Social Crimes

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  The jeweler shook his head. “What happened?”

  “The bidding stopped at nine-fifty. I still own the necklace.”

  Medina hit his forehead with his palm. “Jeez. Told you so. You realize that just the tax and commission are gonna come to more than the thing’s worth.”

  “You’re sure you didn’t mention this to anyone?”

  “Hell, no. I told you I thought it was a cockamamie idea.”

  I steadied myself against the display case. “May I have a glass of water, please?”

  Medina led me into the back office to keep me out of sight of any customers who happened in. Distraught women in expensive jewelry shops aren’t an advertising bonanza. He sat me down in the wooden chair in front of his desk next to a huge black safe and fetched me a cup of water from the cooler.

  “Who’d you get to bid on it for you?”

  “A friend. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “No, no. Do you have to reimburse this friend?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, you could tell your friend to renege on their bid. Then the auction house would contact the next highest bidder.”

  “Renege on a bid? No. This person would never do that.”

  “Can this person afford to pay them?”

  “Yes. But obviously I have to pay this person back. And just at the moment, I don’t have an extra two hundred thousand dollars—or an extra two cents, for that matter. I’m in debt.”

  “Okay, well then, here’s what I suggest. You get this person to call Chapel’s and ask to get an extension on the payment. They’ll charge interest, of course, but in the meantime you can sell whatever you have to get the money.”

  “Jerry, I don’t think you quite understand. I owe hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have nothing left to sell.”

  “You can’t raise a couple of hundred thousand?” He looked at me incredulously.

  There was a time when “a couple of hundred thousand” didn’t sound like a fortune to me—merely the minimum ante for a round of social life. Now it was the national debt.

  “Jerry, I can hardly pay my Con Ed bill, for God’s sakes.”

  The young saleswoman poked her head into Medina’s office to inform him he had two customers up front who were asking for him. Medina excused himself for a moment while I sat in the back room of Pearce contemplating my fate.

  I tried calling Charlie Kahn but his secretary said he was out.

  Medina’s stifling little office closed in on me. I got up, tossed the black wig into the wastebasket, and walked out, craving some fresh air. Entering the boutique, I stopped short when I saw Monique and Nate Nathaniel. Jerry Medina was waiting on them.

  I wanted to do an about-face and go back into the office, climb into the safe, and close the door behind me. But Nate spotted me.

  “Jo? Is that you?” he cried, making no effort to disguise his amusement at my ghastly appearance.

  Head high, shoulders back, like Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine, I walked toward the front of the shop, refusing to acknowledge either one of them. Monique regarded me with a gloating little sneer. Not that I entirely blamed her. The last time we’d seen each other, I’d thrown a glass of champagne in her face.

  “Well, congratulations,” Nate barked. “Nearly a million dollars for your necklace. Well done.”

  “We were there. It was thrilling,” Monique said. Three-leeng. “I was just telling Jerry that I’m looking for a consolation prize.” She seemed completely unphased by our last meeting, talking to me in a friendly way as if the incident had never occurred. I, on the other hand, refused to utter a word to either of them.

  “You will be amused to know that I was the underbidder,” Monique said as I walked past her. “I was going to go to a million. I told everyone I would. Isn’t that right, Nate? Then, as I was bidding, I suddenly thought there must be someone who wants this necklace even more than I do. So I decided to let them have it, if they wanted it so much. I wonder who bought it,” she said as if she knew exactly.

  God knows how she found out what I was up to. Maybe she guessed. Maybe Charlie blabbed. Maybe Jerry. Who knows? That was New York, though: If you want to keep a secret, you can’t breathe a word of it—not even to yourself. It will get out.

  I reached the front door and stood with my back to the showroom, waiting for the guard to buzz me out. He released the catch on the first security door. I walked into the little glass cocoon, hearing Nate Nathaniel call after me: “Have a nice day.”

  Another buzzer sounded, releasing the catch on the second security door. I was out on the street. Literally.

