Mysterical-E

He Said, She Says

The Gigolo
by Anne-Marie Sutton

“Lorenzo’s just a gigolo, Caroline. He’s like the guy in that David Lee Roth song. They were playing it all last winter in the club my crowd went to down in Manhattan. Everyone thought it was so retro.” She frowned and studied her expensive manicure. “Of course that was last year’s club. But really, Caroline. Lorenzo is the limit. I wish Mother would ship him back to Italy.”

“How old is this Lorenzo?”

“Oh, as old as you.” Miranda Avery said it as if such people must exist, although I’m only thirty-one, and people tell me my green eyes are stunners. “But, come and see for yourself. Mother’s having a garden party tomorrow afternoon. She wants us all to wear hats and big puffy dresses like they wear to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen.”

“I don’t think I have a big puffy dress,” I pointed out.

“Don’t be silly, Caroline. I’m wearing something slinky.” She shook out her thick black hair and pushed up her generous bosom. “I didn’t get these boobs not to show them off.” She stood up to leave. “Three o’clock tomorrow.”
                        *
The following day, hatless and dressed in a caramel-colored silk sheath, I walked across our lawn onto the grounds of Seacliffe, a large square house of yellow limestone crowned with a heavy mansard roof which has always looked to me like the top of a rather elaborate box of chocolates. Miranda’s mother Alexis owns Seacliffe, and our two houses have stood side by side for over a hundred years on a quiet tree-lined street off Bellevue Avenue, in the heart of Newport, Rhode Island’s mansion district.

Miranda was waiting for me on the terrace, her dark eyes flashing impatience. Her strapless dress of cream-colored fabric decorated with large purple circles barely covered the essentials.

“Caroline,” she said, grasping my arm, “come see him up close. Really, you won’t believe what he’s wearing. Yachting clothes.” She giggled. “I mean he looks like the Commodore.”

“I think I need a glass of champagne first,” I said reaching for the tray of an approaching waiter. I was suddenly conscious, despite the day’s warmth, of a coldness surrounding Miranda. Why, I asked myself, had I thought it would be a good idea to be thrust into the middle of a conflict between mother and daughter and mother’s gigolo.

*
“He actually was nice, Louise.”

I was recounting my afternoon’s adventure to my mother-in-law that evening as we put away the dinner dishes. And here I must explain my own situation in life. Unlike Alexis Avery who had inherited wealth from both her father and first husband, my late father-in-law Frederick had speculated and lost the Kent family fortune many years before my marriage. Our union had been tragically brief. Reed died in an automobile accident after we had been married only two years. His family had owned Kenwood Court in Newport for generations, and it passed to me after his death.

The problem was that it was mortgaged up to the hilt, and I really couldn’t afford to maintain it. I should have sold it, but when I had fallen in love with Reed I had fallen in love with Kenwood Court as well. It’s a beautifully uncomplicated alabaster white house with two perfect wings and a simple portico, in real contrast to most Newport summer cottages built by the rich and famous of the Gilded Age which mix and match every architectural style ever invented. So I devised a plan, ingenious if I do say so myself.

The tourists come to Newport to inhale the air breathed by the immensely wealthy. Why not give the ones who could afford it, the chance to stay in one of the very mansions which once were the scene of glittering balls and gala dinner parties? So, with Louise’s blessing and thank heavens her full-time help, we turned the house into a very discreet inn. There’s no sign on the front, no rates posted on the back of the guest bedrooms. Our visitors arrive as if they have come to stay with the Kents of Newport, and our guests have the run of the house, except for the three room suite on the second floor where Louise and I reside. Word of mouth has spread, and we make more than enough to pay our bills. Of course we usually work 24/7, but frankly, since Reed died, that’s been fine with me.

“So you liked Alexis’s gigolo?” Louise asked. She’s a tiny woman with sharp grey eyes, and I’m more fond of her than my own mother. “Lorenzo... didn’t you say that was his name?”

“Lorenzo Toce,” I replied. “He’s right out of an Armani ad. Dark curly hair, deep blue eyes.”
“Does he speak English?”

