Trading Up (33 page)

“Oh. I see.” Mimi’s voice became less friendly.

“I’m sorry about it, but there isn’t anything I can do,” Janey said firmly, her confidence increasing. “She’s had such a bad time . . .”

“It
is
your apartment, Janey,” Mimi said. “Obviously, if you need it, Zizi will have to find someplace else. Although how he’s going to find a place the week before Christmas . . .”

“Maybe he can go to East Hampton. He
could
stay in your guest house,” Janey said, wondering why she hadn’t thought of this lie before. It was going to make it all so
inconvenient
for Zizi, and when Mimi told him he had to move out, he would know why and he would feel her power over him . . .

“Don’t worry about it, darling. We’ll figure out something.” Mimi was suddenly warm again, and for a moment, Janey felt guilty. But then she thought, Why should she? Mimi was rich . . . if she wanted to fuck him so badly, she could put him up in a hotel—if she could find a hotel during the Christmas season. And feeling much better, Janey said, “I just wanted to let you know. Good-bye, darling. Give the boys a big kiss for me.”

She closed her phone, thinking triumphantly about how clever her plan was.

With George’s boys around, Mimi and Zizi might not be able to see each other at all, and then Zizi would have to move out, and then George and Mimi would go to Aspen for two weeks for Christmas. She was safe, she thought: She would pretend 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:23 PM Page 176

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that the incident had never occurred, the way she’d pretended so many things in her life had not happened, and everything would go on as before. Then she caught sight of her reflection: She was a fright. Her hair, wet from the snow, was sticking to her head; her skin was mottled. She couldn’t let Selden see her like this—he was always studying her and would know that
something
had happened—as it was, he might already be at home, wondering where she was . . .

She ducked into a fancy coffee shop. It was one of those places where they charged customers $10 for a cheeseburger, but the bathroom was clean. She combed her hair and pulled it back into a chignon, fastening it with the bobby pins she always kept in her purse for emergencies such as this, and then she began working on her face. As she dabbed at her skin with pressed powder, her eyes fell on the pearls. With a sigh of resignation, she remembered that she was going to have to do the same seduction number on Selden that she’d tried to do on Zizi—but that Selden certainly wouldn’t turn her down.

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t e n

the spl atc h ver ner building was a large, black, newly constructed marble slab that squatted unceremoniously on the northern corner of Columbus Circle.

Five years earlier, Victor Matrick had had the brilliant idea of consolidating all the Splatch Verner companies under one roof, in order to promote synergy, and while the building had been completed on time two years ago, somehow they’d never quite gotten around to finishing the landscaping. The outdoor area was still under construction—to enter the building one had to walk through a maze of plywood walls and scaffolding—and from a distance the building appeared to rise from wooden shanties.

The building was forty-five stories high with eight elevators and a commissary for the regular employees on the third floor. On the forty-second floor was an executive dining room, and on the very top floor, where Victor Matrick had his offices, which included a bedroom and a bathroom with a shower and a Jacuzzi, was an executive-executive dining room, with its own private kitchen and chef, where Victor Matrick had entertained the president of the United States on three occasions.

Selden Rose’s office was on the fortieth floor and overlooked Central Park and midtown—from his window he could see the Empire State Building and, on a clear day, the World Trade Center. His office was thirty feet by sixty feet—larger than many New Yorkers’ apartments—and contained a heavy mahogany antique desk that he’d splurged on twenty years ago, when he was just starting out, and which had followed him from one job to another as he’d worked his way up the corporate ladder. The office had two doors: One led through to his secretary’s office, and 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:23 PM Page 178

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another, “secret” one that was always locked went directly out into the hallway, in case the occupant needed to make a furtive escape.

