Social Crimes

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  New York is court life, I thought. And in court life, coups and revolutions are always possible. There was no reason for me to accept this dreary fate. I hadn’t gotten where I was in life by mere acceptance. I’d made things happen for myself, hung in there, fought some hard battles in my day, and won. And it was once again time to gird my loins, strap on the armor, and regain my territory. I will get even with Monique, I thought, send her packing back to Paris. I will do anything in my power to trounce her.

  Sitting there, bundled up on my couch that cold, clear February morning, I vowed that no matter what it took, or what I had to do, or how long I had to wait: I would get my revenge.

  Chapter 27

  In the months following my new resolve, I was once more united with a true sense of purpose. I had two goals: to dethrone Monique and recoup my fortune. The means to accomplish these ends would have to be daring and drastic. I felt like an artist who has a burning idea for a picture in her mind but cannot quite see the details as yet. I was constantly casting around for the perfect plan. Everything that I saw or read or experienced had the potential to be a plot against Monique.

  I bided my time, waiting for the Great Idea to fall on me like Newton’s apple. But it didn’t. I began to think that only one of my goals was indeed possible—getting rid of her. But what use was that if I had nothing to gain except satisfaction? Perhaps that was enough.

  In the meantime, I had no choice but to go on about my business, showing up at my job every day, keeping to myself at night, and plotting, always plotting. A year went by during which I filed for bankruptcy. The next winter, in January, the following item appeared on Page Six of the Post:

  Monique de Passy, the very gregarious, very social Countess, and Nathaniel P. Nathaniel, Esquire, the very sporty, very sought-after extra man-about-town, announced their engagement at a splashy party thrown for the couple by Agatha and Neil Dent. Le Tout New York was on hand to raise their Cristal champagne glasses to the happy pair. A June wedding in Southampton is planned. . .

  It was surprising how little the news affected me, even though I was reading it in that fluorescent hellhole of a showroom I still worked in. My only question after seeing it was what had taken them so long? I wondered if Monique had tried to back out of the deal. Had passion fueled evil or had evil fueled passion? Not that it really mattered anymore which one of them had thought up the scheme. If they weren’t in it together from the beginning, they were certainly in it together now.

  One unseasonably warm evening in early March, I walked home from work, choosing Fifth Avenue as my route because I still liked looking in the shop windows despite the fact I could no longer afford to buy anything. Finding myself in front of the St. Regis Hotel, I decided, just for the hell of it, to go inside and have a drink at the King Cole Bar, an old haunt in happier days. It was a splurge, but I didn’t care.

  Walking into the grand little bar, I saw the captain from Lespinasse, the restaurant just outside, give me a haughty once-over, like I didn’t belong there. I didn’t give a good goddamn. So I was carrying a plastic fake Chanel bag. “When you are the real thing, you don’t have carry it, Buster,” is what I wanted to say to him. Not that it would have done any good. Who was it who said, “Being a lady is like being famous. If you have to say you are, you ain’t.”

  I traipsed up to the long bar, picked out a stool in the far corner, away from the other patrons, ordered a double vodka on the rocks, and sat staring up at the big, colorful Art Nouveau Maxfield Parrish mural stretching the length of the wall. It depicted Old King Cole with his pipe and his bowl and his three fiddlers. The fat, merry old soul reminded me of Lucius—that son of a bitch. Once again, I reflected on the cruel fate that had reduced me to drinking alone in a hotel bar at the unpromising age of fifty wearing Hush Puppies.

  I nursed my vodka for a long time, not wanting to shell out another ten dollars for a drink, thank you very much. I glanced around the room a couple of times to see what sort of patrons were there. The crowd had changed since my day. I remembered the King Cole Bar as being a trysting place for young people. Now there were a lot of older corporate types sitting around doing business, men mostly—but a few women, too.

  And then, all at once, I saw Monique coming into the bar. I spun around and lowered my head over my drink. No, wait, it can’t be, I thought. I waited a few seconds before stealing a second look out of the corner of my eye.

