LoveMakers

by Gould, Judith

  'The meeting took forever,' he explained. 'I didn't get out of the bank until fifteen minutes ago.'

  'I only hope you can do something. No one will tell me what happened, but they act as if the end of world has come.'

  He handed her his coat and hat and took a thick envelope out of his breast pocket. Waving it excitedly, he said, 'This, if anything, will get her up. You'll see.'

  Ludmila regarded him dubiously. 'I hope so. She just lies there and says nothing.'

  She watched him go into the parlor. The moment he caught sight of Elizabeth-Anne lying on the chaise, he froze. But Ludmila smiled encouragingly and gestured him to go closer. She noticed that his face had undergone a rapid transformation. Gone was the teasing good humor, replaced by extreme concern.

  'Elizabeth-Anne,' he said, his voice thick with concern as he approached the chaise. 'Darling, what is it?'

  She stared up at him. No, she wasn't staring at him, he realized with a pang. She was staring through him.

  'What's the matter, my love?' he asked softly. He brushed his fingers across her cheek. 'What is it? Are you ill?'

  Her lips moved faintly, and he had to lean close to catch the words she mumbled. 'At least you aren't dead, too. At least you're alive,' she whispered through cracked, parched lips. Then she shut her eyes in relief.

  He placed an index finger on her lips and felt them. They were dry and split. 'Jesus, you're dehydrated.' He turned around. 'Get me some water, somebody,' he called out. 'And stir plenty of sugar in it.'

  'Not thirsty,' Elizabeth-Anne mumbled thickly.

  'Yes, you are. You'll drink what I give you.'

  'Leave me alone,' she pleaded. 'Nobody wants to leave me alone.'

  'First you'll drink, then I'll leave you alone. Is that a deal?'

  She nodded wearily. Charlotte-Anne brought over a cup of water. He took it from her, placed a hand behind Elizabeth-Anne's head, and made her sit forward. He put the rim of the cup against her lips. 'Drink.'

  Like a child, a very sick child with no fight left, she obeyed. After she'd drained the cup, he gently lowered her head. Then he got up and gestured for the girls to follow him into the kitchen.

  'Something's got to have happened,' he whispered angrily, 'I've never seen anyone in such a - ' His eye caught the murky, bubbling oatmeal. 'You're going to eat this?' he asked incredibly.

  'And what,' demanded Ludmila from the doorway, 'is that supposed to mean?'

  'You all stay here. I want to talk to you, but I've a call to make first.' He marched back into the living room and called his townhouse.

  Bevin, the imperturbable butler, answered the phone on the second ring. Larry told him to connect him with the kitchen. A moment later, the head chef came on the line.

  'Marcel? Mr. Hochstetter here. How fast can you prepare a feast? An hour? No, it's got to be a lot quicker than that. I'll give you twenty minutes. Make sure it's hot and meaty. Plenty of fruit and vegetables. And something sweet. Pack it in picnic hampers. I'll send Max up with the car to fetch it. Have someone drive back down with him.'

  Ludmila folded her arms and watched Larry from the kitchen. Her gray eyes held an expression of quiet respect. Ah, she thought dreamily, this was like the old days in Russia. This was like something her Fedor, God rest his soul, would have done.

  Larry went downstairs to speak to his chauffeur. When he came back upstairs, he joined Ludmila and the girls in the kitchen. 'Well?' he demanded. 'Anyone care to tell me what happened to throw your mother into such a depression?'

  The girls avoided his gaze.

  'I'm waiting.'

  Rebecca swallowed. 'We-we can't tell you,' she said in a shaky voice. 'It was too awful! Too awful!' Suddenly she burst into tears and ran to Ludmila, who coiled her arms around her.

  He sighed. 'As you wish. Just remember, if you want to talk to somebody, I'm available at any time. All right?'

  Regina and Charlotte-Anne nodded wordlessly.

  He went back into the living room and sat on the edge of the chaise. 'Elizabeth-Anne?'

  'You promised you'd leave me alone,' she mumbled.

  ' I need your signature on something.'

  She nodded. 'Okay.'

  He slid the papers out of the envelope, unfolded them, and handed her a pen. 'Here.' He pointed. 'You have to sign here.'

  She didn't protest or even ask what the document was.

  She signed her name sloppily and held out the pen. 'Here. Now please,' she begged. 'You've gotten what you've come for.'

