The little interruption gave Doug a chance to recover. He let go of my shirt, giving me a little push, like he couldn’t believe he had actually touched me. Then he turned and yelled back at Frank, who was outside trying to hail a cab for the fed-up Mrs. Gideon and her babelicious daughter. “We’re going up!” Doug announced. Frank didn’t even notice. Doug and the locksmith headed for the elevator, but they couldn’t get in, because it was full of all those kids in school uniforms and the lady in the red jacket. But Doug was on top of his game now.
“We’ll take the stairs,” he announced, walking over to the other end of the lobby. The lock guy followed him. I did not. I finally got a clue, pulled out my brand-new throwaway cell phone, and called in the marines.
4
“OH FOR GOD’S SAKE,” SAID LUCY, ALL ANNOYED, AS SOON AS I reached her. “Where have you been?”
“They cut off the phone,” I told her.
“No kidding. I tried calling you three hours ago and got the message that the phone was no longer in service,” she said. “Where have you been?”
“I went out to get a cell phone—”
“You’ve been out buying a cell phone for three hours?”
“Well, I needed some other stuff too and—”
“I thought you were broke, what are you using for money?”
“Would you listen to me, Lucy? They’re here! At least one of them is here, and he’s trying to change the locks, he has a locksmith with him, and he says I have no rights and—”
“Relax, I’m two blocks away, I’m taking care of it,” she told me.
“What do you mean you’re two blocks away? I called you at work,” I said, all confused again.
“And my assistant patched you through to my cell.”
“So you’re on your way here? How did you know to come?”
“Tina, when the phone got cut off, what did you think was going on?”
“I don’t know, I thought I needed to get a cell phone.”
“Well, I thought a little harder than that. Just stay right there in the lobby; I’ll be there in two minutes.”
She hung up on me just as Frank trotted back in. He looked a little shell-shocked in a delirious kind of way. I thought he was going to be mad at me because I had just caused a huge scene, bringing utter chaos to his little lobby, with people threatening to have him fired and all sorts of unpleasant bullshit. Frank, however, seemed to have barely noticed. He was actually humming a little tune as he went back to his podium and started picking up the packages that were all over the floor. I thought for a moment that he was one of those strange sad people who need a little action to feel alive, but then I took another look, and it was like he was glowing around the edges, you could almost see beams of light coming out of his cuffs and collar. I thought, oh, he’s in love, Frank is in love with the unspeakably beautiful Julianna Gideon. And he got to be near her, he got to hold the cab door open for her for half a second.
“She’s pretty, huh,” I said, testing out my theory.
“Oh my god,” he agreed. “I can’t even, when I look at her …” He glanced out the door, taking pleasure in seeing the place he had last been allowed to look at her.
“Does she know you like her?” I asked.
“What?” That was a bad question; it shook him out of his fantasy, and he remembered he had a real right to be mad at me.
“Did you get things straightened out with Doug?” he asked, suddenly stern. “He was quite certain that you are not supposed to be living up there in 8A. I didn’t know what to say. This has put me in a very awkward position. I put a call in to building management, and I don’t know what they’re going to say. There’s already been so much controversy around that apartment, I’m sure they’re going to want to talk to both of you about it.” He was trying his best to sound really mean, but the guy didn’t have it in him. He was reading me the riot act, but he sounded like he was apologizing.
“I’ll try to keep this out of your hair from now on,” I said.
“I would appreciate that.” He didn’t sound angry, he sounded like he really would appreciate it. Just then Lucy walked in, wearing a sharp gray suit and heels, carrying a big briefcase, and looking like the queen of the universe.
“Lucy! Hey, this is my sister Lucy,” I told Frank. “She’ll have this solved in five minutes, I guarantee. You don’t have to talk to building management.”
“I’m sure they know all about this already,” Lucy announced, a little clippy. “Tina tells me there’s some confusion about the locks?”
“Confusion, I should say so,” Frank said. “Doug Drinan, he’s Bill’s son?”
