Killer Cocktail
Page 28
“Announcements?” The wedding bells were ringing so loudly in Tricia’s head I could almost hear them in mine. Tricia is an event planner and derives immense satisfaction, as well as a nice living, from bringing order to other people’s lives. The fact that she has known me for so many years and has yet to impose any order on mine both inspires and frustrates her. Because she’s a petite, porcelain-skinned brunette, people make the mistake of assuming that Tricia is delicate and, therefore, meek. She’s delicate all right—the same way a spider’s web is. It’s also beautiful, deceptively strong, and surprisingly tenacious.
“Slow down, cowgirl. He’s moving some stuff in this weekend, that’s all. No significant exchange of jewelry, no contracts of any sort, just … stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?” Cassady pressed. “You’re well past the toothbrush and one change of clothes point, right?”
“Not up to me.”
Cassady and Tricia turned to each other, delighted by this tidbit. “You know what that means,” Cassady said to Tricia for my benefit.
“It was his idea,” Tricia nodded.
“Why don’t I go back to work and let you two carry on at your own pace?”
Tricia beamed. “We need to have a party.”
“Great,” I said. “Your place? Kyle and I will try to stop by.”
“I meant your place,” Tricia said.
“Oh, no, no party. This isn’t an official declaration of any kind. Just a little step in the right direction.”
“So, is he going to be there every night?” Cassady asked, pulling me back to where I’d been standing at the counter. I made a half-hearted attempt at resisting, in part because I really did need to get back to the office and in part because I was nervous they were going to ask me questions I didn’t have answers for.
“He’s not living there. He’s moving some things in, in preparation for possibly living there at some point, but is not currently taking up primary residence.”
“I thought I was the lawyer.”
“You’ve taught me well, Obi Wan.”
Cassady purchased a stunning pair of Sarah Macfadden earrings, delicate interlocking hoops of hammered silver. I didn’t mean to downplay the importance or the excitement of Kyle and me inching toward a more permanent relationship, but the fact of the matter was, I was nervous. I’d never lived with a man before; most of my relationships had imploded well before keys were even swapped. And I’d never been so crazy about a guy that he could make me come unglued just by walking in the door the way Kyle did. It was terrifying.
Giving my arm a squeeze, Tricia murmured, “I’m so happy for you.”
“How long do you suppose it’ll take me to mess it up?”
“Stop it,” she said briskly, miming tossing salt over her left shoulder to ward off the Devil.
Cassady tucked her new purchase in her bag and steered us toward the door. “Much as I’d like to stay and teach Miss Molly to have a little faith in herself, now I am the one who has to get back. If I’m actually attending this Concerned Geeks Saving the World thing, I’ve got motions to file before I go, and motions to file before I go.”
“Somehow, Frost made it sound more attractive,” Tricia said wistfully as we all made our way back onto the street.
Robert Frost could have anything sound more attractive. Save, perhaps, Eileen. She’s one of those women who can stop you in your tracks when you first see her—but once you get to know her, you’ll never slow down in her vicinity again. Early in her tenure, I wondered if it was possible to structure my work hours so I’d only be at the magazine when Eileen wasn’t—say, in the middle of the night. But then the rumors started about her never going home, just sleeping in her coffin in her office, and I figured I had to get used to placing myself in her path on a regular basis. Especially because I’d already seen her dismantle several careers with nicely crafted lies whispered in the Publisher’s ear and I didn’t want to make it any easier on her to get me fired than I had to.
Which is why my heart skipped a beat when Eileen’s office door flew open just as I was walking to my desk. She stepped out with one hand extended portentously, like the Ghost of Christmas Future. A diminutive specter, barely five feet tall minus her Chloe wedges and clothed in an Elie Tahari chiffon shirt and paneled blouse, but scary nonetheless. “Just the person I was looking for,” she said, curling the hand slowly to summon me.
I resisted the temptation to look back over my shoulder, knowing that anyone who had been standing there was quivering under a desk by now. “Lucky me,” I said, wishing it were so.