  He flipped through the pages. 'You have to initial each page, too.'

  She listlessly did as she was told.

  'And once more here, where it's been changed.' He folded the papers and laid them down beside her.

  'You haven't even asked about the investments.'

  'No.'

  'In fact, if memory serves me right, I haven't talked to you at all since before the crash. Don't you want to know where you stand financially?'

  She shook her head morosely. She didn't care.

  His voice grew excited. 'Elizabeth-Anne, listen to me. Our gamble paid off. The mine's struck a mother lode. Much more than I ever dared hope for! By sheer coincidence, we sold all our portfolios a few days before they were worthless. But the mine's going strong, crash or no. You're probably worth millions. Millions.' He frowned at her. 'Did you hear what I said?'

  'Millions.' She turned her head sideways on the pillow and stared out into space.

  He shook her gently but firmly. 'Did a word of what I just said sink in?'

  'Something about millions. You lost millions.'

  He rolled his eyes in exasperation and shook her more roughly, as though he were trying to shake some sense into her. 'Would you listen to me, goddamn it? Neither of us lost a dime. We're worth more than ever.'

  She frowned. 'I don't understand.'

  'Horseshoe Investments. Does that ring a bell?'

  She shrugged. 'So it's gone. It doesn't matter anyway.'

  'But it's not gone.' He laughed. 'You're a genuine, twenty-four karat millionairess.'

  'What good is having money if the banks have shut their doors?'

  He laughed again. 'Banks! Who cares about banks? It's gold we're talking about. Beautiful, yellow, rich as Croesus gold! At first I was afraid that vein was just a stringer. You know, a few inches thick and not too long? But it isn't. We're yielding forty-eight ounces of pure gold a ton.'

  'What?' Her forehead creased with a new expression. Realization was slow in coming, but it was dawning nevertheless.

  'Hold out your hands, darling. I've something to give you.'

  She did so and he said, 'Look here.' He reached into his pocket, took out a handful of what looked like rough pebbles, and dropped them into her hands like so much loose change. 'There's a lot more where these come from.'

  She clenched her fingers and brought her fists up to her face. Slowly, she unclenched them, then sucked in her breath. Glittering in the palms of her hands was gold, rough, beautiful, glittering gold nuggets. She stared at them, mesmerized by the sight of that rich yellow as mankind has been mesmerized by it for thousands of years.

  'You mean . . . ' Her voice faltered. It was almost more than she could comprehend. 'We really haven't lost everything?'

  'Lost it? Hell, no! We're probably the only two people in the entire country who're way ahead of the game.'

  'But. . . how could that be?'

  'You trusted me and I gambled. And we won.'

  Her face suddenly seemed to lose its drawn slackness, as thoughts spun crazily in her head. Zaccheus was gone forever; he had been cruelly snatched from this earth and there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it.

  But Larry was alive. Not only alive, but with her, here and now. And thanks to him, her fortune wasn't lost. If he was right, she was rich. Rich enough to fulfill her dreams. Could that be? Could the fates have decided that tearing Zaccheus away from her and the children was enough cruelty for the moment?

  'Now
, look at the papers you signed, darling,' Larry said softly, a mysterious smile hovering on his lips. 'Look what you just bought yourself for a thousand dollars down.' His one eye sparkled with excitement.

  'But. . . if money is so scarce, why spend it? Shouldn't I hang onto it?'

  'No, you shouldn't, because all over this city and clear across the country, property is going begging. It's a buyer's market. People are wiped out financially. They can't meet their mortgage payments. The banks are repossessing left and right, and they're trying to cut their losses. Of course, you'll have to pay off the remaining twenty-three- thousand-dollar mortgage, but you got yourself a bargain, young lady.'

  'Twenty-three thousand dollars! But - ' her mouth hung wide.

  'You can afford it, believe me. For you it's a drop in the bucket. What we'll do is this. Every two weeks, you'll buy another piece of property.'

  She shook her head in disbelief. This couldn't be happening. It was all too much, too fast. She was dreaming. Perhaps Zaccheus's execution had been a nightmare, and her mind was forcing a more pleasant dream to take its place.

  'What did I buy for twenty-four thousand dollars?' she asked softly.

  'Well, read it.' He thrust the documents she had just signed under her nose, rattling them. 'Read it, for God's sake.' He dropped them into her lap.

