“Asshole,” Adrian muttered. Was he angry at Jackson for past transgressions or at himself for future ones?
“Accurate description,” said the old man in the plaid suit with the questionable shade of red hair, though he didn’t bother looking over at Adrian as he stood waiting for the elevator.
“Sorry,” Adrian said. What do you call the father of the King of the Jungle? He recognized Artemus Power. He stayed beneath the press radar, unlike his son, but there were still a few articles on Google. Why was he riding with the commoners? Here was an animal who didn’t need to wait for anything—food, drink, people, elevators. The ground floor could be brought to him, if necessary.
Adrian tapped the elevator button, again.
“Someone once said, the less time you have left, the more patient you get,” the old man said.
Adrian turned, his cheeks suddenly hot. He’s right—why am I in such a hurry to commit fraud?
“They were dead fucking wrong,” Artemus Power said.
32
BISHOP’S ADVANCE
CYNTHIA FOUND when she squinted and tilted her head in her closet mirror, her body looked hot—not twenty-year-old ballerina hot, more like forty-five-year-old hopped up on caffeine-water hot.
Why was she so nervous? Why should Cynthia be intimidated? As a potential friend-with-benefits, Ricardo Bloomenfeld was unimpressive. Not because he wasn’t good-looking; Ricardo Bloomenfeld was handsome and groomed and yet inelegant. He was too deliberate; his mannerisms, his walk, his tan, his blinding teeth, all bore instructions transcribed from GQ.
But Goldie was right. Cynthia had to surf the next Big Wave. Sex.
“I should just pick up a stranger?” Cynthia had asked Goldie.
“No, but people do it,” he replied.
“Like people I’m divorcing, for example,” Cynthia said.
Goldie chuckled, but then got down to business. “There’s someone out there. Someone you’re already comfortable with. We’re not talking about love here. We’re not talking long term. I’m looking for the man, the experience that will launch you into the world. Who will appreciate you, and whom you can then let go.”
“A hit and run.”
“More like an eat and run.” Goldie choked on his line.
When, oh when, Cynthia thought, will I find a professional therapist?
That’s when she thought about Bloomenfeld. But how good were Bloomenfeld’s eyes? Would they catch the knrinkles (wrinkles above the knee)? Would he see her elbows? Oh, cruel elbows! Like rings on a tree, they revealed the age of the oak in the sleeveless dress.
Hide the neck! She grabbed a scarf, suddenly a staple in her wardrobe. Was it just last year her neck was a trophy? Cynthia’s swan neck had taken a dive.
In the car, she instructed the driver to stop at Bloomenfeld’s office on Park, then checked her outfit. Chanel suit. Sheer ribbed stockings. A classic pump.
Once they arrived, the driver held the door open and the city enveloped her, pushing her toward the doorway with the brass marker: BLOOMENFELD AND ASSOCIATES.
Cynthia counted the days since her last period. Her periods were becoming erratic, but pregnancy was not impossible. Lately, when she’d skipped a cycle, she’d think, Pregnancy or menopause?
She giggled, and rang the buzzer.
“CYNTHIA POWER for Ricardo Bloomenfeld,” she announced herself to the receptionist. The lobby, redecorated every two years, reflected the anxiety of Bloomenfeld’s taste. The current incarnation was very dark, very masculine, very foxhunt and cigars.
“Is he expecting you?” There was an edge in the girl’s voice. She obviously thought she’d screwed up appointments.
“No.” Cynthia felt the smile creep across her face; he certainly wasn’t expecting her proposition.
Moments later, she was staring into Ricardo Bloomenfeld’s eyes, so blue and so clear that one could see the workings of his devious brain.
Here we are, Cynthia thought, suspended on the tightrope between double-cheek kiss and doing the nasty.
Dive in. “I was wondering,” Cynthia started, and hated herself immediately. Who would want to fuck a person who began the question with the words “I was wondering”?
Ricardo waited, the handsome lawyer paid handsomely to be patient.
“I was just at my therapist,” Cynthia said. Agh! Who doesn’t want to screw a depressive?
