"Next time," Phillip repeated as he envisioned Norman stethoscoping the chest of the most powerful man in the world and telling him to hold his breath.
Chapter 8
In 1980, in the very early hours of August eighteenth, Edwin Springer died. He died the kindest way, of a sudden stroke while he slept. To spare his mother, Phillip took care of arrangements. Services would be held at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel at 81st and Madison.
Norman came up from Washington as soon as he got word. Phillip met him at LaGuardia. In the corridor of the off-ramp they embraced and drew solace from one another, patted backs.
Norman asked how their mother was taking it.
Her beliefs would see her through, Phillip said.
During the service at Campbell's both Phillip and Norman gave extemporaneous eulogies. They took their time about it because for this purpose there would be no other time. Said what they felt as it came to them and were not self-conscious when grief choked their words. They just paused and cried.
All one hundred of the foldaway seats in the chapel were occupied and there were people standing. Many of the diamond trade, from important dealers to journeyman cutters, had come to pay respects. Six high-ranking members of the Diamond Dealers Club acted as pallbearers. They bore the bronze coffin out onto Madison Avenue and into the waiting black Cadillac hearse. A black stretched limousine was for family. Phillip and Norman rode with their mother, Matilda Springer. It was a two-hour journey to New Milford.
The open grave that awaited was on the hilliest part of Center Cemetery; in a plot with an old but still mostly intact fancy cast-iron border. The long-ago farm-supply storekeeper Ephraim Springer, his sons, Bernard and Willard, and their wives, already lay there. Grassy thick, sunken uneven in places, the ground had grown used to having them. The mound of dirt that had been shoveled out for Edwin was off to one side, partially covered by a green canvas tarpaulin.
The family stood around the poised coffin. Cemetery attendants bided their time nearby.
No minister.
Matilda hadn't wanted one. There would be no worn religious mutterings. There was no need to impress anyone, she said; the fact was that Edwin had merely passed from this life to another just as he had passed into it from another. No reason to say farewell forever to Edwin. They were all related recurrences; they would all, sooner or later, be with him again, she promised.
Matilda Springer's sadness was like that felt for someone greatly loved who would be away for quite a while. Her eyes cried as they smiled.
The coffin was lowered.
The Springers, silent prayers said, turned and walked away. Except Phillip. He was aware that the cemetery attendants wanted to be done. He gestured them to come forward and begin. Dirt was shoveled down onto the coffin. Phillip heard the pebbles in it striking the bronze surface. He saw, protruding from the dirt along the sides of the grave, various-size common Connecticut rocks. His father deserved better.
Phillip took up a fistful of dirt. He made sure of the shovelers' eyes before he flung it down upon the coffin, where it was immediately covered over. Along with it had gone twenty-five carats of diamonds, ten of the finest-quality stones from the Springer & Springer inventory.
Chapter 9
Now in his office in the diamond district, Springer tidied his desk. He tore off and discarded the top sheet of his large white sorting pad so, come Monday, he'd be starting fresh. The small black-faced quartz clock that was almost hidden behind the phone told him eleven forty-three. He knew it was lying, that it was always exactly sixteen minutes ahead of the truth.
He had told Audrey he'd be out at eleven thirty sharp. He'd make it this time. He called for Linda. She came in. He asked, "Will you be needing anything from the safe?"
"I doubt it. Schiff said he was coming by but he's bringing back, not taking. I've got a few things out." She had a small raised-border sorting tray in her hand. "You want to close the safe now?"
"I suppose Mal can close it when he gets here."
"Close it," Linda advised.
Offhand, Springer couldn't remember what the dealer Schiff had, and he didn't want to take the time now to go looking through the memo book.
"Only a few carats," Linda told him, then said archly, "I'll hide them somewhere on my body."
"Where they will surely be found."
"I wish." She put her tray and its contents into the safe, careful with it, so as not to disturb the sorting she'd done.
Springer's intercom buzzed. One of the phone lines was blinking on hold.
"Who is it?" Springer shouted out to the receptionist, who was actually only ten feet and a partition away.
"It's Gayle," the receptionist shouted back.
"Tell her . . ." His intentions seemed to hit a wall. "Oh, shit," he muttered and picked up the receiver, said a mannerly hello.
"Where the hell are you?" Gayle asked.
"You dialed."
"You said you'd be here midmoming. Jamie's been waiting over an hour."
He knew what she was pulling. "You bitch," he said.
She wasn't fazed. "Jamie is extremely upset with you. He asked me to call."
"Gayle, last Tuesday I told you I'd have to be out of town this weekend."
"Nothing of the sort. You told me you'd be here Friday midmoming."
"No."
"I'm a liar then, is that it? You're calling me a liar again."
"If the pot fits, sit on it."
That got to her. Her biggest battle with her body was her butt. "You don't deserve visitation," she said.
"Where's Jake?"
"He's right here, but don't call him Jake."
"He's hearing all this?"
"What do you expect?"
"Put him on." The phone was handed.
"Hi, Dad."
Springer detected an undertone of disappointment in the eight-year-old's voice.
"What do you say, Jake?"
"Not much."