“We were just talking about you.” Eileen flicked at her spiky black bangs as though the conversation had been exhausting, then gestured vaguely at her office. From where I stood, I couldn’t tell whether it contained other writers, editors, or a death squad. I wasn’t in any hurry to step up and find out.
“What can I do for you, Eileen?”
“We need to talk about the Garth Henderson article.”
I ran through a couple of appropriate responses in my head and chose the most polite one, since half the bullpen had stopped what they were doing to witness this exchange: “Excuse me?” Only two months ago, Garth Henderson had been a self-proclaimed “advertising rock star” known for his bold flair in both his campaigns and his social life. Three weeks ago, Garth Henderson became a corpse, having been murdered in one of the fancier rooms of the Carlyle Hotel. Specifically, he’d been shot once in the crotch and once in the head. In that order, apparently. No arrests had been made, but the police had spent quite a lot of time talking to his ex-wife, Gwen Lincoln, and to Ronnie Willis, whose advertising agency, Willis Worldwide, was poised to merge with Garth’s at the time of the murder. There was tremendous pressure on the police—primarily from Garth’s many influential friends—to make something happen soon and I was glad for Kyle’s sake that he hadn’t caught the case.
Garth Henderson had specialized in blurring the line between provocative and incendiary. His clients often got extra bang for their advertising buck because Garth’s campaigns, with their hefty dose of sexuality, received vociferous attention from the media. So you not only saw his ads in the places he’d paid to run them, but on news programs and in magazines that critiqued them, often finding them salacious and inappropriate. Clients generally found them hugely effective.
The only publicly unhappy client in recent memory had been Jack Douglass, the CEO of Douglass Frozen Foods. To launch Douglass’s new soy ice cream line, Garth and his agency had designed a campaign that featured a buxom young movie actress, best known for appearing on latenight talk shows in a drunken tizzy, apparently about to perform oral sex on a soy fudgsicle. The television commercial had shown her stripping the wrapper off the fudgsicle with mounting excitement, then slowly raising it to her mouth while she licked her lips. The tagline of the campaign was C’mon, you’ll like it. You know you will.
Sales had soared, particularly among college-aged men, but the critics and pundits had howled mightily. And Mr. Douglass, a neo-con who was reportedly being wooed by heavy hitters to segue into a political career, found himself being excoriated by those very same wooers as the media tempest crescendoed. Even when it died down, Mr. Douglass’s political future was said to be dim at best. But Garth Henderson signed several new clients.
“The Garth Henderson article,” Eileen repeated with that vinegary touch of impatience that makes us all love her so. “I have a new take on it.”
Apparently, the new take including actually doing it. When the news of Henderson’s death broke, all the murmurs of Gwen Lincoln’s name intrigued me. That only sharpened when the police investigation seemed to stall. I’d pitched the idea of an article on the couple—and the murder—to Eileen but she’d shot it down, dismissing Garth’s death as “when good divorces go bad.” So why this change of heart?
As I pondered that question and whether I dared ask it, a tall, angular man with marvelous cheekbones and a wild and thick head of sandy blond ha
ir stepped out of her office. I placed the hair before I placed the face; it was Emile Trebask, the ascendant design demigod. You can find his reflection in some surface in all his print ads, smiling approvingly as dazed teenagers who have partially pulled on the clothes he designs grope each other for the camera. It’s become a game to find Emile when each new ad comes out—sort of like finding the Ninas in Hirschfield’s drawings. Or perhaps more accurately, the fashionista’s version of Where’s Waldo?
I was surprised to see him walking out of Eileen’s office. We go to people like him, they don’t come to us. Eileen smirked at my reaction, thinking I was impressed. “Molly, you know Emile, don’t you?”
Of course I didn’t. I’d slapped down plenty of cash over the past few years to buy his clothes, but I’d never met him. I’d have to do some serious social climbing to even approach his strata. Eileen knew that and, I suspect, was enjoying the fact. “Haven’t had the pleasure. Mr. Trebask,” I said, offering my hand.
