Fatal Impressions Page 2

  Today she’d learn whether she’d won the contract to select, buy, and hang art in the New York office of the management consultants Davidson, Douglas, Danbury & Weeks—DDD&W to nearly everyone. She’d been introduced to Theodore Douglas by Coleman, who’d known him from way back. He was not only one of the D’s in DDD&W, he also chaired the firm’s art committee. He could make or break her. Well, not break her exactly, but he could save the Greene Gallery. The fee for the job would support the gallery for a year. If Theodore Douglas ever deigned to see her.

  “Ms. Greene, I’m so sorry you’ve had to wait so long! How about another cup of coffee?”

  Oh, mercy, the pudgy receptionist with the coffee pot was standing in front of her, reeking of the scorched stench of the pot. Every time the woman, sporting a practiced smile, apologized for Dinah’s long wait, she refilled Dinah’s Styrofoam cup. Dinah had been too polite to reject it, but all that coffee had made her desperate to get to the ladies’ room. She was sure she’d be summoned to her meeting the minute she left the area, but the receptionist promised she would come for Dinah if Mr. Douglas called. Thank goodness the restroom was nearby.

  She was applying fresh lipstick in the cul-de-sac at the far end of the L-shaped room when two women came in. Dinah couldn’t see them, but she could hear them. They squawked like parrots.

  “You keep your hands off him, you pie-faced slut. He’s mine, and don’t forget it!”

  The voice was cigarette husky, country South, maybe Georgia or Alabama. Dinah knew that voice, and she recognized the scent: Jungle Gardenia. Patti Sue Victor must bathe in the stuff, which Dinah knew all too well; her hated third-grade teacher had worn it. Dinah had read that it had been the favorite scent of Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, and Joan Crawford. Patti Sue, like the teacher, probably thought it would transform her into a glamour girl.

  Dinah met Patti Sue when she made her presentation to the art committee. The woman, whose title was inexplicably “art curator”—there was no art, that’s why DDD&W needed someone to acquire it—was hostile. Part of it was turf defense. She seemed to be sure she could do the job better than any outsider. But Dinah thought there was more to it than that. She’d seen Patti Sue talking to others waiting to make proposals, and with them she’d been, if not friendly, at least civil.

  She and Dinah had quarreled even before they met. Patti Sue had telephoned several times during the weeks Dinah was working on her presentation. Each time she reminded Dinah of the date and time of her appointment at DDD&W and tried to ferret out the details of Dinah’s proposal: Why was Dinah proposing several kinds of prints? Why not use all the same type? What was the difference between a lithograph and an etching? What was a screenprint? What was Dinah charging? If she was given the contract, when would she begin installing the art?

  When Dinah balked and explained that both her fee and the time involved for the installation would be revealed at her presentation, Patti Sue had shouted, cursed her, and hung up. Dinah was sorry for the rift but felt she’d done the best she could in the circumstances.

  The second voice, shrill and piercing, was unfamiliar, but it could shatter windows in Queens. “That’s what you think! He’s not in love with you, you redneck cracker. He knows what it’s like to be married to an idiot. Why would he want another one?”

  Slap! Dinah winced. She wasn’t surprised at Patti Sue’s role in the brawl, but her opponent seemed to be the same type. Two women who sounded as if they might be more at home mud wrestling than working at a prestigious consulting firm? Odd. A scream, thumps, groans. Should she intervene? No, she’d probably come out of it with a black eye and two enemies instead of one. She’d like to sneak out, but she couldn’t leave without being seen. She’d have to lie low and pray that Theodore Douglas didn’t ask for her while she was trapped.

  She heard the hiss of the corridor door, the click of heels on the tile floor, a new voice.

  “Ladies! Stop that noise at once. We cannot have this. Isn’t it bad enough that you two pursue the same married partner, and now you use fisticuffs in the ladies’ room? Get back to your desks, or I shall see that you are both dismissed. Tidy yourselves first—you look as if you’ve been through a tornado.”

  Water gushed, the whish of the door again as it opened and closed. Blessed silence. Maybe she could make her escape? Oh, no, the door opened again.

  “Ms. Greene? Mr. Douglas is ready to see you.” At last. Mr. Douglas’s assistant had come for her.

