Hot Property

by Michele Kleier

  Elizabeth is startled; this is now $30,000 less than the offer from the original buyer. “You’re aware we have higher than that with a signed contract?” she says. “Why on earth would we detour for this?”

  “Oh, he did some research on StreetEasy and decided he’s overpaying.”

  “I’ll let the seller know, but I imagine this will rule him out. Please pass that on to Mr. Kessler.”

  “I will,” Roberta says, and gets off the phone quickly.

  Elizabeth should have realized that Roberta was engaged in unscrupulous maneuvering to ruin her deal, so that Barry Kessler could get the apartment for the same price as Elizabeth’s buyers, or even for less. Had Kessler’s offer been accepted by Mr. Glenn (thankfully, Mr. Glenn had decided to think about it), they would have had to let the other buyers go, and then Kessler would have found an excuse to lower his bid to the amount that Roberta had just offered, knowing that the original buyers, already rejected by the seller, quite conceivably might not want to commit themselves once again to purchasing the apartment. Teddy clearly was masterminding this, and Elizabeth wants him gone. She no longer even cares about the loss of income or even forfeiting the sponsorship of Luxury Estates; Teddy is toxic. And no matter what Jeffrey recommends, she knows she needs to indeed fire their star broker.

  Later, a couple of hours after dinner, Elizabeth, Tom, and Jonathan are still sitting around the kitchen table, staring in disbelief at the incriminating e-mails between Teddy and Christopher McKinnon that Jonathan has so cleverly retrieved.

  Kate and Isabel call Elizabeth from their apartment just after 10:00 p.m. to discuss the best way to fire Teddy. They will want to be there when it happens, but then Kate and Isabel realize that they both have early showings the following morning. So only Elizabeth and Tom will be there when Teddy appears. Once this plan is finalized, Tom calls security in the building where Chase Residential has its offices, and notifies them that tomorrow they will be requesting somebody to officially escort Teddy out of the building.

  The following day, Tom and Elizabeth get to the office early. Elizabeth knows Teddy was to meet a broker a little after ten to do a board package, so she would like to take care of this first. Once she’s at her desk, she decides she wants to fire Teddy herself.

  Teddy strolls into the office at ten, a festive red cashmere scarf wound around his neck, his blond locks tumbling into his eyes. Elizabeth discreetly calls down to security and asks them to send up their man.

  She can tell by the look on Teddy’s face that he assumes some sort of confrontation is imminent. Something about his looks has deteriorated, almost like The Picture of Dorian Gray. As he passes her office, smiling his once-endearing grin, she holds up her hand as if to say, Stop. He pops his head in. “I need a word with you,” Elizabeth tells him.

  “Just let me put my briefcase down. I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll come in to you in a second,” she says.

  She watches him scurry to his desk and immediately pick up the phone.

  Hurrying out after him to where she knows he can hear her, she says, “Teddy, hang up the phone.” And then she walks into his office and shuts the door.

  “I just need to leave word—”

  “Put that phone down.”

  Teddy hangs his head for a moment, looking totally defeated.

  “So I understand we’re not going to be selected by Luxury Estates,” she begins.

  Staring at her in bewilderment, Teddy says, “Well, that’s not my impression.”

  “Oh, please, Teddy—you’ve been working against us to pass off the business to LEX, and you succeeded. You should be very pleased with yourself.”

  He continues to stare at her, but says nothing.

  “They’ve been giving you kickbacks for private information.”

  Teddy’s face colors. “No, they haven’t!” he insists.

  “So what are they offering you: a better commission split?” Elizabeth asks him.

  Suddenly changing his tune, Teddy says defiantly, “Well, as a matter of fact they are.”

  “Then you should go and work for them.” She turns to walk out.

  “Oh, Elizabeth,” he says, “how did you know about this? Did you have someone look into my e-mails? I know surely you didn’t do it yourself.”

  “This is my company,” she says sternly, “and it’s well within my right to look into the behavior of a broker I believe is jeopardizing our business.”

