The Body In The Big Apple (27 page)

Great, thought Faith in revulsion, picturing Michael getting his kicks from the ultimate “good-bye sex.”

The drinks came, and Emma wanted to hear about Lorraine Fuchs. Faith told her, and both women felt a deep sadness at the path Lorraine's life had taken—and where it led at the end. The police were now treating her suicide as a homicide. As she'd told Faith, she'd seen Nathan Fox the day before he was killed. He must have called her to come get the manuscript and put it someplace safe. Faith could imagine his saying that he
wasn't planning on going anywhere but that he wanted her to keep it—and keep it sealed until his death. The death that was waiting for him on the other side of his door the very next afternoon.

“We know Lucy told Michael about your pregnancy, but how did he find out Nathan Fox was your father? Do you think she knew?”

Emma shook her head. Faith had been interested to note that alcohol had the opposite effect on Emma from that of most people. It made her more lucid.

“I wondered the same thing. The lawyer said Michael had found one of my postcards when we were on vacation a year and a half ago. I'd used it as a bookmark and hadn't mailed it, but it had the address, and I'd written, ‘Dear Daddy.' Michael didn't know then who Norman Fuchs was, but he's very smart. He figured it out. I had all of Daddy's books when we got married, and Michael used to tease me about them.”

“But how did he know that you'd be at the apartment?”

“He looked in my appointment book and followed me a few times, apparently.”

“You mean you wrote, ‘Go see Dad' after ‘Have Manicure' and before ‘Tea at the Plaza'!” This was a bit much even for Emma.

“No, don't be silly. I wrote in code. Don't you do this? Like a little star when you get your period, that kind of thing? I would never forget when I was supposed to see him, but I still wrote a little
d
on Tuesdays at three o'clock.”

And after a team of top cryptographers worked for several weeks, this arcane code was cracked.

“What do you think happened to the book?” Faith asked.

“What book?” It was Poppy Morris. She sat down next to her daughter and a waiter instantly appeared. “What they're having, but no olives, a twist. And very dry.”

Her hair was pulled back in her trademark chignon. She was wearing a long, full dark skirt and a Valentino shearling-lined jacket with hand-painted suede appliqué designs. Beneath the jacket, Faith could see several ropes of nonfaux pearls and a few gold chains. She looked like a very chic, very rich gypsy queen.

“Oh, that book,” she said, answering her own question, then began picking the cashews out of the mixed nuts. “I would love to have read it, before I burned it, that is. See what he had to say about people I knew, about
moi
. And probably Michael did what I would have done. It's not something he would have kept around. Evidence, you know.”

Faith was sure Poppy was right. Michael's remark about Poppy's anatomy revealed he must have at least skimmed it before he tossed it on the Yule log. She wondered what else Fox had written about Poppy. There was still the unanswered question of who had driven the getaway car during the bank robbery. Poppy at the wheel with her Vuitton driving gloves? They'd never know.

Poppy was addressing Faith. “Of course, I know what you did in the kitchen, dear, and you do know what I'm so inadequately trying to say.” She patted Faith's hand—and Faith did know. “I suppose that's why they call it
batterie de cuisine,”
Poppy added as an afterthought. “Now, Jason and Lucy have gone to Mustique. Emma, I thought we might head off for Gstaad, stop in Paris on the way. You need a trip. It's
been horrible, I know, but you've got to put it behind you. That's what I always do. And just think, darling, there won't be any question about grounds for divorce.”

Emma looked stricken. Faith could read her mind. One more thing on an increasingly nasty “To Do” list—testify against Michael, find new apartment—too, too upsetting to walk into the kitchen—get divorce.

“I'm sure the lawyers will handle everything, and going away for a while is a terrific idea,” Faith advised.

“It's settled, then—and you'll come, too, Faith.” Poppy drained her drink and stood up.

“I have to work, sorry,” Faith said—and she was. Just for now. Just for a moment.

“He really was the most divine man. I miss him.”

There was no question about whom she was speaking.

“I miss him, too,” Emma said.

Poppy nodded briskly. Things were getting a bit too mushy. “Now, call me and tell me where you'll be after you leave here. I'm off to Marietta's. You know how to reach me.” When they'd met at the St. Regis, Emma had called her mother right away. Poppy was keeping a close eye on her daughter.

