Too Damn Rich

by Gould, Judith

  "Eight."

  There goes lunch, Kenzie thought. I owe Arnold dinner.

  "Okay," she said. "Send the first one in."

  The interviews began.

  On the surface, each of the first seven applicants seemed well-groomed, bright, articulate, and qualified. Their ages ranged from the mid-twenties to the late thirties.

  The five women were attractive, appropriately dressed, and perfectly made up. The two men were handsome and wore expensive conservative suits. Each had worked at one of the other auction houses or a gallery, and while their resumes were impressive enough, Kenzie knew better than to trust in that alone.

  She used the photos and sample canvases to test their expertise. All seven misidentified at least two of what should have been ten easily distinguishable works. That was bad enough. But it was the close-up photos of various artists' brushstrokes and techniques which proved everyone's undoing.

  Not one of the seven passed.

  Kenzie was aghast. Good Lord, she thought. I wouldn't want to have to rely on any of them! They're all hopeless!

  She ended the seventh interview the same as all the others, with a brisk handshake, a smile, and the words: "Thanks so much for coming in. We'll be in touch."

  To let you down easily, she didn't say.

  She called reception. "I believe there's an eighth applicant?"

  "That's right. Would you like me to send her in now?"

  "Please," Kenzie said.

  Before long, there was a loud crash outside the door. Kenzie gave a start and got up to investigate. When she opened the door, she found a woman on her hands and knees, retrieving a pile of dropped books.

  "I'm sorry," the woman murmured, glancing up nervously.

  Kenzie smiled. "That's quite all right. Do you need help?"

  "No, no. Please." The woman bit her lip. "You are ... Ms. Turner?"

  Kenzie groaned inwardly. Oh, no, she thought. Don't tell me. "Yes ... ?"

  "I'm here about the interview."

  So this is who Bambi meant. "Well, you'd better come in, then."

  The woman tottered inside and put her books down on a chair.

  She was, to put it generously, a frumpy plain Jane. She was of average height with a splotchy complexion. Mousey hair pulled back in a bun, little wire-rimmed granny glasses, and no makeup.

  Her clothes were drab and two sizes too large. The cuffs of her cardigan were so long they hid all but the tips of her fingers.

  The nails were bitten down to the quick.

  Kenzie felt a wave of pity. Dear God, how do I handle this? I mustn't hurt her feelings.

  "Please." She indicated a seat and smiled, she hoped reassuringly. "I take it you've brought a resume?"

  "A ... resume? Oh. Yes. I have . . ."

  The woman dug through a handbag which had been repaired with duct tape, and the papers she produced were wrinkled and grease-stained. She did her best to smooth them with her hands.

  "Scusi." She smiled apologetically as she held them out.

  Kenzie took them. "All right, let me just glance over this a mo—" Her smile froze. "It says your name is ... ?"

  "Annalisa Barabino," the woman supplied.

  "Right," Kenzie said weakly, wondering: Why does this have to be the woman Mr. Spotts called about? Why couldn't it be someone less clumsy and more presentable?

  Yet despite its condition, the resume was highly impressive.

  But then, it would have to be, for Mr. Spotts to recommend her.

  At this point, Kenzie was beyond surprise. She simply presumed Annalisa would pass every test with flying colors, which she did. Her eye was superb, and her knowledge encyclopedic.

  If only, Kenzie thought despairingly, she didn't look like a bag lady!

  "Mmm," she murmured, drumming her fingernails on the desktop.

  "Please? Is something wrong?"

  Yes. Everything.

  "Well, er, it has to do with your ... ah, image," Kenzie said tactfully.

  "My—"

  "I have an idea," Kenzie said. She snatched up the phone and pressed three digits. "Arnold? SOS."

  "What's wrong?"

  Kenzie glanced at Annalisa and smiled to put her at ease. "Eliza Doolittle requires Professor Higgins."

  "Oh-oh. Sounds ominous."

  "Well, it is a challenge. Tell you what. It's too late for us to have lunch, but if you can swing this, dinner's on me. Le Colonial, Daniel, Petrossian, you choose."

  "Dinner! At Petrossian! Kenz, why do I smell snake oil?"

