One Dangerous Lady

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  “The reporter doing the story is a friend of mine,” Larry said. “He claims that Carla is inches away from getting control of the whole thing now and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

  “Is Lulu still suing?”

  “Yes, but she doesn’t really have a case. The law is in Carla’s favor. Russell set it up that way. Lulu told me she was meeting with the lawyers today.”

  I looked at my watch with a feeling of panic. “Larry, do you realize that in less than twenty minutes, Carla and Lulu are arriving here for dinner. They’re going to kill each other. Jesus, what am I going to do?”

  “Check for automatic weapons at the door?” he ventured.

  Polite and punctual guest of honor that he was, Max Vermilion arrived on the dot of eight. He looked elegant in an old-style tuxedo that was intended to “last the duration,” as he put it. Max didn’t approve of men whose clothes were “too new or too fashionable,” and his entire wardrobe seemed to consist of many similar bespoke suits made by a Savile Row tailor who had gone out of business at least twenty years ago. He was a marked contrast to those in New York who, unlike Thoreau, are wary of any enterprise that does not require new clothes.

  Carla arrived shortly after Max. She was dressed in a long black sheath and had her hair pulled back into a tight chignon. The large diamond-studded choker she was wearing reflected the light and gave her face a glow. She greeted me with the requisite air-kisses, one on each cheek, and the smug attitude of an adversary who knows she has won. There was something even more confident about her that night and I suspected it had to do with her impending wealth.

  “Jo, darling, thank you so much for including me in on your beautiful party tonight. I hope it is not too much of an imposition.”

  “Not at all, Carla, dear. I’m delighted you could come,” I said, hiding my apprehension under a forced smile. “You know Max Vermilion, of course . . .”

  Max bowed slightly, giving her a mock kiss on the hand. “Dear lady, how very nice to see you again.” That seemed to be one of Max’s stock lines.

  “And Larry Locket . . .” I said.

  Carla bridled slightly when she saw Larry.

  “Ah, Mr. Locket . . .”

  “Mrs. Cole,” Larry said, shaking her hand with a knowing smile.

  “I trust you are not working this evening,” Carla said lightly.

  “Writers are always working, I’m afraid,” Larry said.

  Carla made a sad face. “Oh, and I thought we were going to have such a nice conversation together,” she said, abruptly turning her back on Larry and talking to Max.

  Carla played up to Max with the verve and energy of a skilled coquette. I wondered who this woman really was. Had she, in fact, engineered the disappearance of her husband in order to get her hands on his fortune? Could she possibly have had anything to do with June’s accident or the “accidental” death of Lulu’s spy? And what, exactly, did she know about me? And how did she know it? No one looking at such a resplendent figure would imagine her capable of murder. But I knew, probably better than anyone in my little set, that murderers come in all forms—even socialites.

  The next couple to arrive were the Bromires. Trish, pale as a candle flame, was getting thinner, and Dick, pink as a raspberry soufflé, was getting fatter by the day. Trish became very fluttery around “Lord Max,” as she constantly (and erroneously) referred to him. He was, in fact, Lord Vermilion. It was rather touching the way Trish dropped the names of the people she knew in the English nobility, hoping to impress him. This was an old habit of Trish’s, something she did with anyone she considered grand. I remember Betty once pointing out to her that it was impossible to impress anyone by telling them you’d just met people they had grown up with. But that didn’t seem to deter Trish, who went right on dropping names.

  There was a palpable air of doom about poor Dick. The trial was winding down to a grim, some felt inevitable, conclusion, accounts of which we all devoured each morning in the newspapers. Food seemed his only comfort. In short order, Dick washed down several smoked salmon and caviar hors d’oeuvres with successive flutes of champagne. Powerless to curb his compulsive eating, Trish stood by with the air of a beleaguered nanny who has given up on disciplining a willful child.

