“AVALON” BY ROXY MUSIC, Mom’s favorite band, was blasting from her office when I got home. I found her at her desk tapping away on her laptop, a tall gin and tonic within arm’s reach. The lights were low. The rackety window air conditioner was cranked up high.
“You’re back,” I observed, smiling at her from the doorway.
She turned down the music, smiling back at me. “A person can’t pull anything over on Mrs. Golden’s sharp-eyed son.”
“Did you eat dinner?”
“I had a huge salad with Gretchen before I drove back from the Hamptons. That would be Gretchen Van Deusen of the Hoity-Toity Agency. Gretchen is the go-to realtor for luxury rental properties in East Hampton, thank you very much. Want Diego to bring you up something? I think Scotty’s special tonight was goulash.”
“I’m all set. Where’s Rita?”
“Having a late supper with Myron. I practically had to kick her out the door. She was so engrossed in your nudie shots of Boso that she lost track of the time.”
“Did she get anywhere?”
“Well, she convinced me that they Photoshopped Boso’s vay-jay lips. Does that count?”
My cell phone rang. It was Morrie yet again. This time I took his call. “This is Ben Golden. How may I help you?”
“You can return your fucking phone calls, you little putz!” he roared at me. “Do you know how many messages I’ve left you?!”
“Mr. Frankel…”
“If I call you it’s for a reason!”
“Mr. Frankel…”
“And I expect you to call me back, hear me? I’m paying you all of this goddamned money and I still haven’t heard a goddamned thing from you!”
“Mr. Frankel, we’re devoting a hundred percent of our time to your case. We’re making excellent progress, but I’m not in a position to report anything yet, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay! That little twat Cricket O’Shea just posted a photo of my stars and my ex-director having dinner at Zoot Alors with none other than Count Dracula himself. She said, flat out declared, that he’s plotting to steal my show out from under me. So you’ll forgive me if I’m just a tiny bit upset!”
“Cricket O’Shea has been known to make stuff up. Don’t let her throw you.”
“I don’t like this,” he growled. “I don’t like you.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. If you want to hire someone else just say so.”
I heard another voice in the background now from his end. Then heard him grumble something unintelligible before he said, “Leah thinks I should shut up and let you do your job.”
“Leah’s a smart woman.”
“Hey, I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“Mr. Frankel, I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
“What time?”
“Just as soon as I have something. Good night, Mr. Frankel.” I rang off, letting my breath out with a sigh. “That was Mr. Frankel.”
“So I gathered.” Mom narrowed her eyes at me. “Weren’t you and Cricket romantically involved for a while?”
“I guess you could call it that.” I fetched a cold bottle of Long Trail IPA from the little fridge in the outer office, opened it and took a long, thirsty gulp before I flopped down on Mom’s sofa next to Gus, who curled up in my lap and started purring. “So tell me about Gretchen Van Deusen of the Hoity-Toity Agency.”
“She was a skinny blond society bitch in her late forties. Divorced, bitter, could not keep her mouth shut. You’d have loved her, Bunny.” Mom reached for her notepad, scanning through it. “The house on Lily Pond Lane belongs to a power couple that’s splitting up. He’s a big shot at NBC News. She’s on-air talent. Or was. Her job went south when the marriage did. She’s suing him. He’s suing her. It’s love in bloom all over. Meanwhile, their snug little cottage is on the market for five point five million. It has seven bedrooms, five baths, a pool, four acres of land and beach access. Confidentially? Gretchen told me they’d take four point nine mil for it. While they wait for the offers to roll in she’s renting it out for thirty thousand a month. A Silicon Valley exec has it this month.”
“What about last month?”
Mom took a sip of her gin and tonic, sitting back in her chair. “She rented it to a high-flying British hedge funder named R. J. Farnell. Gretchen described him as quite the charmer. And very interested in the theater, it may interest you to know.”
“He told her that?”
“He did. Mind you, she only spoke to him on the phone.”
“She rented him the place without ever meeting him?”
“He sent his young executive assistant, a Miss Beausoleil, to look the place over. Gretchen met her there. Miss Beausoleil pulled up in a fancy new Porsche wearing a drop-dead Armani linen pants suit and a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Her briefcase was Louis Vuitton. Her scarf was Hermès. Her—”
“Mom, are you running this or giving me a fashion review?”
