I looked at my watch. If I picked up, I might be late, and I had already had to beg for an appointment. I stood listening, indecisive.
Diana gave a disgusted sigh into my machine. She seemed to have perfect intuition for when you were avoiding her. I didn’t usually, but her stories often ran to Melvillean lengths, without the eloquence, and sometimes I just didn’t have the time. Like now.
“I need to talk to you,” she said, when she had apparently abandoned hope of a live response. “I got the strangest phone call.”
Oh, Christ. My machine only recorded for one minute, and there was no way she could summarize anything that fast. Still, it didn’t sound urgent.
She waited. The tape was just about to click off. “Oh, well, I guess it can keep. Give me a call. Or stop by. I haven’t—” Click.
Not urgent, definitely. I pressed “rewind” and scurried out the door.
The waiting room for Ivanova Associates was antiseptic, like a doctor’s office, though the magazines were lots better. I knew the layout of the offices from the trial, but I’d never seen any pictures of anything but Natasha’s office, where the murder occurred, so I didn’t get a flash of déjà vu. Mostly it reminded me that I was late for my six-month dental checkup. I buried my nose in the latest issue of Architectural Digest and waited to be summoned to the Throne Room.
After my experience at Kathleen Wyndham, I was a little worried about my ability to remain objective. Despite the fact that I’d found Kathleen herself more than a bit ridiculous, I’d gotten far too caught up in the persona of Ms. Wants-a-Mate, and I’d spilled the beans about Ivanova Associates out of a misguided need for approval. I was, frankly, a nervous wreck about going out on dates again. High school was decades behind me, but I’d reverted to adolescence with pathetic ease, as if marriage, motherhood, and a career had never happened in between.
No problem, right? All I had to do was lie on the preinterview questionnaire, and my vulnerabilities would not be up for grabs this time around. The only thing was, I kept wanting to get an A on questionnaire-answering, and when you could see what the questions were meant to evoke, it was hard not to tell the truth. The questions were a lot more sophisticated than “True or False: Love makes the world go round” or “Agree/Disagree: I do not like people who use big words,” but they were headed in the same general direction. It’s impossible to say what you’re looking for in a match without revealing a lot about yourself at the same time. Besides, it’s one thing to answer “turnip gratin” if someone asks you what your favorite food is, and something else to describe yourself as partial to partners with a predilection for bedtime hardware.
Keep your head on straight, I told myself. This isn’t about you.
“Ms. St. James,” the receptionist intoned, in a voice suitable for announcing admission to the Elysian Fields. She was a young, very attractive girl, and the stately mien didn’t suit her. She’d probably had to practice. She looked at me. “Ms. Klein is ready for you now, Ms. St. James.” I started. I wasn’t used to my nom de client. My future as a spy was clearly limited. I stood up.
“Come this way,” she said, pushing a polished brass handle on the large wooden door behind her.
The door swung open, and my heart beat faster. This was where the murder had taken place.
My eyes went of their own accord to the floor, where the body had lain. I couldn’t believe it, but I found myself looking for bloodstains.
The Persian carpet was still there. Isfahan, definitely. Children’s fingers had spent countless backbreaking hours tying the tiny knots, but it was so beautiful. I sighed. If I’d had a carpet like that, I probably wouldn’t have redecorated, either. After all, what were cleaners for?
Melanie Klein stood up behind her desk, and I lifted my eyes quickly. I almost gasped in surprise. The last time I’d seen her, on the witness stand, she’d looked—well, “nondescript” is the most charitable way to put it. Light brown hair too short for sex appeal and too long for chic; colorless glasses; clothes that were shapeless and drab. Not bad-looking, but not a face to remember, either.
So how did she become the woman I was looking at now? I wanted her secret. I wanted the name of the hairdresser who had streaked her hair honey-blond and given her a sleek, severe cut that looked good on you only if you had perfect features. I wanted the name of the optometrist who’d fitted her with aqua-tinted contact lenses. I wanted to know where she’d bought her suit, a knock-off of Chanel, or maybe the real thing. Most of all, I wanted her diet, because she’d lopped off at least ten pounds since I’d seen her only a couple of months before. If it was the one from the pecan pie doctor, Dennis Nugent, I wanted to sign up.
The truth is, I wanted to be her, but even if I’d had the raw material, I was at least ten years too late. Melanie Klein had become a butterfly at thirty-something, the perfect age for a female tycoon. Old enough for power, but not for laugh lines. If I’d been the matchmaker, I would have fixed her up with Jeff Riley, on appearances alone.
While I was sizing her up, she was sizing me up as well, but she was too cool and professional to let it show on her face if she thought I was going to be an impossible case, or even just a challenge. “How do you do, Ms. St. James?” she said, her voice serious but congenial.
I shook off my paranoid fantasies long enough to take her outstretched hand. Her grip was firm. “Thank you for seeing me,” I told her.
She nodded briefly, gesturing me to a seat across the desk from her. After Kathleen Wyndham’s enveloping intensity, the atmosphere was bracingly astringent.
She glanced at her notes. “My secretary said you were referred by the Nugents and the Jensens,” she said. “We are always happy to accommodate our special friends.” She smiled. “Of course, you know they weren’t officially clients.”