“Never been to one,” Ricardo said. “I don’t want to know how crazy I am. And frankly, I fear I’d be out of work if I listened.” He gave her a conspiratorial grin.
“Yes, well.” Cynthia faltered. She’d never asked a man to have sex with her. Should she start with coffee? Would he charge her for a Starbucks run?
No reason to beat around the bush (note to self: laser?), Cynthia. She pictured Bloomenfeld’s mouth on hers, his tongue writing songs on her neck, his manicured fingers inching up the inside of her thigh. Not unpleasant.
“Would you like to have sex with me, Ricardo?” Cynthia asked.
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” he said, not unkindly. As though he’d been expecting the question.
Time stood still. Cynthia cleared her throat. “When do you anticipate our next meeting with Jackson and his attorneys?” she asked.
“Cynthia, do you want to know why I can’t have sex with you?” he asked.
“This is my favorite time of year in New York,” Cynthia said, her face burning. She stood to leave.
“You are a stunning woman.” Ricardo got up and walked around his desk. “I am flattered beyond belief to be on the receiving end of such a tempting offer.”
“Please,” Cynthia said, turning from him. “I’m embarrassed enough as it is.” The door seemed miles away.
“It’s not you.” Ricardo lowered his voice. “It’s me. I just got back from Brazil. I had this procedure done.”
“Procedure?” Cynthia asked.
“A phalloplasty,” he said. “I’ll be ready to go in two weeks.”
“Oh, dear God,” Cynthia said. Ricardo’s door danced farther from her reach.
“It’s all the rage,” he continued. “I can’t keep up with all these technological advances. I would prefer, of course, that this not get out.”
Cynthia nodded, then leapt out into the hall, followed by Ricardo’s voice.
“Two weeks, Cynthia!”
Cynthia dashed past the receptionist and onto the street, leaving behind her favorite scent and an anticipatory smile on her phalloplastied attorney’s face.
33
STUDYING THE BOARD
JACKS MANAGED to ignore the questions Adrian sent to the office daily. A stone-faced Caprice dropped the faxed pages on his desk and between calls, between meetings, when he would have five seconds to himself when his father wasn’t yelling about this or that, Jackson would slip a page from under a pile of today’s must-dos and read a question.
A few of them were softballs:
Favorite Flower: Yellow roses.
Favorite Song: “The Best Is Yet to Come.”
Favorite Perfume: Coco Chanel ( Jacks had bought it for her every year. Until he’d seen the unopened boxes in her bathroom cabinet.)
He’d answered these right away and felt damn good about himself. What man could know his wife better than he?
But most of the questions were like this:
If your wife had to choose between a glass of red wine, say a Bordeaux, or a martini before a meal, what would she choose? If she chose a martini, would she choose gin or vodka? What brand?
Well, Jacks wondered why the fuck this was important—he was hiring Adrian to screw his wife, not analyze her.
What was this? First Wives 101? Okay, so he’d skip through a few more pages.
He’d hear the thump thump thump. His father, off to use the restroom. Every five minutes, it seemed. So goddamned embarrassing to have your father at work every day; made Jacks feel like a kindergartner.
What’s the longest wait? Waiting for someone to die.
How about waiting for someone to divorce you?
More questions:
What is your wife most likely to get into an argument or heated discussion over? Politics, religion, or whether the neighbor’s hedge is against code?
What size shoe does she wear? Has it gotten larger with age and pregnancy? (What?)
There were a hundred questions by now. Jackson slipped the list under the pile of papers he actually had to deal with. He’d come back to them after his breakfast meeting with a Gargoyle.
The Four Seasons at breakfast. Anything discussed here, in the morning, would be up on the WSJ website within the hour. Jackson rushed to his usual table, and there he was: the New Zealander who had more money than God, although Jacks never understood that statement. Why would God care about money? What would He spend it on? Would He out-yacht Ellison or Allen or Diddy?
Jackson had called the Kiwi a week ago. Important to stay on top of these relationships, especially when Artemus Power was trying to isolate Jacks. Soon, he’d have to be air-dropped basic staples.
