Death Of A Supermodel Part 22

She wanted Jeremy. She wanted to tell him everything through a veil of tears. She wanted him to tell her everything was going to be totally cool, that he'd hire her back and she shone with a brilliance only matched by his own spectacular light. But his show was in eight hours, and there was a pretty good chance of blood on the walls, burned-out sewing machine motors, overflowing steamers, and frayed nerves and seams.

Then she thought of Ruby, sitting in a tight little room with Debbie Hayworth, being nice to her to the point of supplication. Debbie would be making her grovel, Corky not understanding any of it. Even if she didn't feel like she could make a success of the day, Laura figured at least she could keep it from being the very worst day on record, and she could get some nibble of satisfaction. So she ran down to 38th and across town to Broadway, until her veins and lungs constricted and her arm ached from holding up that G.o.dd.a.m.n, inconvenient stinker of a cast.

The elevator took forever even though it was right there. Jeremy's reception area was full of racks on the way to the freight elevator, but she didn't care. She wanted to get to Ruby. She wanted to rescue her sister from past foibles with other people's boyfriends and dalliances with supermodels, because if she couldn't save herself and her company, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, her sister was the next best thing. Maybe even the next better thing.

Debbie sat at the table, alone, writing on what looked like an order sheet. There wasn't a Binder Girl in sight. Corky had the look of a man who'd just gotten beaten with a tired stick. He smiled because that was his default setting, but his eyes said something else was going on.

"Hi," Laura said, slipping into a chair. "Where's Ruby?" The tension in the room was as thick as a blizzard. Why was no one talking?

"Oh, my G.o.d," Debbie squeaked. "I thought you weren't even coming."

"I'm sorry." Laura glanced at Corky because Debbie appeared to be actually writing an order. In ink.

Corky looked diffident where he should have been bursting at the seams. "Co-op wants a wool crepe dress. Like this one, but-"

Debbie finished writing and chimed in, "No belt. No pocket. Take off the sleeves and get it to a four-fifty retail, and we can put it on the floor." She ripped the P.O. out of the pad and slid the paper to Laura. She had crossed off the company name and written "Laura Carnegie."

Laura looked at the number at the bottom. "This is a big order for us," Laura said.

"We can do it," Corky said. "I'm sure we can figure it out."

"There's nothing to figure out." Debbie smiled. "We need this immediately to fill a s.p.a.ce where someone can't deliver. It's an all-door buy. I'll bring you our colors."

"This is private label?" Laura asked. "Or does it have a Sartorial label?"

"Barneys," Debbie said.

"And you want us to take the belt off, make it sleeveless, and do it in your colors for a four-fifty retail? I think we can." She knew they could. It was Jeremy's tack on fabric, and it was coming early, undyed. So it could be put in Barneys colors using a dye house in North Carolina that Yoni liked. She couldn't have asked for anything more perfect. Outstanding news. There were enough dresses on that order form to keep them in business another season. It was a private label deal, which meant a Barneys label, Barneys rules, and Barneys colors. But that was fine. Better than fine. It was a G.o.dsend.

"Great! Wow, I don't know if we can still do this dress for our line since it'll be so close, but we'll figure it out. Thanks, Debbie. We're not going to let you down."

"So it's okay that it's just you and not Ruby?"

"What do you mean? How can it not be Ruby? She designed it."

"If you say so," Debbie said, slipping a binder in her bag. "Except that we're changing the colors, the belt, and the sleeves. I mean, if she has a lock on every sleeveless wool crepe dress in the world, well, that's one for the record books." She wrinkled her nose. "I know I can count on you to execute. Okay? You just figure it out, and thanks!" She tiptoed out of the room as if she knew how much of a mess she'd just made.

Laura and Corky stood in silence, looking at each other and wondering what the h.e.l.l had just happened.

"Did you offer this? Did you tell her we could cut out Ruby?"

"It was her idea from the beginning." Corky started hanging garments. "She came in with an att.i.tude problem about how she only needed you because you were the one who knew how to do things. And asking then about how Ruby liked it in jail, and how involved she'd be, and blah, blah, blah. Ruby tried to make the best of it, but girl, it was ugly. Real ugly."

"Where is she?"

"I think she went next door."

