Meet Me in Venice (13 page)

Mary-Lou’s blood ran as cold as the martini. “I hadn’t heard,” she said. “And where does this rumor come from anyway?”

The man shrugged. “Ohh, you know how rumors are here, but this is said to come from a rich businessman who’s been approached to purchase it.” He shrugged dismissively again. “Of course no one claims to have actually seen this phenomenon yet, it’s all just hearsay. Still, you never know.” He lifted his glass. “Cheers,” he said, watching amazed as Mary-Lou drank down the rest of her martini in one gulp.

She slid off the barstool. “I’m supposed to be working,” she said, heading for the door.

“See you around,” he called after her.

Trembling with anger, Mary-Lou headed for Voortmann’s office. “The fool,” she muttered, sitting in her car, stalled once again at a traffic light. “The fucking crazy drunken fool, I’ll kill him.”

She found a parking spot down the street, marched angrily to the steel gates and pressed the buzzer. There was no answer and she pressed it again, this time leaving her finger on it. A minute passed. Still Voortmann did not answer. Stepping back she glared up at his windows. There was no light. Where was the idiot?

She marched to her car and drove straight back to Lily’s. She had at least to pretend to be working. And she had to gear herself up for her meeting with Bennett that night. And decide exactly what she was going to tell him.

MARY-LOU HAD NOT BEEN ABLE
to find Voortmann because he had been visited by two cops that morning.

He’d heard their sirens, looked out of his window, watched the loiterers and petty criminals scattering like prey before a hunter, disappearing into the maze of filthy back alleys. He’d seen the two cops marching toward his door and shrunk back terrified at the sound of the buzzer and their harsh shouts demanding he open up.

Quicker than he’d moved in years, Voortmann had swept the diamond necklace he was working on from his workbench, scooped up a few other stones and shoved them all into the small metal safe hidden beneath the floorboard under his leather swivel chair. He’d burned the photo of the necklace in an ashtray then scattered the tiny fragments across the floor so no evidence could be put together from the blackened pieces.

Heart in his dry mouth, he’d buzzed them in and sat, waiting
for the ax to fall. And it had. He was arrested peremptorily on charges of dealing in stolen goods. He was also wanted for questioning in the sale of valuable antiques.

Voortmann was in jail without a lawyer, and knew he would be there for a long time. His whole body was shaking. He wished he had a drink.

L
ILY
heard the rumor that morning, at a cafe on the Wuzhong Road, near the Dongtai Antiques Market, whispered over cups of hot green tea and
xiao long bao,
her favorite steamed pork dumplings. Her face flamed with anger and she left abruptly without even tasting the dumplings. She needed to talk to Mary-Lou. And right now.

Bennett heard it on the treadmill at the splendidly equipped gym at the J.W. Marriott Hotel on the Nanjing Road, where he worked out every morning. His half hour was coming to an end as he turned down the treadmill’s pace and overheard the low-key conversation behind him. He turned to look and saw that he knew one of speakers. He was the son of a rich businessman who’d made a fortune in the electronics export business. The man was a
notorious lowlife, but that meant he had an ear to the underground dealings of the city, and Bennett had no doubt he knew what he was talking about.

Realizing what must have happened, he cursed Mary-Lou, got off the treadmill, took a shower, dressed, and went in search of his car. He was so angry he could have killed her, but before he did, he needed to see if she’d gotten the necklace.

MARY-LOU WAS BACK AT THE
house when Lily returned, busily sorting orders for the replica figurines. She had decided to put a good face on things, pretend nothing was wrong, and now she glanced up, smiling as Lily walked in.

“Business looks good this month,” she said, flourishing a small sheaf of order forms.

“Stand up,” Lily said. “I have something to say to you.”

Mary-Lou stood, looking uncertainly at her. “What’s wrong?”

“You are a liar and a cheat. You’ve stolen from me over this past year with no regard for our friendship, nor for the helping hand I offered you when you were down on your luck. I trusted you, Mary-Lou Chen, and you have betrayed that trust. And now half of Shanghai knows about the necklace.”

“What necklace?” Mary-Lou interrupted, still trying to maintain her innocence.