Selden Rose prided himself on being a hard worker, but at five o’clock that day he was standing in front of his window, looking out on the snow that was beginning to fall on Central Park. He kept patting the top of his nappy head, as if to reassure himself that all his hair was still there. His mind was not on his work, which was, in itself, a source of consternation, but on his wife. For he had just taken a call from American Express informing him that $50,000 had been charged to his credit card that afternoon from a well-known auction house. His first thought was that, somehow, the credit card he’d given Janey had been stolen, but then the “nice” woman at American Express explained that the only reason they were checking was because the purchase had been made by Mrs. Selden Rose, and they wanted to make sure that he was, indeed, married.

Goddamn her, he thought. Fifty thousand dollars was a good chunk of a down payment on a house; it was a pool or landscaping; it was a child’s private school education (for at least a couple of years, anyway); it was a nanny’s salary. At first he’d thought that Janey simply didn’t understand about money, but now he was beginning to suspect that she willfully refused to comprehend his situation. Technically, and by nearly anyone’s standards, he
was
rich, but he was a salaried man, and most of his wealth was in stock options, which wasn’t exactly money in the bank. Nor had that November dip in the stock market helped . . .

He’d tried, too obliquely perhaps, to explain all this to Janey on one of the rare nights when it was just the two of them having dinner at a restaurant, but she had only stared at him blankly, nodding her beautiful head—and then she had seen

“someone she knew” and the topic had been forgotten. He should have made her listen—and not have been afraid of her displeasure. But as always, in money matters, she somehow made him uncomfortable: Instead of making him feel like they were partners, she acted (although she never came out and said it) like she expected him to be an endless source of cash, and if he wasn’t, she was going to move on.

There was always between them an unspoken tension that she might someday leave him, that he wasn’t quite good enough, which had the effect of making him want to prove her wrong. And now he was stuck with a $50,000 charge on his American Express card, and he didn’t know what to do.

He could pay it, of course, but the bottom line was that it was
his
money, and he ought to be able to decide how he wanted to spend it. And so he went around and around: He could make her return whatever it was she had purchased, but then there would be a scene, and like most men he would rather cut off a finger than have to endure crying and screaming. Or he could simply not mention it, and take back the credit card. But how would he get the card from her? If he asked her for it, 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:23 PM Page 179

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again, there would be a scene. He could sneak it out of her wallet, and when she noticed it was missing (which she would, in about a minute), he could say he’d decided to take it back and leave her to figure out why. Or he could do nothing.

Which, he thought, with a horrible feeling, was probably what he
would
do.

But that still didn’t alleviate
his
feelings, which were that he felt ripped off, robbed, and betrayed. Looking out the window at the wan flakes of snow fluttering slowly from the gray sky, he suddenly wished he’d never met her and that he could be rid of her once and for all. He had a disturbing desire to jump out the window, which was immediately followed by the thought that maybe she would meet with an accident and die, and then he wouldn’t have to deal with her and her spending ever again.

His thoughts were interrupted by a leisurely, “Hey Rose,” and Gordon White came into the room. Gordon was his second-in-command and privately liked to describe himself as “Rose’s loyal henchman,” but Selden knew he had been hoping to be promoted to the position Selden now occupied, and would rat him out if ever given the opportunity.

“Gordon,” Selden said, as Gordon took a seat in one of the leather club chairs in front of the desk, sitting sideways with his legs draped over the arm like a teenager. Gordon was, in Selden’s mind, a typical New York male, meaning that, at the age of forty-one, he was like a big, overgrown adolescent who had never had a serious relationship in his life. The only difference between a real teenager and a man like Gordon, Selden thought, was that Gordon had his own money, his own apartment, and his own Porsche, and no one to yell at him when he came home at two in the morning. On the other hand, he thought, looking at Gordon, who was wearing an expensive Italian black wool suit, maybe the only difference was the
clothes
. . .

“So I hear that Parador deal might be falling apart,” Gordon said casually, picking at something in his teeth.

“What’s the problem?” Selden asked, distractedly. The name Parador made him think of Comstock Dibble, and that made him think about Janey again.

“There’s something funny with the books,” Gordon said.

“There’s always something funny with the books in the movie business,” Selden said dismissively.