  Ethan Monk drifted in with some friends from the Municipal Museum, Edmond Norbeau, the director, and his wife, Christine, and Justin Howard, the chairman of the board, and his wife, Regina. I watched Carla excuse herself from Max to go talk to Justin Howard, who greeted her warmly, as did his wife. I didn’t much like the look of this. The Municipal Museum was my own little bailiwick, and I certainly didn’t want Carla butting her nose in there. I immediately scooted over to their group like a polite hostess, and said, “Well, I see you all know each other.”

  Justin Howard responded by giving Carla a little one-armed hug and saying, “Everyone knows this brave lady.”

  Carla, Justin, and Edmond excused themselves and retreated to an isolated corner of the room, leaving me and Ethan with the wives. As I talked to Christine Norbeau and Reggie Howard about the current Ingres exhibition at the Muni, I watched Carla, Edmond, and Justin out of the corner of my eye. I knew Edmond well enough to know that he was never that enthralled unless he was deep in conversation about the Muni, his beloved museum. And Justin Howard wasn’t about to waste his valuable time at a party like this, which was full of so many potential contributors, unless something big was up. I ran out of things to say about Ingres and dragged Ethan off into a corner.

  “What’s up with those three?” I asked him.

  “Something very exciting, Jo. Carla has agreed to put up the other half million for the Judas! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  I was horrified, but said nothing.

  The Municipal Museum, widely considered one of the most prestigious of all New York institutions, was the social climber’s Mount Everest. I dreaded the thought of Carla horning in on my territory.

  Nearly all the guests had arrived and I kept glancing at the entrance to the living room, steeled for the arrival of Lulu. It was getting late and I was beginning to wonder if she would show up at all. She still hadn’t appeared by the time the last guests, Betty and Gil, arrived.

  Gil apologized for being so late.

  “It’s my fault,” he said. “Important gallery opening.”

  “Dreary cocktail party,” Betty whispered in an aside.

  Gil took a long look at my glittery array of guests, like a farmer appraising a fine crop ripe for picking.

  “Good group,” he said. With that, he strode into the crowd, hand out, eyes sharp, bent on doing business.

  Betty stayed back with me and surveyed the scene. “Well, I see Dracula,” she said, referring to Carla, who was still talking to Justin and Edmond. “But where’s Frankenstein?” A reference to Lulu.

  “Not here yet. Let’s hope she doesn’t come.”

  I saw Max glancing surreptitiously at his watch. He was a great believer in punctuality and it was past the time we should have sat down for dinner. Cyril came in and whispered to me that the chef was getting anxious.

  “Tell him we’ll sit down in five minutes no matter what,” I said.

  It wasn’t polite to keep my guests waiting because Lulu was so late. I excused myself from Betty and went over to Max, taking him aside.

  “Max, dear, what exactly did Lulu say when you told her Carla was coming?”

  He looked puzzled. “Was I supposed to tell her Carla was coming?”

  “Max,” I said sternly. “You didn’t tell either of them, did you?”

  He glanced up at the ceiling as if trying to recall, then back at me. “You know, I honestly forget.”

  “In other words, no.”

  “Now, Jo, we’re all civilized people here, what?”

  “That remains to be seen,” I said, stalking off. I was furious.


  I found Betty and told her what Max had not done.

  “Oh, he really is so impossible,” Betty said, shaking her finger at him across the room. “But are we surprised, Jo? This is the man who once switched the place cards at a dinner at Buckingham Palace. It’s not exactly a news flash he can’t be trusted.”

  I should have known. One thing was certain, under no circumstances could I now put Carla and Lulu at the same table.

  I was just going in to change the place cards when Lulu appeared at the front door. Acting anxious and distraught, she practically threw her chinchilla coat at Cyril. Her brown satin evening suit was oddly off kilter. One shoulder looked lower than the other. Even her black hair, usually so perfectly coiffed, looked unkempt, with stray strings hanging around her face. I noticed she had two diamond bumblebee pins affixed to the lapels of her suit. A Max Vermilion special, no doubt.

  “Jo, dear, I’m so, so sorry to be late. Please forgive me,” she said breathlessly. “I’m beside myself, I really am. I was with the lawyers all afternoon and it just went on and on and on. You simply will not believe what’s happened! It’s an absolute scandal. But I won’t bore you with all that now. You must be holding dinner. Where’s Max? I must apologize to him.”