  Teddy doesn’t seem surprised to hear this. “That’s your opinion,” he says. “And by the way, if you’ve read my e-mails, you’ve actually done something illegal.”

  Elizabeth somehow begins to laugh. “It’s actually not. Unethical, perhaps, but not illegal. You know better than that, Teddy.” Outside the glass window of the office, Elizabeth can see the security officer waiting at the reception desk, flirting with Violeta. “So,” she continues, “I suggest you clear out your desk and go join your friends at LEX. I’ve gotten an escort for you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Isabel

  Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

  Delphine is fifteen minutes late, and Isabel checks her watch for the third time. She can’t help wondering if this is going to be like that time at the town house, when Delphine failed to show up but then sent her an extravagant apology afterward. Isabel has just glanced down at her watch, yet again, when one of the waitstaff at Pastis taps her on the shoulder.

  “Are you meeting someone, mademoiselle?” he says in a charming French accent.

  “I am, but she’s late and I’m just beginning to worry—”

  “Non,” the waiter says. “She is right there.” He’s too polite to point, but he inclines his handsome chin in the direction of a tall, attractive woman seated by herself at a table.

  “Oh, no,” Isabel says, taking in the big black sunglasses and the cropped, jet black hair. “That’s not her.”

  “Mais oui,” is the reply. “She recognized you and asked that you join her.” Puzzled, Isabel follows him through the busy restaurant, squeezing past packed tables of chic lunchers.

  “Iz-a-BELLE!”

  Isabel’s jaw drops. “Delphine?” she says, astonished.

  “Mais oui,” she says, unintentionally echoing the man who brought Isabel over. “Do you like my new look?”

  “I didn’t recognize you!” Isabel says, sitting down.

  “Everyone needs a change now and then. Don’t you agree?” The countess looks around to signal the waiter that she’s ready to order, and even though Isabel has just arrived, she doesn’t mind; she stares at her menu, which keeps her from staring at Delphine, whose new look she finds deeply disconcerting, though she’s not quite sure why.

  But when the order is placed—a frisée salad and fries for Isabel, roast lobster with garlic butter for Delphine—Isabel looks up to study her.

  The long, straight blond hair has been dramatically cropped in an arresting, asymmetrical cut, nearly shaved on one side, and tip-of-ear length on the other. Her makeup is more dramatic, as well: two bold slashes of bronzer define her cheekbones, her brows have been darkened, and the red lipstick she wears is the color of wine. Glittery flecks of copper and teal sparkle above her eyes. Delphine has added several piercings to both her ears, and now a series of small gold hoops line each earlobe. Her fingers are bereft of jewels, and the only thing encircling her wrist is a new tattoo, a delicate pattern of leaves traced around the equally delicate bone.

  “So,” Delphine says. “How are things? The real estate business? Your darling young man?”

  “Everything’s good,” Isabel says, sipping her Pellegrino. Delphine’s clothes have undergone a similar change in style. She’s wearing an elaborate tie-dyed tunic, all runny, swirling colors and voluminous sleeves. Around her neck is a heavy silver necklace—to Isabel, it looks like a bicycle chain—and several odd, eve
n cheap-looking scarves, shot through with metallic thread, the sort of thing you would buy from a vendor on the streets of the city. Isabel casually gazes downward to see the artfully shredded Earnest Sewn jeans, and peeking out from beneath the hems, the trademark black cowboy boots, the only aspect of Delphine she recognizes.

  The waiter appears with their order. “That was quick!” murmurs Isabel, and takes two French fries.

  “They know me here,” the countess says with just a touch of entitlement in her voice. “They know I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

  Isabel nods and keeps eating. “So let’s talk apartments!” she nervously begins, trying to stay focused on real estate, while her heart is pounding. “Did you still want to go back and see the house on 82nd Street? I can set it up.”

  Delphine’s gobbling her lobster, butter dripping down her chin (so uncountesslike, Isabel thinks), and the sounds of shells crackling and crunching punctuate the conversation. “Could you?” she says.

  “Of course,” Isabel says. “Anything else you want to go back to?”