“Oh, hush. When I showed her Boso’s headshot she made her right away, though she did say that Miss Beausoleil wore horn-rimmed glasses. Oliver Peoples, she thought. Although they might have been Barton Perreira, which are almost exactly—”
“Mom…”
“Gretchen gave her a full tour of the house. The girl took pictures of every room with her camera phone and e-mailed them to Farnell. He phoned her right away and said he wanted to take it. She put him on the phone with Gretchen and the deal was made on the spot.”
I drank down some more of my Long Trail. “How did Farnell pay her?”
“Cash. Boso had the thirty thou in her briefcase, along with an additional ten thou security deposit.”
“And Gretchen handed over the keys to a multimillion dollar house just like that?”
“She’s been an East Hampton realtor for twelve years. She’s dealt with rock stars, pro athletes, super models. As far as she’s concerned, this was business as usual.”
“What about references, a signed lease agreement…?”
“I’m guessing Boso schmeared her an extra couple of grand to bypass the usual reference check. And it so happens that Farnell did sign a lease agreement. Boso delivered it to him. He signed it and mailed it back to Gretchen. She showed it to me when we got back to her office. I saw the man’s signature.”
“I wish we had a Xerox of that lease.”
“We do,” Mom assured me, smiling faintly.
“God, you’re good.”
“He provided Gretchen with his residential and business addresses here in the city. I stopped off at his apartment building on East 72nd when I got back. There’s no R. J. Farnell living there. And the doorman’s never heard of him. And his office address in lower Manhattan—39 Broadway, suite 704—is a fake. There’s no suite 704 in that building.” Mom set her notepad aside and took another sip of her drink. “I asked around on Lily Pond Lane. Talked to the UPS man, the landscapers, pool guys. No one remembers seeing a man living in that house last month. They do remember seeing the girl. Men never forget a girl like that. Especially one who likes to sun herself by the pool in the nude. The gardener next door couldn’t believe his eyes. But he only recalls seeing Boso there by herself. I checked with the gourmet grocers and wine shops and so on. No one made any deliveries out there. Miss Beausoleil returned the keys at the end of the month. Gretchen told me the house was in perfect condition, although it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that ten thou security deposit ended up in Gretchen’s pocket, too. We’re all a bit corrupt, you know.”
“Who paid the utility bills?”
“They never got switched over to a new account. Gretchen told me they usually aren’t for short-term luxury rentals.”
“So R. J. Farnell, alleged hedge fund hotshot, tells Morrie he wants to bankroll Wuthering Heights to the tune of twelve mil,” I said, mulling it over. “Morrie goes out to R.J.’s estate in East Hampton and comes away convinced that R.J. is his lifeline. But it sounds as if R.J., or whoever he really is, rented the place for the sole purpose of using it that one afternoon to scam Morrie. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Mom said, nodding her head.
“This guy is a pro, because Morrie Frankel is no dummy. Crazed and desperate, yes. A sap? No.”
“Morrie was already circling the drain on his own,” Mom pointed out. “Why not just stand back and let him go down? Why go to so much trouble?”
“To humiliate him,” I reflected, drinking down the last of my IPA.
Mom studied me, her brow creasing. “You look tired, Bunny. You should go up to bed. But first give your mother a kiss.”
I got up off the couch and gave her a peck on the forehead. “How about you?”
“I’ll lock up soon. I just want to finish inputting my notes.” She swiveled around to face her laptop again. “Myron hates it that Rita’s here day and night. He’s making her miserable.”
“That’s not possible. Dentists named Myron don’t make beautiful women miserable.”
“If you ask me, Rita was much better off when she was with you.”
“She wasn’t ‘with’ me, Mom. We were just two friends helping each other out. Rita needs a nice, normal, age-appropriate guy like Myron.”
“The trouble with nice, normal, age-appropriate guys like Myron is that they insist on being put first. And Rita won’t put him ahead of her work. She may be forced to choose. You’d better prepare yourself.”
I drew in my breath. “You mean we may lose her?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“We can always find another computer wiz. But we’ll never find another Rita.”
