Lila Pons owned an apartment in River House, arguably the single snootiest and most exclusive address in New York, if not the entire world.
She'd moved in during the summer of 1954, thirteen years after the FDR Drive had been built, and until then, the sedate dowager of a building had fronted directly on the East River, where it had even boasted its own yacht mooring. That, like so many other things, had changed as time had passed, but River House itself had not.
Built on the heels of the 1929 Crash, it had symbolized optimism and confidence in both the city and the country's economy, and from the beginning, had been home to many of the city's—and indeed the world's— richest, most prominent, and most socially acceptable residents. It still was, and being accepted by the co-op board was something akin to passing the scrutiny of the CIA, the Stalinist-era KGB, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, MI5, the Morgan Bank, and the Social Register.
To the casual observer, the towering brick and stone edifice gave off an aura of pre-war stability and solidity, and looked as if it had always been there and would remain there forever.
Like some legendary memorial. Or a monument to its most famous and reclusive resident, Lila Pons.
Before reaching East Fifty-second Street, Kenzie ducked into a doorway on First Avenue, untied her Reeboks, stuffed them into her shoulder bag, and wiggled her feet into her best shoes.
She checked her watch. She still had six minutes to go. Good. Time enough to reach the building right on the button.
River House was the very last building at the cobbled end of East Fifty-second Street. Its U-shaped facade had a canvas awning, and on the ground level, wall-mounted stone faces stared at each other across the recessed entrance, the mouths of which, in warmer weather, streamed water into scallop-shell basins, and which now gaped dryly, like idiots. The doorman was outside, enjoying what weather he could in the deep, lengthening shadows of the afternoon. He wore the requisite uniform and peaked cap and looked as though he'd been there since the creation.
"May I help you, ma'am?" His reedy voice was extremely polite.
"Yes. I have an appointment to see Ms. Pons."
She could have sworn his face—eyes, mouth, even nose and ears— went totally blank. "There's no one here by that name, I'm afraid."
Kenzie wasn't deterred. She said, "I'm from Burghley's, the auction house, and Ms. Pons called us to appraise her art. Here's my card." She unbuckled her bag and passed him one.
He took it and held it mere inches from his eyes. It was European style, larger than the standard American size, and thick as fiberboard:
BURGHLEY'S
FOUNDED 1719
721 Madison Avenue MacKenzie Turner
New York, New York 10021 Expert-in-Charge
Old Master Paintings and Drawings
(212) JL5-5000 (212) JL5-5121
He scratched the engraved letters with a thumbnail, sighed, and said, "If you'll wait here, ma'am, I'll be with you shortly."
Kenzie smiled. "Thank you."
She watched him shuffle inside to use the house phone and took the opportunity to look around at the too-tall buildings lining this short narrow block. Glancing out over the FDR Drive, she saw a tug nosing a barge upstream against the swift current of the East River. Then, turning in the opposite direction, she had to squint and hold up a hand to shield her eyes from the grit-filled blast of wind shooting through the vertical canyon from across the Hudson in New Jersey.
Hearing the doorman's discreet cough, Kenzie faced him with a smile. He looked sincerely apologetic. "I've spoken to the housekeeper, ma'am," he said with gravity as he handed Kenzie back her card. "She asked me to tell you that Miss P. is currently in Japan."
"Japan!" Kenzie frowned. "That's rather peculiar, isn't it? I mean, if she's overseas, why should she have called us?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am," he said ever-so-politely, something in his manner conveying that they were both merely the victims of some higher power's whim. "I am only conveying what I was told."
Kenzie hesitated before shrugging philosophically. "Well, it's not your fault." She took several backward steps and raised a hand to sketch a friendly wave. "Thanks all the same."
He seemed grateful that she didn't pry any further. "Anytime, ma'am," he said, doffing his cap.
She started retracing her way back toward First Avenue when something ... a sudden premonition, perhaps? A kind of sixth sense? ...caused her to slow down and glance up at the building's blank windows. Abruptly she stopped walking.
Was it her imagination?
Or had her eye caught—what?
She wouldn't swear to it in a court of law. Nor even to herself. But by some keen intuition she had glimpsed—was it an hallucination? just wishful thinking on her account?—a curtain behind a closed fifth-floor window twitching furtively aside, and a ghostly face materializing before darting, swift as quicksilver, back into the shadows?
Kenzie, a shiver rippling up her spine, stood rooted to the spot, unable to keep herself from staring up at that window. It was dark and mysterious; the curtains still. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred.
Chiding herself for letting her imagination run amok, she walked reluctantly on, but not without giving that casement window one last upward glance over her shoulder.
It was just another blank window among countless multitudes, she told herself. So what if a curtain had moved? It could have been anyone's apartment; God alone knew how many tenants occupied a building of that size.
Fleetingly, she wondered whether this errand had been someone's idea of a bad joke.
Or had Lila Pons really wanted her collection appraised ... but then changed her mind at the very last minute?
Perhaps time would tell. And then again, perhaps it would not.
Either way, Kenzie knew she would not easily forget this particular wild-goose chase.
The very idea of calling upon one of the greatest screen legends of all time—especially one who had become a mysterious aged recluse living behind locked doors—only made this errand, in vain though it might have been, that much more fascinating.
Under her breath, Kenzie said softly, "I vant to be alone."
God, she thought in self-disgust. How unoriginal can I get?
"Tell whoever it is that I'm in ... Japan!"
Now, that was original, all right!
Especially when you wished upon a star.
And the most nebulous star, at that ...