Never Too Rich

by Judith Gould

  But the Satan’s Warriors would never dream of scouring the city’s private clinics. Especially not the plastic-surgery palaces on the Upper East Side.

  But first, they would have to change cabs. Surely the bikers had taken note of the taxi’s number—and the driver would be easy to find. She didn’t doubt for a moment that those cavemen would get him to talk.

  “St. Vincent’s,” she said again, thinking: We’ll get another cab there.

  Chapter 19

  “Good evening, Miss Robinson.” Banstead, the white-gloved butler, gave a slight bow.

  Edwina smiled. “Good evening, Banstead.”

  The butler inclined his head in R. L. Shacklebury’s direction. “Good evening, sir.”

  “Hi,” R.L. returned informally. As he looked around, his lips formed a silent whistle. He was no stranger to money himself, but his Bostonian family and their vast cousinage had eschewed blatant signs of wealth, preferring to live discreet Yankee lives. The foreign-born de Riscals, on the other hand, obviously subscribed to an entirely different philosophy. Everywhere he looked, opulence shimmered, glowed, shone, sparkled, refracted, and glinted. Everything shouted money, money, money.

  Money showed in the circular foyer, with its domed ceiling and the two facing giltwood consoles on which massive floral arrangements exploded from Chinese vases. It showed in the lighting: all electric light was banished, and wall sconces dripping crystals glowed with slim beeswax tapers, while overhead the icy chandelier bristled with a two-tiered forest of flames. Potpourri and beeswax and perfume wafted delicately in the air. From somewhere down the long, checkered marble hall, a Saint-Saens melody being performed on an antique Bechstein grand piano was almost drowned out by the buzzing of many conversations. Musical ripples of bright clear laughter rose and fell.

  Money was in the air. R.L. could breathe it, smell it, and hear it . . . and soon, no doubt, he thought with a wry smile, he would taste it as well.

  After a uniformed maid had relieved them of their coats, Edwina headed to the nearest mirror and checked out her off-the-rack silk de Riscal. It had a chartreuse bodice, slim emerald-green skirt flaring into ruffles above the knee, and a shocking-pink cummerbund. Her frizzy Botticelli hair was parted in the center and fluffed like two sunset-tinted clouds to either side of her face. Her makeup was savage perfection. Brushed-gold quarter-moon earrings dotted with diamond-chip stars dangled from her ears.

  Touching R.L. on the arm, Edwina said, “This way,” and started confidently down the marble hall.

  “Where did they find that butler?” R.L. asked softly, looking back over his shoulder. “Central casting?”

  “Buckingham Palace,” Edwina whispered.

  “For real?”

  She gave him a steady look. “For real.”

  “Edwina! Darling!”

  Before they reached the drawing room, Anouk bore down on them in a cloud of jasmine like a splendid couture-clad witch. Her arms were extended in welcome and her wrists dangled delicately.

  Edwina held out her cheek for an air kiss and returned it in kind.

  “You look mahvelous!” Anouk cooed, stepping back. Her topaz eyes inspected Edwina from head to toe. “I have always maintained that on you, Antonio’s off-the-rack looks almost like couture!”

  Edwina forced a friendly smile; she wasn’t about to dignify the backhanded compliment with clever repartee. “And you, Anouk, look stunning. As always.”

  “You mean this?” Anouk gestured at herself and gave a deprecating shrug. “It’s just a little nothing Antonio whipped up for me, that’s all. Hardly worth a mention, really.”

  Anouk could be a master of understatement.

  Possessed of an uncannily psychic talent to predict who would wear what, Anouk had figured—accurately, how else?—that all the women would be wearing up-to-the-minute fashions—in effect, all colors of the rainbow, and then some. So she, of course, had opted to wear all black. A floor-length plain black velvet sheath that came up to her armpits, leaving her narrow, elegant shoulders bare. Of course, it wasn’t too plain: a gargantuan black silk bow flared from her back like silken wings, and she trailed a black silk train. She wore no rings or bracelets, but the Bulgari sapphires on her ears and around her thin throat could have financed a minor revolution.