Emma kissed her mother good-bye.

They talked some more, but after a while fell into their own individual reveries. It would be the New Year soon. A new decade, and in not too many years, a new century. You can't stop time, no matter how much you do or don't want to, Faith reflected. Richard had been right about one thing: Nathan Fox's murder was tied to his past. A line from Shakespeare's
Tempest
—she'd been Miranda in college—popped into
her head: “what's past is prologue.” She looked over at Emma. She was shaking the snow globe Faith had given her and watching the flakes swirl about the tiny city inside.

The Big Apple. Jazz musicians coined the city's familiar moniker in the twenties. There were plenty of apples to pick from the tree, but only one Big Apple, only one New York. If you had a gig there, you had it made. The ultimate destination.

Growing up in northern New Jersey, I felt much the same. As teenagers, my friends and I used to say we lived “just outside the city,” omitting the fact that we had to cross a state line to get there. At twelve, we were deemed old enough to take the DeCamp bus together to Port Authority—in the daytime. Armed with the small penciled maps my mother would draw, we'd head for Manhattan. One Saturday, it would be museums. My cousin John convinced me to stand in line with him for several hours outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art to catch a sixty-second glimpse of the
Mona Lisa,
on loan from the Louvre. It's the wait I remember best now, the mix of New Yorkers and out-of-towners, the jokes, the stories—holding places while people dashed off for a dog from the Sabrett's “all beef
kosher franks” stand. Another Saturday, we'd go from box office to box office on Broadway until we got tickets to a matinee (prices were much lower in the early sixties). We saw everything from Richard Burton in
Hamlet
to Anthony Newley in
Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.
Sometimes we'd just wander, walking miles, entranced by the dramatic changes in the neighborhoods from one block to the next. Bialys and bagels gave way to egg rolls, followed swiftly by cannolis as we moved uptown.

No time of year was more magical than December, and from the time I was a small child, there was always a special trip during the season to look at the Rockefeller Center tree and the department store windows. Other times of the year, my parents took us to the ballet, opera—the old Met with the “cloth of gold” curtain—concerts, and special exhibits at the museums—the Calder mobiles, like nothing anyone had seen before, spiraling in the enormous spiral of the Guggenheim.

Then there were the restaurants—or rather, one restaurant: Horn and Hardart's Automat. My 1964 Frommer's guide advises: “Inquire of any passer-by, and you'll be directed to one that's usually no more than a block-or-two away.” Sadly, they have all disappeared, and trying to explain the concept to my fifteen-year-old son—you put nickels in the slot next to the food you wanted, lifted the little glass door, snatched it out, and watched the empty space revolve, instantly producing another dish—is well nigh impossible. Fortunately, there are old movies. Just as difficult is describing the food—the superb crusty macaroni and cheese with tiny bits of tomato, the warm deep-dish apple pie with vanilla sauce, the baked beans in their
own little pot. Most New Yorkers of a certain age wax nostalgic about Automat food—the meat loaf! And a whole meal for one dollar.

My husband is the genuine article. A native New Yorker, born and bred in the Bronx. “The Beautiful Bronx” when he was growing up, and we have a book of the same name to prove it. When he meets someone else from the borough, talk immediately turns to the Grand Concourse, the “nabe,” and egg creams. Where he lived is now part of the Cross Bronx Expressway, but he can still point out his elementary school as we whiz past. New Yorkers are very sentimental.

And to continue in the manner of Faith's sweeping generalizations, New Yorkers are also very rude, very generous, very funny, very stylish, very quirky, and very fast. Genetically, they have more molecules than most other Americans. The moment I step off the train or plane from Boston, my pace quickens in imitation, my gaze narrows, and my senses sharpen. Forget all those New York designer fragrances. The essence is adrenaline, pure and simple.

This book is a paean to New York City past, present, and future—written about the end of one very distinctive decade as the city is poised for another—and a new century at that. At the close of 1989, the last thing Faith imagines is that in a few years she'll be in exile—living in the bucolic orchards west of Boston. She'll keep her edge, though, will continue to read the
Times
and make periodic journeys back to Bloomies, Balducci's, and Barneys, always keeping in mind what the comedian Harry Hershfield said: “New York: Where everyone mutinies but no one deserts.” 1900 or 2000—some things never change. It's a wonderful town.