“I know who he is,” Lucy said, nodding, trying not to make that little can we hurry this up please sign with her hand.
“Well, he’s up there, having the locks changed,” Frank told her. “He says he doesn’t know anything about you having a claim on the place. I didn’t know what to tell him. Your sister tells me she’s staying there, I got no reason to doubt her, but Doug was Bill’s son—”
“And we are his wife’s daughters.” Lucy smiled, completely professional. “No worries. We’ll clear this up in no time.” She took a couple of smooth steps over to the elevators and pressed the call button; as far as Lucy was concerned, this was as good as done. Frank smiled at me, relieved. When she isn’t being annoying as hell, Lucy does have that effect on people. You know who’s in charge.
Doug Drinan and his pal the locksmith were, sadly, not quite as easy to snow. We more or less fell over them on that eighth-floor landing—that is, I stumbled out of the elevator with all my packages, while Lucy popped out like a genie and presented Doug with a huge stack of documents.
“Mr. Drinan? Hi, how are you? I’m Lucy Finn, Olivia’s daughter, it’s a pleasure to meet you after all this time,” she announced, talking quickly. “As you are aware, our mother passed only a few days ago, so obviously we are reeling, completely caught off guard, so I’m sure this is our fault. But I think there’s been some confusion about the status of the estate. We spoke with Stuart Long just yesterday. He was in possession of your father’s will—have you seen it? I brought an extra copy in case you hadn’t.” She handed it to him and kept talking. “Anyway, there is some real question about who the beneficiaries of the estate are at this time. Your father seems to have expressed in no uncertain terms that our mother was to inherit everything, largely meaning the apartment, it’s unclear what else is included, but in any event I’m going to have to ask you to hold off on changing the locks for now. Until we get this sorted out.” She smiled at him, very pleasant, but there was a definite don’t-fuck-with-me edge behind it all. She works in PR and she can be very daunting.
Doug Drinan, unfortunately, didn’t get on board with what she was saying. He barely glanced at the papers she handed him, then tossed them on top of the old radiator that was hissing in the hallway. “I’m aware we’re going to be in a holding pattern for a little while with regard to the dispensation of the will,” he told her. “Which is why I thought it important to secure the apartment. Obviously we can’t have just anyone wandering in and out, disturbing the effects before we’ve even begun to probate this situation. I hate to say it, such a sad time—I mean really, condolences on your loss—but it sounds to me like this is going to get pretty complicated. This is just precautionary. Don’t want things to get ugly down the line or anything.”
Okay, the speech was good, but he was not as good as Lucy. He pressed those thin lips together, trying to smile and explain things like a nice guy, but he couldn’t be bothered to pretend all that hard, so it came off like what it was, condescending and mean and like he was kind of enjoying messing with us. Which maybe he was. The more I saw of this guy the less I liked him. His hair really was dirty, and he had too much disappointment in him. Sometimes those are the worst people to deal with because they aren’t even thinking anymore, they’re just hoping they can make you as miserable as they are.
Lucy didn’t care. H
onestly, she has ice water in her veins, so this guy and all his unhappiness were just no match. “I completely agree,” she said. “That’s why we felt it was best to have Tina camp out here for the time being, to have someone on site making sure nothing untoward happened to the property while we sorted this all out. For instance, I think you and your brother stopped by in the middle of the night last night and removed some items?”
Doug Drinan stared at her, aghast at her nerve. She looked right back at him. “My mother’s wedding ring,” he said finally, as if the righteousness of the situation would mean something to her.
Lucy shrugged. “We have no way of ascertaining that.”
“Except that she saw it.” Drinan turned his cold stare on me, like I was the one who was fucking with him.
“I never said it wasn’t, I didn’t—ah—” I started.
Lucy raised her hand, fearless, and cut me off. “Tina, your actions are completely blameless in this matter.”
“How do you figure that?” asked Drinan. “We got there, she’d already completely cased the joint.”