Jackson listened to the Kiwi, nodding and grunting affirmatively. He couldn’t understand a word coming out of the Kiwi’s lopsided mouth.
Jacks liked the Kiwi as well as he could like anybody who had more money than him. Since his heart attack and new wife, he’d been ingesting the balm of the upper-class male, Lipitor, had enlisted a trainer, had stopped drinking ale, and forsworn eating those lyonnaise potatoes he so dearly loved.
At least, that’s what Jacks believed the Kiwi was telling him over his steamed asparagus and egg white omelet.
“Facking dite,” said the New Zealander. “The weef is effter me.” (When she wasn’t out at nightclubs, Jacks thought.)
“Mm,” Jacks said, remembering the real reason he’d called the breakfast. The Kiwi had been married to his first wife for over thirty years before he’d left her for the underwear model trophy wife, who appeared to be all trophy, no wife. Could the Kiwi answer the wife questions Jacks was struggling with this morning? Had the Kiwi known the woman who’d been mother to his four grown children? The woman who knew him before the billions became his closest friends?
It occurred to him that the Gargoyles, at a certain point in their lives, do not want Truth. They want comfort. They want stroking. “You are a Genius.” “The rules don’t apply to you.” “You are special.” It’s a rare first wife who can keep up the Big Lie. It’s a rare first husband who doesn’t want to hear it. Constantly.
Jacks thought about another Gargoyle, who’d made his mint in telecommunications and dumped wife number one, a corporate attorney, for a Cambodian stewardess—only to discover after the honeymoon that the reason she so enjoyed the wonders of anal sex was that “she” was born with a penis.
“She ’as this designuh, bloke wants fifty for an Oriental reg, fifty thousand dollars,” he said. “That’s a hundred thousand dollars ’fore texas—if I paid texas!”
He laughed, a bit of egg white sticking to the telltale patch of white stubble on his chin. Jacks wondered at the dye jobs of the Gargoyles. The ones with young wives appeared to have become intimate with Clairol. Jacks was surprised the man hadn’t purchased the company. Then he realized that Clairol was owned by a conglomerate owned by another Gargoyle.
Gargoyles would not touch one another’s conglomerates, just as they would never fuck one another’s wives. Feuds among Gargoyles didn’t last long; they needed the semblance of human connection, no matter how insincere. Jacks recalled a dinner at the Bel Air in L.A. A theme park Gargoyle casually mentioned firing five thousand people that day, then congratulated himself (over a sublime Sancerre) on the stock price, which, of course, had gone up as a result of the layoffs. Stock price had long replaced cock length as the ultimate measurement.
The New Zealander had recently purchased an Internet bandwidth streaming Wi-Fi digital downloading message board, making instant billionaires out of the two shaggy-haired guys in Birkenstocks who created the site. This new world was traveling at hyperspeed on an invisible highway made of electronic nerve pathways. All Jacks could do was build.
The Gargoyle wrapped up the breakfast after a half hour. A meal with a Gargoyle, no matter how memorable the food, never lasted more than an hour. The sensual side of life—food, drink, sex, wives, and children—was a distraction from what really fed the billionaires: making coin.
The Gargoyle inquired about the penthouse of Jackson’s building on Fiftieth. He and the new wife had just purchased a sixty-million-dollar teardown on the Park. “We need a place to stay,” the Gargoyle wheezed. “We’re practically homeless!”
Jacks watched him as he wheezed and sputtered—the Kiwi, he’s happy, right? He’s trim and he’s got a young trophy wife and a teardown on the Park—he’s rebuilt his whole life from the ground up—that’s happiness, right?
Right?
Jacks was alone on the sidewalk on Fifty-seventh; the Gargoyle had batted his wings and flown off to headquarters at the top of his building on Sixth. Gargoyles preferred their oxygen thin, their perches high above the crowd. Harry was at the curb, flouting the law, ignoring the taxis honking as they veered around the corner. Jacks consulted his BlackBerry. Caprice’s schedule had his next meeting set in an hour. He wasn’t sure how to make the best use of this pocket of time. So he began to walk.