  Ask not for whom the buzzer sounds, I thought. It sounds for thee.

  I went home and tried Charlie a few more times. When I finally reached him he seemed more perplexed than irate our little plan had backfired.

  “Guess we got hoisted on our own petard,” he said, quickly adding: “Know what a petard is? A fart.”

  “What do you want to do, Charlie?”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Well, you could renege on your bid, which means that they’d offer the necklace to Monique because she was the underbidder.”

  “Can’t do that. Never reneged on a deal in my life.”

  “Then I’m afraid you have to pay for it,” I said, mortified. “Which means you own it until I can pay you back.”

  “I can’t keep it. You have to keep it. Otherwise June’ll find out, and then . . .” For the first time I detected a hint of panic in his voice.

  “I’m happy to do that. When you pay them, and they pay me, I’ll pay you back—which would be everything except the tax and commission. I’ll just have to owe you that, I’m afraid. I haven’t figured it all out yet, but it could come to, um, well, over two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Fine. Let’s do that.”

  He seemed so unconcerned, I wondered if he really understood.

  “Charlie, you do realize that even after I pay you, I will still owe you nearly a quarter of a million dollars?” I said in a clear, measured voice. “You’re sure you realize that?”

  “I’ve been owed more. Pay me when your ship comes in.”

  I thought for a moment.

  “Remember the Andrea Doria, Charlie? That was my ship.”

  Chapter 26

  I was grateful to Charlie, I really was. He was cool under fire and a generous friend. With the necklace back in my possession, I now thought of myself as “jewel poor.”

  Naturally, people found out that Charlie had bought the necklace and that he’d sold it back to me. This is New York, after all. Nothing is a secret for long. No sooner was that information on the wire than it was also being whispered that I had roped my old friend Charlie Kahn into bidding up the price of the Marie Antoinette necklace in order to get even with Monique. This time the gossip had the added advantage of being true. June naturally got wind of it and called me up demanding to know point-blank whether I had conspired with Charlie to bid up the piece. I couldn’t tell her the truth because what we’d done was, in fact, illegal. What I said was that Charlie had bought the necklace for her on my advice, but then he decided to get her something else.

  “He said that once he saw it again, he didn’t think it would look all that good on you so he called me up and asked me if I wanted to buy it from him,” I told her, lying through my teeth. “Naturally, I said I did. So I bought it back for roughly what he paid.”

  June didn’t believe me, but even she knew that if this all got out Charlie could be in serious trouble. Of course, Charlie and I maintained the fiction that he’d bought the necklace for June, then changed his mind and sold it back to me. Not that anyone believed us. But what could they prove? Once again, I was being accused of behavior that was at best illegal and at worst unladylike. And once again, instead of blaming myself for what had occurred, I blamed Monique.

  The Dent debacle and the champagne catastrophe had set the stage. The “Necklace Affair Part Two,” as it w
as referred to by those aware of my fascination with the original incident, rang down the curtain on what was left of my credibility. I had given people another convenient peg on which to hang their “concerns” about me. I was finished. I wasn’t even invited to events I had to pay for, which in New York is the definition of being washed up.

  I’d always enjoyed observing the bloody theater of New York social life, never once imagining that I, myself, would one day be among the casualties.

  I owed money to Charlie Kahn, the IRS, two workrooms, three fabric houses, lawyers, and let’s not forget the Municipal Museum for the remainder of my pledge. I still had the necklace, but I couldn’t sell it for even a fraction of what it was worth. To use auction house parlance, it had been “burned.” Nobody would touch it for any price. My talisman, my trademark, was considered very bad luck.

  The great white shark of poverty that had been circling around me moved in for the kill. I felt isolated and afraid. Dunned by creditors and shunned by former friends, my future was now behind me.

  I read what Lord Gower wrote about Marie Antoinette in 1886:

  The pure ore of her nature was but hidden under the dross of worldliness: and the scorching fire of suffering revealed one of the tenderest hearts and one of the bravest natures that history records.