“I was looking for my mom’s perfume,” I explained again.
“You went through my father’s underwear drawer,” he sneered. “You managed to find his wallet, which was conveniently empty by the time we got there.”
“I didn’t—”
“It doesn’t matter what you were doing, Tina,” Lucy said. “The point is, you did not remove anything from the premises, nor are you—or I or Alison—doing anything except insisting that we hold to the status quo until our lawyers and their lawyers have a chance to work through the documents and finalize the legal status of the estate. That’s all we’re trying to do. Protect everyone’s rights.”
“Look, I don’t know what any of this is about?” said the locksmith. “But somebody’s got to make a decision about these locks. There’s a kill fee, you call to have your locks changed and then you change your mind, that’s a fifteen-dollar charge.”
“Not a problem,” Lucy said, reaching into her purse.
“I don’t agree to that,” Drinan snapped. He put his hand out, stopping the locksmith from pushing for the elevator button. “I want the locks changed, and I have every right to change them.”
“You legally have no right to change the locks,” Lucy said. She was so coolheaded there was no way the locksmith would not do what she told him. But he did feel bad about it.
“Listen, man, I’ll wait downstairs and let my boss know what’s going on. If the situation changes, I can come back up and do the job. But I can’t get involved in something that might, you know, be illegal.”
“This is my apartment. I grew up here, this is my apartment.” Drinan’s temper was fraying again.
“Unfortunately, we have a stack of legal documents indicating that there is a very real chance that in fact it is not your apartment,” Lucy said, not quite so nicely anymore. “And if you insist on pursuing this course of action I will be forced to call the police—”
“Go ahead. My brother is a detective with the NYPD, and you want to know something? They take care of their own.”
“Listen, buddy,” the locksmith said, desperate to get out of here. So was I. Bringing up the cops just made everything ickier.
“Wonderful. Your brother works in law enforcement, and I work in publicity. He can bring in his friends, and I can bring in mine. I know several writers for several prominent newspapers who would be only too happy to write about the NYPD superseding the law and forcing people from their homes.”
“This isn’t your home!” he shouted, starting to lose it.
“It is Tina’s home,” she told him in no uncertain terms. “Our mother died here, and every legal document I have studied so far tells me that this apartment is now our apartment, and she has no place to live, so for now she’s living here, and it is her legal right to do so.”
“I don’t even know you people,” Doug observed, as if that mattered.
“I suspect we will have plenty of time to get acquainted,” Lucy said. She looked at the locksmith like she couldn’t believe he was still standing there. “If you want to call your boss, now would be the time. I think we both know what he’s going to tell you.”
“Yeah, I don’t have to call him; I’m not getting involved in this,” he said. “But I do need that kill fee.”
She reached into her purse, lifted out a neatly folded bill, and handed it over to him. The whole move took three seconds. “Keep the change,” she announced. “For your trouble.”
“Thanks.” He nodded, then ambled over to the exit sign, pushed through that crummy brown door, and went on down the stairs. I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to hang around waiting for an elevator under those circumstances either.
Drinan likewise didn’t want to wait. He picked up his pile of legal documents and followed the locksmith.
“Perhaps you’d like my card,” Lucy cooed, holding one out to his back.
“When I need to talk to you, I won’t have any trouble finding you,” he said as the door to the stairwell slammed shut behind him.
“What a lovely character,” Lucy said, putting the card away. “I thought you said he was good-looking.”
“The other one, the cop,” I said.
“What does this one do?” she asked. “Run a charm school? Let me have the keys.”
I handed them to her. “I don’t know what this one does. Last night he didn’t say much. They were both drunk.”
“You should write down everything that happened last night. Have you done that yet?” she asked me.
“No, of course not—why would I write it down?”
“Well, we’re going to need a paper trail on everything, Tina, this isn’t a joke. I want it established that we are keeping records. Things are going to happen really quickly, and obviously the Drinan brothers have no compunction about playing hardball. We need to be prepared, as much as we can, for whatever they throw at us. What the hell is this?”