  Before I could stop her, the Chiffon Bulldozer was mowing her way into the living room in search of the guest of honor.

  It was one of those social moments that happens so fast that no one thinks anything of it until they realize that in the midst of all the artificial camaraderie, war is about to break out as two arch enemies are brought face-to-face. Lulu paused to look over the crowd before she located Max, who was holding court, standing in the middle of a little knot of admirers—among them, Carla, with her back to the entrance.

  Larry and Betty, who were talking privately in a corner, looked out simultaneously and saw exactly what was about to happen. They looked at Lulu, marching toward Max to say hello, then at me, traipsing after her, like a hapless foot soldier following a tank, then back at Lulu, as she reached Max’s little group. I veered off and retreated to the corner with them, seeking shelter, dreading the moment when the past and present Mrs. Cole were dragged together by the silken ropes of etiquette.

  An ominous hush fell over the room as Lulu, still oblivious to Carla, greeted Max with air-kisses and said in a chirpy voice, “Max, darling, do forgive me for being so late!” She had suddenly developed a slight English accent.

  “Never complain, never explain, Lulu, my dear,” Max said. I thought I detected a malicious little twinkle in his eye as he motioned to the rest of the group and said, “I believe you know everyone here.”

  Lulu said hello to Justin Howard and a couple of others before turning automatically to Carla. When she realized who it was, she gasped. Her jaw dropped and she froze, looking deeply pained, like she’d been punched by an unseen entity. Carla mustered a synthetic smile and graciously extended her hand to Lulu who, still dazed, looked down at it in disgust, as if it were a claw. Looking up again at Carla, Lulu paused for what seemed like an eternity, and then said in a loud, clear voice, “Thief! Murderer!”

  Gasps swept through the room, followed by an electric silence.

  “I love a gal who says what’s really on her mind,” Betty whispered to me.

  In this softly lit setting of antiques and pretty flower arrangements, everyone looked as if they had just witnessed a beheading. All eyes were focused on Carla to see how she would respond.

  Carla seemed to be calculating the effects of this encounter. I sensed that she alone among everyone in the room was unmoved by the event. Her cold eyes betrayed her, as if she were merely an interested spectator rather than a main participant. She looked at Lulu with a steely gaze, like a hunter gauging the prey she has cornered, evaluating how best to make the kill. Suddenly, a decision made, her face melted into an expression reflecting a masterly combination of shock, hurt, and disbelief. The face of an actress in a star part, I thought.

  Slowly lifting her gaze to Max, who was at a loss, along with everyone else, Carla said, “Max, I think I should go.” There was a tearful tremor in her voice.

  Max turned to Lulu and said, “Lulu, m’dear, rather bad form, what?”

  Lulu shot back. “Don’t talk to me about bad form, you horny, old hypocrite!”

  “Excuse me,” Carla whispered, edging past Lulu.

  “I will never excuse you!” Lulu said in a loud voice. “You stole my daughter’s fortune! You killed my husband!”

  “Ex-husband,” someone whispered loudly.

  Carla left the living room, giving me an enigmatic look as she passed. Max followed her out, muttering under his breath in French. He trotted back in and said to me, “Jo, just seeing Carla home. Back in a jiffy.”

  Lulu waited until Max and Carla had left, then she stalked out of the room. I ran after her.

  “Lulu, I am so sorry, believe me. Max promised me he was going to tell you that Carla was coming.”

  This seemed to infuriate her even more.

  “And you believed him?” she scoffed at me.

  “I should have called you myself.”

  “Yes, you should have.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Jo, you once hated me for entertaining your arch enemy. Well, now we’re even. What goes around comes around, as they say. But I’d watch out for Max, if I were you,” she said, pointing an accusatory finger at my diamond dragonfly pin. “He’s not worth it, believe me.”

  Larry came out into the hall. Lulu looked at him. Tears welled up in her large eyes. She said, “She’s done it, Larry! She got control!”