"How's the elbow?" A grass-burned elbow from some volleyball they'd played last weekend.
"Almost gone."
"I can't be with you this weekend, Jake."
"Where you going?"
"Out of town," Springer said evasively.
After a pause Jake told him, "That's okay."
"You sure?"
"Next time can we go up to see Mr. Malo and Mr. Bueno and those guys?"
"Maybe. You weren't supposed to mention that."
"She didn't hear me. She went to the bathroom for a minute."
"Everything's Jake, right?"
"Sure."
The disappointment was gone from his voice.
"You're not miffed?"
Jake laughed. "Not at you."
"That's my boy."
"Here she is."
Gayle came back on. "Well"—she sighed, a martyr—"now I'll have to cancel my plans. But that doesn't matter. Jamie comes first." Her voice brightened purposely. "We'll treat ourselves to a good show and have some Japanese afterward."
For perhaps the five thousandth time he wanted to strangle her.
Gayle.
Springer had made, he figured, nine or ten major mistakes in his life. She was the worst. Up until the moment they were married she was sweetness and light and willing passion to the bone. It was as though the vows that were said in that ceremony were an incantation that transformed her. Shrewed her face, voice, body, and disposition. Springer chalked it up to newlywed nerves for as long as he could. Then he began questioning his judgment. It seemed impossible to him that he hadn't perceived the way Gayle really was. Had he been that blindly smitten? Of course, she wasn't shrewish all the time. To treat someone badly with maximum effect, he has to be granted a portion of good treatment every so often.
"Incidentally," Gayle was saying, "a cousin of one of my friends will be calling to see you. She wants . . ."
"Gayle, I'm running late. I have to go."
". . . She wants a two-carat square-cut. I told her you'd let
her have it at your cost."
"I don't have any two-carat squares in stock," Springer said, wanting to avoid wasting some future hour with another of her remote acquaintances, who would poke around in the best and end up going cheaper for size and unobvious inclusions.
"You'll show her something," Gayle predicted.
Springer said goodbye with the receiver already halfway to its cradle. He locked the safe and, as was his habit, gave the rug around his desk a swift onceover for a possibly dropped stone. He reminded Linda to set the alarms.
On Fifth Avenue the black BMW 745i was waiting in a bus stop zone in front of the 580 Building. Springer cut across the pedestrian flow and got into the passenger seat. Audrey started the car but got bullied by two buses before she could pull out into traffic. She went left on 46th and had to stop momentarily behind a Wells Fargo armored truck making a pickup. Neither she nor Springer had said hello. They never did. Just as they never said goodbye. It was their way of not acknowledging the time they spent apart.
She leaned to Springer, presented her face. "Give us one, love," she said brightly.
He kissed her. Not his best. She had expected one of his best. "I went around the block eleven times," she said, mixing fact and complaint.
Springer wouldn't tell her about the call from Gayle. He never spoiled their time together with Gayle.
"Want to drive?" Audrey asked.
"Not really."
"You drive and I'll crawl into the back and sleep." Audrey loved sleep. She could close her eyes and drop off in a moment, practically anywhere. She had enjoyable dreams.
Springer vetoed sleep.
"Okay," she told him, "I'll drive, you fondle."
That drew his nice laugh from him. "You're oversexed."
"Underloved," she contended.
"Not by me."
"Maybe you feel you overlove me?"
Impossible, he thought, but, then, he'd been wrong before.
Traffic on Madison was thick and competitive. She enjoyed it, defying fenders, dilating the most meager openings. They went straight uptown through Harlem and got onto the Major Deegan Expressway, where, to the delight of Audrey's right foot, the going was faster. She shoved a cassette into the stereo slot, a Crystal Gayle that started in the middle.
Come back
When you can stay forever, Love's not really love Unless it lasts that long.
Audrey sang along, word for word, inflection for inflection.
Springer wished she'd just leave it up to Crystal. Audrey's singing voice was dreadful: sharp one note, flat the next. However, as far as Springer was concerned, that was about the only thing wrong with her.
He'd first set eyes on her a little over a year ago. At La Goulue on East 70th. It was a special night for him because his divorce from Gayle had come final that afternoon. His dinner companion was a nearly passe Ford model named Elise whom he'd been seeing now and then. They'd had two Scotch and Perriers and Elise was saying she was considering going to work in Milan again, where she was more appreciated, when Springer just happened to shift his head five inches to the right and look past Elise's synthetically studded left ear to see, reflected but partially obscured by some peeling and flaking of the mirror's silver back, a woman's face that stunned him.
He thought the mirror was playing tricks, that it and the amber lights of the restaurant were being too kind to the woman. He was tempted but could not without being obvious turn for a direct appraisal of her. He had to be satisfied with the view he had — and kept—throughout another drink and Elise asking about the entrees and his ordering of roast lamb for two and the waiter reprovingly repeating the way the menu had it: medaillons de selle d 'agneau.
Springer's view also included the back of the head of the man the woman was with. He saw her amused by the man, laughing enough to show her teeth. A white, perfect flash. He saw her use her fingers to unmindfully comb through her jaw-length dark hair. Her hair seemed to parenthesize her face, particularly her eyes, wide-set and large. Springer felt a thief the way he was stealing from her, but no matter, she was oblivious to it, he thought. Besides, whatever was stolen from such riches wouldn't be missed.