  Anouk’s widening eyes swept R. L. Shacklebury up and down. She really must give credit where it was due. Edwina, the simple little student, had managed to marry one of the finest and most appealing plastic surgeons in the world—and now she appeared with this simply gorgeous hunk of a man. How did she do it? “And who, may I ask, is this mahvelous man?” she demanded, glancing questioningly at Edwina. “And why have I not seen him before?”

  Edwina made the necessary introductions, and R.L. took Anouk’s proffered hand, mockingly kissing her fingers.

  Anouk’s perfectly plucked eyebrows lifted in amusement. “My, my. How gallant!” Then a faraway look came into her eyes. “Shacklebury . . .

  Shacklebury ...” She tapped her lips with a fingertip and looked thoughtful; then suddenly her brilliantly mascaraed lashes widened. “Don’t tell me! One of the Boston department-store Shackleburys from Shacklebury-Prince? Your father died several years ago, I recall now.”

  “Guilty,” R.L. said with a sheepish smile.

  At this admission, Anouk’s manner grew positively warm. “Darling,” she purred, “and to think that not one of your twenty-three department stores carries Antonio de Riscal!” She wagged an admonishing finger at him. “Shame on you! We shall have to remedy that, won’t we?”

  He looked surprised. “How do you know that we have twenty-three stores and don’t sell de Riscal?”

  “I know.” Anouk smiled, but without boastfulness; she was simply stating a fact. “I know every emporium and boutique around the world worth knowing—those that carry Antonio de Riscal, and those that do not.”

  R.L. looked at her with growing respect. Instinct told him that beneath the expertly applied makeup and expensive gown and jewels, Anouk de Riscal was a cunning and clever garment-industry version of a stage mother—or was it a stage wife? At any rate, a formidable power behind the throne.

  Stung at having been relegated to the sidelines by Anouk, Edwina was beginning to feel the stirrings of potent anger. She didn’t like being made to feel like excess baggage, and she hated surprises! Why didn’t R.L. tell me he owns the stores now? she wondered. Why do I have to learn it secondhand from this conversation with Anouk?

  Holding her breath, she fought to retain her composure. Rationally, she knew she had no right to be upset. R.L. didn’t owe her any explanations. Besides, he never had been one to boast. Even years ago, when they’d had their affair, she had found out about his father, the department-store tycoon, quite by accident. In fact, R.L. had been almost ashamed of his family’s vast wealth.

  “Unfortunately,” Anouk was saying, “we can’t possibly let your San Francisco and Chicago stores represent Antonio de Riscal. I. Magnin has exclusive franchise agreements there. But you have other stores in other cities . . .”

  Edwina, holding a smile that made her lips ache, listened with only one ear. If she was fair—and she always tried to be—R.L. really hadn’t had the opportunity to tell her he now headed Shacklebury-Prince. Still, she couldn’t help but feel slighted.

  “Well, enough of that,” Anouk said brightly. “We can talk business some other time. Come along, darlings.” She slid a slim arm through R.L.’s as though fearful of his escaping. Thoroughly in charge, she led the way down the remainder of the long hall to the drawing room. Edwina, feeling abandoned, followed in their wake. R.L. kept turning around to shoot her helpless looks, but Anouk, having seized him in her clutches, wasn’t about to let go of him yet.

  The de Riscal drawing room was at least the size of most single-story dwellings, and Edwina suspected it had been designed but for a single purpose—to unnerve. As always when she visited here, she felt reduced to Lilliputian size, like a tiny ballerina captured ins
ide a blazing red jewel box. Rich red silk velvet walls surrounded her, and miles of red silk brocade trimmed with fringe swagged the windows, held in place by tasseled red silk ropes as thick as hawsers. On pink marble plinths, busts of Roman emperors stared mutely out at the clusters of guests from the row of narrow windows. Sitting and standing in little groups, champagne glasses in hand, guests dotted the Turkey carpets like precious living jewels. The candles glowed. The conversations glowed. The fires in the twin fireplaces and the guests all around glowed. At either end of the room, one of a pair of enormous pier mirrors, placed strategically opposite each other, stretched the elegant scene into infinity. It might not have looked like home, but it was where Anouk’s heart was.

