The designer, Felix, whose pink “smoking” appeared to have lost its lapels, was pouring out the champagne into far more glasses than there were people. The models were covering the glasses nearest them with their hands. One said she never drank champagne, the other said she ingested nothing after six. I liked “ingested.” She added that it was an inflexible rule.
“Who’s trying to kill your father?” I asked over giggles, and Julie’s turned head as she spoke with Santerre in French. When she turned back to me, with a little flip of her head and a smile, she said that her mother had robbed her of a night’s sleep with the news.
“Can’t imagine my life without Daddy,” she said, biting down on a slim piece of carrot. “He has always encouraged my interest in fashion and design.”
“I was guessing you got this from your mother.”
“True. Mommy adores clothes. She loves Sonia Rykiel better than the truth. But Daddy actually puts his money where his mouth is.”
“I thought you two didn’t get along?”
“Heavens no! He loves it now that I’ve found myself. Now that Didier and I have found one another.”
“That was written in the stars, chérie,” Santerre added. From it I guessed that Mode Magazine was in need of a backer with the financial clout Abram Wise could give it. As long as Wise was putting up part of the money, Julie could think herself into any social butterfly net she liked and Daddy would keep on paying. But, after all, that was what Abe Wise did best.
“Are you two planning to make this permanent?” I asked, trying on a wide ingenuous smile.
“Just as soon as we can make it legal,” Julie said, patting Santerre’s left hand with hers. There was a white mark on the third finger of one of the hands. It was Didier’s. “I’m still legally married to my old John Long but not for long,” Julie said making Didier and Morna laugh. The others were involved, thank God, in a conversation of their own. “But my divorce will be final in three months. I’ve already got my decree nisi. So, I’m going to do the bride thing again. Getting to be a habit with me, as the song goes, but this time, I think Didier’s going to make an honest woman of me.”
“My compliments to the bride and congratulations to the groom or vice versa.” Both beamed at me and then at one another, exchanging hugs and kisses.
“Benny,” Julie said, leaning into me in a friendly but unnecessary way, “would you be an angel and get a white paper bag from the front seat of our car?” She said it in such an intimate way that I thought she had fallen under the magic spell of my charm. In fact, the reverse, for the moment, was true. “I’ve got a perishing headache and there are some Tylenol there.” She took car keys from her bag and told me the car to look for. I took them from her and made my way out into the dark and the snow which was still coming down.
I found the dark red Le Baron under a white shroud and the paper bag with the bottle of pills inside. On leaving, I noticed that one of the headlights had been damaged. Expensive repairs. The night was cold on the back of me, and my fingers tingled from handling the car door. I rushed away from the unpleasant truth about the drive home into the noise and light of the Patriot Volunteer.
“You’re an angel, Benny!” Julie said, as she took two pills with a swallow from her champagne glass.
“It’s a terrible night out there!” I said, hugging myself and trying to get warm.
“Let’s leave it out,” drawled Christa, who was holding a sipping straw, and trying to focus on my eyes. Felix and Pierre had straws in front of them too, although they were drinking champagne. Didier was twisting one around in his fingers and got rid of it under the table. Julie lent me an arm to restore my circulation. Santerre applied stimulants of a more conventional kind than they had just treated themselves to. I moved in closer to Julie and tried to keep my mind on my job.
“Tell me, Julie, has your father ever mentioned his feud with Ed Neustadt to you?”
“Is that the one who just died?” I nodded. “I think he once said that he was the only man who ever questioned him in a police station. Imagine! With all he’s done! It’s incredible!”
“But, your father has no record. That means, Neustadt didn’t follow through. He was still ‘assisting the authorities,’ they call it, and then they let him walk. In law, a miss is as good as a mile. Why do you think he hated Neustadt?”
“Ask him. He never told me. Maybe he hates to be beholden to anyone. I can understand that.” She reached over to get another glass of champagne and toasted me over the rim. She was in great spirits and I was rapidly going downhill. Everybody who knows Abe Wise says just about the same thing about him. If there was a conspiracy, at least it had a good leader. I was yawning into my wine glass. It was time to go home. Our little group was being closely watched by other people in the room. When the designer got up to dance with Christa, the blonde ragamuffin in the underwear shirt, the waiters stared. Didier got up and pulled Julie after him. He must be French after all, I thought. I couldn’t think of anyone I knew leading the way to the dance floor.
“You’re a detective?” Morna asked. I smiled a sad admittance.
“I’ve got an office on St. Andrew Street,” I said, wondering what I could say to this exotic creature.
“My grandfather worked with Pinkerton’s for thirty-five years. He used to tell us stories about his cases. He should have been a writer.”
“They’re a big outfit. Go back to the Civil War.”
“I knew that. What’s his face, the writer, used to be a Pinkerton.”
“Hammett,” I said. “Dashiell Hammett.” She had lovely deep green eyes under her red hair.
“Do you want to dance?” she said with a golden smile.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
NINETEEN
Anna was away early: signs of her after-breakfast cleaning around the sink were in evidence. A half-pot of coffee was inviting me to start the day. There was a container of bran for me to pour on top of my Harvest Crunch.
In the shower I thought about all of the characters I had met the night before. It was a peep-hole into another world, a world that my father should know a lot about, if he had ever read a fashion magazine. But he hadn’t. His knowledge of women’s ready-to-wear came not from Vogue or Women’s Wear Daily, but from his pals the manufacturers along Spadina Avenue in Toronto. Every other Wednesday, he drove to the provincial capital to buy stock and play a few hands of gin rummy with his cronies. After a corned beef sandwich at Shopsowitz’s Deli, he would visit the factories and have a shot of schnapps in a showroom before a few more hands of cards. This was the world of fashion as he knew it. To him it was all merchandise. It could have been men’s wear or hats as far as he was concerned.
At least Pa knew more about the business than I did, I thought, while I was rinsing the shampoo out of my hair. It had fed us and clothed us for over twenty years. He had sent Sam through university and medical school. He would have anted up for me to go to college too if I’d had the inclination. He made a good living for a high-school drop-out and knew as much about the fashion business as he had to know in order to be a success. In a place like this, that wasn’t much. Me, all I knew about the business was how to make coat and suit boxes from the pile of flat cardboard Pa kept under the coat rack. Sam and I both got our first taste of the commercial world making tops and bottoms for a penny each on lazy Sunday afternoons while Pa was going over his accounts or drawing up an ad for the Beacon.
I was no reader of Vogue either. Anna was and she had told me that Morna McGuire was not just a model, but a supermodel, which meant that she could make good her boast that she wouldn’t get out of bed for less than ten thousand dollars.
After cleaning my teeth a second time to get the bran out, I walked to the office. My service had messages from Dave Rogers and Major Colin Patrick for me. Both of them would talk to me, one at eleven and the other at noon. I put in time working on my interim report for Wise.