  "You don't, but your flawless taste is desperately required. And do hurry, will you? Or don't you want to pull a fast one on Bambi?"

  "What! Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? Be right there!" he sang.

  When Arnold and Annalisa returned three hours later, Kenzie couldn't believe her eyes.

  Gone was the frumpy wallflower.

  In her place was a chic young woman in a navy blue skirt, blazer, white blouse, and a patterned silk scarf tied loosely around her neck. Her hair had been highlighted and was fashionably slant cut, and her face glowed like a palette. Even her glasses were gone.

  "I'll be damned," Kenzie exclaimed softly.

  Annalisa looked stricken. "Something is wrong?" she ventured anxiously.

  "No, no. Not wrong—right. Arnold, how did you do it?"

  He smiled hugely. "First, we took care of the essentials."

  He indicated the shopping bags from Daffy's.

  "As you'll notice, we bargain-hunted. Three suits, three blouses, four scarves, the bag, and the shoes. For—would you believe?—three hundred and fifty bucks. Including tax."

  "Remind me to take you shopping the next time I need something," Kenzie said.

  "Next stop was the hairburner," Arnold continued. "An old flame of mine owed me. So that was a freebie. Ditto the makeup, courtesy of waltzing through the first floor of Bloomie's. The perfume's tiny vials of giveaway samples. Add a set of press-on nails and—voila!"

  He gestured grandly.

  "What you see is what you get!"

  "And the granny glasses?"

  "Turns out she just uses them to read. However, I insisted upon picking out a tortoiseshelly-looking pair. But what do you think of the low black heels? Nice touch, isn't it? Really makes her that Burghley's girl. Hmm?"

  Just then Bambi came sailing in. "Hi, guys! What's up?"

  "This is Annalisa Barabino," Kenzie said. "Zandra's replacement."

  Bambi gave Annalisa a hard once-over and nodded briskly. "You'll do." And to Kenzie: "Thank God. I wouldn't have put it past you to have hired the dog."

  The voice on the telephone echoed from the soundtracks of countless late and late-late shows. "Mizz Tama?"

  Kenzie felt a tide of goosebumps. That smoky, Eastern European accent was unmistakable. For a moment, she was unable to speak.

  "Mizz Tarna?" The woman's tone grew louder. "Can you hear me?"

  "Y-yes," Kenzie said faintly. She put a hand over the mouthpiece and quickly cleared her throat. "Yes," she repeated, more authoritatively.

  "Good. Do you know who zis eez?"

  "I ... I think so," Kenzie said. "You must be Miss Po—"

  "Ah-ah-ah!" The voice cut her off. "Pliss. You are nefer, efer, to refer to me by name. 'Mizz P.' vill do nicely. Also, you must nefer bring up my former career." There was an imperious pause. "Eez zat clear?"

  Kenzie swallowed. "Yes, ma'am. Perfectly."

  "Good. I haff zome Old Mazterz I vish to have appraized."

  "And when would you like to have this done?"

  "Tomorrow afternoon. Zree o'clock sharp."

  Kenzie began to reach for her Filofax, but then decided: What the hell. Lila Pons was the last great legend of the silver screen. It isn't as if she calls every day.

  She said, "Yes, three o'clock tomorrow will be fine."

  "Good! I vill be expecting you."

  "I'm looking forward—"

  But Lila Pons had already hung up.

  "—
to see you tomorrow," Kenzie completed softly as she replaced the receiver.

  Chapter 47

  Fantasy Island has a name, and its name is Mustique. An emerald in the turquoise sea, it is situated in the northern Grenadines, that necklace of islands one hundred twenty-two miles west of Barbados and is, at a mere 1,350 square acres, one of its tiniest jewels.

  And its most priceless.

  For there are, in all, only two small hotels, one bar, and some sixty private houses on the entire island. Tourists are discouraged; ship anchorages difficult to come by.

  This is a private playground, and the likes of Princess Margaret and Mick Jagger, Lord Glenconnor, various Guinesses, the Earl of Lichfield, and David Bowie, intend to keep it that way. For privacy is the last frontier; the ultimate luxury in an ever-shrinking world.