Finally, he could take no more. He excused himself to Elise, got up, turned, and, for as little time as it took for him to move his chair in place, looked right at that woman.
She looked back but without a hint of acknowledgment.
He continued on to the men's room.
In there alone, looking into another mirror, he told himself he was acting strange. She was not that beautiful, actually. She hadn't really affected him all that much. Chalk it up to divorce day.
Thus fortified with self-possession he opened the men's-room door.
There she was.
In the access way barely wide enough for two. She was standing at the pay telephone on the wall with its receiver up to her ear. At that intimate distance there could be no doubt whom her attention was on. She was purposely holding the telephone receiver with her left hand to show herself unmarried. Springer thought. He seized the moment.
"Where can I get in touch with you?" he asked.
Her eyes intensified, narrowed slightly, trying to take in more of him than was possible. She said nothing during the long moment she needed to decide. She stopped pretending with the phone, placed the receiver on its hook. She extended her hand.
Just for a touch, a brief holding. Springer believed, but the next thing he knew, her hand had his grasped firmly and he was on his way, being led past occupied tables and waiters and out onto 70th Street.
It was extremely cold. Some snow had fallen, just enough to coat everything, including the Rolls-Royce Camargue waiting at the curb with a chauffeur in it.
She hesitated.
Springer sensed from that she was somehow related to the car. She hooked her arm in his and tugged and they hurried, coatless conspirators, to the corner of Madison. She was tall, Springer now realized; her head was almost level with his. He glanced back in the direction of the restaurant, saw only their footprints in the new snow; it occurred to him how easily they might be tracked.
He waved at a fleet cab that appeared available but there was a passenger in it, the driver high-sticking, not turning on the meter, so he could pocket the entire fare. Other cabs with their off-duty lights on ignored Springer. She clutched against him. He felt her shivering. She had on only a white, amply cut long-sleeved silk blouse, a full skirt of gray Ultrasuede, and the merest black evening pumps.
Springer's place was the old family apartment on 72nd, just two blocks away. He chose not to suggest it.
They went down Madison in a hug against the cold that made their walking awkward and caused them to slip more. Her teeth chattered and she tried to laugh. Their breaths combined in the air. They were rescued by a Greek coffee shop, a long narrow place with twenty red plastic-covered rotating stools at a Formica counter. Only two other customers. A counterman immediately placed two heavy mugs of coffee before them as though he'd read their minds.
After they'd taken some of the scalding stuff. Springer told her his name, and, when she didn't respond with hers, he asked, "Who are you?"
She smiled soft commas into her cheeks and said, "Maybe I'm a thousand-dollar hooker."
"If so, you're undercharging," he said, and that got to her. He wanted to say all the right things. It was crucial. Clever was okay but take care not to come off smart-ass, he told himself.
She blew at her coffee. "That was rude of us, wasn't it." Referring to the companions they'd deserted at La Goulue.
"But unavoidable," Springer assured.
"They'll get together."
"Probably."
"Might be the match of the century."
"I only hope he pays her check."
She got off that topic by telling her name. Audrey Hull.
It suited her, Springer thought. Audrey. He'd never personally known an Audrey, never realized how well those two syllables went together.
Close by o
n the counter, displayed on a stainless steel pedestal, was an enormous cake: frosted white and textured with abundant coconut.
"I want a piece of that," Audrey said.
Springer ordered it.
Audrey watched closely as the counterman measured a slice. Before he could cut it, Audrey told him, "Larger." The counterman obliged.
Springer didn't believe she could possibly eat that much cake. A five-inch slice, no less. Between bites she put the first vital question to him.
"Divorced," he replied.
"When?"
"This afternoon."
She wasn't surprised, just momentarily thoughtful. "Mine was final the day before yesterday," she said matter-of-factly.
With modest bites that determined the tempo of the conversation, Audrey ate every morsel of the cake and then used the side of her fork to scrape up all the frosting from the plate. Springer considered it an achievement. He informed her that she had a crumb clinging near the comer of her mouth. Her tongue tried for it, didn't get it. He stopped her hand as it went for her napkin. She remained permissively still, not even a blink when he closed in on her and tenderly kissed away the tiny golden morsel.
That was the start of them.
Love at first sight, or more aptly, as the French express it, des coups de foudre. Thunderbolts.
Springer and Audrey.
For them there was none of the usual lie-for-a-lie. No doubt-sowing insinuations or intentional punishments or deliberate withholdings. They made a pact early on to not waste time on all that tricky stuff. Others might need it to maintain the high temperatures of their relationships but not they. They would help each to be sure of the other, allow their love and all its consequences to happen honestly.
Springer wanted Audrey to understand how his marriage had been, hoped to get it out of the way once and for all. He spared her the sordid details and managed to conceal whatever permanent bitterness it had caused. As for his disillusionment, that, with the entrance of Audrey, felt gone for good.
"Tell me just one thing she did that was particularly disgusting," Audrey said, wanting it to put Gayle into that kind of mental niche.
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