  “Isabel, you are so, so kind!” The countess reaches out one beautiful pale hand and lightly touches Isabel’s wrist. “I know, Iz-a-BELLE, that I haven’t been the easiest client,” she says, “and I much, much appreciate your patience, and your kindness, ja?”

  “Ms. Le Clair?” says a man’s voice. They both look up, expecting it to be the manager, but it’s not. Two men, whom Delphine doesn’t seem to recognize, are standing over the table. She and Isabel study the two men closely. One is wearing a rather shabby blue sport coat, the other an ill-fitting plaid jacket. Both wear sloppy khaki pants and worn-in, thick-soled shoes.

  The taller of the two men clears his throat. “Ms. Le Clair?” he says again, for no one has answered. His tone is respectful but somehow commanding. “We’d like you to come with us.”

  Le Clair? Isabel wonders as she stares at Delphine, who has frozen, hand arrested midbite, a deep flush staining her cheeks and all the way down her neck, until it is hidden by one of her scarves.

  “What are you talking about?” she says, and her voice reflects a wavering imperiousness.

  “We’ll tell you as soon as we’re outside,” the man says, extending a meaty hand to help her up.

  The man is powerfully built, and Isabel watches as Delphine takes his size into consideration with a quick up-and-down appraisal. “I think you have made a mistake,” Delphine says at last, and drops her hands to her lap. “A big mistake.”

  “I don’t think so,” says the tall man. “Now if you’ll just get up and come with us, it won’t—”

  “I. Am. Not. Going. With. You,” says Delphine through tightly clenched teeth. “I’m well known here, and I can assure you the manager will throw you out.”

  “Well known here and a lot of other places,” says the shorter of the two men. He shoots a glance at his companion and then sighs.

  “Where is the manager?” Delphine says grandly. “I demand to see him.”

  “He’s right over there. And I don’t think he can help you now, Ms. Le Clair.”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  “Why not?” says the taller man evenly. “It’s your name. Or at least one of them.”

  “I’m not going to allow you to insult me like this,” Delphine hisses. “I’ll call my lawyer.”

  “Yes, that’s a very good idea,” the shorter man says. “And as soon as we bring you over to the station, you can do just that.”

  “Delphine, is there anything I should do?” Isabel says quietly. She looks at the two policemen, who seem so self-assured and unflappable.

  Now Delphine has fallen alarmingly quiet. She looks up at the tall policeman and says, “Please let me go,” in that soft, girlish voice Isabel knows so well. “Please, I’d make it worth your while. You can just say I . . . eluded you.” She blinks a few times, and presses her hands together; given the expression on her face, the effect is supplication.

  “Nice try,” he says, “but it won’t work. And we’re getting tired of standing here.”

  “One last time: get up and come with us,” the other urges. “Unless you want us to cuff you in front of the entire restaurant.”

  The countess’s heightened color is drained away, and she suddenly looks deathly pale. It’s like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch of the West dissolves onto the floor of the castle, and all that is left is her hat. Isabel imagines Delphine is already gone.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Delphine says. She stands up, looking very regal indeed, a doomed queen in captivity. “Fine, I’ll go with you.” She looks down at Isabel, who remains welded to her seat. “I meant what I said before,” she adds. “You have been most, most kind. And I don’t want you to think I haven’t appreciated it.”

  She moves gracefully through the restaurant with the two men who have come to escort her. A few people look up as the odd threesome passes by, but most barely notice.

  As soon as they leave, Isabel feels the spell that had held her there snap. She rushes to the window to see Delphine’s final “scene”—as she bows her head, as though meeting her king, to get into an unmarked car, Isabel catches the distinct gleam of silver around one slender wrist. Of all the magnificent things that Isabel had seen or imagined encircling the countess’s slender wrist—gold, platinum, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, or jade—the cold shine of silver handcuffs was never one of them.