  And nowhere is luxury more in evidence than in the architectural fantasies hidden amid the rolling hills and white cedars, the frangipani, bougainvillea, and jasmine of Mustique.

  It is the oddest assortment of domiciles imaginable: the English fort complete with crenelated battlements, the miniature Japanese village set around Koi ponds, the Indonesian-style complex built from elaborately carved teak housefronts which had been dismantled from a Javanese village, the Moorish palace, the Gingerbread House, and yes, even a Taj Mahal.

  The names given to these architectural quirks and follies is in keeping with the Mustique mystique—Oceanus, Serendipity, Fort Shandy, and Blue Waters.

  Here, in this enchanted Eden, did the newlyweds honeymoon.

  Their Serene Highnesses occupied Villa Neptune, a rambling columned temple built around three sides of an aqua pool. Behind the deep and shady loggias, the coral limestone walls were punctuated with open Palladian arches—in these balmy climes the boundaries between indoors and out were blurred, and doors and windows unnecessary. White jasmine and bougainvillea ran riot, enclosed the house within their fragrant bowers.

  Marble statues cavorted around the pool—Neptune, mermaids on dolphins, fauns, centaurs, sphinxes, river gods, and other eighteenth-century fancies. Beyond them, the lushly planted gardens dropped abruptly to the aquamarine sea below.

  There, at anchor inside the reef, were a big white motor yacht and a sleek mahogany sloop with a hull like a knifeblade.

  On this particular afternoon in mid-March, the trade winds were one constant perfect breeze which blew in from one side of the house and out the other, and the sky was a deep and pellucid blue. The neighboring islands were hazy: distant humps, like whales sunning themselves on the horizon.

  Or so opined Zandra, who lay sideways on a cushioned chaise in the cool, shadowy darkness of the loggia.

  "What I absolutely love most here," she declared, clad in a diaphanous white djellaba, "is that so long as the roofs extend out far enough there's simply no need of windows! I mean, brilliant! Just shade and ceiling fans and tradewinds ... Oh, this truly is paradise, darling, it truly is ... What? My move? Really?"

  Eyeing the chessboard on the low table between them, Zandra's brows drew prettily together in concentration.

  Karl-Heinz, reclining sideways on his chaise, watched her and smiled as he listened to her upbeat chatter, the words twittering like swirling birds around his ears.

  I could stare at her forever, and still never tire of it, he thought, realizing it was the corniest of sentiments.

  It was, however, the truth. Her mere presence intoxicated him, filled him with a golden glow. She made him so happy, this luminescent lively creature, that he thought he might literally burst apart at the seams. At last he understood what inspired poets to write sonnets, and why love songs he'd once pooh-poohed were the only things which adequately described his feelings.

  She lights up my life, he thought. She's my one and everything.

  "Oh, Heinzie," Zandra said almost despairingly. "I really hate having to do this, but winning is what this game is all about... I mean, that's the whole point, isn't it? Frightfully sorry."

  And she moved her rook, took his queen, and smiled brilliantly.

  "Your move," she said blithely, reaching up and snapping a stalk of giant red hibiscus from the big potted plant behind her. Humming softly, she twirled the trumpet-shaped blossom so that the petals tickled her face.

  He forgot the chessboard and stared at her, drawing bleary pleasure from just watching her. He had never known anyone who took such sheer delight in the physical sensations of flowers. It seemed she was forever plucking a bloom here or a bud there, just to stroke it sensuously against her skin or dip her nose into fragrant petals.

  I wonder when she'll realize that this is more than a mere business deal, that if I didn't love her I wouldn't have married her?

  "Now, Heinzie." Zandra was glancing over the hibiscus at him. "You're not concentrating."

  "The anthers are going to leave pollen smudges on your nose," he said softly.

  "God, it's probably all smudged already." Zandra leaned forward and wrinkled her nose. "Is it? Smudged?"

  "Charmingly smudged."

  "Then I'll leave it! We'll pretend I'm an urchin!"

  She laughed with delight and jumped up, deliberately knocking over the chessboard. The figures scattered on the stone paving, and before he knew it, her hands swooped down, grabbed his, and tugged him to his feet.

  "Darling, we don't have to play chess, do we? Not on such a lovely day as this. Let's swim."