“The one you saw in my secret safe. The one you attempted to sell on the low end of the market to the most dangerous of buyers. A Chinese,” She put up a hand, palm out, to stop Mary-Lou as
she began to protest. “Don’t try to find excuses, I know they are all lies. I don’t even want to know how you did it. I just want you out of my house. Now.”

Mary-Lou saw there was no point in arguing. She had been judged guilty. There was no hope now of her ever getting the necklace. She picked up her jacket and her bag and walked past Lily to the door.

“I won’t wish you luck with your sale, Lily,” she said bitterly in passing. “In fact I’ll do everything I can to sabotage you. Including going to the authorities.”

“Do that,” Lily retorted. “They’ll find nothing. Only a safe with my meager savings, earned from selling replicas to the tourist trade. Don’t think I’m a fool, Mary-Lou, because you’re wrong. Neither you nor the authorities can ever touch me.”

Maybe not, but Bennett Yuan can, Mary-Lou thought as she stormed out of the house for the last time.

EVEN THOUGH SHE WAS ON
time, Bennett was already waiting for her at the Cloud 9 bar at eight that evening. She had taken particular care with her appearance, and was wearing a new short cream silk dress and pale suede mules with very high heels. Her eyes were emphasized with bronze shadow and her full lips were glazed their usual shiny red. She wore dangling gold earrings and a gold snake bracelet twined around her slender upper arm. She looked beautiful and she knew it.

“Sit down, Mary-Lou,” Bennett said without preamble. “I assume you have the necklace in that purse you’re holding?”

“Not exactly . . . .”

“Yes? Or no?”

“No,” she admitted. “But tomorrow . . . .”

He threw her a disgusted look and she turned away. Since he hadn’t asked what she wanted to drink, she called the waiter to bring her a martini. She was so flustered she forgot this time to ask for the three blue cheese olives and for it to be extra cold.

“You may not have the necklace,” Bennett continued, relentless as a hunter with his prey. “But half of Shanghai knows about it. How do you explain that?”

Oh God, like Lily, he’d heard the rumors. She should never have gone to Voortmann, she’d only done it out of desperation.

“You didn’t seem interested and I needed to find a buyer quick, so I went to Voortmann . . . .”

“The Dutch diamond cutter? That cheap asshole? My God, he couldn’t sell anything worth more than a couple of thousand dollars. Were you out of your mind?”

She hung her head, while the waiter placed the martini in front of her. When he’d gone, she grabbed it and took a long drink.

Bennett leaned across the table. His face was close to hers as he said softly, “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have believed the story of the necklace if I hadn’t found evidence of it myself. Of course Lily Song has it, doesn’t she? And now I’m asking myself why go to the salesman when I can go to the source? Lily owns it, my dear, and you do not.”

She watched, dumbstruck, as he got to his feet. He didn’t even say goodbye as he left.

She had lost her job and lost the necklace. And now she had lost Bennett. The world as she knew it had come to an end.

B
ENNETT
knew that the rumor was rampant throughout the city, fueled by speculation as to how much the necklace might be worth and who had it. He also knew that stolen jewels of that kind of museum quality would be impossible to sell at any of the world auction houses. Only a private collector, someone obsessed with the idea of the fabulous sinister jewel, would be prepared to pay millions and then keep it hidden, taking it out when he was alone, to gloat over it, to handle it, remembering where it had come from. Just the way certain collectors of stolen paintings were reported to do, keeping them locked behind secret sliding panels with electronic buttons only they knew about, that, when pressed, slid away to reveal the treasures meant for their perverse solitary enjoyment.

No one knew better than Bennett that men were strange and this special kind of collector was a rare breed. But not that rare. He had a few ideas.

But for now the bottom had dropped out of the market. It was too dangerous to try to sell. No buyer would even bite. He knew Lily would have to play it safe and hold on to her secret. There was no way she would even attempt to unload the necklace now.

Meanwhile, he was pursuing the easier of the two options that would eventually make him a rich man. He was off to Venice to get married.

MARY-LOU TRIED INTERMINABLY TO CONTACT
Bennett in an attempt to salvage their relationship. Finally, in desperation she went to find him at the Marriott gym but was told that Mr. Yuan was away. He’d gone to Europe, the hostess there told her. “To get married,” she added smiling.