  Edwina didn’t need to look around to see who the guests were: the usual, predictable ionosphereans. For the most part, the men ranged from the slim to the obese, but they were all middle-aged or older and shared the kind of self-confidence only nine-and ten-figure fortunes can bestow. The women, on the other hand, were of two distinct varieties. There were the Pretty Young Things, or PYT’s, as W, the fashion paper, slyly called them, and then there were the Dinosaurs—those ageless, almost hunger-ravaged lizards who starved themselves to within an inch of death in order to live lives as walking, breathing clothes hangers for the world’s most expensively tailored clothes. Like exotically plumed tropical birds, they cried out in silvery voices and flitted from group to group, perching on the arms of furniture or spreading their wings to dangle multicarat bracelets.

  Anouk, arm still hooked though R.L.’s, turned her head and smiled at Edwina. “Darling, I hope you don’t mind, but there are tons of people I’m sure R.L. hasn’t met, and I simply must introduce him!” She blew a kiss at Edwina with her free hand. “Circulate!” she admonished in a stage whisper. “And don’t worry. I won’t appropriate him for too long!” Her laughter tinkled up the scale.

  The bitch! Edwina was burning with outrage. How dare Anouk abscond with R.L. like that? But she smiled her aching bright smile and wrathfully plucked a glass of champagne off a passing footman’s tray. She drank half of it in a single gulp. Through slitted eyes she watched as Anouk swept regally from group to group of beautiful people, R.L. in diplomatic, if reluctant, tow.

  “Oh . . . Edwina.”

  Momentarily startled, she glanced to her right and blinked. Klas Claussen looked down his beautifully sculptured nose at her, smirking with cool disdain as he floated past on his way to the powder room, where, no doubt, he intended to inhale a snort or two of nose candy. “Anouk sometimes has the most irritating habit of inviting just anybody,” he sniffed. “Doesn’t she?”

  Edwina wished she had a cattle prod in hand. Gritting her teeth in a semblance of a smile, she lifted her glass in a toast and downed the rest of her champagne.

  Some party, she thought miserably.

  And wondered: who is the bigger bitch? Anouk or Klas?

  Chapter 20

  Swallowed by an obese leather chair in one of the Cooper Clinic’s small private waiting rooms, Olympia Arpel thought that she, too, was going to need treatment if Duncan Cooper didn’t finish examining Shirley soon; she was ready to climb the exquisitely paneled walls.

  The instant he entered the waiting room, she jumped to her feet, her eyes searching his face for a verdict.

  Duncan Cooper, one of New York’s preeminent plastic surgeons, was no great beauty himself. Nor was he a fashion plate. He was that rarest of Homo sapiens, a man totally comfortable in his own skin. Unlike his vain clientele, he was completely satisfied with his looks and saw no need to improve upon nature.

  Duncan Cooper was forty-four years old. His head was capped with a halo of wiry, unmanageable yellow-gray curls and his skin still showed signs of the ravages of teenage acne. He had dark, liquid brown eyes that gave him a vaguely sad, bloodhoundish look. A nose that was a tad too long and too thick. Hands that were delicate and almost femininely beautiful, with tapered short-nailed fingers. They were the hands of a skilled artist whose medium was scalpels and skin instead of paints and brushes.

  Neither thin nor heavily muscled, he had a body that was comfortingly ordinary, but his disarmingly crooked grin, when he smiled, was one of such generous, arousing brilliance that it elicited sighs and shivers from women of all ages. He was also one of the few plastic surgeons whose work did not include built-in obsolescence, and whose lifts and treatments never deteriorated after a few short years, in order to ensure a steady procession of repeat customers.

  “How is she?” were the first words out of Olympia’s mouth. She gripped Cooper too firmly by the arm.

  Wordlessly he reached into a pocket and took out a little vial. He shook two tiny yellow pills out into his hand and held them out to her.

  She looked down at his hand and then up at him. “What are those?”

  “Five-milligram Valiums,” he said gently. “I think you could use them.”

  “No! I don’t need them!” Olympia shook her head almost vehemently but relaxed her grip on his arm. Then her narrow shoulders heaved in a sigh. “Really. I don’t need sedatives, Duncan.”

  His voice was still gentle, but firm. “I say you do.” He waited until she accepted the pills. Then, turning to the sideboard, he poured a splash of Evian into a tumbler and handed it to her.

