Never Too Rich

by Judith Gould

  “Yes sugar, that I do.”

  “Well, she’s serious about designing clothes. I found that out. You know that little bedroom next to mine? The one that shares my terrace?”

  “My old study.”

  “Yeah.” Hallelujah nodded. “Well, for weeks now, Ma’s been locking herself in there for hours every day. Nobody else is allowed in. I mean nobody, not even Ruby to clean. When I tried to peek through the keyhole, I couldn’t see a thing. So I used a piece of plastic to kind of jimmy the lock?” She waited for him to nod. “Well, Ma caught me at it and nearly attacked me! She starts screaming things like ‘Sneak! Wretch! Brigand! Klepto! Larcenist!’ So I say calmly, ‘I was just curious about what you’re doing in there, Ma. Why don’t you just tell me, an’ then I won’t have to sneak around.’ An’ that’s when she really hit the roof! She even threatened to go out and buy me a black leotard and a ski mask! Like I wanna become a cat burglar or something. Does that sound like Ma?”

  “No, it certainly doesn’t.” Duncan Cooper was starting to look genuinely worried himself. “Well? Did you ever get into the room?”

  “Uh-huh.” Hallelujah grinned and plucked another fry off her plate. “See, Ma locked the door from the hall and drew the curtain over the window so I couldn’t see in from the terrace. But I guess she still doesn’t realize the window lock’s not too secure in that room, and you only have to push hard from the outside to open it. So I climbed in from the terrace.” Her eyes were wide. “An’ guess what I found.”

  She leaned across the table and her voice became an awed whisper. “Hundreds, and I mean hundreds, maybe even thousands of fashion sketches. I thought I would die. I mean, Ma’s been locking herself in there designing clothes! Clothes, Daddy!”

  “Well, it is a lot cheaper to draw them than to shop for them,” he observed dryly.

  “Yeah, but don’t you see? She’s been working! It’s like after R.L. offered to set her up in her own company, an’ she refused his help, it like triggered something. She’s been designing up a storm. She wants that business, Daddy. She won’t talk about it, but she wants it bad.”

  “Are her designs any good?”

  Hallelujah rolled her eyes expressively. “How should I know? Do I wear geek stuff like what most of the stores sell? I’d die.”

  “So what do you suggest we do?”

  “You can’t be this dense!” Hallelujah said with exasperation. “What we gotta do is find somebody else besides R.L. to put up the money for her company, that’s what!” She looked at her father, her tawny eyes shining,

  “No. No way. Not me, sugar. Don’t look at me like that!”

  “Not you, Daddy. Ma would never take your money, just like she wouldn’t take R.L.’s. It’s a matter of principle with her, see?”

  “So there is a God.” His voice was weak with relief.

  “We’ve got to like come up with an outside investor. Somebody Ma doesn’t know personally. Y’know anybody?”

  “Hmmmm. There is an investor I fence with. His name’s Leo Flood, and he specializes in small-to mid-size growth companies ...”

  “Daddy! You’re totally brilliant! Let’s go for it!” She grabbed her plate, pulled it into position, and started scoffing food. “I really really love you!”

  “Not so fast, sugar. First things first. Let’s see . . . First we have to get our hands on some of those designs.”

  “Consider it done,” she promised, and grinned.

  “The window again?”

  She shrugged. “It worked once, didn’t it? I’ll just sneak in an’ grab a few sketches and sneak back out with ‘em.” She waved a french fry negligibly. “Ma’ll never even know.”

  “Sugar! I can’t believe it!” Duncan reached across the table and grabbed Hallelujah’s hands joyfully. “You’re wonderful, did you know that?”

  “Oh, jeez!” She snatched her hands away. “Now you’re flippin’ out on me too.”

  “No, I’m not,” he assured her happily. “I’ve never been healthier or happier in my entire life. Who would have guessed that under all that Road Warrior getup of yours, there’s a functioning brain working overtime! Care to join Mensa?”

  “Fun-ny. Well? Are you gonna help or do I have to run away?”

  “That’s blackmail,” he said weakly.

  “So? I’m a desperate woman, Daddy.” Hallelujah cocked her head and gave him her best daddy’s-little-girl look. Even with her punk clothes and fierce makeup, her eyes had the desired effect. She could practically see his heart melt. “Well?” she demanded.