I wondered at that “officially.” I wondered if this was the stately “we” preferred by royalty and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, or if there were someone else involved at her level of the business. I wondered what was special about the Nugents and Jensens. I was afraid it might be the fee. “Nevertheless, they spoke very highly of your service,” I told her.
She nodded again, expecting nothing less. She was a cool customer; I had to hand it to her. It made me wonder what Natasha Ivanova had really been like, and how this woman had ever fit herself into a subservient position.
While she reviewed my file, I had leisure to inspect the Crime Scene. My memory of the photographs was imperfect (and fading fast), but as far as I could tell, the room had remained the same in its essentials. In addition to the carpet, the Brazilian rosewood desk was positioned in approximately the same place, facing away from the window. A door in one wall, behind her and to the right, led, I knew, to the executive bathroom. There were some shelves holding books and a few “objets”—decorator stuff, not real art—and a very nice couple of framed and numbered lithographs that were probably worth a thousand or so apiece but were nothing that would shake up the art world. There was no trace of anything remotely resembling an Erté statue, but then it would hardly have been in the best of taste to keep it around.
I stopped my visual tour of the room in time to see Melanie Klein regarding me with speculation. I felt a brief moment of panic. I didn’t think she could have recognized me from my stint on the jury, particularly since I was in front of her with a different name and a considerable improvement over my courtroom wardrobe (thanks to Saks and a healthy advance from City of Angels), but I couldn’t feel 100 percent confident. If she recognized me, it was going to make it incredibly awkward, to say the least.
“So, Ms.—or do you prefer Mrs.?—St. James, why have you come to Ivanova Associates?”
To get a manicure. What a question. At least this time I was prepared.
“Ms. will be fine,” I told her.
She nodded.
“I have a successful business,” I continued, as matter-of-factly as possible. “I have a daughter who will be leaving home soon. My free time is very precious
to me, and I simply don’t want to spend it trying to meet someone. My friends are very kind about introducing me, but…” I trailed off.
She nodded sympathetically. “As we get older, all the people our friends know are recycled,” she said, with a small smile. “Sometimes you need help in expanding your network.”
I noticed the switch from “we” to “you.” “Yes,” I said, in my best Duchess of Windsor voice, “and then, of course, there is the desirability of prescreening. One can never be too careful.” I sat back modestly in my chair, hoping I was conveying the impression that would-be fortune hunters were practically hiding under the bed in their dogged pursuit of my millions. Of course, if I said anything more, she would spot me for a fake in two seconds.
Her smile increased notably in warmth. “Very true,” she murmured. “And perhaps I should take this moment to assure you that we take every possible care in such matters. And, of course, it goes without saying that we are absolutely discreet. No one will ever know that you were a client here unless you choose to tell them.”
No one except the gazillion people in Southern California who read City of Angels. “Thank you,” I said.
“People are often embarrassed,” she said frankly, “but there is no need. Some of the most distinguished people in the state have been our clients. Are our clients.” She shuffled through my papers again. “I see that you are an art consultant. You must meet many prominent people that way.”
I acknowledged this with a small smile of complicity.
“Celebrities?”
“Sometimes.” I shrugged, as if this was a matter of the greatest indifference. Well, I had met one or two, particularly when I worked in Malibu, and I’d managed not to drool on anyone or shed my lingerie, so I felt justified in sounding cool.
“Did you know Ms. Ivanova?” she asked suddenly.
“You mean personally?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “Naturally, I read about her death in the papers. It was very sad.”
“Her murder, yes. It was tragic. We all miss her very much.” She folded her hands on the desk. “I have to say that I have rarely met a finer human being. Not only was she a wonderful person to work for, but she was unfailingly generous in giving her time to what she believed in. She was unstintingly devoted to matchmaking, not just because it was her business but because it was a way to help people.” She made a tiny gesture toward her eye, which might have been an attempt to brush away a tear but wasn’t. “Our clients have been kind enough to express their confidence in my ability to continue the service in the very same tradition she initiated, but of course, it was her vision and determination that began Ivanova Associates and its good work, and I—we—never lose sight of that.”
It had the air of a canned speech. I translated it to mean that she had been stealing the clients’ loyalty long before her mentor’s unfortunate demise, but I wasn’t sure why I thought so. Maybe it was her sudden metamorphosis after the murder. It couldn’t be entirely coincidental.
“But I did wonder whether you might have met Ms. Ivanova in a professional context,” she persisted.
“Professional?” I’d already decided to play dumb on this point.
She drummed her fingers lightly on the desktop. “Yes. Natasha was something of a collector of art herself. And she enjoyed helping other people buy art. She hosted a number of shows through galleries and her connections all over town.”
Dumb, but not too dumb. “I believe Patrice Nugent mentioned something of the kind to me,” I said, as if I were just remembering. “Didn’t Dennis buy some paintings through her?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, because I wasn’t involved in that part of her life. It was a passion with her, but it only occasionally intersected with her business, so I wasn’t part of it.” She smiled, but her tone was slightly emphatic.