  Isabel’s father will read a few months later in the New York Post that the countess is, in fact, going to prison and awaiting sentencing. The full story, when it emerges, is quite astonishing. Delphine, a sociopath—albeit a very charming one—had been using a number of credit cards, all stolen, to pay for her extravagant and prolonged spree. And she’d been sleeping with one of the managers of the Dartley, who had done a lot of “adjusting” of her bill and was subsequently fired.

  And Isabel will also recall how Delphine once mentioned, in passing, that she detested the color orange; it was the one color she refused to wear, and she even banned tiger lilies from her decor. Ironically, this will be the only color that the colorful sociopath Delphine will see, for her outfit—for as long as the judge who presided over her case in Manhattan Criminal Court decides—will be a neon orange prison jumpsuit.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kate and Isabel

  Mansion on Fifth Avenue

  Fifth Avenue/60s. Sprawling 30-room limestone mansion with private courtyard, marble staircase, three ballrooms and WBFs throughout. Soaring ceilings and direct Park views.

  Old New York

  Not For Sale

  Five Months Later

  The morning of May 17 Isabel wakes to a downpour. Rain batters the windows, floods the corners, and pools in great, pond-size puddles in the center of the street half a dozen floors below. Normally, she would view such a day as a perfect excuse to curl up with her and Kate’s three dogs, a DVD of All About Eve, and a bowl of popcorn. But today, May 17, is not an ordinary day—today is the day that she and Michael will be married at the Metropolitan Club, at 7:30 this evening.

  The wedding gown is hanging in her closet, in an oversize linen garment bag. The white satin Manolo pumps with their tiny but stunning rhinestone buckles sit demurely in their box. Yesterday, Isabel, Kate, and Elizabeth spent the afternoon at the Kimara Ahnert makeup studio, where they had facials and their eyebrows shaped before going to Alyssia on Madison for waxing and a massage. Today they are ready to walk down the aisle.

  The last few months for the family have been magical. Scott proposed to Kate right after the holidays, at Kate’s apartment one snowy night in January—January 20, in fact, on Jonathan’s birthday. They were on the sofa by themselves after a family dinner at the Palm (Isabel had gone to a cast get-together from Michael’s play at a dive downtown), and Kate and Scott were cuddled under a cream-colored cashmere blanket watching To
otsie. Kate was lying with her head on Scott’s lap, her feet bathed in shea butter and nestled in fuzzy pink socks, and Daisy, Lilly, and Dixie were sleeping on her legs. Halfway through the movie, Scott pressed pause and asked her to make her world-famous popcorn in their Whirley Pop, and when she came back, he was standing next to the sofa with a look on his face that made her stop breathing for a second. What exactly he said that night she has no recollection of, but she does remember that the next moment he was down on one knee with a ring in his hand. Simple, and utterly romantic.

  Isabel stares up at the darkened sky now, and then down at the rain-slicked streets of the Upper East Side. Dixie wrestles with her fuzzy lavender slippers and then moves on to the belt of her matching lavender satin robe, which droops, untied, to her ankles.

  “Can you believe this weather?” Kate says, carrying Daisy and Lilly, she in a matching pink ensemble; Elizabeth had given both girls nightgown and slipper sets as last-minute gifts, sent over from Bergdorf’s sixth floor.

  “I know,” says Isabel.

  “It’s hideous hair weather!” Kate says. “I couldn’t sleep at all. I left Mom a message at the office, and she called back thirty seconds later—she’s been up since five a.m.”

  Isabel’s phone rings.

  “I’m so glad I caught you,” says Kimby Bennett, a note of desperation clearly audible in her voice. “I really need your help.”

  “What’s going on?” Isabel says. After that call from Lawrence a few months ago, she’d pretty much lost touch with the Bennetts yet again. She had shown them a couple of apartments that Lawrence immediately said were “too cramped” or “not our kind of building” or “on a humiliating block”—too close to a firehouse or half a block from the entrance to the subway. The truth was, Isabel fully agreed with these locational flaws. And then there was the nine-room at 21 East 87th Street, right off Madison, that sounded like “the one,” but by the time they got their schedules together to see it, it was gone with an all-cash offer significantly over ask.