Body in the Big Apple ff-10

by Katherine Hall Page

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  Faith read out loud, “ ‘Police say there were no signs of forced entry at the apartment off Grand Street that Fox rented under the name Norman Fuchs two years ago. They speculate his assailant or assailants might have been known to him, but burglary has not been ruled out as a motive. A source, requesting anonymity, close to the investigation revealed that the book-filled apartment had been completely ran-sacked.’ ” She paused. “They must have thought he had something valuable. I wonder what they were looking for?”

  “Not the money from Chase Manhattan Bank. He was a much better talker than doer. Remember? He and two others were going to rob the bank and distribute the money to the truly needy or whatever, but as soon as they passed the note to the teller, they were caught.

  Didn’t get so much as a roll of pennies. I didn’t hear how he got away exactly.”

  Faith, who had been scanning the newsprint, answered, “The article says there was a fourth accomplice waiting in a car. Fox managed to get away from the bank’s security guards before the police arrived. He knocked one of them out, which added assault and bat-tery to his charge.”

  “He was armed, but he didn’t shoot. They should have given him credit for that.”

  “How do you know so much about all this?” Faith asked. Heretofore, any conversations about politics with Josie had consisted in wondering what Mayor-Elect David Dinkins would serve at his inaugural at Gracie Mansion compared to his flamboyant predeces-sor, Ed Koch. Josie was even more dedicated to food than Faith. She’d grown up in Virginia, raised by a grandmother who was apparently famous over several 13

  counties for her fried chicken. Josie had come to New York several years ago and started working at any food-related job she could get, taking as many courses—and covering as many cuisines—as she could squeeze in. She was all set to open Josie’s as soon as she had the money—and the perfect location.

  Dream, nothing, she’d told Faith. Josie’s was fact. Future fact, but fact.

  “I told you. There’s been nothing else on the news all day. Every time I turned on the radio, there was some piece of the story—or some guy talking in one of those serious ‘This is nothing but a test’ voices about how it’s the end of an era.”

  Faith knew what Josie meant about the voice, which was intended to be reassuring, yet managed instead to imply the button had just been pushed and everyone was doomed.

  She had turned to a profile of Fox on an inside page and was studying his photograph, taken shortly before he disappeared.

  “Not bad-looking,” she commented. “No, make that definitely acceptable, and this looks like a lousy picture.” He had the regulation long, flowing locks of the sixties and wire-rimmed granny glasses, but behind the frames, his eyes were bright and intelligent. He had a full, sensual mouth curved in a slightly mocking smile.

  She could almost see him shrugging. Like, What’s the big deal? She wondered where the picture had been taken, what the context had been. Suddenly she felt sorry for the man. All those years on the run. Granted, he had tried to rob a bank, a big bank, but he hadn’t killed anybody, and now he’d been killed. An “apparent homicide.” Why did they always say that? He’d been shot and the weapon was missing. There was 14

  nothing apparent about it at all. Murder. He’d been murdered. In broad daylight. The medical examiner es-timated the time of death as 4:00 P.M. She gave a slight shudder. She liked the Lower East Side, and the blintzes at the Grand Dairy restaurant were the best in the city. Grand Street would mean something else for a while now. Something other than long-ago pushcarts and present-day discounts—and the blintzes.

  “ ‘The end of the sixties at the end of the eighties’—

  that’s what the commentators having been saying all day. His death is supposed to be some kind of significant event, like it was planned as a big period for the decade. John Lennon in 1980; Nate Fox in ’89. I don’t think junkies are into this kind of political, philosoph-ical shit—and you know that’s what it’s going to turn out to be. Junkies looking for something to hock.” Faith laughed and agreed. Nobody she knew could puncture a balloon like Josie. “Every obit this year has had ‘Swan Song for the Eighties’—first it was Lucy, then Olivier, then Irving Berlin. I thought when Diana Vreeland died in August, that would be it. But they trotted it out again for Bette Davis.” Josie was putting on her coat, but Faith was still lost in the article. She’d have to pick up a paper on her way home. How had he stayed hidden all these years? Obviously, he must have had a network of friends, people sympathetic to his ideas. Family? But the FBI would have been keeping a close eye on any relatives.