We had stepped into the front room, now filled with light from top to bottom. In spite of the hideous wall-to-wall shag, and all the crazy trouble with Doug Drinan, that room was really gorgeous, so I got distracted for a minute just staring at it and didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Tina, hellloooo,” Lucy said, waving her hand in front of my face and snapping her fingers.
“What?” I said.
“What,” she asked, impatient, “is this?” With her toe, she nudged a small wooden toolbox, placed neatly against the wall beside the doorway to the mossery.
“Oh, that’s Len’s,” I said.
“Len,” she repeated, looking at me as if she knew that once again I had slept with someone I shouldn’t have.
“He was a friend of Bill’s and Mom’s, that’s his moss in the kitchen. They let him grow it there, he’s some kind of botanist person, he lives in the building,” I explained. “He was here when the phone got cut off, and he, you know, he said I should go get a cell phone.” Lucy flipped the light switch. Nothing happened.
“Yes, I see,” she sighed. “And what did you do once you bought the cell phone? Did you call me at work, as I asked you to, and say, Lucy, the phone has been cut off and they’re probably going to try to cut the electricity as well and maybe change the locks, could you come over and help me handle this? Did you do that?”
“No, I didn’t do that,” I started.
“No, you didn’t,” she said, continuing to flip the useless light switch for effect. “You went shopping.”
“Why would I assume this guy was going to do all that stuff you said? We don’t even know these people.”
“Tina, honestly, would you try to think for once? Hello, Monica, hi.” She was on her cell now, firing on all jets. “I’m going to need you to call Keyspan and Con Ed, the gas and electric got turned off in my mom’s apartment and we need to get it turned back on right away, and I mean now. My sister is living here, and she obviously can’t stay if there’s no gas or elect
ricity, so if you need to run down to their offices, then do it. I left three copies of the will on my desk, take them with you so if they give you any trouble you can prove we have the right to put the accounts in my name. You can also give them the number of the building, tell them the doorman can verify that we’ve taken possession. What’s his name?” she asked me.
“Frank,” I said.
“Frank,” she said to the phone, and then she rattled off the Edgewood phone number, which of course she knew even though I did not. She finished up the call by snapping her cell shut and then continued to explain things to me as if there had been no interruption at all. “I checked in with Stuart Long, the lawyer, from yesterday?”
“I remember, Lucy, could you not talk to me like I’m an idiot?”
“Don’t get snippy, Tina, you almost completely blew it today—”
“I told you, I didn’t know.”
“No, you didn’t think; you just took off for three solid hours on a shopping spree, and I’m not going to ask where you got the money because I don’t care. But while I don’t think Doug Drinan has any sort of legal claim on this apartment, I don’t necessarily think he is a liar. Did you find money here?” She waved her hands idly at all the shopping bags I had dumped on the floor.
“I didn’t have anything to wear,” I said, trying to get to the beginnings of a defense. She was not interested.
“You listen to me,” she snapped. “If I hadn’t gotten worried about not hearing from you, and showed up, what would have happened?”
“I don’t actually care what would have—”
“You’d be locked out. We all would be locked out. We would not have access to the apartment or the building, for that matter, for months. We’d have to go to a judge to get an injunction for permission to even look at the place, and by that point the Drinan brothers would have filed to legally contest their father’s will, which, depending on how long that took to get through the courts? Would cut us off for years. Years. I checked this out with Daniel’s friend the real estate lawyer, who assured me that contrary to what that idiot told us yesterday, a scenario like that leaves us with virtually no standing whatsoever. If they can prove that Bill was of unsound mind and Mom was of unsound character, and none of us had ever met Bill and had never set foot in this apartment, it is not that far a leap to claiming that Mom tricked him into changing his stupid will and that we have no right to this place. And that is what they are going to try to do. So do me a favor and don’t make their case for them, would you? We put you here for a reason. Stay put.”
Twelve Rooms with a View Page 6