  Dinah hurried toward the door, where the woman waited, tapping her foot and fondling her chignon. She caressed that clump of hair with an air of sexual pleasure. “Hurry up,” she urged. “We’re very late.” As if it were Dinah’s fault.

  Dinah struggled to keep up with her. How did she move so fast in that tight skirt and those three-inch heels? Her white sweater and black skirt covered her gaunt body like a second skin. Dinah could count the woman’s ribs, perish the thought. Friends who worked at McKinsey—the best-known and most respected management consulting firm in the world—claimed that its leaders were fussy about appearance. Not DDD&W. At least not about the attire of the female support staff. Dinah hadn’t seen any of the women on the professional staff, but the dress code for the men appeared to be strict: dark suits, dress shirts, and subdued ties. Strange, this sartorial divide. Jonathan had told her DDD&W demanded impeccable dress and faultless behavior from its employees. Wrong. He should have seen—or heard—the spat in the ladies’ room. So far this place didn’t live up to its dignified and elegant image.

  But Theodore Douglas did. When he rose to greet her, she thought, as she had when she’d met him at her presentation to the art committee, how perfectly he looked his background—Princeton, Harvard Business School, Eastern Establishment. Patrician: that was the word for C. Theodore Douglas IV. Tall and slim with blondish hair, gray at the temples. Exquisite tailoring. She’d admired his manners, too, until today.

  “I’m sorry you had to wait. I was in a client meeting and couldn’t get away. Please sit down. Would you like coffee?”

  Dinah repressed a shudder. She wouldn’t drink coffee again for weeks, if ever. “No, thank you, I’m fine.”

  “I’ll come straight to the point. We reviewed all twenty-one of the contenders for our art project and your proposal was far and away the best. The assignment is yours.” His teeth gleamed in a Tom Cruise smile.

  She wanted to jump up and down and shout for joy like a six year old. Get a grip, she told herself; remember you’re a grown-up and act dignified. “Thank you. I’m grateful for the opportunity. I’m looking forward to a great relationship with DDD&W,” she said.

  “Here’s the contract—I’ve signed it. If you’ll sign here—thanks. Here’s your ID for building security. Call my assistant if you need anything. Or Patti Sue Victor. You and Ms. Victor will work together, of course.”

  He spoke as if he were giving her a treat. Not. DDD&W’s so-called art curator—“the redneck cracker” of the powder room—was the wasp in the peach ice cream. Patti Sue thought she knew everything about art, but she knew nothing and never missed an opportunity to display her ignorance. She certainly wasn’t an art curator. Why did she pretend to be? And why did Douglas go along with it? There were signs that art had once hung on the walls here, but that made Patti Sue’s role all the more puzzling. If they’d owned decent art, surely they’d have hired someone competent to care for it. And above all, what became of it?

  “You’ll want to see Ms. Victor and get settled,” he continued. “But first, Hunt Frederick, our managing director, wants to meet you.”

  Dinah followed Douglas up a short flight of stairs to a part of the thirty-third floor she hadn’t seen on her initial tour of the space. The thirty-second floor, where she’d waited, and the thirty-third floor had identical dark gray carpeting and light gray walls, but the offices in this area were larger, and to enter each of them you had to pass through a small secretarial room.

  Douglas paused at the desk of a matronl
y woman in the entry area of a corner suite. “Good morning, Mrs. Thornton, this is Dinah Greene, who’ll oversee the new art program. Hunt asked me to bring her around to meet him. Is he available?”

  “Mr. Frederick stepped away for a few minutes, Mr. Douglas. He asked that you wait in his office. Good morning, Ms. Greene, it’s nice to meet you,” Mrs. Thornton said.

  Aha, the voice of reason in the ladies’ room. In a gray suit that matched her hair, a gray silk blouse and pearls, she looked as if she’d dressed to blend in with the carpet. Quite a contrast with the other women she’d seen. She looked like the sort of person who’d say “fisticuffs.” Her role as the managing director’s assistant explained her willingness to call off the catfight and threaten the cats.