  There she was, standing at the entrance, talking to the captain from the restaurant, who had followed her. It was definitely Monique. My low moment turned electric as I stared surreptitiously at the cause of all my hatred and suffering. I covered my face with my hand, fearful the slut would spot me. It was humiliating enough to look as bad as I did without having my archenemy gloating over me once again after all this time.

  I eyed Monique through my fingers, wondering what she was doing there, whom she was meeting, what she was up to. Was Nate Nathaniel coming, too? Maybe she was having an illicit tryst. Wouldn’t that be interesting? She’d streaked her hair and gained a little weight, which was becoming. God, how I hated her.

  Monique was having words with the captain. They looked like they were doing a minuet as she tried to edge past him and he artfully blocked her way into the cozy little bar. Their discussion grew more animated. Monique finally withdrew. I ordered another vodka, wondering what the hell was going on. Just when I thought the coast was clear, Monique returned and shook the captain’s hand in that special, unmistakable way. He glanced down, then up again at her, slid his hand into his jacket pocket, and let her pass.

  That’s odd, I thought. She just gave him some money so he’d let her in.

  I watched her heading toward the bar, expressionless, her hips moving in a cold, seductive, runway-model type of walk. I hunched down over the bar to avoid being seen, still eyeing her as she perched on a stool at the far end of the bar. She ordered a martini from the bartender, crossing her legs so the slit on the side of her demure black dress split open to the middle of her thigh. The bartender served her the drink and before she could take the toothpick out of the olive, she had company. A man sitting at a nearby table got up, sauntered over to her, and said, “Hi, there. Can I buy you a drink?” I thought this scene only happened in B-movies.

  Looking him over, she wetted her lips, and gave him the nod. He sat down. They started talking.

  The minute she opened her mouth and I overheard her voice, I realized she wasn’t Monique. To my utter amazement, I was staring at Monique’s double, her lost twin. The resemblance she bore to the Countess was truly uncanny.

  I’ll be damned, I thought. She’s a hooker. She’s paid off the captain to let her in to solicit trade.

  I continued to watch her, more fascinated than ever. She and the man were talking and laughing with that fake intimacy common to total strangers on the make. I was transfixed by the sight of her, this double of my nemesis, wondering if there were any way I could use her to my advantage. Maybe set her up in some compromising way and send photographs to the press identifying her as Monique. Or engineer it so Nate would see her with another man, or a woman even. Not that that would deter him. But something like that.

  Pretty soon, she got up and left with the guy who had picked her up. On their way out, she hung back and gave the maître d’ another discreet handshake. He saluted her as if they were friends. I finished my drink and left. Walking home in the twilight, I felt there was a reason this woman had been thrown in my path. I had the odd feeling Fate was beckoning to me in some strange way. If only I could figure it out.

  When I got home, I sat on my couch and lit a cigarette, thinking about another famous lookalike—Madame Oliva—the prostitute who impersonated Marie Antoinette in the infamous “Necklace Affair.” I recalled that day in Eugenie’s workshop in Paris where I’d tried on the diamond necklace she had copied for the Versailles Foundation—the necklace that was at the heart of that grand historical swindle.

  I mulled the story over in my min
d: Jeanne de la Motte hired a prostitute, Madame Oliva, who was a dead ringer for Marie Antoinette. Madame Oliva impersonated the Queen one night in the park at Versailles, and duped Cardinal de Rohan into getting the necklace from the jeweler and handing it over to de la Motte, whom he believed would deliver it to the Queen. De la Motte did no such thing, of course. She broke up the necklace, sold the diamonds, and got rich. No one was any the wiser until the jeweler came to the Queen and demanded payment for the necklace that he believed she had received.

  It was a complicated, improbable scam, the essence of which, however, was fairly simple: A prostitute impersonated the Queen and fooled a powerful man. The deception resulted in financial gain for an adventuress, whose only mistake, as far as I could see, was in sticking around Paris when she should have skipped the country.