  Larry and I looked at each other. The elevator arrived and Larry escorted her downstairs.

  I returned to the living room, where the buzz of whispers was deafening. Seeing Gil and Betty, I threw up my hands.

  “Well, there goes the party!” I said.

  Betty laughed. “Are you kidding? Honey, this party has just been made. What a fucking floor show!”

  “Dinner is served,” Cyril announced with great solemnity.

  “But the main dish just left!” Betty cried.

  Uncharacteristically true to his word, Max returned to the dinner after escorting Carla home. He joined us midway through the entrée. He sat down, blasé and charming as always, acting as if nothing much had happened. When I brought up the incident and chastised him for not having told Lulu that Carla was coming, he simply said, “Girls will be girls,” and dug into the beef Wellington.

  Chapter 20

  News of the party spread faster than cellulite. The next morning, I fielded calls from all over the world. Everyone in social life had heard about “the incident.” What they were all dying to know, of course, was why Max had sided with Carla over Lulu. Lulu, who many believed to be romantically involved with Max, was a longtime friend, whereas Carla was a relatively new acquaintance. People wondered: Would Carla soon be wearing a diamond insect pin? And, of course, everyone was curious about me and Max. The rumor now was that he’d jilted me in favor of Carla.

  In New York, the best part of any evening is often the day after, when it can be dissected from a distance. In light of that, Larry, Betty, Trish, and I all met for lunch at Pug’s in order to conduct the autopsy. Before going to the restaurant, Betty and I had made our daily pilgrimage to the hospital to see our beloved and still comatose June. Betty, who always talked to June as if June could hear her, sat by her bedside and gave her a blow-by-blow description of the party. On our way out, Betty said to me, “Now if that doesn’t bring her out of it, nothing will!”

  Pug’s was brimming with pals, as usual, among them Max, who was dining with Charlie Kahn at a nearby table. Charlie usually took friends to his club for lunch, but Max hated club food and he loved Pug’s haute boarding school cuisine.

  As Larry ate his designer meatloaf, Trish and Betty and I leaned in across
the table, speaking in hushed tones so Max wouldn’t overhear us. We speculated on the nature of Max’s relationship with Carla. Trish was energized by this most recent little scandal because it was a chance to get her mind off her husband’s trial. Old New York proverb: Fight scandal with scandal.

  “I spoke to Lulu this morning. Obviously, she’s upset about the whole money situation. But she thinks it’s absolutely disgraceful that Max and Carla are having an affair, given the fact that Carla is still a married woman and she’s acting so upset about Russell!”

  “Lulu can’t have it both ways,” Betty said irritably, spearing lettuce leaves with her fork.

  “What do you mean?” Trish asked.

  Betty paused with her fork in midair. “Lulu called Carla a murderer, right?”

  “Right,” Trish said warily.

  “Well, if Russell’s dead, then Carla’s a widow! She’s therefore free to fool around with anyone she damn well pleases.” Betty stuffed the lettuce leaves into her mouth and resumed harvesting the rest of her salad plate. “I just think we should be clear about these things, that’s all. . . . Sure she’s pissed about the money. But I think she’s even more pissed that Carla’s moving in on Max. Let’s face it, Lulu would love to be Lady Vermilion.”

  “I thought Lulu was still in love with Russell,” I said.

  Betty gave me an incredulous look. “So? He’s out of her life. She might as well carry her torch around a castle. But my money’s on Carla.”

  “Why?” Trish asked.

  “Because, Trish, my darling, you know as well as I do that powerful men like women who have been involved with other powerful men. It makes them feel like they have something special. Let’s face it girls, women are like paintings: the grander the provenance, the more coveted they are.”

  “And the bigger their bank account,” I added.

  “What about you, Jo? Aren’t you and Max kind of involved?” Trish said.

  “I know that’s what everyone thinks, but we’re really not.”

  “That’s too bad. I’d divorce Dick for a crack at Taunton Hall,” Trish said, then quickly added, “Just kidding!”