  He sighed. “It’s a fine mess you got us into this time, Ollie. But I’ll help, sugar, I’ll help.”

  Chapter 29

  Rhoda Brackman, manager of the local branch of the National Women’s Bank of North America, was spare, thirty-something, and had “career” written all over her.

  It showed in her manner, which was brisk. Her bearing, which was businesslike. And her clothes, which consisted of a conservatively cut charcoal pin-striped suit, high-collared white silk blouse, and low-heeled gray pumps.

  She carried her professionalism to the extreme. Wore a minimum of makeup. Had clear-lacquered nails and eschewed jewelry of any sort. Her only concession to self-expression seemed to be her brown hair. It was chin-length and straight, with razor-sharp bangs slicing across her forehead, a cut Louise Brooks had made famous on-screen more than half a century earlier, and a fact that Rhoda Brackman, who had no use for frivolous entertainment, was totally unaware of.

  But unlike Louise Brooks, she never smiled.

  Rhoda Brackman took herself and the bank she worked for with the utmost seriousness. And a minimum of humanity.

  “Hi hi!” Edwina sang brightly as she breezed to the desk on which a white-lettered black sign, much larger than the identical one pinned to Rhoda Brackman’s chest, proclaimed MS. BRACKMAN. Edwina slid into the client’s chair beside it and crossed her legs. “Isn’t it a glorious day out!”

  Ms. Brackman merely grunted. She wasn’t one to suffer interruptions gladly or to engage in idle small talk. She eyed Edwina severely, her lips turning down at the corners and expressing yet more disapproval as her gaze appraised her visitor’s costly clothes from collar to foot.

  Edwina looked as if she’d jumped straight from the pages of Vogue. Her luminous makeup glowed; her Copper Glaze lips glistened. She was wearing a yellow dalmatian-print silk blouse, a black wrap-around skirt over gold stretch trousers, and a red crushed-velvet shawl with long pink and yellow fringe by Paloma Picasso, which she had flung casually over one shoulder. Her feet were shod in black high heels trimmed in gold leather.

  Edwina was well aware that it wasn’t exactly a banking outfit. So what? She’d worn her most conservative suits to all the other banks where she’d applied for business loans during the past several months, and where had that gotten her? Nowhere, that’s where.

  Because to her dismay she’d discovered that her friendly Anchor Banker didn’t understand . . . found out that the chemistry wasn’t right at Chemical. . . learned that no matter what the ads promoted, she did not—repeat not—have a friend at Chase.

  So, having struck out at all the other lending institutions, she’d finally decided: Maybe the fashion-conscious real me stands a better chance. With that attitude, and reasoning that if anyone should be sympathetic to the trials and tribulations of a woman starting her own business, surely it would be a women’s bank.

  Now, faced with the reality of Ms. Brackman’s joyless visage, Edwina was beginning to feel more than a little apprehensive.

  “It’ll be a few minutes,” Ms. Brackman said with a glower. “I’ve got this paperwork to finish first.”

  Edwina forced her blazing smile to remain in place. “Take your time,” she offered with a flourish. “I’m in absolutely no hurry.”

  They were words she regretted as the few minutes stretched into nearly half an hour. Finally Ms. Brackman gathered up the papers, took her time making a neat stack, and then folded her
hands. “Now, then,” she said crisply. “You wanted to see me?”

  Why the hell do you think I’m sitting here? Edwina didn’t say it. Throttling the woman—even verbally—wouldn’t accomplish anything.

  “I applied for a business loan,” Edwina reminded her matter-of-factly. “Last week.” Her face was beginning to hurt from so much high-voltage smiling. “The name’s Edwina G. Robinson.”

  Without replying, Ms. Brackman reached down, slid open the lower drawer of her desk, pulled Edwina’s thin file, and slammed the drawer shut. She flipped through the pages, her brow furrowing, then tossed it across her desk. “It’s been denied,” she said curtly, turning away.

  With those three words, Edwina’s last flicker of hope died. Keeping her face impassive, she wondered: Where do I have to go for financing? A loan shark?