  I’d always loved that episode in French history. I saw different things in it every time I read it. At first, it had been fascinating to me because it was one of the least appreciated causes of the French Revolution. Afterward, it became much more personal when I, too, was duped by a clever adventuress. And now, thinking of it in light of having seen Monique’s double, I saw something new in the story: a plan for revenge.

  Chapter 28

  Where there’s a will, there’s a way, I said to myself, contemplating how to use this piece of fortune to maximum advantage.

  Ping.

  The tap of silver on crystal.

  I paced around the room, cigarette in hand, talking to myself out loud.

  What if I hired that woman to impersonate Monique? And what if she signed a new will in a lawyer’s office? And what if that new will left everything to me?

  Far-fetched? Perhaps . . . but certainly no more so than the true and successful historical sting on which it was loosely based. And just look how far that went. Good-bye Bourbons, hello Revolution.

  I had always thought of Monique’s departure in rather vague terms. It was more a question of how to get her out of New York. I wanted her to quit my sphere and go back to Paris or wherever, just so she was no longer in my vicinity. However, in contemplating this new plan, I was aware of a budding ruthlessness deep inside myself. Wills, I thought, are essentially meaningless documents until the testator dies.

  For the first time, the thought of getting rid of Monique was framed in a much darker light.

  Unfortunately—or fortunately, as I was now beginning to look at it—I already knew a little something about wills thanks to my devastating experience with Lucius’s estate. One of my earliest concerns at the time of his death was, naturally, whether his will could conceivably have been a forgery. No such luck. It was legal, duly signed and witnessed in the office of a reputable lawyer.

  The interesting thing was that Lucius’s will had been a relatively short document considering how much money and assets were at stake. It was typed by Lucius on the old Smith Corona he used to write his letters. And it was an unlucky thing for me that he typed it because, as Mr. Sullivan, the lawyer who supervised the signing, explained to me in great detail, handwritten wills are not admissible in New York State, except if you’re a serviceman in wartime or a mariner at sea.

  Sullivan told me he believed Lucius himself honestly thought of that two-page document as an interim measure. “I just want to make sure a certain person is taken care of,” is what Lucius had apparently told him. Sullivan had offered to draw up a more comprehensive will for him to sign at a later date and Lucius, again according to Sullivan, had told him Nate Nathaniel was his principal attorney. Later that week, of course, Lucius died.

  I envisioned myself typing up a short will that left everything to me, then sending this Monique look-alike, posing as Monique, to a lawyer’s office where she would sign it under an attorney’s supervision and have it properly witnessed.

  Simple. Except for one little glitch. The signature.

  I had a nice, fairly recent example of Monique’s signature: the note she sent me with the flowers. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Nate Nathaniel was a very clever man. He would immediately smell a rat and probably figure out what had happened. He’d have the signature examined and the jig would be up. A forged signature was easily detectable, particularly under circumstances where the forger is being closely watched.

  This got me wondering what happened in cases where people were physically unable to sign a will themselves. Let’s say you’d broken both your arms or were incapacitated by a stroke or something equally ghastly. What did you do then?

  The next morning, I did some legal research on this point. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t consult with any lawyers I knew, but I did need a thoroughly reputable opinion on the matter. I called the New York State Bar Association in Albany, which referred me to the Legal Referral Service in Manhattan, which in turn referred me to one Jeffrey Banks, Esq., a trusts and estates lawyer practicing in mid-town Manhattan. To be on the safe side, I called him from a pay phone in a luncheonette.

  Speaking to Banks on the phone, I told him I’d gotten his name through the Legal Referral Service (as I, in fact, had), and I claimed I was a nurse with a private patient who had two broken arms and who wanted to sign a new will.

  “Can your patient come into my office?”

  “Mr. Schwartz can walk, but he can’t write.”

  “Strictly speaking, he doesn’t have to sign the will himself,” Banks informed me.

  “He doesn’t? But how can there be a valid will without a valid signature?”

