Social Crimes

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  Nate Nathaniel was Monique’s secret American lover, not Lucius.

  Contrary to what one might think, this revelation wasn’t some gleaming sword of truth I wanted to pick up and fly into battle with; it was more like a wad of chewing gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe—ugly, sticky, uncomfortable. I couldn’t get rid of it. It raised so many terrible questions.

  The letter itself was brief, cold, and literary, exactly the sort of love letter I’d have expected of Nate.

  My beloved,

  “To conquer without risk is to triumph without glory.”

  Nate

  I didn’t recognize the quote. The letter wasn’t dated or post-marked. The Crillon Hotel, where Nate always stayed in Paris, was obviously a drop for them. Anne-Marie de Passy told me her brother showed her the letter in May of 1993, which meant Monique was most likely seeing both Nate and Lucius at the same time. Nate must have known this.

  I walked back to Eugenie’s apartment with the letter tucked safely away in my coat pocket, only vaguely aware of the light drizzle permeating the air. When I reached the Rue du Bac, my hair was wet and my clothes damp. Eugenie lit a fire, wrapped me in a blanket, and gave me some of her Russian tea spiked with brandy this time. I showed her the letter the old woman had given me.

  “Corneille,” Eugenie said, immediately identifying the quote. “Le Cid.”

  “I should have known you’d know that,” I said admiringly. “I was dead certain that letter was going to be from Lucius.” She handed it back to me. “I just couldn’t believe it when I saw it. I still can’t believe it.” I folded the letter up and slipped it back into the envelope.

  “That awful lawyer,” Eugenie said, with a shudder of disgust.

  “My daddy always warned me never to trust anyone with two first names.” I leaned back on the couch, absently turning the envelope round and round in the fingers of my right hand. “God knows Nate and I had our problems, but in an odd way, I respected him for his loyalty to Lucius. I really believed he was protecting Lucius’s interests. Now, though, in light of this,” I said, holding up the letter, “I think he had something else entirely in mind.”

  Eugenie looked at me intensely. “What do you mean?”

  I was still formulating my thoughts on the subject and it was helpful to have Eugenie to talk to, to help me think things through.

  “Nate set us up, the two of us: me and Lucius.”

  “It rather looks that way.”

  “That weekend in the country? He and Monique should have won Academy Awards the way they pretended to be strangers.”

  “From the letter they were obviously lovers.”

  “Still are, I assume. The question is, are they accomplices, too?”

  “But how did they meet?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering. You know what they say: Birds of a feather.”

  “ ‘God creates them but they find each other,’ an old Spanish proverb.” Eugenie said.

  I was feeling so agitated I couldn’t laugh. I couldn’t even sit still. I threw the blanket aside, got up, and paced around the room.

  “Nate and Lucius go back years, of course. Nate knew everything about him. I mean, it would have been so easy for Nate to set him up.”

  “But why?”

  “The money, of course.”

  “Yes, but Jo, she got the money, not him.”

  “I know, but he couldn’t have gotten it any other way, could he?” It suddenly hit me. “I bet Nate and Monique are going to get married.”

  “Really?”

  “I bet. And if they do, I’ll know it was him. And I’ll know he did it for the money.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then it was her.”

  “Have you thought that she might—how do you say it?—double-cross him? I love that expression.”

  “And refuse to marry him, you mean?”

  “Exactly,” Eugenie said. “A real adventuress doesn’t like to share.”

  “It’ll be interesting to see, won’t it? Nate may be in over his head. Wouldn’t that be nice for a change?”

  “How is it that she can fool so many people, this woman?”

  “She fooled me because I grew up with crazy people so she seemed normal. When you grow up in a terrarium and someone says, ‘It’s hot in here,’ you don’t notice it. It feels like home to you. Monique was just like one of the family. That’s why I was so off my guard.”

  “You had killers in your family?”

  “My uncle actually. He got off, but we all knew he was guilty. He pushed my aunt out the window because he thought she was a social liability. She was. But that’s not exactly a rational motive for killing someone.”

  “No? There’s none better in my view,” Eugenie joked.

  “I guess you never know what matters to people,” I said, laughing with her.

  “What matters to Monique, do you think? Money?”

  “Social life.”

  Eugenie guffawed. “She’s right at home then. There are plenty of killers in society, as you and I know only too well.”

  “She desperately wants to be accepted by the people she thinks are important. She always has. Even her sister-in-law said so.”

  “We certainly know the type.”

  “That whole world is just a collective figment of a few people’s imaginations,” I said. “It doesn’t really exist. And yet there are people who are truly obsessed by it. I was myself now that I look back. I was only comfortable seeing certain people—even people I didn’t much like.”

  Eugenie shrugged. “It’s the same here in Paris. We have a smart set: old families, old money. I don’t care for most of them but they certainly care a great deal for themselves. Their main purpose in life, it seems, is to make others feel left out.”

  “It’s sort of like that in New York. But I honestly never thought of it that way. I was in a certain group because of my interests and because of Lucius. He loved hobnobbing with the best and brightest.”