  When the Gray Lady ushered them into Frederick’s office, Dinah nearly gasped out loud. A red and blue Oriental rug covered the gray carpet. The wall-to-wall window behind the desk framed a magnificent view of the East River. Carved shelves in black oak lined the other walls, floor to ceiling. The desk, chairs, a coffee table, and a sofa matched the bookshelves. The crimson upholstery on the sofa and chairs echoed the red in the rug, and the books that filled the shelves were bound in red leather. Dark red curtains hung on either side of the windows.

  “My goodness, I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said. Except maybe in a film. It looked like Hollywood’s conception of the setting for a nineteenth-century executive. What a clash with the sleek modernity of the rest of the place.

  “It’s something else, isn’t it?” Douglas said, looking around.

  Good grief, he sounded as if he admired this hideous fake Victorian room. His tone was almost proprietary. “It’s—uh—stunning. I’m at a loss for words,” Dinah said.

  A shorter, stockier man strode in. “My sentiments exactly,” he said.

  “Good morning, Hunt,” Douglas said. “Dinah Greene, Hunt Austin Frederick, our managing director.”

  “Ms. Greene, I’m mighty glad to meet you.”

  She’d read in Business Week that Hunt Frederick was in his mid-forties, but he looked younger. He was about five nine, Dinah’s height in heels, despite his alligator cowboy boots, which, like her Bruno Maglis, added a good two inches. His navy blue suit, white shirt, and maroon tie were conventional, but his brown hair was cut too short—it looked almost military—and his heavy gold cufflinks were too big. His looks were clean-cut and American, with strong features, and keen hazel eyes. He moved like an athlete, as if he had grapefruit under his arms, and with slightly bowed legs.

  His legs, his boots, and a slight twang hinted at his Texas background. She’d read that he’d come east to study at Deerfield, Yale, and Harvard Business School and had returned to Texas to work in the family oil business for a few years before he joined the Dallas office of DDD&W. Coleman had met him at a party in the Dallas Museum and hadn’t liked him—a puffed-up jerk, she’d said. Two months ago, when he’d been elected managing director, he moved to New York. Coleman said that the eyes of the business world were on him, keen to see what kind of job he’d do.

  “How do you do?” Dinah said.

  “Fine, thanks, but it’s a challenge living up to this baronial office. The furniture and the paneling have been in every managing director’s office since the firm was established in 1952. James Davidson brought it over from a castle in Scotland, and whenever DDD&W moves to new quarters, everything in here moves into an office designed to accommodate it. It’s mighty fancy for a country boy like me—I’d prefer something plainer, less grand.”

  She believed him about the office, but he sounded a little too “aw, shucks.” Country boy? Dinah bet he played that card often. She smiled to show him she knew he wasn’t serious.

  “Don’t worry, you don’t have to hang art in here,” he added.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Dinah said. “Nothing suitable comes to mind. Most art would be overpowered.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Maybe rhino heads? I was impressed with your proposal—the price, the art, and especially how fast you plan to get it on the walls.”

  Dinah nodded. “We can underbid the competition because we deal exclusively in fine prints, less expensive than paintings or drawings. We’ll be finished six weeks from today at the latest. I expect to start hanging tomorrow, if the young men who hang for me are available.”

  The quicker she could get out of here, the better. DDD&W made her uneasy, and it wasn’t just Patti Sue’s animosity, or the spat in the restroom. The offices were like the Marie Celeste, as if they had been designed for a big staff that had disappeared—too silent, too empty, too cold. Art on the walls would make it less bare but wouldn’t overcome the pervasive chill. Beneath the odor of burnt coffee, the office smelled stale, like the air in an unused refrigerator.

  “I’m going to take Ms. Greene down to Patti Sue’s office, Hunt,” Douglas said.

  “Good. I look forward to seeing the result of your work, Ms. Greene. Ted, are we still on for dinner?”

  “Absolutely. The Harvard Club at eight thirty. See you later.”

  Three

  Douglas escorted Dinah back down to thirty-two and directed her toward the corridor leading to Patti Sue’s office. The office was empty, but at a nearby workstation a tiny girl with wispy brown hair pounded a keyboard. She looked up. “May I help you?” Her pink nose and big eyes behind round steel-rimmed glasses reminded Dinah of a storybook rabbit.

  “Hi, I’m Dinah Greene, from the Greene Gallery. Patti Sue expects me,” Dinah said.