“Oh, yes. And Alexis does seem smitten with him.”

“And Miranda says her mother is thinking of marrying him? Alexis has had her flings before, but the age difference...” Louise shook her head.

“Miranda insists that Alexis wants to marry him, and that Lorenzo told her he knows Americans like June weddings.”

“But that’s next month.”

Louise was silent, contemplating the idea.

“But, when I come to think of it,” she concluded, “Miranda’s father wasn’t much more than a gigolo himself.”

“How old was Miranda when her parents split up?”

“Oh, four or five. I never saw Jimmy Avery after the divorce. And I very much doubt Miranda did, either. Miranda looks exactly like him, you know.”
“I wondered. She doesn’t resemble Alexis in the least.”

“Jimmy was her second husband. Trained polo ponies. Even twenty years ago there wasn’t much call for that. When Alexis was finished with him, she had to pay him to go.”

“And the first husband?”

“Roger Gray. The heir to a copper mining fortune and old enough to be her father. I will say he was very generous with Alexis when she left him after only three years of marriage.”

“Paternal, would you say he was?”

“He had a roving eye. Everybody did in Newport in those days.”

“Do you miss the old Newport, Louise?”

“It was a simpler time, Caroline. Oh, I know that’s no excuse, but our crowd didn’t think much about the outside world. There were parties every night in the summer. During the day, beach picnics and yachting.” She laughed. “Looking back, there were so many divorces. Everyone’s ex popping up. But we all stayed friends.”
*
Two mornings after Alexis’s garden party I had to run an errand down in the harbor. A woman who had stayed with us in March remembered a shop there selling clothes with the images of a large black dog and wanted one of the little yellow raincoats for her grandson’s upcoming third birthday. I knew the store on Bannister’s Wharf and had agreed to do her shopping. I didn’t mind. It made a change from sorting the bed linen and arguing with Mattie, my mother-in-law’s cranky but excellent cook, over meal plans which are always more elaborate - and expensive - than I care for. Anyway, today was a bright, delicious day to be out of doors. The warmth of the sun stroked my arms as I strolled through the crowded wharf. I felt lazy and eager to kill some time before returning to my duties at home.

“Signora Kent?”

I turned around. Lorenzo was waving from one of the white Adirondack chairs in front of an outdoor coffee bar next to the visitors’ boat docks. He motioned me to join him.

“Buon giorno,” he said, rising to his feet. “You will sit with me and drink an espresso?”

“Sure,” I said, taking the empty seat next to him and stretching my back comfortably into the slant of the chair. I closed my eyes and turned my face toward the sun.

Lorenzo returned with two small white china cups and saucers.

I thanked him and sipped the coffee. Lorenzo drank his with one long swallow while his eyes studied a large sailboat tied up at the dock.
“It’s a Swan,” I said. “Beautiful, isn’t it,?” Lorenzo looked at me surprise. “My late husband was a sailor.”

“A Swan 45. A most perfect boat. I saw it win the Sardinia Rolex Cup a few years ago.”

“You enjoy sailing?”

“Yes. A friend invited me to watch the races. She has a house on the Costa Smerelda. Have you ever been to Sardinia?”

I shook my head. Like so many things Reed and I talked about doing some day, visiting Italy together never happened for us.

“It is a beautiful place. The race, it is every two years. I am invited for this year, also.”

“And you are going?”

“Yes. I go.”

I couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t say we, as in Alexis and I. But I didn’t think I could ask to have that clarified.
*
It had been over a week since I had met Lorenzo at the coffee bar. Miranda, who likes to drop by unannounced when she is bored, had not been seen since the garden party. Perhaps she had returned to the family apartment in Manhattan. A new club might have been discovered, and she had to race back to join the scene.

The telephone rang. As I hurried to answer it, I met Louise in the kitchen hallway.

“Telephone for you, dear. It’s Miranda, and she’s in a state.”

“I’ll take it in my office.” I sighed. “I really haven’t time for her today.”