  Eugenie looked at me askance. “The best, the brightest? Please! Jo, you and I both know how second-rate and stupid some of these people are. It’s incroyable. That’s why they have to be so chichi and show off. I went to a party in New York last year given by people we both know, and the only reason I wasn’t bored to death was because they had a great Van Gogh, which was wonderful to see. And thank God I was facing it in the dining room because the conversation was so deadly dull I can’t tell you! All about the stock market and money. I thought I would die of boredom.”

  “Yes, but it’s not always like that. Sometimes it’s very interesting. Let’s face it, some brilliant people are attracted to that world.”

  “I suppose. It always amazes me when I see these really accomplished people behaving like utter toadies around the rich,” she said.

  “I guess.”

  “Jo, you forget. People danced around you and Lucius like he was Louis the Fifteenth. ‘Lucius the Fifteenth’ I used to call him, remember? He would laugh and laugh.”

  “I know, I know. Some people are truly obsessed with social life and it doesn’t matter how smart or how talented they are. They just want to be around money and parties.”

  “We are all like that to some degree. In Paris I can understand it a bit more because there was once a monarchy here, and there are still old families and ancient snobbism. It’s part of the French character in a way. But in New York, it’s all about money now. Tell me, Jo, how do you decide who is grand and who is not? It must be difficult with all these new billionaires.”

  “I think the so-called grand people in New York are the ones who control its great institutions,” I said. “There’s only one Municipal Museum, for example. Every social climber in the world wants to get on that board because that is instant social power.”

  “But social power, Jo. What is that? It’s not real power.”

  “For some it is. We all have our little spheres, Eugenie, and within them there are ranks and rites and rituals. The design wo
rld, your world . . . Tell me that doesn’t have a hierarchy.”

  “I’m spoiled, you know. I like to be around interesting people. People who are doing other things aside from just making deals. I see a lot of social people when I go to New York or when they come to Paris, yes. But most of them are amis mondains. I don’t feel close to them like I am to you. The nature of that world is against intimacy.”

  “That’s the whole point of social life—the avoidance of intimacy. And it’s deceptive because you see everybody all the time so there’s an illusion of closeness that really doesn’t exist. In fact, social life is less about who people are than about what they represent.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It’s simple: If you’re nice and you lose all your money, you’re out. But if you’re a shit with a private plane, you’re in. ‘Have plane, will travel.’ The social climber’s calling card.”

  Eugenie sighed. “As you know, Jo, I grew up in a certain world. My mother was a princess. My great uncle was a king. But I never saw the point of it.”

  “That’s because you always had it,” I said.

  “Perhaps. But do you enjoy all those endless parties?”

  “It’s not just parties, though. It’s a philanthropic world. A world of art and culture and beauty. And some of the people in it actually understand and appreciate that. Others don’t, I grant you. But if you take the board of the Municipal Museum, for example, I have to say that most of the people on it aren’t social climbers. They’re philanthropists who love art. They happen to have social power only as a result of what they do, not because they seek it out as an end in itself.”

  Eugenie looked at me skeptically. “I have met a man who is on your board. I forget his name. He has a chic wife. He knew nothing—nada, rien—about art.” She made a zero sign with her thumb and forefinger.

  I knew the man to whom she was referring. He’d donated twenty-five million dollars to the museum and pledged twenty-five more.

  “Okay, granted, we do have one or two who are only there because they can afford to be. But in general, people know their stuff.”

  “Well, anyway, we’re off the main subject. You think Monique de Passy is obsessed by this world?” Eugenie said.

  “I think she’s obsessed, period. Which means social life is the perfect place for her. Money is the tool to open the golden door.”

  “Exactly. And you stand in her way. It’s life at court, my dear. The only way for a newcomer to succeed is to get rid of the old favorite.”

  Chapter 18

  I arrived back in New York, exhausted from a long flight plagued by delays. I opened the door to my apartment and was shocked to find a bespectacled, harried-looking woman standing in the middle of the living room, surrounded by cardboard boxes and bubble wrap.

  “Tinka Marsh,” the woman said, extending her hand to me before I’d even had a chance to put down my suitcases.

  I recognized the name, of course. She was the woman who owned the apartment, Betty’s friend whom I’d never met but only spoken with on the phone.

  “Ms. Marsh,” I said, nonplussed. “What’s happening here? I’m just off a plane from Paris.”

  “I know. And I apologize from the bottom of my heart, Mrs. Slater. I tried to contact you but the number Betty gave me never answered. I guess it was wrong or something. But anyway, I hate to spring this on you, but I sold the apartment and I have to be out in two days. I’m really sorry about this.”

  Everything was in disarray, including my files, samples, and invoices for the last job I was working on. It was a mess. I had no lease, no legal rights. She’d loaned me the apartment as a favor. I had no choice but to help her pack.

  Since there was only one bedroom, I called Betty and asked her if I could spend the night. She said I could stay as long as I wanted. She also agreed to let me store boxes in her basement until I found another place.

  Welcome home.

  The next day I went hunting for a rental apartment in a decent location. The only thing I could afford for the moment was a tiny one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a converted brownstone between Lexington and Third on Seventy-fourth Street. I took it.