Walking alone in the city, at a pace calibrated by himself, was rare. Jacks Power felt as peaceful as if he were atop a mountain range; the skyline of New York stood in for the Rockies.
His mind relaxed. His long-forgotten painter’s eyes gathered up the pocked sidewalks, pretzel vendors, office workers shouldering briefcases, their hands softened around warm paper cups; then his gaze crawled up vertical monuments, finding harbor at the top of a church spire, or in the glassy reflection on a new building of vapor trails left by a lone plane.
New York was artwork, an entire city built, literally, to encourage man to see beyond the mundane. To experience possibilities. Had the thought occurred to anyone else?
So what were his Power Towers? Testaments to the imagination, or ego running roughshod? Would a true artist destroy a thing of beauty because it had become redundant? How many times had he replaced charm with utility? Expensive, boastful utility, but still. Charm and beauty had bent to his will; the old department store on Madison, the hotel that had housed artists a century ago on Broadway, half a city block of history in Hell’s Kitchen.
Jacks reassured himself; I’m no Robert Moses.
Commerce vs. Art. As he’d told Adrian, commerce would always win, in the end.
Look at my own life, Jackson thought. Lara, the shiny, new symbol of my name and power and money. Look what I can buy! And Cynthia, all charm and old-world beauty and obsolescence. Look what I can destroy.
Harry was trailing him and honking his horn, trying to get his attention. Fucking guy.
“You have nine-tirty!” Harry shouted, tapping his watch. Jacks looked back at the church, at stone carvings at the roofline; a lion grasping an elk’s neck, a nun’s serene expression, demons caught midhowl, and the gargoyles, one more intricate and fearsome than the next.
Where had the time gone?
His reprieve was over.
34
OPENING PREPARATION
I’M COMPLETELY unfuckable!” Cynthia sobbed.
“I blame the shoes!” Vivi announced, the guilty parties swinging from her fingers. Cynthia was lying on her bed with an ice pack over her eyes. Oh, she’d had better days.
“And nothing says, ‘Take me, I’m yours,’ like a scarf!” Vivi said.
“Scarves are elegant,” her mother protested feebly.
“Mom, these are nurse shoes!” Vivi said of the sensible cream pumps. “Geriatric nurse shoes!”
“They’re good for my swayback,” Cynthia said.
“Fuck-me heels they’re not. But they might be good for changing bedpans. And Mom, your hair was in a chignon. You were dead before you walked in the door,” Vivienne concluded.
“Who wants to fuck an ice sculpture?”
Cynthia rolled over on her stomach and groaned.
“Do lesbians have it this tough?” she asked.
“You can’t be a lesbian, Mom. You’ve chosen a team, now work on your pitch.”
“I’m buying a rake and moving to Vermont, where old ladies go when no one will look at them!”
“Mom, I’m done with you,” Vivienne said. “You and I are going shopping.”
“What?”
“We’ll be Ivana and Ivanka. We’ll hit Cavalli, D&G, Gucci,” Vivi said. “No more daytime beige, and no more nighttime ruffles and bows. You look like you’re going to the prom. With Elvis.”
Cynthia did a double take. “Since when do you know anything about fashion?”
“I’ve always appreciated couture,” Vivienne said.
“Hold on—as a child, you hated all those darling Lilly Pulitzers, then you wouldn’t even look at the Calvins and Laurens I bought—and remember, in high school, you wore those Frye boots until they stunk—”
“My style works for me,” Vivienne said.
“You wore a kaffiyeh and overalls to my ballet gala when you were fifteen!”
“Mom. Teenage boys hide Playboy under their beds. I hid Italian Vogue,” Vivienne said. “Once I saw Carine Roitfeld on the street and followed her for six blocks. If I could get her to autograph my chest, I would. I would marry that bitch. I know exactly what you’d look fantastic in.”
“Vivi.” Cynthia sat up. “Are you sure I’m not a lost cause?”
Vivienne sat down next to her and cupped her mother’s face.
“Mom, when I’m done with you there’s not a person in the city who won’t want to ravish your body and make you say their name.”
“Promise, Ivanka?” Cynthia managed to smile.
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