He shook it gently, as though one of us might break. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me he was worried about. “Ms. Forrester, I’m so glad you’re going to be talking to Gwen,” he said with his famous clipped accent; it was much debated in the fashion press whether it was Swiss or Affected.
Proudly, I did not gasp. Not only was there suddenly an article on the Garth Henderson murder, but I was doing an interview with the prime suspect? What did Emile Trebask have to do with it? More to the point, what did Eileen get out of it? I smiled and said, “Thank you, Mr. Trebask,” while I tried to find the connection between all these interesting questions.
“I thought the world of Garth, a terrific talent, but to try to lay it at Gwen’s feet. It’s absurd. Gwen could not step on an ant, much less blow off someone’s balls.”
At first, the last word sounded somewhere between “bowels” and “bells,” so I thought he was trying to be discreet. When I realized he was being anything but, I bit the inside of my lip to maintain a professional demeanor and nodded. Mr. Trebask took that as encouragement to grow even more animated. “It’s very important people understand exactly what’s going on here.” Since I myself was a little confused on that point, I nodded again. “Gwen’s being made the scapegoat and that is not right. If we let people know the truth, then the police will have to look a little harder, won’t they, and allow people to get on with their business. And their lives.”
I refrained from nodding yet again while my memory frantically Googled itself for some connection between Gwen Lincoln and Emile Trebask. Then Trebask pressed a small glass vial into my hand and I remembered.
“Success,” he murmured.
Lifting the vial to my nose, I sniffed gently and smelled cedar and honeysuckle, undercut with something smoky and musky. The sweet smell of success indeed.
“It’s lovely,” I said. Success was going to be the first perfume in the new Trebask Fragrance line and Gwen Lincoln was Trebask’s partner in the venture. She’d been an executive at several cosmetics firms, but equally important, her first husband had died young and left her incredibly wealthy. There’d been a fair amount of talk after Garth was killed that he’d found some weak spots in their pre-nup and was going to wring her out in divorce court. She’d dodged a bullet and he hadn’t. Twice, actually. Or so that rumor had gone.
So had Emile come to Eileen looking for an article to prop up his business partner during a crucial time? It was a noble gesture on his part, but I couldn’t figure out what Eileen was getting out of it, which was always the pivotal part of any equation involving her.
Trebask lightly touched my hand again and for a moment, I thought he was going to take his perfume sample back. “Your piece on the murder of Lisbet McCandless was very powerful. I’m sure you’ll do just as well here.”
“Thank you,” I said, still improvising.
“And you.” Trebask turned back to Eileen. Her reptilian smile grew, consuming even more of her tiny face than I’d thought possible. “You will be an amazing addition to my celebrity model line-up at the Gala.”
“Emile, I’m so honored.”
The pieces slid into place with slimy ease. Horse-trading was alive and well at Zeitgeist. Trebask was looking for help in swaying public, if not police, opinion and Eileen had bartered an article in the magazine for an ego turn in one of Trebask’s fashion shows. Since he’d said “Gala,” it was probably the show he was putting on to launch the perfume while raising funds for the Fashion Industry Mentor Project, which encouraged at-risk youth to consider careers in fashion through internships and mentorships. I’d donated money to them before and suddenly felt very protective of the organization, imagining teeny meanie Eileen prancing down the catwalk and pretending to be a model at their expense.
But I couldn’t dwell on it that now, because I was grappling with the most thrilling part of this strange symbiotic seduction: I came out of it with a feature article assignment.
KILLER COCKTAIL
Copyright © 2005 by Sheryl J. Anderson and Mark Edward Parrott. Excerpt from Killer Deal © 2006 by Sheryl J. Anderson and Mark Edward Parrott.
All rights reserved. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York. NY 10010.
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
eISBN 9781429993166
First eBook Edition : March 2011
EAN: 9780312-99255-2
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004066448
St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition / August 2005
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / May 2006