  She stared down at the pages. Slowly, she began to read. As recognition dawned, she read faster and faster until she was tearing breathlessly through the pages. Finally she sat back and stared at him with a stunned expression. Her breathing was coming in rapid gasps, and her ribcage was pounding uncontrollably. 'The . . . the Madison Squire Hotel?''

  He nodded.

  'It's mine? It's true?'

  'As the children say, 'cross my heart, hope to die, sticka-''

  'No, we won't! Enough has been stuck in one of your eyes to last you a lifetime.'

  He smiled faintly. 'I'll concede it was a poor choice of a ditty.'

  'But. . . Larry.' 'She sat up straight, half in excitement, half in new-found anguish. 'But we can't. We can't just walk in and . . . and take advantage of people's misery. It's stealing.'

  'No, it's not. What you're actually doing is bailing people out of bad trouble. If they can't meet their payments and the banks repossess, they're bankrupt. They lose it all anyway, but legally they still owe the rest of the mortgage. Don't you see? You're helping people. And at the same time, you're helping yourself.'

  She was unable to speak.

  'And this is just the beginning,' he cried exultantly. 'You'll see. You wanted a hotel, right?'

  She nodded.

  'Well, you've got it. But you're going to get a lot more. This is just the beginning. Apartment houses, hotels . . . you'll buy a string of them. All for pennies on the dollar. Never in my life have I known a riper time to buy property. The economy will change, you'll see. And you'll own a chain of hotels stretching clear from coast to coast.'

  'It's frightening,' she said in a tiny voice.

  'Is it? Or is being poor even more frightening?'

  She nodded.

  His eye gleamed. 'And with the gold coming in steadily every day - just think of it, darling. You'll clean up. Your dream has come true. Not once, but a thousand times over.'

  But she couldn't think of it in those heady terms. Not yet. At the moment, she could think of only one hotel at a time. Even that was difficult.

  She stared down at the legal documents. 'It's mine?' she whispered in disbelief. 'The Madison Squire is really mine?'

  'All yours. Lock, stock, and barrel. One hundred percent yours.'

  'Oh, Larry.' And, finally, she began to cry. She lunged forward and flung her arms around him. '1-1 don't know what to say. Just when my whole world was collapsing all around me - ' She looked up, startled. 'Who could that be?'

  'That,' said Ludmila, hurrying across the room, 'is door.' She went to open it. Elizabeth-Anne craned her neck. One of Larry's uniformed servants was standing with a huge wicker hamper shaped like a large suitcase, in each hand. She stared at the servant, then turned speechlessly to Larry.

  'That happens to be food,' he said. 'You'll need your strength, darling. You don't look like you've eaten in days.'

  Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

  The servant looked around, quickly moved some chairs out of the way, and spread a blanket out on the living room floor. When he opened the hampers, Elizabeth-Anne couldn't believe her eyes. They had been custom made and compactly held fine bone china, heavy sterling cutlery, hand-cut stemware, and artfully folded white linen napkins. In amazed silence, Elizabeth-Anne and the girls watched the man deftly arranging the place settings. He opened bottles of champagne, and then out came the food: paper-thin slices of smoked salmon with rows of lemon slices and parsley, ice-cold dishes of/Beluga Mollasol caviar, toast and water wafers and pumpernickel, deviled eggs and steak tartare, tiny cornichons, several cold roast chickens, piles of rare pink roast beef, pickled vegetables, velvety peaches and ripe bananas, and wonderfully glazed petit fours and creamy Sacher tortes.

  Elizabeth-Anne realized she was ravenous.

  'Once we finish our little picnic,' Larry said, 'we'll head uptown to inspect the hotel. Tell you what: As owner's prerogative, why don't you and the children move into the royal suite and live there? I was there once for a party for a European duchess, and if memory serves me right, it's an enormous penthouse duplex. It even has a kitchen, although I think you'll be too busy to cook. You'll probably use room service or the dining room mostly. But best of all, it's got a wrap-around terrace planted with trees and shrubs.'

  'The royal suite? Us?' She stared at him. 'Could we? I mean . . . really?'

  He laughed. 'Can't you get it through that thick skull of yours? It's yours, darling. You own it.'

