Cheyney Fox (42 page)

“It just came to me out of nowhere, that we do have a strategy. Only none of us knew it. What we’ve been doing so far was right, protecting you, Cheyney, by speaking for you. But we can’t go on this way forever. A time comes when silence starts meaning guilt. The answer, of course, is that we announce — at the right moment, mind you — that Cheyney Fox will give no press conferences until after her appointment has been ratified. But she will give one in-depth, hour-long interview with some guy like Madigan. Grant Madigan. He’s the sort with the right media impact and status to swing it our way. Do an interview with some hotshot like him, and it could put you in Washington. He’s good enough to persuade America who and what Cheyney Fox really is. Whether she’s right for the job on offer.”

Takashi and Katie enthused simultaneously, faces beaming. All Cheyney could think of was fifteen, nearly sixteen years ago. A long time to have loved so completely and lost so utterly and have killed so deliberately all feelings for a man. She felt
nothing at the sound of his name. No more than she did when she watched him on TV, which had only been once, or read something of his, which had not been often. Or when her son asked anything about his natural father. For years Cheyney had trained herself to feel nothing for Grant Madigan. But she did still feel the loss of her one and only great love affair. Taggart, the fruit she reaped from it, was always living proof of how divine it was to have had even a taste of real love and Grant Madigan.

She smiled at her three friends and said, “You are clever, Judd. And I agree your plan has got possibilities. Go get Grant Madigan.”

Chapter 37

C
heyney was not so much nervous as confused as to whether it was after all such a good idea to submit to a grilling for TV by Grant Madigan. What bravado on her part: “Go get Grant Madigan.” Really. What a way for a gal to talk. Movie-script stuff. For God’s sake, she was meeting Taggart’s natural father. Taggart would have to be told. What then? Suddenly Cheyney felt this meeting was fraught with danger. Less for her than for her son.

But the meeting was on now. And setting it up had not been easy. Judd had had to agree that the two of them should meet in a private place and alone for their preliminary meeting, because if the TV interview did happen, Madigan would insist on secrecy. No leaks to the press. His own network and publicity machine would want to handle everything. There was no getting out of the meeting. She would have to show up.

Madigan’s first reaction to Judd Whyatt’s suggestion that he interview Cheyney was “impossible.” Not for any feelings he had about Cheyney. There were none left. He had killed them off when he walked out on her those many years ago.

No, it was “impossible” simply because of the timing. Tempting as it was to do the interview — because of the subject: a woman who had grabbed the imagination of the public because she’d just whooshed into fame, success, and dollars in only a few short years.

Grant knew he had only to probe the slanderous daily chatter about her in the media. He would have a riveting program; whatever got said, Cheyney would come across as a potential superstar. Everyone wants a slice of a woman up for fame. An exclusive interview with the controversial Cheyney Fox? A scoop.

And there were professional reasons for wishing that he could rearrange his shows to fit her in. He objected to how nominees were with suspicious frequency being disqualified for the way they ran their personal lives. Public puritanism was usually hypocritical and invariably looked ludicrous. Such precedents might one day leave the United States with only the dullest, most boring, inadequate, extreme right-wing Bible thumpers allowed to hold public office. And even then they would have to prove themselves morally and sexually pure, pure, pure. He shuddered at the thought. Mr. Clean in charge?

And no liberal journalist like Madigan could ever believe a steady marriage and an unblemished drinks/drugs record were qualifications for office. The impure prefer to be governed by the impure. The Bible Belt is too tight for them. So Madigan was professionally predisposed in his interviewee’s favor.

And too, there was a lot of good, intriguing material to question Cheyney Fox on that would make good viewing. He was certain that his audiences would be no less fascinated than he to hear her version of Cheyney Fox’s rise to fame and fortune. And what she would say about the supposed Nazi loot said to have become the foundation of her own collection.

He would, of course, like the story of what real spy games she had to play with the CIA and the Israelis to grab the Nazi treasures they wanted. How she managed to get access to the highest levels in the White House, the Kremlin, the Elysée
Palace. And what of the secret CIA photos of her on the arm of a former Nazi general, or others, in palatial South American residences, marked, “Woman, North American, Unidentified”? Fakes to set her up as some kind of a modern-day Mata Hari? Of such stuff were headlines made. The papers weren’t billing her as Ms. Clean. And what had she done for Irving Kirshner? Had she helped him? He had seen Irving many times since that day in Paris when he gave Irving Cheyney’s name. But, at Grant’s request, Irving had said not a word about her.

As soon as he had finished his conversation with Judd Whyatt, Grant called his research department to pull everything they could find on Cheyney Fox. What they came up with intrigued him more every minute.