“No, we won’t,” she agreed somberly. “Sweet dreams, Bunny.”
I climbed the stairs up toward my apartment. When I reached the third floor landing I encountered Mr. Felcher of 3-B pounding on the door of Mrs. Felcher of 3-A. Mr. Felcher, who is well into his eighties, wore a pair of billowy powder-blue boxer shorts and nothing else. The boxers did not exactly smell fresh. Nor did Mr. Felcher, who is squatly built, hairy and unremittingly grouchy. He and his not-so-adoring wife have been living across the hall from each other since the 1970s.
“Open this goddamned door!” he hollered, pounding on it with his fist.
She hollered something back at him through the closed door that sounded vaguely like: “Fuck off, you old fuck!”
“Good evening, Mr. Felcher. How are you doing?”
“What do you want?”
“Is there anything I can help you with, sir?”
“I blew a fuse and that bitch won’t give me one.”
“Want me to get you one?”
“I want you to take better care of this damned building. I never blew fuses when your father was around.”
This was true. But my dad also insisted that the Felchers pay their rent every month, which Mom’s too big a softie to do. She thinks it’s a sin to dun the elderly.
“Shall I get that fuse for you, Mr. Felcher?”
“Are you still here? Why can’t you mind your own damned business!”
“Certainly, sir. I can do that.”
Mom’s floor-through apartment is one flight up on the fourth floor. Mine’s on the top floor, which is freezing cold in the winter, because our furnace is dying, and toasty warm all summer long because, well, heat rises. I also enjoy unlimited access to my own private tar beach—also known as the roof.
I inherited roomfuls of comfy overstuffed furniture from my grandmother’s apartment in Flatbush. I swear it still smells like kasha knishes on hot, muggy evenings. The apartment does have cross ventilation, and I keep an assortment of strategically placed fans going day and night. Plus I have a window air conditioner in my bedroom. But I can only use that when I go to bed. If I try to run it while I have lights on anywhere else then I’ll blow a fuse just like Mr. Felcher had. Our building is one of the only ones left in the neighborhood that still has fuse boxes instead of circuit breakers, and it’s getting to be really hard to find fuses at a hardware store. Really hard to find a hardware store for that matter. There used to be a big one around the corner on Amsterdam that had been in business forever. It’s now a bar where hip young professionals go to drink mojitos and play Ping-Pong.
I stripped off my clothes and took a long, cool shower. Flossed carefully after I brushed my teeth because Myron said that if I don’t floss regularly my gums will recede and my teeth will fall out. I don’t think Myron likes me. I drank two tall glasses of ice water, turned off every light in the place and took my laptop and cell phone with me into my bedroom, which has a big four-poster walnut bed and matching chest of drawers. I flicked on the AC, climbed into bed and lay there in the darkness, fighting to stay awake as the room began to cool. I don’t welcome sleep. I never want to sleep.
My cell rang just after midnight. It was Rita. “Did I wake you up?”
“Not a chance. What’s going on?”
“Well, I’m in bed with all three of my laptops.”
“That doesn’t leave much room for Myron.”
“Not a problem. He stood me up.”
“Rita, you promised me—no details about your sex life.”
“Not funny, little lamb. I was on my way to meet him at our favorite Chinese restaurant on Second Avenue. He phoned me and said he couldn’t make it due to a ‘prior commitment.’”
“Meaning what, he had to perform an emergency root canal?”
“I don’t know,” Rita sighed. “And that’s enough about him, okay? I’ve been working ever since I got home and I’ve made serious progress on those Boso shots. Want to hear what I’ve got?”
“I’m all ears.”
“I couldn’t find a thing in her black velvet thong gallery. The nightstand’s bare, and there are no reflections in the pictures on the wall. But I had much better luck with the yacht. Or I should say sloop. She’s a Pearson 365. The Pearson 365 is thirty-six feet long and was built between 1976 and 1982. There are still quite a few of them out there. They go for around fifty thou. I just sent you a link from a yacht broker’s Web site. See it?”
“Hang on…” I flipped open my laptop and downloaded the link. “Yeah, that sure looks like it.”