  'B-but I can't be seen - ' She sputtered as vanity took hold of her. She grabbed handfuls of her hair and pulled her fingers through it. 'I need to wash my hair, bathe and get ready. I can't go anywhere like this. Charlotte-Anne, run a bath for me. Regina, sweet, fetch my beige shoes - '

  'Whoa! Not so fast,' Larry laughed. 'There's time for all that. Let's eat something first, shall we?'

  She laughed suddenly. 'I think I'm going to cry.'

  He stroked the tears from her cheeks with his fingers. 'You are crying, darling.'

  'Oh, Larry, I'm so happy. You've saved my life.'

  'Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that.'

  'I would.' She nodded solemnly. 'You did.'

  'Then you owe me one. I want to come along and see the hotel. Is it a deal?'

  'See it?' She jumped out of bed. 'You'll see it all right, Larry Hochstetter! You'll see it till you're sick of it, if I've got anything to say about it - '

  The excitement was infectious. Suddenly, miraculously, the girls and even little Zaccheus joined in, all of them talking animatedly and laughing and crying. Magically enough, in the midst of their greatest tragedy, they had all come to life.

  And so had Hale Hotels.

  11

  This time when they pulled up outside the Madison Squire, they were received quite differently. The Rolls-Royce worked wonders. The moment the huge car approached, the doorman and porter came running. They fell all over themselves to be helpful, even before the seven passengers had piled out of the car.

  'Good afternoon, Madame. Good afternoon, sir,' they chorused solemnly.

  Larry ignored them, Ludmila sniffed, and Elizabeth-Anne smiled graciously. The children stared up at the huge build trig with wide, excited eyes.

  'The luggage, please,' the porter said to Max.

  The big chauffeur stood with crossed arms and shook his head wordlessly. The porter retreated hastily, and the doorman made a beeline for the giant brass-and-glass doors. He unlocked a side door and held it wide for them, his eyes focused straight ahead.

  Inside the lobby, the same self-important Mr. Smythe stood sentinel behind the reception desk. This time, there was nothing disdainful about his attitude; he clearly
did not recognize them.

  'Good afternoon, Mesdames,' he greeted them. 'Good afternoon, sir.' He favored Ludmila, Elizabeth-Anne, and Larry with a tight, nervous smile, and didn't as much as blink a disapproving eyelash as little Zaccheus let out a whoop and tore across the lobby. He raised his eyebrows inquiringly. 'Do you have reservations?'

  Elizabeth-Anne smiled faintly. 'No, Mr. Smythe, we do not.'

  For a moment he looked faintly surprised that she knew his name. Then he smiled self-importantly and adjusted his tie with the lacquered fingertips of one hand. 'Of course, reservations are not really necessary,' he conceded.

  'I didn't think so,' she said pleasantly. 'You'll have someone show us up to the royal suite?'

  She couldn't help but feel a faint triumph at how that really threw him. 'Of-of course, Madame,' he stammered. 'R-right away.' He clapped the bell on the desk with the flat of his palm and opened up the reservations ledger. He pushed it around to face her. 'If you'll be so kind as to register?'

  Larry stepped forward and flipped the ledger shut. 'I don't think this is necessary, do you?' he asked softly.

  Mr. Smythe's throat made a warbling sound as he cleared it. 'Well, sir, the hotel regulations require that - '

  'Mr. Smythe, is it?' There was no misinterpreting Larry's tone.

  'Yes, sir.' Mr. Smythe was bewildered and looking painfully uncomfortable.

  'You might not know it yet, my good man, but from this moment on it is Mrs. Hale who makes the rules around here. You see, she intends to take up permanent residence in this hotel.'

  'Yes, sir, but - '

  'Also, I think you should know that she is now the proud owner of this establishment.'

  Mr. Smythe blushed crimson. 'Oh, I-I . . . of course,' he stammered, now at more of a loss than ever. 'In-in that case, I'll show you up to the royal suite personally.' He raised a hand and snapped his fingers once. A gaunt, well- groomed, middle-aged woman hurried out from the office behind the desk. 'Mrs. Carleton,' Mr. Smythe said without turning around to look at her, 'take over for me, please.'

  'Yes, Mr. Smythe.'

  'I'll be up in the royal suite if you need me.' He came around from behind the desk and turned to Larry and Elizabeth-Anne. 'If you'll be so kind as to follow me, please,' he said with a slight bow. He crossed the marble lobby to the bank of elevators, his leather heels clacking noisily.