  She skipped to the end, where they always listed survivors. “No survivors.” Nobody? It was an amazing thought. No siblings, parents dead. Never married, or if so, divorced. She began to construct his life rapidly.

  Where had he grown up? Born in Newark, New Jersey, the article said. Newark before the ’68 riots.

  15

  Newark, home of Jewish intellectuals and an up-wardly mobile middle class. Weequahic High School.

  Philip Roth country.

  There were many facets to Faith Sibley’s personality, some in direct contradiction to others. She was both open-minded and given to snap judgments; label-conscious and down-to-earth; somewhat self-centered and overly generous. The one dominant trait for which there was no antiphony was her curiosity. There had never been a time when she hadn’t wanted to know everything about everybody. Curiosity and an exceed-ingly active imagination. She was the original “Why?” child, and Jane had almost been driven mad by her daughter’s questions. Faith’s father, Lawrence, had greeted her inquisitiveness with joy. An infant episte-mologist. He’d answered at great length, in excruciat-ing detail. Faith had soon learned to engage in interior monologues, and she was doing this now. What if Fox’s death was tied to the movement and not a random act of urban violence? Why not the FBI itself? A bust gone wrong? But if you’d known Fox was Fox, he’d have been worth more alive than dead. There was a large reward for his capture.

  “Come on, boss, I want to go home and take a long soak in a hot tub with lots of bubbles.” Faith stood up and carefully placed the paper back exactly as she’d found it. It hadn’t appeared that anyone in this household had read it, either. It was probably the maid’s paper; the Times and Wall Street Journal would be left at the front door each morning by the doorman and read on the way to work—or with white gloves to keep the nasty, smudgy type from one’s manicured hands by wife or mistress left in bed. Nathan Fox’s death wouldn’t affect the market. Therefore, it 16

  would have been of only passing interest, good for a crack or two about radicals, hippies, phases outgrown or merely transformed. One of Faith’s recent dates had entertained her for an hour with his elaborate theory that Yuppies, whose “death” was celebrated in the ’87

  crash, were the flip side of the coin from hippies.

  “Same sense of entitlement, self-interest, self-righteousness, same segment of the population. Graz-ing and arugula versus macrobiotics and grass. Coke versus acid. Different taste in clothes, yet same awareness and disdain for deviations. What, no beads? What, no Rolex? See what I mean?” Faith had, and it made sense. There weren’t any hippies anymore, only “aging hippies,” and that was a pejorative. Nate Fox was fifty-six, an aging radical. She tried to imagine how he must have looked at the time of his death. Significantly different, or he wouldn’t have been able to hide in plain sight. Maybe the FBI had lost interest in him. There were bigger fish in the sea. Maybe they’d stopped looking.

  “Ah, I’d hoped you might still be here.” It was the host, rubbing his hands together after pushing through the kitchen door, followed by two other men, almost indistinguishable from himself. They looked to be in their early thirties in well-cut dark suits with well-cut dark hair, and their clean-shaven faces were slightly flushed—but not too flushed—as evidence of a good time. One of them was smoking a cigar.

  “Wonderful job, Faith. It all went off rather sp
len-didly, don’t you think?”

  While not above giving herself a pat on the back, Faith wasn’t sure how to reply. A “Yes” was terribly self-congratulatory; a “No” unthinkable.

  17

  “People seemed to have a good time.”

  “Yes, they did, and I thank you. We have something coming up in February for some out-of-town clients.

  I’ll call you with the date next week.” He took a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator, confirming Faith’s suspicion that he hadn’t expected her to still be there at all.

  She handed him three glasses from the cupboard behind her. “I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out. I’m glad you were pleased with tonight.” One of the men, who looked vaguely familiar, took the cigar from his mouth, tapped some ash in the sink, and said, “Have you got a card? A good caterer is worth her weight in gold these days. Business all right?”

  “I can’t complain.” Faith found herself relaxing under his gaze. He was either genuinely interested or awfully good at faking it. She handed him a card.