“I’m sure you’ll calm her.”

“Hello,” I said into the receiver. “Miranda, what can I do for you?”

“Caroline, you’ve got to come over right away.” The voice on the other end sounded rushed and agitated.

“Miranda, why?”

“He’s dead.”

“Who? Who’s dead?”

“Lorenzo. The police are here.”

*
It had happened the night before. Alexis had gone to a board meeting of one of the several Newport charities which she supported. It included dinner and she had come in late, a bit tipsy, but was able to inquire of her daughter the whereabouts of Lorenzo.

“How the hell did I know where her gigolo had gotten to?” Miranda asked me as we sat in the conservatory. She had recovered her composure with a large vodka and tonic and was displaying all her customary irritation with her parent.

With some difficulty I was able to extract the story. Miranda had seen Lorenzo the previous afternoon when he had told her that, owing to Alexis’s absence for the evening, he was going downtown to hear some music at one of the local bars.

“He actually had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to come with him. Like I’d want to be seen with that disgusting freeloader.”

Miranda had seen Lorenzo drive off around nine. She had spent the evening in bed watching the old movie channel. Last night had been a succession of Cary Grant movies.

“I just love him, Caroline. I mean, I know they say he was gay and all that. But he’s hot. I think it might be the way he talks. He’s such a wise ass.”

“Miranda,” I said evenly, “when did you realize Lorenzo was missing?”

She frowned. “I didn’t notice he was missing at all. It was Mother. When he hadn’t come home at four this morning, she was all berserk and called the police. I don’t know why she had to embarrass herself by announcing to the cops that her gigolo was in somebody else’s bed.”

“But he wasn’t.”

“No, that’s the funny thing. They had discovered the body around ten o’clock at one of the banks downtown, inside the lobby where they have an ATM. He must have been trying to get some cash and somebody jumped him.”

“And killed him?” The thought sickened me. Such violent street crimes didn’t happen in Newport. “Why didn’t they just take the money?”

“Who knows?” Miranda shrugged. “It was right on Thames Street across from the harbor. There are always lots of people walking around there at night. Somebody took a real chance.”

“Do you know how he died?”

“He was stabbed. Had to be some local guys high on whatever you can get in Newport these days.”

“How’s your mother taking this?”

“She’s with the police now. They want to know all about him, where he’s from. Next of kin stuff. If Mother hadn’t called, they never would have connected him with us. They hadn’t a clue he was staying at Seacliffe.”

“I should speak to her before I leave.”

“Do you think the news will get picked up by one of those true crime TV shows?” she asked thoughtfully. “You know... Murder of Newport Gigolo.”

“Oh, Miranda, I hope you’re not serious.”

“They would want to interview us.”

“Your mother would never cooperate.”

“Yes, but I would.”
*
I didn’t linger to ask Miranda why she would appear on a sensational TV show about Lorenzo’s murder. Perhaps it would make her more popular with her Manhattan crowd. I had to see Alexis before I left Seacliffe. In the circumstances I thought she would appreciate that. No one else was here to sympathize with her loss. I found her in the morning room where she was sitting alone, staring out of a window which overlooked the circular drive. Two black and white police cars were parked there, and several police officers stood conferring.

“Alexis,” I said gently. She turned and I saw her blue eyes were reddened and her usually faultless makeup streaked.

She greeted me with a wan smile.

“I wanted to say how sorry I am.”

“He made me feel young, Caroline.” Her smile faded and she began to cry. “Why did he have to go to that place?” she sobbed. “He didn’t need money. I gave him all he needed.”
*
“Another woman.”

“What, Louise?” We were performing our usual clean-up in the kitchen after dinner and I had been thinking of the guests who were arriving tomorrow.

“Why he went to that bank machine.”

“Louise,” I said, ignoring the dripping silver coffee pot in my hand. “You are brilliant.”

“Lorenzo didn’t need to take money from that machine. His companion did.”

“The police will have checked the records from that ATM. So the last card should belong to the person with Lorenzo. Nobody else would have used that ATM with a body lying there.”