  She accepted it almost meekly, popped the pills into her mouth, and tossed her head back. Then she lifted the glass to her lips, sipped, and swallowed. She handed the tumbler back to him.

  “That’s better,” he said with a smile.

  “Is that Duncan the doctor speaking? Or Duncan the friend?”

  “I think you know the answer to that one, Olympia,” he said patiently.

  “I’m sorry, Duncan.” Wearily she rubbed her face with her hands. “I’ve had one helluva day.” She gave him an apologetic half-smile. “Maybe I did need those sedatives, after all.”

  Duncan gave her the full force of his soulfully gentle eyes and magnetic smile. Calmly he waved her back down into the leather chair and pushed another one over to face hers.

  For a moment they just sat there—he looking at her carefully, sizing up her strengths and resources and wondering how to lay it all on her. He felt suddenly saddened. Some things never changed in the medical profession.

  How ill-prepared one is to hear the truth.

  How ill-prepared one is to tell it.

  “I won’t try to minimize your friend’s condition,” he said at last in low, measured tones. “Billie has suffered multiple fractures. Her nose is broken in four places, and she has six fractured ribs. The contusions and bruising will last for weeks.”

  Olympia slumped back and folded her arms protectively around herself. “Oh, God,” she whispered. Then she steadied herself and pulled herself together. “Tell me the worst of it,” she ordered with a steely intensity as she sat forward again. A piercing look burned from her eyes. “And don’t try to bullshit me, Duncan. We go too far back. No matter what you may think, I’m a tough old bird.”

  “That’s an understatement,” he said. But he didn’t smile.

  “And I want to hear it all in plain English, Duncan. None of that medical mumbo jumbo. All right?”

  “Fair enough.” He nodded, appreciating the way she wanted to face the facts. “Now, you realize, of course, that it will be necessary for Billie to undergo a series of complicated surgical procedures—”

  “From what they did to her face, I figured that much.” She nodded and lit another cigarette. “Go on.”

  “Well, for now that surgery will have to wait.”

  She looked surprised. “But why? Can’t you start immediately?”

  He shook his head. “No way, Olympia. She has suffered much too much trauma. In a day, two perhaps, maybe the operations can begin. Her body can take only so much punishment at a time.”

  Trying to fortify herself for the question she dreaded most, Olympia looked down at her ancient hands. She felt fear knot in her stomach. The cigarette between her fingers q
uivered. “Are . . . are you going to be able to fix her, Duncan?” she asked softly. She tore her eyes away from her liver-spotted hands and met his gaze directly. “Will she look as good as new?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank God!” Her voice was a fervent whisper.

  “Don’t thank him too soon,” Duncan warned.

  She gave a start, and a length of ash dropped from her cigarette. “Duncan!” She stubbed out the cigarette without taking her eyes off him. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  He looked at her gently, knowing her nerves of steel were becoming increasingly tensile. Her face was white and strained, and she was nearing the end of her emotional reserves. He sighed softly, deciding to give her the good news first. “Physically—that is, as far as Billie’s face goes—there’s been no damage that can’t be repaired. Thankfully, none of her fractured ribs punctured her lungs. With surgery, she should look as good as new within a few weeks. There won’t even be any scars.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I said she’ll ‘look’ as good as new. The cosmetic part of her wounds I can take care of. But Billie’s wounds go much deeper than that, Olympia. Much deeper.” He paused. “And I’m not talking in psychological terms, either, although there are those to consider too. I’m talking about her uterus.”

  Olympia’s throat went suddenly dry.

  “It’s been torn to shreds,” he added softly.

  Olympia could only sit there in shock.

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” she said finally in a raw whisper. What kind of animals had she rescued her from, anyway? “What . . . what did they do to her?”

  “I wish to hell I knew,” he said angrily. “Whoever they are, they either rammed objects up her, or there were a hell of a lot of them.” He paused grimly. “I’m no gynecologist, but I don’t have to be one to know how bad her condition is. Even with major uterine surgery, I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess as to whether or not she’ll ever bear a child.” He touched Olympia on the arm. “I did what I could for her, Olympia. Now, take my advice. Take her to an emergency room.”