Laura found Ruby in Jeremy's office, looking through his swatches as if there was a Fall line to develop for. The design room was dead, and reception had been cleared, so she had the place to herself. It had been repainted and re-floored since Gracie Pomerantz's body had been found there. The owner of the office was not one to fall on ceremony or sentiment. He did not believe Gracie's spirit lingered, and though the incident had upset him enough to earn a month off for everyone, once it was over, as far as he was concerned, it was over.

"Does Jeremy know you're here?"

Ruby stacked the fabric samples by color, which Jeremy would never do. He could make orders big enough to dye his own colors, and thus he organized everything by concept. And he was going to be unhappy to see everything reorganized. Ruby, who knew Jeremy well enough to know that, but apparently didn't care, continued messing around while she spoke. "He sent me in here like he was sending me to my room. I was crying, and I think it embarra.s.sed him. How did you ever work for him?"

Laura wanted to get the conversation off Jeremy's rigid social demeanor and onto the reason Ruby was in his office in the first place. "I heard about Barneys Co-op."

"I let her write the order because Corky chased me out, but we can't do it. I know you think I didn't work hard for all this, but I did, and she can't decide to kick me out. She doesn't know what a favor I did her. That guy, whatever his name was-"

"Darren."

"He kissed like he wore a neck brace. I mean, do you know how hard it is to kiss someone who refuses to tilt his head?" She held up a burgundy voile, as if she didn't know if it went with the reds or the purples or the browns.

"We need to figure this out," Laura said.

"Figure what out?"

"How to take that order."

Ruby's face melted like a ball of wax in the sun. She gripped the cardboard at the top of the header, bending it.

Laura jumped in. "I went to meet Ivanah this morning, and she wasn't even there. They pulled our backing. Everything. Even the seven hundred dollars we had left over. Pierre has nothing else lined up. We don't have a business at all, period. But if we take this order, it's for winter, and we can deliver it and have enough money to start small again without a backer. I mean real small."

"You mean you can start again."

"No, I'd pick it up again with you."

"Do you think she's going to let that happen? She's always going to have more orders for you. As long as I'm anywhere near, she's going to come to you for the Laura exclusive, and it's always going to be easy, and it's always going to be just enough to keep you going. Maybe a little more each season, so you think, 'Oh, next season we'll start Sartorial together again.' I'm sorry, but you can't see that?"

"What if I promised you, just this once? Then you're back. Scout's honor." Laura used her left hand to hold up the cast a little, so Ruby would see two fingers twisted together, even if it was impossible to get them up to her forehead. That may or may not have been a scout salute, but it was all they ever had.

Ruby folded her arms, the burgundy voile draping from her armpit. "You can do what you want, but she'll have control of you."

"There's always someone in control, isn't there? Either it's the boss, or the buyer, or freaking MAAB with their rules. Who's not controlled by someone else?"

"Thomasina wasn't. She just did what she wanted. I admired that."

"Tough luck being rich and beautiful."

"It got her murdered."

But Laura was already lost in thought. "Everyone's controlled by somebody, Ruby. Everyone's afraid of something someone else will do. Who was she afraid of?"

"Oh, G.o.d, are you doing this again?"

"She wasn't afraid of her sociopath brother?"

"He was a kitten with her."

"What about MAAB?"

"In her pocket."

"Roquelle Rik?"

"Give me a break."

"Younger models?"

"Never."

"Old age?"

"You're being an idiot now."

"Bobcat Schmiller?"

Ruby paused. "I don't think so."

"I think we need to find out exactly what Bob found out in Germany. Ten bucks says it's going to nail Rolf to the wall. Or Sabine. Whatever."

"I don't care."

"And the girl at the airport that Rolf 'got'? Don't you care?"

"Nope."

"You have something better to do than find out who killed Thomasina?"

She didn't, and Laura happily took whatever motivation she could to get some company up to Central Park West.

Midmorning was busy at the Schmiller's building. A truck was parked outside, making it difficult for the tenants to get a cab without taking a few steps out of their way. Apparently, that was an absolutely unacceptable inconvenience, so unacceptable that the doorman was occupied with stammering excuses to a particularly ent.i.tled gentleman carrying an alligator briefcase.

So occupied was he that Laura and Ruby slipped right by him, into the elevator.

"Bob was the only one," Laura said. "No one else had the power over our company or enough information to sponsor people for a green card. Just him and his people."