  I subsequently found out that the purchaser of Tinka Marsh’s apartment was none other than Monique. According to Betty, who got it from Tinka, Monique had made her such a large offer, she couldn’t afford to turn it down. She told Tinka she was buying it for the new French chef she had hired. She had taken my former apartment off the market and decided to stay in New York.

  This was war.

  And that wasn’t the only startling development awaiting me on my return. According to June, the social barometer, the tide of public opinion had taken a sharp turn in favor of Monique, primarily on account of a long profile of her in Nous magazine. June had saved the piece to show me. The thing that caught my eye immediately was the very flattering picture of the Countess, reclining on one of the silk velvet sofas in my living room. The article said that Monique was giving small dinners where “one finds a fascinating mix of people, not only titled ladies and tycoons, but politicos, television personalities, actors, artists, and writers of the moment, all of whom are treated to de Passy’s extravagant, yet informal style of entertaining, which is reflected in a stack of priceless buffet plates that once belonged to the Empress Josephine. The food is prepared from de Passy’s old family recipes by her brilliant French chef.”

  Oh boy, I thought. I knew that people would now grab any excuse to like her just so they’d be invited to her house.

  Furious as I was at Monique, however, the real score I had to settle was with Nate Nathaniel. I had barely moved into my new apartment when I went to see him.

  Nate’s midtown offices on the seventeeth floor of a fairly old Park Avenue building had the heavy, solid look of a white-shoe firm that catered to Old Money. One stepped off the elevator into a hushed realm of dark mahogany paneling, traditional furniture, wall-to-wall carpeting, and nineteenth-century prints of New York landmarks and maps.

  My appointment with Nate was for two o’clock. I was right on time. Nate kept me waiting fifteen minutes. In the old days, he wouldn’t have dared. I perused a copy of Fortune in the reception area while I waited. At last, an officious secretary led me down a corridor of enclosed alcoves to his office.

  She showed me into a huge room with bookcase walls, carpeted in green. Nate was on the phone, his crossed stocking feet propped up on the leather top of the large English partners desk. He was wearing a shirt and an unbuttoned vest, no jacket. He made a cursory motion to me to take a seat on one of the two chairs opposite him while he finished up his call.

  The decor of this impressive office overlooking Park Avenue had barely changed in the twenty-odd years I’d known Nate. He’d spiffed it up, of course, replacing the carpeting and upholstery at regular intervals. The walls were still lined with law books and journals interrupted, at intervals, by the various tennis and golf trophies Nate had won. The burled walnut humidor that Nate claimed Fidel Castro had once owned was still prominently displayed on the glass coffee table in front of the leather sofa under the window.

  My favorite object of all—because it was given to him by Lucius and because it also said so much about its owner—was the impressive-looking document, framed in black, that hung directly behind Nate’s desk at the center of a symmetrical arrangement of framed law degrees and professional honors. Written in black ink on parchment, stamped with a red wax seal, it was the official order, signed by Louis XVI himself, approving Dr. Guillotine’s new invention as an efficient and humane means of public execution. In effect, the King of France had signed his own death warrant.

  I endured about five minutes of a conversation laced with legal jargon before Nate hung up the phone, swung his feet down, and jotted down some notes on a yellow pad. I waited. He finally looked up.

  “Sorry, Jo. Hectic day. What can I do for you?”

  I focused for a moment on the eighteenth-century document behind his
head in order to calm my seething anger.

  “Did you know that old Dr. Guillotine changed his name after his invention became synonymous with terror?” I began. “I find that quaint, don’t you? Especially considering that in New York, names synonymous with terror are on everyone’s A-list.”

  Nate chuckled. “What’s up, Jo? I’m real busy.”

  “I wanted to tell you about my trip to Paris.”

  He looked at me incredulously, then started rummaging around in the top drawer of his desk, obviously preoccupied with something else. “Look, Jo, I made time for you this afternoon because you said it was important. But you picked a hellish day. Where is that damn thing?” he muttered under his breath, continuing to search his desk.

  “Then I won’t beat around the bush,” I said, opening my pocketbook and pulling out the letter Anne-Marie de Passy had given me. I slid it across the wide desk so it landed in front of him. He stopped what he was doing and picked up the envelope, giving it a cursory glance. I watched his face closely for any flicker of emotion. He betrayed none. He dropped the letter back on the desk, and slid it back over to me.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?” I asked him.

  He stared at me with cold eyes and did that annoying cathedral thing with his fingers, tapping them together impatiently. He said nothing.

  “Liar,” I said.

  He didn’t respond. He just continued to look at me, expressionless.

  I held his gaze. We sat there in a sophomoric no-blinking contest for what seemed like an eternity. Finally he said: “What do you want from me, Jo?”

  “The truth—for a change?”

  “About?”

  I heaved a weary sigh. “Do we really have to play this game, Nate?”

  Nate rose from his chair, shoving his hands down into the pockets of his gray flannel trousers. He paced the room pensively, looking vaguely ridiculous in his stocking feet.

  “Whose idea was it to set him up? Yours or hers?”