One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell [200]
“So come over,” Lola replied.
“I can’t,” he hissed, looking around to make sure he wasn’t being overheard. “My wife found out. About us.”
“What?” Lola shrieked.
“Take it easy,” James said. “She found your sex column. And apparently, she read it.”
“What’s she going to do?” Lola asked with interest. If Mindy divorced James, it opened up new possibilities.
“I don’t know,” James whispered. “She hasn’t said anything yet. But she will.”
“What did she say?” Lola asked, growing irritated.
“She says we have to buy a house. In the country.”
“So?” Lola shrugged. “You’ll get divorced and she’ll live in the country and you’ll be in the city.” And I will move in with you, she thought.
James hesitated. “It’s not that simple. Mindy and I…we’ve been married for fifteen years. We have a son. If we got divorced, I’d have to give her half. Of everything. And I don’t exactly want to do that. I’ve got another book to write, and I don’t want to leave my son.”
Lola cut him off. In a steely voice, she said, “What are you trying to say, James?”
“I don’t think we can see each other anymore,” James said in a rush.
Suddenly, Lola had had enough. “You and Philip Oakland,” she screamed. “You’re all the same. You’re all a bunch of wimps. You disgust me, James. You all do.”
Act Five
In anticipation of the date for Sandy Brewer’s trial, The New York Times did a series of stories about the Cross of Bloody Mary. A famous historian claimed the cross was the cause of not just one crime but, over the last four hundred years, several, including murder. A priest, guarding the treasure in eighteenth-century France, was bludgeoned to death in a routine robbery of the sacristy. The list of stolen items included four francs and a bedpan, as well as the cross. The robbers likely hadn’t known what they had, and it was speculated that they sold it to a junk dealer. Nevertheless, from there the cross appeared to have ended up as part of the property of an ancient dowager duchess named Hermione Belvoir. When she died, the cross once again disappeared.
Now it was back, and Sandy Brewer was to be tried for art theft. If Billy had lived, Annalisa reminded herself, he probably would have taken the fall for the crime. But dead men couldn’t talk, and the defense had never been able to find the mysterious wooden box left to Billy by Mrs. Houghton—or, for that matter, anything else connecting him to the crime. So the prosecution opened its jaws on Sandy Brewer. He tried to plea-bargain, offering to pay a huge fine of over ten million dollars, but in the months since the discovery of the cross, the stock market had dipped precipitously, the price of oil had surged, and regular people were losing their houses and retirement savings. A recession was just around the corner, if not already in the backyard. The people, claimed the DA’s office, demanded the head of the grotesquely rich hedge-fund manager, who had not only made more than his share of money off the little people but had stolen another country’s national treasure as well.
As a corollary, there was renewed interest in Mrs. Houghton. Her good works, personality, and motivations were examined in another big piece in the Times. In the seventies, when the Metropolitan Museum was nearly broke, Mrs. Houghton had single-handedly saved the venerable institution with a donation of ten million dollars. Nevertheless, the rumor that she had taken the Cross of Bloody Mary resurfaced. Several old coots who had known her were interviewed, including Enid, all of whom insisted that Mrs. Houghton was incapable of such an act. Someone remembered that the rumor was started by Flossie Davis, and the reporter tried to interview Flossie, but Enid intervened. Flossie was a very old lady with dementia, she said, and was easily agitated. An interview might literally kill her.
Taking advantage of the moment, Sotheby’s held an auction of Mrs. Houghton’s jewelry. Now deeply curious about the apartment’s previous owner, Annalisa Rice attended the preview. She wasn’t a great