"

"If I might extend my most sincere
condolences," the director of the clinic said gravely. "His
Highness, Prince Leopold, passed away several minutes ago."

Karl-Heinz lowered the phone and momentarily
shut his eyes tightly. The news should hardly have come as a shock,
and yet it left him stunned.

He thought: I wonder. Are we ever prepared
for the death of a loved one?

"Heinzie?" Zandra was asking. "Darling, what
is it?"

"My father." His voice was choked. "He's
dead."

"Oh, no!" She reached up and touched his
face. "Oh, darling, I am sorry."

He drew a deep breath and let it out
slowly.

The Lord giveth, he thought, and the Lord
taketh away. Truer words were never written ...

"Ironic, is it not," he said softly, "that
our son should be born within minutes of my father's death? How is
it that such joy and tragic loss can come so closely together?"

Dina gently took the telephone from his hand
and moved a few steps away.

"Hello? Who is this? I see. The prince needs
some moments to himself, Dr. Rantzau. Tell me, could you give me
the exact time of his father's death?"

"It occurred precisely at thirteen minutes
past two, Central European Time."

Dina's heart sank like a stone. The baby was
born at seventeen past eight, Eastern Standard Time.

"You're certain?" she asked.

"Absolutely. Two attorneys were at his
bedside to confirm the time of death."

"I see," Dina said dully. "No, there's
nothing else. Thank you, Dr. Rantzau. His ... his Serene Highness
will be in touch."

She jabbed off the phone, tempted to hurl it
against the wall.

"Four minutes!" she said tightly. "The child
was born four minutes too late!"

The
consigliere
, scratching away on
the back of the canvas with his fountain pen, abruptly stopped
writing. He turned to look at her. "What do you mean?" he
asked.

Dina filled him in on the death of the old
prince and the timing of the birth. "You see, sweeties?" she said
bitterly. "He died before the birth. Four minutes before. Now
Heinzie cannot possibly inherit."

The
consigliere
frowned thoughtfully.
"Perhaps he can," he told her. "Why don't you call up 976-6000 for
the correct time?"

"But I don't see what—"

"Please. Just do it."

Dina shrugged, pressed seven buttons, and
listened.

"It's eight twenty-three," she said.

"Could we?" The entertainment lawyer held out
his hand for the telephone and raised it to his ear to verify. The
two others put their heads close enough to listen in. Then all
three of them glanced at their watches and smiled.

The entertainment lawyer handed the phone
back to Dina.

"It's just as I suspected," the consigliere
said.

Dina looked bewildered. "What is?"

It was the divorce lawyer who replied. "Look
at your watch and tell us what time it says."

Dina lifted her wrist and consulted her
diamond-studded timepiece. "It shows eight thirty-three," she said.
"So?"

And then her mouth fell open as she suddenly
understood.

"Thirty-three! Oh, my God!" she whispered,
slapping the side of her head. "How could I have forgotten? I
always set my clocks and watches ten minutes ahead!"

The
consigliere
smiled. "I must admit
you had us a bit confused. All our watches were within a minute of
each other's, but since you assured us that yours kept perfect
time—"

"—you obviously thought yours were running
too slow," Dina completed for him, with a sudden smile. "Well,
sweeties? What are you all waiting for? Proceed with the document!
And whatever you do, for God's sake, please. Do put down the
correct time!"

Dina was consulted twice, each time to
provide the father and mother's full names:

"... His Serene Highness, Prince Karl-Heinz
Fernando de Carlos Jean Joachim Alejandor Ignacio Hieronymous
Eustace von und zu Engelwiesen ..."

and "Her Serene Highness, Princess Anna
Zandra Elisabeth Theresia Charlotte von und zu Engelwiesen."

Five minutes later, the lawyers were done.
They brought Dina the painting, and she took it, her lips murmuring
as she quickly read what they'd drafted:

"On this eleventh day of November in the Year
of our Lord ... et cetera ... whereas we, the undersigned
practicing attorneys ... et cetera ... inasmuch as having duly
witnessed, at the eighth hour and seventh minute of this evening
..."

Dina was impressed. There was no doubt as to
the document's validity.

Ceremoniously, she carried the fait accompli
over to Zandra and Karl-Heinz. "Voila, sweeties!" she said
brightly. "Proof of the birth."

"Goodness, Dina," Zandra said. "But, darling,
it's written on canvas. On the back of a painting. Will it stand up
legally, do you think?"