“I also zoomed in on the shoreline in the background. You were right—it’s the South Shore. Babylon Cove to be exact.”
“Awesome. This gets me in the game. You’re the best, Rita.”
“Slow down, because it gets more awesome. I hit a home run with that video of Boso on the balcony—thanks to this killer new image-enhancing software I’ve got. You were also right about that reflection in her sunglasses. Hang on, I’m sending you the image now. It’s digitally magnified and sharpened, okay? And I think you’re going to recognize a certain something.…”
“Hey, that’s the Statue of Liberty,” I exclaimed, studying the digitally enhanced image on my screen. “And there’s Lower Manhattan. And the Verrazano Bridge over there.… I give up, where do you get this kind of a view?”
“From a high-rise building on Staten Island. The Rosebank section, to be specific. Thanks to the slight convexity of her sunglass lenses we can see downward. Look at the very bottom of the image. Do you see that greenery just before the water’s edge?”
“Yeah. It’s a park of some kind.”
“It’s the Alice Austin House, a National Historic Landmark that’s on the corner of Hylan Boulevard and Edgewater Street about two miles from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. I searched the realty listings for high-rise units around there, and it turns out there’s a whole nest of high-rise luxury condos on Hylan Boulevard that I had no idea even existed. Staten Island’s not exactly ground zero for chic living, know what I’m saying? I took a virtual tour of a twelfth-floor unit in The Gateway. We’re talking uber high-end. Doorman, swimming pool, underground parking, the works. And they’re asking a sweet six hundred thou for a measly little one-bedroom. The reason being that every unit enjoys panoramic views of the Statue of Liberty from its floor-to-ceiling windows and private balcony. And guess what? The twelfth floor of The Gateway has almost the same exact view that’s reflected in Boso’s sunglasses.”
“I’m liking the sound of this, Rita.”
“Wait, it gets even better. I started checking out the neighboring buildings, okay? Want to guess who owns the Crown Towers right across the street from The Gateway? Top Hat Property Management. Want to guess who owns the controlling interest in Top Hat? Mr. Joe Minetta, boss of the Minetta crime family.”
Right away, my wheels were spinning. Morrie was in deep to Joe Minetta, according to Leah Shimmel. Not a surprise if the highly diversified Minetta family happened to be in the highly lucrative Internet porn trade. Also not a surprise if they kept a webcam girl like Boso stashed in an apartment building somewhere off the radar. And it doesn’t get more off the radar than Staten Island. Boso was linked to Morrie’s missing angel, R. J. Farnell. That much I knew. But what was the link between R. J. Farnell and Joe Minetta? “Rita, does the Crown Towers have a health spa?”
“Um, it has a pool but I don’t see anything about a spa. Why?”
“Check out Boso’s abs. She works out like a fiend, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, I would. Pilates, I’d bet.”
“Where’s the nearest Pilates club?”
“Hang on … Okay, there’s a Sharp Fitness Center two blocks away on Bay Street. They offer Pilates and yoga.”
“You done good, Rita.”
“You done good. You’re the one who noticed that reflection. The moron who shot the video was too busy getting a chubby. She is a sexy little thing.”
“She’s okay,” I said quietly.
“Are you okay?”
“Why, don’t I sound okay?”
“No, you sound lonesome and mournful. Do you want to talk? I’m always here for you, you know.”
“I’m fine, Rita. Really.”
“Okay, if you say so. Sleep tight, little lamb.”
I rang off and watched eighteen-year-old Jonquil Beausoleil of Ruston, Louisiana, rub baby oil on her naked self for a little while until I decided that that was a really bad idea and shut down my laptop. Then I lay there staring at the ceiling in the darkness. Not that it’s ever totally dark in the city. There was enough of a glow from the streetlights and neighboring buildings that I could make out the intricate pattern of cracks and water stains in the plaster over my bed. As I studied them I thought about Cricket and wondered why things hadn’t worked out between us. Too soon, probably. My scars had still been fresh. I thought about Rita and how much I missed being with her. I thought about calling one of the numbers in my little black book. Except, well, I don’t have a little black book. So instead I just lay there, restless and alone.
But I didn’t sleep. I don’t sleep. Not if I can help it.
That’s when the nightmares come.