“But where is she?” Louise asked. “Why didn’t she come forward?”

“Well,” I reasoned, “the police may have questioned her but haven’t released that fact to the media. You know, it’s hard to believe that the thieves meant to kill Lorenzo. I bet they just brandished the knife and something went wrong. Do you think Lorenzo tried to fight them off?”

“Perhaps,” Louise said grimly.

“She’s got to be someone he met that night. He’d asked Miranda to go with him, and she turned him down.”

“Well, dear, if he picked up some woman, he certainly wasn’t being very loyal to Alexis.”

I hadn’t mentioned my unplanned meeting with Lorenzo for espresso to my mother-in-law. It hadn’t seemed important at the time. But I knew that picking up a young woman, and I saw her in my mind’s eye as young, at a bar was in keeping with what I knew of Lorenzo’s congenial ladies’ man character. And it did appear that she was the one who needed cash, not him.
*
After Louise went up to bed, I went to my office at the back of the house. It’s the mansion’s old smoking room, and the walls are covered with Kent family photographs from the last hundred or so years. As I sat at my desk and tried to finish some paperwork, I found it hard to erase thoughts of Lorenzo from my mind. I was sorry that he wouldn’t be going to Sardinia for that Rolex sailboat race. He’d seemed so happy telling me about it. I typed in Sardinia and Rolex into my computer’s search engine and found the official race site. There were beautiful color photographs of previous races in Sardinia, including dramatic aerial shots. The bright blue water punctuated by rippling white waves as the huge boats angled for position brought back memories of Reed who loved competitive sailing. A photograph of the winning crew, hands raised in the air with the Rolex trophy, brought back a similar memory of Reed’s team winning their race. I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and realized I was doing myself no good by continuing to stare at these pictures which only saddened me with feelings of loss.

I reached for the mouse to leave the race site. Bed beckoned and I nursed the improbable hope that the novel I’d started the night before would improve in Chapter Three. The screen was disappearing as I caught sight of something in the corner which I hadn’t noticed before. Quickly I got the page back and looked hard at the screen.

“Well,” I said to myself, “this changes everything.”

*
We don’t have a butler at Kenwood Court. I had thought in the beginning it would be a nice touch, but my workforce comes from the local university students and butlers need to be elderly to be in character. I wasn’t sure I could train some Newport senior citizen to, I believe the word is buttle. That decision freed up the butler’s pantry for other uses, and I soon appropriated the sink and counter space to do floral arrangements for the house. Tuesday afternoon is my day to change the flowers. In the morning I pick up masses of them at the florist and closet myself in the pantry for several hours. It’s a chore I always look forward to.

This Tuesday was no exception. I hummed happily as I trimmed stems and began filling the vases and bowls lined up on the counter. When I heard the knock on the door, my heart sank. Louise won’t disturb me here unless there’s a crisis.

“Come in,” I reluctantly called.

But it wasn’t Louise, it was Miranda. “I just had to get out of that house,” she said by way of a greeting. She was wearing a white sun dress with a red scarf tied around her slim waist.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, still snipping flowers.

“It’s Mother, of course. Lorenzo’s people have made arrangements for the body to be flown back to Italy. She wants to go.”

“Then let her. I don’t see the problem.”

“She’s being so selfish about this,” Miranda said and threw up her arms as she leaned back against the counter. A large blue and white Chinese vase teetered precariously.

“Be careful,” I said as I rushed to move it away from her oncoming left shoulder. “That’s been in the Kent family since the nineteenth century.”

“Oh,” she said as if noticing the flowers for the first time. “What are you doing?” I thought the answer was obvious but I told her anyway. She studied a bunch of pink lilies on the counter and wrinkled up her nose. “I’ve always liked the smell of these, but I think it’s because it’s so peculiar. Isn’t this what they use for funerals? How appropriate for Lorenzo. I should order some for Mother.” She began putting lilies into an arrangement of roses and peonies which I had just completed.