Mary-Lou thought she would faint. Her heart fluttered and jumped and the girl brought her a glass of water and made her sit down for a while. In fact she had no memory of leaving the hotel, nor of driving home, but she went up to her apartment and locked the door. She stood, trembling by the big window with the crystal for good
chi,
screaming silently, torn apart by Bennett’s treachery. She had no one. Nothing. And nothing left to lose.

•    •    •

BENNETT WAS RIGHT ABOUT LILY
. She couldn’t attempt to sell the necklace until the rumors had died down. The Swiss had backed out and she would have to wait before she contacted her second candidate.

She sat in her pretty courtyard with its rippling fountain and the goldfish darting, with the perfume of the pink lotus blossoms in the air and her little songbird trilling a melody, and for the first time she wished her mother had never given Tai Lam the necklace. Then she would not have this problem. She had her lucrative sideline with the stolen antiquities, she would have just stuck to that. Sometimes the lure of great wealth moved you to do drastic things. It almost wasn’t worth it.

VENICE

T
HE
month had passed quickly and Grizelda had everything perfectly organized: the Basilica; the flowers; the wedding reception at the Cipriani. She had even flown to Paris to supervise the dress and an elegant compromise had finally been reached. Preshy was to wear long mist-colored chiffon and, because it was cold in Venice in November, a sweeping gold brocade hooded cape, lined with bronze velvet and trimmed with fur.

Daria and her family and Sylvie would stay with them at the fourteenth-century Palazzo Rendino, but in keeping with tradition, Bennett was not sleeping under the same roof as his bride the night before their wedding. He’d chosen instead to stay on the Lido across the lagoon from Venice, at the Hotel des Bains, an extravagant fin de siècle monument to luxury, because, he said,
he wanted to be able to speed across the lagoon to his wedding like a buccaneer of old.

The night before the ceremony, Grizelda and Mimi threw a party for all of the guests, fifty of them, in the faded gilt luxury of the Palazzo. Grizelda was glamorous in red lace Valentino, and Mimi in apple green chiffon Versace, bustling around, making sure everyone was having a good time. Daria held hands with her bearded professor husband, Tom, who held Lauren the Super-Kid and future flower girl, who was overexcited and a bit cranky.

“Less than ‘Super’ tonight I’m afraid,” Daria said ruefully but Tom said she’d be better when she had some spaghetti in her, it was her favorite food.

Daria of course looked like a blond preppie angel in a tailored cream suit, and looking at Tom, Preshy couldn’t help but smile, remembering her description of the time Daria had beaten him down to his under shorts at poker and fallen in love with him, all “pale and professory-looking.”

Sylvie wore black. “It makes me look thinner,” she said with a regretful sigh, but she was pleased just to be an honored guest and not to be doing the cooking this time around. And the others, mostly friends of Aunt Grizelda’s and Mimi’s, wore everything that was elegant and in fashion and very probably too young for them. And of course, the bride-to-be was as chic as her aunt could make her, in a dark blue wrap dress that, with her long curly hair flowing free, Bennett said, made her look like a Pre-Raphaelite angel.

Fires burned in the great hearths at either end of the paneled and gilded salon, and candlelight reflected off the lusters in the
old Murano chandeliers, illuminating the faded ceiling frescoes and softening the lofty room into an intimate space. A string quartet played Vivaldi, Venice’s own composer, and white-jacketed waiters circulated bearing large silver trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres, while Lalah and Schnuppi yapped and snapped and ran excitedly through everybody’s legs.

Outside of the tall windows the canal glimmered in the deepening dusk. “How beautiful it is,” Bennett said, standing by the window, looking out at it. “So dark and still.”

Preshy squeezed his hand. “Now you understand why I love Venice so much.”

He nodded. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “Now I know.”

Soon Grizelda was marshaling the guests down to the water-gate entrance to the Palazzo where gondolas waited to ferry them to the restaurant chosen for the pre wedding dinner.

Their little flotilla glided down the canal to a trattoria on the Fondamenta Nuevo, with a view over the misty lagoon to the Isola di San Michèle, and what may be the most beautiful cemetery in the world. And dinner turned out to be a merry raucous event of silly toasts and singing and too much wine and, amongst other goodies, a terrific seafood risotto that Sylvie said was the best she had ever tasted.