  “We would have someone here in the office sign it for him. Obviously, in his presence, of course, and in the presence of witnesses.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “Perfectly legal. There are unfortunate people like your patient who are physically incapacitated for the moment or even permanently injured, who simply can’t sign their own wills.”

  “Sound mind is more important than sound body, eh?” A little attempt at humor that obviously failed, judging from his silence. “So tell me, Mr. Banks,” I went on, “how exactly would that work?”

  “Well, in Mr. Schwartz’s case, he would come here to our offices, and I would be present at the signing, but not as an attesting witness. Mr. Schwartz would say something to me like: ‘Jeffrey Banks, I instruct you to sign my will in my name and by my direction.’ Then I would sign the will in Mr. Schwartz’s name and write my own name and address directly beneath that signature. That way, if there was ever any dispute, I could swear that Mr. Schwartz had been present in the room when I signed his will and, indeed, that he had verbally directed me to do so. The witnesses would be able to swear to that as well.”

  “That’s interesting. Even as a nurse, I never knew that. So, what do they call it—a probate court—?”

  “Actually, in New York, it’s called the Surrogate’s Court.”

  “The Surrogate’s Court wouldn’t have any problem with that?”

  “Not as long as the execution of the will has been properly carried out, which, of course, it certainly will be if Mr. Schwartz signs it here,” Banks said with a confident vocal flourish. “I assure you we’ve done this for at least three clients I can think of. One fella quite recently, in fact. He’d just had an operation on his right hand . . . Does Mr. Schwartz have a current will or would he like me to prepare one for him? If he’d like any assistance, I’d be glad to speak with him.”

  “Could he get back to you? He’s napping now. Thank you for your time.”

  Before Banks could ask me where he could get back to Mr. Schwartz, I hung up.

  That evening, I stopped off at the King Cole Bar again in search of my Madame Oliva, the nickname I had given Monique’s double in honor of the prostitute who had impersonated Marie Antoinette.

  This time, I made sure I was better dressed. No Hush Puppies. I waited at the bar for over an hour. When she didn’t show, I approached the captain, a sour-faced individual with an air that managed to be both officious and obsequious at the same time.

  “There was a woman who came
in around this time last night,” I said. “About my height. Streaked hair. Black dress with a slit up the side? I’d like to get in touch with her. I have a proposition for her.”

  Glancing at me with eyes that had seen it all twice, he merely shrugged. So I shook his hand and palmed him a twenty-dollar bill to perk up his enthusiasm. It worked. He pocketed the money.

  “Tell her to meet me here tomorrow night at six o’clock if she’s interested.”

  “Yes, madam. Tomorrow night. Six o’clock,” he said, pretending to make a note in his reservations book. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The next night I arrived at the bar a little after six because I got held up at work. She wasn’t there. Had I missed her? I looked inquiringly at the captain.

  “Don’t I have a reservation?” I said.

  “I believe you do. But your party seems to be late. Perhaps you’d care to be seated in the bar?”

  I waited at one of the small round tables off to the side of the room, away from the long bar. The little room was crowded. Music played softly in the background.

  When the captain showed my Madame Oliva in, I couldn’t believe it wasn’t Monique. I did a double take again as he pointed her toward my table. The resemblance was astounding. She was wearing a different outfit: a tailored black pants suit and a white shirt with a string tie. She looked sexy in a mannish way, like Marlene Dietrich in tails. She sat down and ordered a dry martini with an olive. I ordered another spritzer.

  “Nice outfit,” I remarked as a way to break the ice.

  “Well, I wasn’t sure what kind of a gig this was.” There was a suggestive lilt in her voice.

  “Oh, it’s nothing like that,” I said quickly—perhaps a little too quickly because she gave a knowing little laugh and looked at me like I was a prude.

  “So what’s the deal?” she asked.

  “Well, first of all, what’s your name?”

  Cocking her head to one side, she glided her tongue across her upper lower lip and said, “What would you like it to be?”