  Well, I thought, at last I’m being forced to confront the pure ore of my nature. The result was I got pushy.

  I called Trebor Bellini and asked him flat out if he would hire me as his assistant. He thanked me but turned me down, saying: “I think it would be just too confusing for my clients, Jo. I’m sorry.”

  I then set up a little party-planning business, hoping to trade on what was left of my reputation as a great hostess. In my mind’s eye shimmered a vision of that burgeoning class of young billionaires who had limitless money and no clue how to spend it. I placed a small ad in a few glossy magazines. Listing my name and telephone number at the top, the copy read:

  Elegance for All Occasions

  A Renowned Socialite and Hostess Shares Her Secrets

  I loathed the idea of promoting myself in this way, but these were desperate times requiring vulgar methods. I had several inquiries, but no real commitments. That idea quickly fizzled.

  In order to eat, I landed a steady job (salary plus commissions) selling wholesale carpets and hotel furnishings on Lexington and Twenty-sixth Street, figuring I’d never, ever, ever run into a soul I knew in that cavernous, ground-floor, fluorescent hellhole they called a showroom. I took the subway to and from work. I ate at Soup Burgs and greasy lunch counters in the neighborhood. I was on my feet eight hours a day, five days a week. Most of the people I dealt with had a lot of taste—all of it bad. I sometimes found myself staring at the mammoth chandelier with the nine thousand gold quills sticking out of it like a porcupine, wondering how a sane person could actually look up and say, as many did, “I’ll take that.”

  My feet swelled up so much, I had to walk home a couple of times without my shoes on, in stocking feet. I finally broke down and bought myself a pair of Hush Puppies for twenty-five bucks on sale. They were cushioned on the inside and bulbous on the outside, shoes with shoulder pads, like the kind nurses wear. But they were heaven compared to my sleek, expensive, designer boats. Symbolizing my ugly new life of drudgery and hopelessness, those Hush Puppies were just about the most depressing purchase I had ever, ever made.

  Though I still harbored dreams of a rich protector, I could no longer afford to go to expensive benefits or take trips to posh vacation spots. It was impossible to hunt where there was no game. Brad Thompson was out of the picture, of course. I had no desire to date. The two experiences I’d had in that area were desultory: One man asked me if I wouldn’t mind paying the check; the other was a sixty-year-old who confessed after three glasses of wine that he was physically attracted only to women in their twenties.

  “You think that’s weird?” he asked me.

  “I think it’s male,” I replied.

  Wading deeper into middle age, my life was grim and getting grimmer. I couldn’t afford to keep up my beauty maintenance: the monthly haircut and color, the collagen injections, the manicures, skin treatments, exercise classes. No wonder rich women look better than poor women; they can afford it. Feeling like an old car that needed parts replaced, I tried to keep the engine running smoothly. But it was hard with no tune-ups.

  Fallen socialites became the hobgoblins of my imagination. Over the years, I’d seen a number of prominent women drift off into the fatal currents of alcoholism and drug addiction. In my dreams, these women reached out and grabbed me. Looking like a mob of grubby old toothless bag ladies, they crowed: “High and mighty, were you, Jo? Now you’re one of usssss.”

  Always exhausted, always yearning, always plotting, I felt the days and nights crash down on me, drenching me in bitterness and regret. To be honest, I have to say that many of my friends tried to rally around me during this troubled period and it was I who withdrew from them. Betty and June called me every day, checking to see how I was.

  Much as I appreciated everyone’s efforts, there was something about the well-meaning kindness of my friends that irked me more than the straightforward snubs of the amis mondains. I couldn’t stand the soulful look in my friends’ eyes whenever they saw me. I hated being an object of pity. But everyone assumed I was going nowhere, no matter where I went.