  Her voice level, she asked, “Could you tell me why it’s been turned down?”

  Rhoda Brackman turned back to her with a tired sigh. Clearly she viewed this interview as a total waste of her valuable time. “Loans are approved and denied by our loan board, just like at any other bank. Now, if you’ll be so kind as to let me get back to—”

  “I’m not done,” Edwina said, her chin rising stubbornly. “I would like some specifics. I need to know the reasons why I’ve been refused the loan.”

  “Ms. Robinson, in case you don’t realize it, you’re jobless. In other words, without an income.”

  Edwina forced herself to remain civil. “The reason I’ve applied for the loan in the first place is to start a business. One that would give me an income.”

  “That’s neither here nor there. Obviously you haven’t sufficiently proved to us that you’ll be able to repay a loan of this magnitude. That being the case, this bank, like any other, would require substantial equity.”

  “But what about my co-op? Surely it’s equity! It’s worth at least a million-two!”

  Ms. Brackman wasn’t impressed. If anything, her attitude grew even colder. “Be that as it may, according to your application, you still have seventeen years of a thirty-year mortgage to pay off.”

  Is this a no-win situation? Edwina wondered. Is my company doomed to failure before it’s even launched? She said, “In that case, Ms. Brackman, perhaps you could be so kind as to give me some advice. If you were in my shoes and wished to obtain a business loan of the amount I need, how would you go about it?”

  Ms. Brackman managed a smug smile. “But I’m not in your shoes, am I?”

  The bitch! Edwina could only stare at her in shock. Well, one thing was for certain: no advice or help would be forthcoming from this bank, and especially not from Ms. Brackman.

  With that knowledge, Edwina rose stiffly from her chair. “Thank you for your help,” she said with a cool dignity she could only marvel at. “It was most generous of you to take the time.” Then, turning on her heel, Edwina walked calmly out of the National Women’s Bank of North America, daring herself to cry.

  Chapter 30

  Apartment 35G reeked. The stench of decay was so strong it had drifted out through the closed door and into the carpeted public corridor. You could smell it the moment you got off the elevator.

  “Jesus!” Fred Koscina recoiled, grabbing a rumpled handkerchief out of a pocket and pressing it over his nose and mouth.

  “That’s how we learned about it,” a young uniformed officer told him. “A neighbor kept complaining to the super about the smell. When he didn’t do anything after a few days, she finally called 911. The windows are open and the place is airing out now.”

  Koscina turned to Carmen Toledo. “This ain’t going to be pleasant. Wanna stay out here, Carm?”

  “Sure, boss. But what kind of cop would that make me?” She held a handkerchief pressed against her mouth and nose too. “Let’s get it over with.”

  They went into the apartment.

  It was a large L-shaped studio on the thirty-fifth floor of the recently built high-rise. Not long ago Koscina had come across ads for the building in the New York Times Magazine. The ads had called it “luxury you’ll die for.” Well, they had been right, he thought. Someone had.

  Inside, the narrow hall led past a closet-lined dressing alcove and the bathroom. Stopping to peer inside, Koscina was greeted by a wall of pink marble tiles and a narrow one-person whirlpool tub. Panty hose hung from a towel rack where they’d been placed to drip dry. Piles of dirty towels, washcloths, and underwear were shoved into a corner. Open jars of dried-out cosmetics were scattered on the marble vanity. On the toilet tank sat what looked like a lidless industrial-size canister of cold cream. A sea of makeup-smeared Kleenex littered the floor.

  “Someone sure lived like a pig,” Toledo said through her handkerchief. She nodded at the vanity. “Those jars are Princess Marcella Borghese. Know how much they cost, boss? Maybe thirty, forty, fifty bucks. I bought my sister some for Christmas.” She shook her head at such profligate waste.

  In the small galley kitchen the counters were piled high with dirty dishes and mold-furred pots.

  “Jeez, boss! How can anybody make a mess like that when they have a dishwasher?”

  They came to the main room. Already, clusters of homicide detectives were starting to scour for clues. A police photographer’s flashbulb kept popping. The medical examiner had yet to arrive.

