Stolen Away

I used the bathroom—I had my own private one, no bigger than your average Chicago two-flat—and, as Mrs. McLean requested, freshened up. As I splashed water on my face, I wondered what to make of this—specifically, of her. She seemed silly but smart; self-absorbed but caring. A vain rich woman in a 98-cent housecoat.

I didn’t like her exactly—but she fascinated me. And she was attractive; probably ten or fifteen years older than me, but what the hell—older women try harder. Even wealthy ones. Especially wealthy ones.

The room had its own phone, which would allow me to check in with Lindbergh and Breckinridge at my convenience. On the other hand, I could be listened in on, so I’d edit whatever I said with Mrs. McLean in mind.

Freshened or not, I wore the same suit down to dinner—I only had two along; in fact, I only owned two—and, for fifteen minutes or so, sat alone under a cut crystal chandelier at a table for twenty-four, at which there were two place settings, directly opposite each other, midway. I was served a thin white wine that the thin black server, who was dressed far more formally than I, informed me was a Montrachet, as if I should have been impressed, which I wasn’t. He should have known better than to try to impress a guy who had a stuffed alligator in his room.

Mrs. McLean’s entrance, however, did impress. She had traded in the dowdy plaid robe for an embroidered gown, its delicate lacework dark red against a soft pink that at first seemed to be her flesh; but her flesh was whiter, creamier, as was attested to by the low cut of the gown, the white swell of her breasts, and they were indeed swell, providing a resting place for a string of perfect pearls so long it fell off the cliff of her breasts and dropped to her lap. There were worse places to fall from and to. She’d relieved Mike of the Hope diamond, which was around her own neck now, dangling just above the cleft of her bosom. In her hair was a feathered diamond tiara and her earrings were pearls that dwarfed the ballbearing-size ones of the necklace.

Her smile was amused and pleased. “I told you I could dazzle, if I chose.”

“You look great,” I said, lamely, getting up.

She gestured for me to sit and soon we were enjoying her chef’s filet of lemon sole (“with Marguery sauce”).

“Maurice,” she said, referring to her chef, “is the most priceless gem in this house.”

“I hope he doesn’t come with a curse.”

“No,” she said, smiling a little, more relaxed now despite her more formal attire, “just with the pedigree of the best cafés in Paris and London. He trained as a caterer. That’s the only sort of chef to go after.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I suppose tartar sauce is out of the question.”

She laughed; I was glad she was finally getting my jokes—too bad I hadn’t been joking.

“You know,” she said, reflecting a while later over Maurice’s “patented” parfait, “money is lovely to have and I do love having it—but it doesn’t really bring the big things of life. Friends, health, respect. And it’s apt to make one soft, selfish, self-indulgent.”

“You mean, while we’re eating parfaits in this palace, people are out there scrounging for scraps, living in shacks made out of tin cans and cardboard.”

She nodded, sadly, even as she tasted a bite of parfait. “If only I’d had the courage, years ago, to lead my own life…apart from Ned and his family and my parents and my family…I might by now have helped so many poor souls…. I might have done infinitely more good with my life.”

She licked ice cream from her lips as she shook her head regretfully.

“Well, you are trying to do some good,” I said. “For the Lindberghs and their boy.”

“Yes. In my small way. If you’re finished, Mr. Heller, we can move to the sitting room, and I’ll explain everything.”

I took her by the arm and we moved through that excessive, magnificent house through the Louis XV ballroom, not to the sun porch this time, but to a room nearly as large as the ballroom where plush comfortable furnishings crouched in the golden glow of a massive marble fireplace.

“I’ve had two glasses of wine already,” Mrs. McLean said, standing at a liquor cart about the size of a Maxwell Street pushcart, only mahogany and gold-inlaid. “That is my limit. But if you’d like more…”

“No, that’s fine,” I said, settling down into an oversize sofa opposite the glowing fire. This modest little drawing room was paneled in mahogany, had a twenty-foot ceiling, a massive pipe organ built into one wall, and a Persian rug smaller than Lake Michigan partially covering its parquet floor.

She sat next to me, pulled up an ottoman, kicked off her shoes and put her silk-stockinged feet up on it. A thick arch support tumbled out of her right shoe. She noticed me noticing that and tugged on my arm and pointed to her tiny feet; she wiggled the toes of her right foot.

“See,” she said. “Shorter. From that accident, years ago. I told you.”

“They look fine to me.”

“Mr. Heller, you’re a charming man.”