  “My name is Michael Stanstead, by the way,” he said, tucking her card into his wallet.

  Of course he looked familiar. Assemblyman Michael Stanstead. Stanstead Associates law firm Michael Stanstead. Society page Michael Stanstead.

  Husband of Emma, Michael Stanstead.

  “I’m a friend of your wife’s. Emma and I were at school together,” Faith said. A firm believer in convey-ing minimal information, especially to someone’s nearest and dearest, Faith didn’t mention their encounter in the kitchen.

  The change in Stanstead was immediate. His smile vanished and his brow furrowed. The host patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll be better tomorrow.”

  “Emma wasn’t feeling well and left the party early,” 18

  Michael told Faith. “It’s probably just this flu that’s been going around, but . . .” He paused. “Well, I am worried about Emma. Very worried.”

  That makes two of us, Faith thought.

  19

  Two

  Emma Stanstead was not in disguise, as her cryptic, surreptitious words the night before had suggested.

  Dark glasses. Garbo hat. Nor was she on time. It was terribly busy for Faith at work. Only the memory of Emma’s frightened face and Faith’s own curiosity had torn her from her vol-au-vents. She was on the point of returning to them when Emma rushed up, starting her apologies from a few feet away.

  “These stupid, stupid meetings. They go on and on.

  Nothing gets accomplished, except a few people get to hear themselves talk. I wish they’d just call me up and tell me what they want me to do. It would be so much simpler.” Her Ferragamo heels clicked on the museum’s stone floor, punctuating her words. “Let’s go sit in the courtyard in the new American Wing. It’s so peaceful there. Oh, unless you want lunch?” Faith didn’t. The food at the Museum Restaurant had always been nondescript. Now that they’d remodeled and done away with the wonderful fountain in the middle, replacing it with a kind of sunken pit for din-20

  ers, she preferred Sabrett’s hot dogs with everything on them from one of the vendors on Fifth Avenue in front of the main entrance. Progress. New York was always acting in haste and being forced to repent at leisure.

  Think of Penn Station.

  The Engelhard Court in the new wing was filled with plants and an assortment of statuary. Emma by-passed a bench opposite a protective panther and her cubs, selecting instead one beneath towering fronds and art collector/financier August Belmont’s fixed gaze. He had been immortalized in bronze wearing a long fur-lined overcoat, and Faith realized she was feeling slightly chilled. The entire city had entered a state of deep freeze, temperatures plummeting at night to the very low teens. It had put to rest the frightening talk the previous summer about global warming, though. Or maybe it was all part of what the future would bring—fiery summers, frigid winters. Some kind of judgment.

  Emma seemed to be having trouble beginning. She sighed heavily, opened her purse, took out a handkerchief, and blew her nose. After her tirade about meetings, she hadn’t said much as they walked through the museum. Her steps did slow as they passed the famous Christmas tree decorated each year with the Met’s collection of intricately carved eighteenth-century Neapolitan crèche figures. She’d murmured, “Remember?” And Faith did. As little girls, the appearance of the tree had marked the beginning of the holiday season for them and they haunted the museum until it appeared like magic. Each had a favorite ornament. Emma’s was an angel with rainbow wings and trailing silken gold robes; Faith’s one of the three kings, in royal robes astride a magnificent white 21

  horse. Emma’s single word had reminded Faith how much time they had spent together and how much they had shared.

  It was time for Emma to start sharing now. With one job tonight and two on Saturday, Faith couldn’t sit around watching her friend get a cold.

  “Okay, what’s going on? Much as I love seeing you—and it’s ridiculous that we’ve been so out of touch—I do have—”

  “I’m being blackmailed, Faith,” Emma said quietly, handing her an envelope. It looked like the one she’d been holding at the party. “One of the other guests found this in the hall last night and gave it to me. He must have thought I’d dropped it. Of course, I’d never seen it before.”

  Emma being blackmailed! Faith had rehearsed a number of scenarios for this tell-all rendezvous, most of them involving a philandering husband or Emma herself in love with another, but blackmail! This didn’t happen to people Faith knew. This didn’t happen to people her age, for that matter. Blackmail was old guys caught with their pants down or hands in the till or whatever.