Mega-rich Japanese industrialists took heed of her advice in art and architecture. One at least was committed to her in devoted friendship. Why her? What made her capable of beating out other dealers? What did she have, and what did she give, above and beyond her expertise? Sexual services? CIA services? Either was a possibility; both were rumored. Middle Eastern sheikhs and princes, two of whom Grant knew well, were said to be besotted by her. They heaped spectacularly generous gifts upon her. Why?

What made a woman like Cheyney Fox tick? One with as many powerful enemies in the art world determined to destroy her, no matter how, as she had admirers. Those enemies she’d made after she broke a silence over American Pop Art and her contribution to it through Warhol. The Campbell’s soup cans. A can of worms there, maybe, Madigan mused. What kind of power did this woman have, to be able to turn the art world of the sixties upside down with a single absurd idea?

And there was, too, the glamour aspect of her life. Happily married to a wealthy European dilettante until his death, a man no other woman had been able to lure into wedlock. A ravishing wife to him; a world-hopping mother, devoted to her son, a career woman. All pretty good material. “Impossible” suddenly seemed less impossible. He called in his assistant. They tried to work out the changes that would have to be made in schedules. How, where, and when it could be done.

Just a short walk away from Cheyney’s Central Park South twenty-room penthouse apartment to the Plaza Hotel. She was
quite looking forward now to meeting Grant Madigan and persuading him to do the in-depth interview. That was after she had screwed up her courage to call Taggart. And she was relieved to find that the hurtful gossip and innuendoes in the media had not as yet penetrated the ivy-covered walls of Eton. Boys had more pressing concerns than the state of American art.

“Mom, stop worrying about me. You simply have no idea how insulated we are here from the hard real world. Ain’t heard nothing yet. When and if I do, I can cope. Do you think you are the only mother whose son goes to Eton who has been involved in scandal? Sometimes you’re awfully naive, Mom. Forget it. We’re primed here to handle whatever is thrown at us. It’s what you pay for every Eton term.”

“You sound just like your father.”

“Well, yeah. If he was still alive, Mom, he’d say, ‘Sheyney, my dear, do get on with it.’ And them’s my sentiments, too.”

Tears had come to her eyes: Taggart mimicked Kurt’s Viennese accent perfectly.

Cheyney found what a healer time really is. She could hardly equate Grant Madigan, this media personality, honored by so many remarkable men around the world for his relatively unbiased journalism, with a lover who so ruthlessly abandoned her. A lifetime ago.

That was going to be comparatively easy after the day she had already had. A morning at the gallery where “business as usual” was more “fraught as usual.” Two museums wanting the same Clyfford Still. One of the best architects in the States having a tug of war with his client: should they go for a two-million dollar Henry Moore sculpture, or commission Oldenburg to create a piece for the atrium of a business complex in San Diego, California? Cheyney had been burdened with the casting vote in the matter.

Lunch with Harvey Wigan. The good senator had flown in from Washington just to see Cheyney. She still had no idea what had induced her to behave as she did when he demanded, “I insist you become Mrs. Harvey Wigan before you take office. Cheyney Wigan — it suits you, you know.” Suddenly the very idea of being Senator Wigan’s wife appalled Cheyney. Harvey, who had been so good to her, who had been such an
exciting companion. Attractive, interesting Harvey, imaginatively sexy out from under the capital’s rotunda, Harvey, who could give her the family life she missed, be the husband she liked having. And she was aghast at the very idea of it.

Whatever impelled her to reply as he playfully nudged the open jeweler’s box across the damask cloth toward her, the fat diamond sparkling in the restaurant’s designer lighting, “Harvey, much as I like you, I don’t want to be Senator Harvey Wigan’s wife. I’m sorry, I’m flattered, and believe me I wish and have wished all along that it could be so. But I simply don’t love you. And please, Harve, don’t ask me again.”

“But you always knew that it was in the cards!”

“In the cards, Harvey, and in my head. But not in my heart. I suppose you will hate it if I tell you, we must call the romance a day, and remain good friends.”

“Of course I will hate it. I’ve settled for ‘good friends’ for too long as it is. And, Cheyney, time has run out. I want a wife.”

“I know, Harvey. That’s the problem. You want a wife, and I’m not the woman to fill that bill. I think I had better leave.” Cheyney closed the ring box and pressed it into his hand. She kissed him gently on the lips and whispered in his ear, “Forgive me.”