"He was out of the country when she was killed," Ruby said.

"I didn't say he killed her, but he has something to do with this whole mess."

The doors slid open. As Laura raised her hand to knock on the door to the penthouse, it creaked open.

The first thing Laura noticed was the brown paper rolled across the rug in paths leading between doorways. It was stuck down at the edges with wide blue tape and crinkled with boot prints. She was about to toss out a profanity, but then saw that most of the furniture was draped with moving cloths. The zebra throw was twisted on the marble floor, and the Persian rug with the gold ta.s.sels was rolled up against the wall. The big stuff, china closet, sideboard, dining room table, were all present, but the shelves were empty, and the drawers were taped closed.

"I guess they're moving," Ruby said.

Laura didn't answer, but headed right for the emotional center of the house-the kitchen. The pots and pans were gone. The drawers were pulled out and empty. Laura opened the fridge. Just some condiments and Whole Foods containers.

"You should grab the Taiwanese mustard," a voice said from behind her. "It's a hundred twenty a jar."

She spun around.

"Hi, Bob," Ruby said as if she belonged in the abandoned kitchen. "I like your s.h.i.+rt." She spoke of a tattered grey sack of c.r.a.p with the Penn State logo on the front.

As if they'd been there with an engraved invitation, he smiled and showed it off. "Got it when I was a freshman. Still fits."

"Nice. Where are you going?" Ruby twisted her hips a little. She was flirting. Laura could hardly believe her ears.

"My wife," he started, but switched gears entirely. "Can you get me that orange juice?"

Laura handed him the container. "I think the gla.s.ses are gone."

He shrugged and took a swig from the carton. He didn't look like a hedge fund manager in that moment, but a freshman varsity football player standing in front of his mother's fridge.

"You came to talk about the backing thing. Sorry about that. Business."

Laura latched onto the excuse. "I just wanted to ask if there was anything we could have done differently."

"You were always a sweet kid." Obviously, he knew a different person from everyone else. "But no. Nothing you coulda done. Sometimes you get lucky and live in a penthouse, and sometimes not so much. It's not personal." Bob sounded more like a football player and less like a corporate wonk once you got him outside the business milieu. She wasn't sure which personality she liked less.

"Was it Thomasina dying during our show?"

"That sucked, but no. Yes, actually, but no." He pointed at Ruby. "By the way, I'm sorry about that. I know you guys were, you know."

He winked, and Laura wanted to punch him in the face with her broken arm.

He slid the OJ back into the door. "Here's what I told my wife, and this is gonzo advice for anyone. Stick to stuff that only exists on paper. No one gets hurt that way. Low stakes, high returns. I buy a company, and they're just rows of numbers. I break it apart, sell the pieces, and I never have to hear anyone badgering me because see, the whole thing was a piece of paper. I sell some stock here, hedge an option there, it doesn't have a face. But does my wife listen? No. Wants to be in fas.h.i.+on, with models and glamour. Freaking waste. No offense."

Together, she and Ruby said, "None taken."

He gestured toward Laura. "The second you started talking about ordering fabric, she was checked out."

"So," Ruby said, "I'm wondering, your trip, earlier this week?" If they were sitting at dinner, Laura would have kicked her under the table.

Laura broke in, "We have a problem."

"I probably can't help you." He glanced at the door, which enraged Laura because what did he think she was, a piece of paper? Was she nothing but a row of red numbers? Or another kind of liability? Even though she was trespa.s.sing and possibly breaking and entering, Laura wasn't about to take any of it.

"We have three immigrants from Eastern Europe, two Romanians and a Hungarian, officially employed by Sartorial. And I didn't hire them, I promise you, but they came here on our sponsors.h.i.+p. The only person with the wherewithal to pull that kind of trick is you."

"I don't know anything about that." His smarmy look and the speed of his denial, coupled with the lack of pointed questions, told her he knew all about it.

"I'll bet it's a federal offense, whoever was doing it," she said.

"Better get your lawyers right on that," he responded dismissively, which really meant he had a legal team and could take on the federal government on a whim. It also meant that, for whatever reason, the "employees" had somehow all been a hundred, or at least 89 percent, legitimate.

"But why?" Laura asked. "Why bring them in like that? I mean, I'm not saying you did it, but if you did, why would you?"