  Once again, I came to the conclusion it was better not to see anyone I knew for a while. At first I felt strengthened by this resolution. Quite quickly, however, the lack of company produced the most undesired effect imaginable: I thought of Monique more than ever. She was now firmly planted in the center of my brain. She was the first thing I thought about when I got up in the morning and the last thing I thought about when I closed my eyes at night. She took up the better part of my waking moments as well.

  It had taken over four years for my misfortunes to sink fully into my consciousness. The turmoil of each setback had blinded me to the lasting effects. Now that I awoke day after day all alone to a landscape of uncertainty, I saw the true emptiness of what lay ahead. I had drifted away from my friends despite their efforts to support me. I couldn’t bear not being on an equal footing with them. It was my nature to be generous, to always give more than I took. Unable to reciprocate, I felt a deepening shame coupled with a sense of inferiority. I withdrew further and further into my own little world.

  I tried giving myself a pep talk, telling myself that I was strong, healthy, not that old. People start over and over and over again, I thought. This is not the end of the world. But it was the end of my world and I knew it. I sometimes fantasized another life for myself, independent of money and society. If only I had never married Lucius. Perhaps I could have become a teacher, I thought, or a curator. A curator, yes. I would have liked that. I could have been that. But then I thought, no: You are what you could have been.

  Being in debt was hell, like a Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. I hadn’t the slightest idea how I was going to pay back everyone I owed, or, indeed, how I was going to keep my own head above water in the coming years. Plus the fact I sorely missed my old life—not just the money and the society, but the sense of being a part of a world I genuinely enjoyed. I had to face it: I was all alone—no kids, no husband, no family. The friends I had were loyal, but I knew I was drifting away from them forever.

  For the first time in my life, I felt truly afraid—not the amorphous fear of the unknown that you get when you’re young, but the concrete fear of the known you experience in middle age. I was old enough to understand the fragility of life and the horrors that could await me. This knowledge made everything seem more dreadful.

  All these feelings were coupled with a seething sense of indignity that I had been robbed of my life. I was serving a life sentence for a crime I didn’t commit. And I had to watch a murderer living high off the hog while I was behind bars. It really was an awful lot to bear.

  Depression dogged me until I
no longer functioned. On weekends, I lay in bed with the shades drawn, and lost all track of time. I stuffed myself with comfort foods, drank straight vodka, and watched television programs about serial killers, deriving a perverse cheer in wading through the dark marshes of the human soul.

  Just for the hell of it, one night I washed down one of Monique’s Rotinal tablets, which Anne-Marie de Passy had given me, with a shot of vodka. I crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over my head figuring with any luck I would die. I was out for nineteen hours straight.

  When I came to, my eyes took a frightening amount of time to focus. For a moment, I thought I’d impaired my vision. My mouth tasted chalky. I was so weak I could barely stand up. I found, to my utter horror, that I’d relieved myself in the bed—just like Marie Antoinette relieved herself on the way to the guillotine. There wasn’t a single message on my answering machine. It occurred to me that I could have died in that little hole alone, without anybody knowing or caring.

  I pulled up the shades and looked out the window at the crack of blue sky that was visible high above me. It was a sunny winter day. I made myself a cup of hot tea and sat down on the sofa in my living room, bundled up in a sweater with a throw blanket around my feet. The book I’d been reading on Marie Antoinette was on the coffee table where I’d left it. As I picked it up to find my place, it fell open, and I caught a glimpse of two lines:

  Harlot, you dare to take my role

  And flaunt yourself as a queen . . .

  It was the start of one of the seditious little poems written and distributed by the anti-Monarchist press during the trial of the Necklace Affair.

  I closed the book and repeated the lines to myself, applying them, of course, to my own situation. Why should I take this lying down, I thought? Was I going to be one of those pathetic statistics so common in big cities, one of those forgotten people who die alone in their apartments and lie undiscovered for days until the stench of their rotting corpse alerts the neighbors? No. Such an end is not for Jo Slater.