He looked quite shocked. What man expects such brisk rejection? He asked, “It’s another man, isn’t it?” His tone told her he would find the rejection more acceptable if that were the case. A bed already full was more palatable than a sensational brush-off. Not want to be Senator Wigan’s wife? But she couldn’t even manage a little white lie. All generosity gone, she couldn’t even give him that. She felt like a bitch when she said, “No, Harvey, I’m not saying no because of another man.”

She had risen from her chair, and he had held on tightly to her hand. Choked with disappointment, he could still play the good guy. “I won’t, of course, withdraw my support from you. That will always be there. But you will understand if I don’t stay in touch.” Ever the gentleman, Senator Harve, thought Cheyney. She made a bet with herself as she walked away from him through the restaurant — he’ll have a wife within sixty days. She felt less a bitch for turning him down. More high-as-a-kite
with relief that she had. It was a time for self-preservation.

Judd Whyatt’s comment, when they spoke on the telephone that afternoon and she told him about the senator, was “You do pick your moment, Cheyney.”

She had answered, “He picked it. I didn’t.”

“The senator took a gamble and lost, I hope you haven’t.”

“Did you seriously think I wouldn’t wake up to the fact that I couldn’t marry a man like Harvey Wigan after being married to a man like Kurt? I only pretended to myself that I could. You might have warned me, Judd.”

“Would you have listened? Never mind all that now. Cheyney, you must get Grant Madigan.”

“I will, Judd.”

Walking up the Plaza steps, Cheyney nodded to the doorman, but was thinking of her lover, Takashi. His young flesh, his virility, still warmed her from their afternoon of lovemaking. What an agreeable minor miracle that sex was still for Cheyney such an uninhibited pleasure. It was not unknown at her age for it to be on the wane. She owed it to Takashi and their rich and full erotic life together. She had been so lucky in her sexual life. To have been able to replace the loss of her libertine-lover husband with the equally sexually exciting Takashi. They had loved each other for a very long time. Had she not been close to twenty years older than her lover … who knows? … marriage? Women had done stranger things.

What a day, she thought, while standing in front of the door of suite 2612, her fist poised to knock on it. Cheyney hesitated. Excitement. As if ridding herself of Harve had set her free and sex in the afternoon made her young. She tapped on the door.

Grant opened it. He put an arm out and they shook hands. Here, standing before her, was not the TV celebrity, the glossy star of blurbs on the backs of books he had written, that she had come to meet. Here was Grant Madigan, offscreen and in the flesh. Still the man she had loved more intensely than any other. The father of her only child. Cheyney was disappointed and disconcerted — she half preferred the image to the man. The man was something too real she might have to deal with.

“Come in.” His smile was as winning as she remembered it. “The years have been good to you, Cheyney.”

“Hello, Grant. I do appreciate your seeing me at such short notice.”

“Something to drink?”

Banalities. Small talk. The view over Central Park. What a handsome drawing room he had. How he still enjoyed living in hotels. Unworthy of both of them, it managed to create a nervous tension between them that had not been there when Cheyney had arrived. She felt her self-control slipping from her.

Cheyney turned away from the window to face Grant. She caught him taking a long, intense look at her. The erotic feelings he had for her were still there. The eyes said it all. She hoped he didn’t recognize the same in hers. What was obvious to both of them was the mutual respect they had. Success appreciates success. Travelers on the same rough road.

Both still bore the scars of wounds inflicted during their last encounter, though they had healed long ago. They made an effort to ignore the past, which was more difficult for Cheyney. She was carrying a huge secret, a son, conceived from their last violent, romantic interlude.

“I can’t stand this small talk. Can’t we just drop it? Or do you think we’ve changed so much?”

“We couldn’t be where we are today without changing.”

She sensed his antagonism. The way that they looked at each other, the movement of their bodies indicated a residue of bitterness, still lying under the layers of forgetfulness, remnants of intense erotic feelings, infatuation.

Grant broke the silence, “This isn’t going to work, Cheyney.”

“No, I guess it isn’t.”

“Let me finish what I started to say. It isn’t going to work. Not unless we drop this ridiculous antagonism between us. There shouldn’t be any. We must throw out this emotional discontent we feel for each other if there is any hope of our working together on an interview.”

Cheyney finished her drink and held up her glass. Grant took it with one hand while he downed his drink with the other and then went to the table he used as a bar. He refilled their glasses.

For a moment her defenses crumbled. She confessed, “Oh, Grant, I don’t understand. I promise you, until I stepped into
this room, I had forgotten about us years ago.”

“Okay, Cheyney, maybe it is a kind of defense mechanism against any erotic desires we still might feel for each other. Why don’t we begin this meeting again? Try less hard defending our positions. Our war was over long ago. Let’s just be ourselves. See where we can get to from there.”