“Well, I’m sorry to say that I never met her in that context, or any other. Was she interested in Russian painters?” I was fishing. I wondered if she knew that Natasha wasn’t Russian at all. I was also dying to ask if she had had a secret passion for Erté, but I couldn’t think of a way to work it in that wouldn’t get me thrown out of the office.
She looked startled. “Why do you ask?”
“Because she came here from Russia a few years ago, didn’t she? There are lots of interesting things going on in the art world there since the breakup, and I thought that might be where her interest got started.”
“I really don’t know,” she said dismissively. “She used to have what the accountant tells me were some very valuable paintings and sculpture in this office, but after…after what happened, we’ve had to replace them with more ordinary works. They were owned by the business, and I’m sure you can appreciate that the insurance company would no longer cover them here after the break-in.” Her brow furrowed. “I suppose we were lucky that that degraded little monster didn’t know what they were worth, or he might have taken them instead of the desk clock.” She looked at me. “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have brought that up. It’s still so recent, and I can’t help getting angry.”
“It’s perfectly understandable,” I said sympathetically. “I’d feel that way about the killer, too. What happened to them?”
She looked confused. “Who?”
I shook my head. “The art works.”
“Sold them,” she said shortly. She cleared her throat, and shifted her posture, signaling a return to business. “Now, I’m certain we can help you, Ms. St. James, but I want to make sure you understand our fee structure. The base fee begins at seven thousand dollars and goes up, depending on how much time and research it requires for me to find someone for you. There is no upper maximum, but we rarely cap out at more than twenty-five thousand dollars. I like to make this clear at the beginning. We also charge for any exceptional disbursements, but the normal phone, fax, mailing, and that sort of charge is included.”
I nodded, trying not to flinch. I didn’t trust myself to speak with assurance.
“There are, of course, no limits to the introductions we arrange. We’ll continue as long as necessary until you are married.”
My throat closed in panic. They were not going to let me out of this until a match was made. I wondered if I was going to find myself at the altar, trying to explain that it was really all in the service of journalistic research. I was sure Cynthia would make a great article out of that one.
“Does that sound satisfactory to you?”
“Oh, yes, certainly.” My voice squeaked. I couldn’t help it.
“Good,” she said briskly. “Now, I make all the selections personally, of course, but I also have a committee of consultants who help me in the process. Without knowing your identity, they will review your background and information and the requirements you’ve indicated in the written work you’ve submitted—unless you’d like to change anything now?”
I could scarcely remember what I wrote. At least I probably had a breathing space before they could meet to consider my case. “No, that’s okay,” I told her.
“Fine. They will make recommendations in addition to my own. However, based on our discussion today, I can tell you that I already have one or two suitable candidates in mind. I’ll review the situation, of course, but I feel comfortable in saying you should probably receive a call within the week.”
I tried to look cool. “So soon?” It came out a little too fast.
Her look was pitying, as if I didn’t have any time to waste. “Are you uncomfortable with that?” she asked.
“I just thought it would take more time, that is—” I was babbling, trying not to sound as nervous as I felt.
“I understand,” she said soothingly. “Are you concerned because of your age?”
She sounded as if I might need help crossing the street any day now, but at least it reminded me that I was supposed to be using this interview to find out as much about the matchmaking service as possible, and its past friendliness to the demographically imp
aired was definitely a standout issue. “Yes,” I told her. “That’s it exactly.”
She smiled calmly. “Then I’m glad you raised that point. I’m very happy to reassure you. It’s perfectly true that dating services—particularly the kind where people leaf through photos and bios in a way that turns finding someone into a sort of job interview—are somewhat reluctant to take women over a certain age—”
She didn’t say what the age was, thank God, and I didn’t ask her.
“—because the men are looking for someone much younger than they are.” She gave a tight little smile, just this side of disapproving. After all, some of Ivanova’s male clients had probably been known to consort with bimbettes themselves. “In that environment, any fifty-year-old man willing to date women his own age is welcome anywhere.”
“A candidate for the Hall of Fame, obviously.” I hoped I didn’t sound bitter. After all, why should I care?
She shrugged. “Perhaps, but in matrimonial services, people’s perspective is, shall we say, a bit broader. Our sort of client is not looking primarily for passionate sex, although I’m not saying that physical chemistry isn’t a welcome outcome of a match at any age. It just isn’t the primary focus. We like to think that our clients in particular are not shallow or foolish in what they require. We try to put together couples who have compatible lifestyles and interests, people who have both achieved something in their own right.”
“But some of your clients do prefer an…age disparity in their partners, surely?” Like at least one venture capitalist who had the hots for a part-time model half his age.
She nodded. “Of course. And we accommodate their wishes to the extent possible.” She picked up a silver pen on her desk and rolled it between her fingers. She sighed gently. “Even so, in those relationships, the younger partner of the two generally has something much more than mere youth to offer,” she said. “If a man is, shall we say, exceptionally well off, he may feel uncomfortable with a very young woman who does not have an independent income or some significant accomplishments of her own. Otherwise, he may suspect her interest in him. Men in that position often prefer a woman closer to their own age with an income level that approximates their own. Someone who knows how to move in their world.”
Staying Cool Page 17