what I could to help Tucker. Now it’s up to his lawyer, Clare. Not me…and not you.”
I let Matt see the hurt and disappointment on my face.
“Oh, all right,” he said at last. “You can come with me if you want to. Snoop around, find out all you can. Just don’t mess up my presentation, okay? Or my relationship with Tad.”
“But if I start snooping around Tad’s investment seminar, asking all kinds of questions, then Tad’s bound to get suspicious—especially if he really is guilty of something.” I shook my head. “No, I can’t do this myself. What I need is a potential investor. A complete stranger who won’t arouse any suspicion….”
Matteo snorted. “Maybe you should wear a disguise then. Sounds like the perfect Nancy Drew move.”
“Maybe I will. But even then, I won’t go alone. I’m going to bring the perfect candidate along with me. Someone who obviously looks like she’s made of money—old money—and is itching to throw it into risky ventures, win or lose. The last sort of individual Tad Benedict would suspect…”
Matteo sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. Now it was his turn to sigh with theatrical patience. “And who might this perfect candidate be?”
“Why, Matt. I’m surprised. Have you forgotten your own mother?”
TWELVE
I phoned Madame from the coffeehouse and told her I was on my way over to see her.
“I hope this is a social call,” she replied. “My maid told me you rang me up last night.”
“It’s business, I’m afraid.”
I could almost feel Madame tensing on the other end of the line. “Well, let me warn you, dear,” she said after a pause. “If it concerns those monthly financial reports you insist on sending me, I haven’t read a one of them.”
“We’ll talk when I get there.”
A brief, brisk walk brought me to Washington Square Park. The large square appeared luminous in the long, golden rays of the waning September day. Students from the surrounding New York University occupied the benches or sat in clusters in the grassy areas, with dogs, squirrels, and children romping around them. I circled the fountain and followed the paved paths.
Finally I passed under the seventy-seven-foot marble arch that dominated the northern end. Built in 1895 to replace a wooden structure that had been erected by architect Stanford White for the Centennial celebration of George Washington’s inauguration, the white marble arch has served as a rallying point for labor unrest, civil rights marches, antiwar protests, feminist bra-burnings, socialist gatherings, and anarchists riots for generations. The irony is that Fifth Avenue, a central Manhattan artery running north from the arch, where the most affluent of the New York City old guard resides, geographically begins at this site of repeated antiestablishment rebellion.
Madame occupied an opulent penthouse capping one of Fifth Avenue’s exclusive residential buildings near the arch. The imposing structure boasts a concrete moat, a spectacular view of the city, and a doorman dressed like an eighteenth-century European naval officer. My mother-in-law had moved into that building when her late second husband, Pierre Dubois, insisted she give up what he felt was Madame’s “rather small” West Village duplex above the coffeehouse—the elegantly furnished space where I now live.
Of course, Madame’s world was not mine. She’d been raised an aristocrat before being forced to flee Europe during the Second World War, finding herself in America with very little to her name. After her first husband—Matteo’s father—died, a life of great wealth followed through her second marriage to the late Pierre. Even though the bulk of his assets had been willed to the children from his first marriage, Madame retained ownership of the fabulous penthouse where she now lived, as well as a modest trust fund for her living expenses.
Coming from solidly working-class roots, I was admitted to Madame’s world through marriage to her son. And through the rocky marriage and divorce, the birth of my daughter Joy, and the move to the New Jersey suburbs and back again, Madame and I had only grown closer. Part of our bond was having more in common than superficially appeared—my own immigrant grandmother had raised me with the same values Madame had come to embrace through the hardships that Nazi-occupied Europe had inflicted on her and her family. The other part was our mutual love of Joy. And, if questioned under torture, I suppose I’d admit that sprinkled in there somewhere was our common affection for Matteo.
When I arrived at the front door, Madame’s personal maid ushered me into the matriarch’s dark,