  “Ms. Victor is in a meeting, but I’ll, like, show you your office. I’m Ellie McPhee, Ms. Victor’s assistant. You’re across the hall, and I’m to, like, help you with anything you need.”

  The “office,” probably designed to store supplies and only slightly larger than a closet, was windowless and crammed with a small metal desk, two chairs, a file cabinet, and a bookcase, all painted jailhouse gray. Thank goodness she wouldn’t have to spend much time in this hideous room. She’d hang some prints to make it less grim and bring in a scented candle to get rid of that ghastly air-conditioning smell. She couldn’t abide the “office” as it was, even for a little while.

  “Thanks. Could you make sure I have supplies—pads, pens, folders, all that?”

  “All done. And a DDD&W telephone directory with, like, office locations.” Ellie looked every day of twelve and apparently couldn’t raise her voice above a whisper, but she seemed efficient.

  “Office services was supposed to install a lock on the door of the room where we’ll store the prints until they’re hung. Do you know if they did? I’ll need a lock for this office, too,” Dinah said.

  Ellie blinked, and her nose quivered, making her look even more like one of Peter Rabbit’s sisters. Flopsy? “Uh, I don’t think so, Ms. Greene. No locks, I mean. I mean, Ms. Victor didn’t tell me to, like, arrange that. She doesn’t have a lock.”

  Ellie spoke as if a lock on the door were a status symbol. Maybe it was. Theodore Douglas’s office had a lock, and Hunt Frederick’s had two: one on the door to the anteroom, and another on the door to his inner sanctum. Dinah didn’t care. She had to have those locks. Her insurance company demanded them.

  “I need locks because I’ll have art here on approval,” she explained. “When art is stolen from a corporate site, it usually happens before it goes on the walls.”

  “Uh…I mean, like, you’ll have to ask Ms. Victor,” Ellie said.

  “Ask me what?” Patti Sue pushed past Ellie into the room.

  “Hi, Patti Sue. I asked Ellie about the locks for this door, and the art storage room.”

  “Not possible,” Patti Sue said.

  “I’m sure it is—it’s standard when you have art waiting to be hung, and it’s in my contract. I have to have a secure place to keep the prints,” Dinah said, trying not to sound like a kindergarten teacher.

  Patti Sue tightened her lips, smearing her purple lipstick. “Then I gotta have a set of keys.”

  “I’m a
fraid not. Until the prints are on the walls, I’m responsible for them, and I’ll keep the keys.”

  “We’ll see about that. I’ll take it up with Ted Douglas.” She flounced out, Ellie scurrying behind her.

  Dinah closed the door behind them. Patti Sue’s leathery skin, straw-like mane, and long bony face reminded Dinah of a bad-tempered pony she’d encountered as a child. She looked to be in her fifties, but her hairdo and clothes were designed for a teenager, or a hooker: Lurex, gaudy colors, miniskirts, and platform shoes. Dinah sighed. The woman’s appearance was none of her business, but Patti Sue’s attitude was a problem. Argue, argue, argue. Insisting on involvement and getting in the way. This lock issue was typical—all about power and control. Oh, well, with luck she wouldn’t encounter Patti Sue again after the job was finished, and that couldn’t be too soon. When the prints were installed, Dinah would be out of here, check in hand, as fast as she could walk, never to return.

  She called Douglas’s assistant, who promised to have the locks installed right away. Half an hour later they were in place, and the keys were stowed in Dinah’s handbag. She checked out the storage room, making sure the key would work, and returned to her cubbyhole. Now the fun part: telling Bethany. She made the call, and when Bethany answered, announced, “We got the contract!”

  “Hallelujah! When do we start?”

  “Today. Would you call the warehouse and arrange delivery of the prints early tomorrow? We’ll start hanging Wednesday night, if the guys are available. And would you messenger over that set of William Seltzer Rice prints—the southern flower series in the black frames—and my tool kit? They’ll dress up this hole of an office.”

  Her next call was to Jonathan, but he was in a client meeting, and Coleman was out to lunch. She left her cousin a jubilant voice mail, and was on the phone with one of the men she employed to hang art, when Patti Sue barged in and slammed the door against the wall.