  Faith took the card gingerly. She had some notion that they should be preserving prints for the police. She also felt a primal repulsion—who knew where it has been?

  The card displayed a Currier & Ives sleigh scene, Central Park in Winter, one of those cards charities send in the mail as a “gift.” You don’t ask for them, don’t want them, yet it seems a shame to throw them away. Except you can’t use them unless you send a donation; otherwise, you’d feel too guilty—or cheap. Inside the card a message had been pasted over the 22

  greeting. It had been typed on a word processor, impossible to trace.

  We know everything, and if you don’t want Michael to know, get ten thousand dollars in unmarked bills and wait to hear from us. Keep quiet or you’ll be headlines, too.

  P.S. Remember your “mono”?

  It could not have been an accident that the blackmailers had left the card’s original bright red “Merry Christmas” greeting showing. There were no signatures.

  After she had turned the card over to Faith, Emma’s anxiety had abated. She was leaning back on the bench, her face turned toward the sun streaming in from the park through the wall of glass. Faith was again struck by Emma’s beauty. She looked like a model for one of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, Jane Morris—an ancestress?—in an outfit by Donna Karan.

  Like the Emma of old, this Emma was more than slightly fey. Sentences trailed off into some region known only to Emma herself. One classmate had described carrying on a conversation with her as “walking into a maze without a ball of yarn.” Faith had never been troubled by Emma’s sudden flights. She always came back, and anyway, it was a wonder she wasn’t worse, given her family. Given Poppy.

  Pamela Morris, “Poppy,” had been a similar beauty at her daughter’s age, and even now, in her early fifties, she was stunning. Her hair was a darker red than Emma’s, and if art was helping nature, it was doing a very good job indeed. Not a single wisp of gray in-vaded her sleek chignon. Unlike her daughter, however, Poppy was never out of touch. She’d been in 23

  touch with—and in charge of—an elite segment of New York society since she’d come out. During the sixties and early seventies, Poppy was credited with initiating “radical chic.” You were as likely to be sitting next to Bobby Seale as Henry Kissinger at one of
her dinner parties. Now Bobby was promoting his new book, Barbeque’n with Bobby, and Henry—well, Henry was still keeping secrets, or looked as if he was.

  Having Poppy for a mother meant never having to say you were sorry, because she didn’t have time to hear your apology, or even notice if you’d erred.

  Larger than life, she sucked all the air from a room, to the delight of her adoring, reticent husband, who viewed her as his own personal exotic pet. He was content to sit back and watch the show. Faith could barely recall what Jason Morris looked like—or did to pay all Poppy’s bills. There were several buildings and large parts of others named for his family. Faith had always assumed he was in the world of finance—certainly not a mere broker, but perhaps a brokerage.

  Emma had an older sister, Lucy, or rather Lucretia, named by Poppy for Lucretia Mott during Poppy’s intense Betty Friedan/Germaine Greer feminist period.

  Faith and her own sister, Hope, privately joked that Lucy would more aptly have been named for that other Lucretia—Borgia. Lucy Morris was a classic bully, adept at finding closely guarded chinks in one’s armor, then thrusting her lance in with deadly preci-sion. Emma was, of course, easy prey—too easy, and Lucy turned her attention to her schoolmates, where she used her position as a leader to make many a girl’s life a living hell, all the while maintaining an untar-nished reputation with the faculty. Because kids never tell. She’d been at the party, too, Emma had men-24

  tioned, and Faith was glad she’d avoided her fellow alum.

  At present, Lucy was studying for the bar. Poppy continued to give unabashedly elaborate parties, still daring, but now mixing new money with old and adding a liberal dash of celebrities—and liberals—to Knickerbocker society. Jason was still paying the bills.

  “Remember your ‘mono’?” the card said. Faith remembered Emma’s mono. It had been close to the end of junior year, and Emma had had to be tutored at home. But it wasn’t something to keep from your husband. It wasn’t worth ten thousand dollars. And what did “headlines, too” mean? Michael was in the news a lot; maybe that was it.