  The panoramic sliding glass doors leading out onto a little balcony were open to air out the stench of decay. Piles of dirty clothes lay everywhere—heaped on the pinkish-mauve wall-to-wall, tossed on chairs, thrown into corners. Plastic bags of laundered clothes, straight from the dry cleaner’s, lay torn open, as though ransacked, on the glass-and-chrome dining table. Toledo caught sight of a Bergdorf’s label and exchanged glances with Koscina, but she didn’t have to say anything. Her eyes said enough. She was getting a feel for the occupant. Soon they would both know all the intimate details of the deceased. It never failed to unnerve them. It took death to make strangers come to life.

  Koscina steeled himself. It was time to examine the body.

  He gestured to Toledo, and together they moved into the alcove end of the L-shaped room, where the blood-encrusted body of a female nude lay sprawled sideways across an unfolded white-and-rust patterned sofa-bed.

  The first thing that struck Koscina was the unnatural position of the body. The victim’s legs were stretched out straight, looking practically glued together, and her arms were squeezed flat against her sides—almost like a human torpedo. With an added shock, he realized that the sofa wasn’t rust and white, as he’d first thought. It was snow white. The rust patterns were bloodstains.

  Dried blood. Christ. It was everywhere.

  Beside him, he could hear Carmen Toledo gagging behind her handkerchief, but she fought valiantly to keep her lunch down. He had to hand it to her. Even he, old hand that he was when it came to viewing corpses, felt like throwing up.

  Swallowing the rising bile in his throat, he forced himself to study the victim closely.

  The woman had been dead for days, perhaps a week or longer— her face was purple and almost unrecognizably bloated from the buildup of internal gases. A multitude of deep, brutal gashes punctured her swollen chest and abdomen.

  There wasn’t a hair left on her head, only a sickening mass of dried raw meat.

  She had been completely scalped.

  Koscina’s stomach did another flip-flop, but his mind was screeching.

  It was then that he became aware of the flies, attracted by the sweet scent of blood, buzzing around and alighting on the carrion. When he waved his arms wildly to scare them off, he noticed something even worse. Maggots were crawling in the woman’s eyes and wounds. Fuckin’ maggots!

  Now he had to turn away and shut his eyes against the horror. Stench or no stench, he had to breathe deeply. It didn’t surprise him to find that he was shaking. The only worse things he’d had come face-to-face with in a career of ugly sights were the floaters—those bloated, fish-eaten bodies that surfaced from time to time in the East
and Hudson rivers. And this woman looked like one of those. Only the fish bites were missing.

  His deep breathing had the desired effect; he could feel himself beginning to relax a little. Now he was ready to proceed. He watched the police photographer moving to the back of the sofa-bed to take shots at a different angle.

  None of them was prepared for what happened next. When the flashbulb went off again, a big yowling dark shadow suddenly launched up from behind the sofa-bed and leapt out at Koscina and Toledo.

  They jumped back and cried out.

  The shadow made a neat four-paw landing on the fold-out mattress, just inches from the corpse, curled tail raised tentatively. It looked up and meowed plaintively.

  “It’s only a cat.” Carmen Toledo reached out to pet it. She laughed nervously and shook her head. “For Christ’s sake, for a moment there I almost thought I saw a ghost.”

  “So did I,” Koscina muttered. “Jesus, I nearly jumped outta my skin!”

  The big orange tabby sat down beside the corpse and nonchalantly began to lick its paws with great delicacy.

  Koscina rubbed his eyes wearily. He knew that his thankless job was really starting to get to him by the way he’d reacted—he’d been as spooked as a six-year-old!

  “Who’s in charge here?” he asked the photographer.

  “Ben Susskind.” The cop gestured with his thumb to the sliding glass doors. “He’s out on the balcony, taking a breather.”

  Koscina went out to join him, grateful for a breath of fresh air. This high up, the air was cold and the wind clipped.

  “Whatcha got, Ben?”

  Susskind turned around from the railing. “What does it look like I got?” His voice was a perpetual complaint and his eyes blinked constantly out of nervousness. He wore an ill-fitting checked sports jacket that was too big for him, and used the cuffs of his trousers as an ashtray. A cigarette was stuck in the corner of his mouth and he talked around it. “Another dead girl, that’s what I got. I should have listened to the wife and retired already.”

  “So should I. Well?”