  "All right," he laughed. "Why not? I'll be right back."

  He began to go inside, but her hand closed on his arm.

  "Heinzie. Where on earth are you going?"

  He turned around. "To get a swimsuit."

  She rolled her eyes. "Oh, for God's sake, darling. Whatever for? Don't be such a prude! Besides, the servants can't see us from their quarters, and, so long as we don't stand at the very edge of the dropoff, the yacht's crew can't see us from down below, either."

  She held his gaze.

  "As for me," she added huskily, "well, I am your wife, you know."

  "I know," he said softly.

  She let go of his arm. In one smooth movement, she slipped the djellaba up over her head and let it drop. She shook out her hair.

  He caught his breath. She was naked underneath. Her strawberry nipples jutted forth from her strong, perfect breasts and her pubis was a curly marmalade-colored triangle.

  "Well? Darling, will you get undressed? Or must I do it for you?"

  Still holding her gaze, he shrugged himself out of his collarless shirt. Then he began to undo the drawstrings of his silk trousers.

  She said, "Oh, good," and strode out into the dazzling sun, heading straight to the poolside.

  He watched her lift her arms and launch herself into midair, then arc and jackknife so neatly into the water that she barely disturbed its surface.

  Karl-Heinz could only shake his head in wonder. How is it that everything she does is pure perfection? Surely she must have some flaws?

  She surfaced at the far end, beneath the big marble statue of Neptune, and sleeked back her hair and waved. "Darling, what are you waiting for?" she called. "Do join me! It's super!"

  Stepping out of his trousers and briefs, he walked to the pool and dove in neatly, swimming underwater with quick even strokes. He burst up beside her, shaking his head and spraying a shower of droplets in all directions.

  "Well? Isn't it terrif?"

  All around them the water sparkled, as though sunlight was reflecting off liquid chrome.

  "Oh, it's not bad," he allowed.

  "Not bad?" She karate-chopped a sheet of water at him. "What do you mean, not bad?"

  He drew his lips across his teeth and grinned. Chopped water right back at her.

  She squealed. Gulped a deep breath and quickly submerged.

  He swam around in place, looking for her, thinking: Where is she? What's she up to—

  Without warning, she shot up behind him and dunked him under.

  A burst of air surfaced, bubbling furiously. Then he came up,
spouting a mouthful of water.

  He glared at her. "That wasn't nice!"

  "So?" She laughed with delight.

  Her playfulness was difficult to resist, and he lunged at her.

  Pretending terror, she shrieked and swam hell-bent for the other end. He gave pursuit, but they were evenly matched and she managed to stay just out of reach.

  "Aha! You're scared!" he taunted.

  Her laughter rippled above the thrashing of water. "Oh, really? And what of?"

  "Me."

  "You! And why is that?"

  His eyes glinted. "Because you know what will happen if I catch you!"

  "What?" she challenged.

  He couldn't tell if she'd purposely slowed or not, but he caught her by one ankle, held on, and pulled her to him.

  "This," he said.

  And gathering her in his arms, he covered her lips with his and plundered their sweet warmth. Her breasts were flattened against his chest; his phallus was erect.

  Zandra felt a quickening inside her. She twined her legs around his and trapped his straining manhood against her belly. In this embrace they submerged, swirling down into the aqueous blue, their mouths locked as their tongues flicked and probed, explored and feasted.

  Despite the pressure of the water she could feel the rapid thuds of his heartbeat, and the scalding fires of his needs reached out and suffused her in a radiant glow.

  With her entire soul she returned his passion, gripping him as fiercely as he gripped her. Weightlessly they tumbled, somersaulting in slow motion, her hair fanning out and waving like a mermaid's.

  All around, squirming reflections of sunlight flashed like rippling quicksilver, turning the pool into an underwater ballroom.

  One of his hands moved to the back of her head, keeping her face pressed against his. With the other he cupped a breast, gently brushing her nipple with circular movements of his thumb.

  Her breast tingled like a point of fire, and she moaned into his mouth.

  Slowly his fingertips drifted lower, lower, inexorably lower, tracing the concave indentation of her belly, caressing the rise of her mound, exploring the tender intimacy between her thighs.