“Okay, something
strange,
” Gordon said insistently. “I don’t know what it is yet, but there’s a rumor your friend George might be interested. Supposedly he senses a fire sale.”

“That’s what George does.”

“I hear Comstock’s desperate to sell. Before the market goes down again.”

“Everyone says the market will recover,” Selden said.

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“It better,” Gordon said, brushing a piece of lint off his trouser leg. “I’ve got to buy a house in the Hamptons this year.”

“Planning on doing some landscaping?” Selden asked, and Gordon laughed.

The joke around Splatch Verner was that the dip in the market was the reason the landscaping hadn’t been completed on the building.

The buzzer on his phone sounded and Selden picked it up.

“A Mr. Nick Vole is here to see you,” his secretary, June, said.

“Send him in,” Selden replied.

Gordon stood up, made his hand into a gun shape, and pointed it at Selden.

“Hey, don’t forget what we talked about, Rose. If your wife has any friends . . .”
My wife doesn’t have any friends,
Selden thought.

Gordon White left and “the Vole,” as Selden had already begun to think of him, entered the room.

His first thought was that the Vole was exactly what he’d expected him to be—

he was nearly a cliché. He looked to be in his late forties but could have been as old as fifty-five, with a dyed black handlebar mustache and thinning hair that hung nearly to his shoulders. He was dressed in jeans and a cheap brown leather jacket, but he held himself like a man who knows he’s in good shape and can still win a fight, which wasn’t surprising, Selden thought, as he billed himself as being a former member of the Special Forces.

He was carrying a manila envelope, which he shifted under his left arm in order to shake hands.

“Selden Rose, right?” he asked. His voice was gruff and unrefined, but Selden had been expecting that, too.

“That’s right,” Selden said, shaking hands. He motioned to one of the club chairs. “Will you take a seat?”

“Don’t mind if I take a load off,” the Vole said, sitting down. “Selden’s a strange name,” he said, taking in the size of the office. His eyes were brown with heavy lids—he wasn’t a man who would be easily fooled, Selden thought.

“It’s an old family name,” Selden said. “Do you mind if we get down to it?”

“It’s your dime,” the Vole said. “In any case, you’re probably going to be happy.” He slid the manila envelope across the desk, and Selden had the distinct sensation of suddenly being in a movie—possibly a bad one.

“Oh? Why’s that?” Selden asked, raising his eyebrows as he undid the clasp on the envelope.

“Well,” the Vole said, sitting back in the chair and folding his hands, “she’s got a legal husband, for one.”

“Aha,” Selden said, removing the contents from the envelope and spreading them out on his desk. There were several black-and-white photographs of Marielle 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:23 PM Page 181

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Dubrosey with an emaciated, evil-looking young man with black eyes and white, pockmarked skin; they were standing on the porch of a dilapidated row house, probably in Brooklyn, and from the expressions on their faces, they appeared to be fighting. Selden held up the photograph with a questioning look.

“That’s her legal husband,” the Vole said. “Guy named Tim Dubrosey—he works at the Fulton Fish Market . . .”

“When you say ‘legal’ . . . ?” Selden asked.

“She’s passing him off as her brother. At least, that’s what she told the landlord where they live.”

“Her brother?” Selden said. “They don’t look a thing alike.”

“Since when was that ever a requirement?” the Vole asked with a shrug. He stared at Selden from under his hooded lids, thinking that, as usual, rich people didn’t know anything about the world.

Selden went back to studying the photographs. A dark, grainy picture featured Marielle, her stomach beginning to show a bit, in a tiny G-string and pasties, giving a man a lap dance in a grimy club; the expression on her face was completely blank, as if she were trying desperately to divorce herself from the proceedings, and Selden suddenly felt sorry for her. “My God,” he said. “Is she a stripper on top of it?”

“She does the occasional lap dance, but it’s all to finance the singing career,” the Vole said. “The idea is she’s going to be the next Jennifer Lopez and Timmy-boy there is going to be her manager . . . I guess he got sick of the smell of fish.”