“I finished that,” I began to say, but realized that a few of the feathery-shaped lilies made a perfect accompaniment to the dense red and white flowers in the vase. I stepped back and watched her work which she did with single-minded concentration. She expertly enhanced everything I had done and now was starting with an empty vase. I watched with a feeling of envy as her hands moved quickly to create a stunning design of purple irises, white peonies and lacy ferns. She stopped to examine her work.
“This needs some woody branches from the garden. I don’t suppose you have any dogwood?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Ask Louise. The gardens are her domain.”

“Let me finish here first,” she said as naturally if she was mistress of Kenwood and I, the second parlor maid. Her nimble fingers picked up stems and tried them in various poses. Before placing them in their permanent home she sliced through the bottom of each with a small knife.

“You certainly have an eye for design,” I complimented her. “I would never have thought to do that one,” I said, pointing to a large Waterford bowl of overflowing hydrangea and tulips.

“I love designing,” Miranda said. “I have this friend in Manhattan. Scott. We’ve been working together on a line of bags.”

“Bags?”

“You know. Designer handbags. If I can get my line on the market, I’ll make a lot of money. Women will pay hundreds, even thousands for the newest ones every year. ”

“Not me.”

“Well, in New York everyone does.”

Not everyone, surely. Some people must have to buy food and pay the rent.

“Scott knows this guy who can introduce us in the business, but first we’re going to need some capital.” She sighed heavily. “My poor old Dad left me penniless.”

“What about your mother?”

“Mother gives me an allowance. That’s all. She thinks I can’t handle my own money.”

“Maybe she’s waiting until you’re twenty-one.”

“But that’s not for sixteen months, Caroline, and I need the money now.” She paused. “I don’t suppose you’d like to invest? I know it won’t fail. Scott knows all these people. He works at Bloomingdale’s.”

“I can’t.”

“You don’t believe in me either,” she cried out in voice whose shrill intensity jolted me. The knife was clenched in her right hand. “Do you know how much my mother inherited from my grandfather? Over a hundred million. God knows what the trust is worth today. And then she got more money when she divorced Roger. Oh, why couldn’t he have been my father?”

I said I was sorry but she ignored me and glared at the knife. The color in her face was beginning to deepen.

“No,” she continued, more to herself than to me, “no, I can’t have any of her precious money. But her new husband Lorenzo, he would have anything. Do you want your own sailboat, darling?” she said, mimicking Alexis’s high cultured voice. ”We can go to the yards today and look at boats.”

“Miranda,” I began, but she cut me off.

“She could care less about what her own daughter needs to be happy.”

“I don’t think your mother was going to marry Lorenzo, Miranda,” I said.

“What do you mean?” she asked, her eyes flashing. “They were planning a June wedding. I heard them talking.”

“I don’t believe you, Miranda. I think you are making this up.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” She stepped toward me, the knife still in her hand.

“I don’t know why you’re lying, but I know Lorenzo wasn’t going to marry your mother.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me he was going to a sailing race in Italy, the Sardinia Rolex Cup. A friend had invited him to stay with her. I looked up the race site online and found out the race takes place in June. Lorenzo had no intention of marrying your mother next month because he was going to Sardinia... to stay with another woman.”
Miranda’s brow furrowed and she swallowed hard. Our eyes locked. She curled her lip in disdain.

“What did I care about that scumbag?”

“Apparently you cared that he was after your mother’s money. And maybe he got some while he was here. But he wasn’t planning to stay long.”

“You could have fooled me,” she said cooly. She examined the knife in her hand. It was small, but sharp. “I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Why did you want Lorenzo dead, Miranda?”

“Didn’t you think they looked ridiculous together? She would have done anything to keep him here.” A sly smile appeared on her face. “Maybe she killed him to prevent him from leaving. She was out that night.”
“So were you.”

I saw her right wrist relax as she gaped at me.

“I was home. I told you, in bed. With Cary Grant.”

“You did go out with Lorenzo that night, didn’t you? You took him to that ATM on the excuse that you needed money. You were right about one thing, Miranda. Lorenzo was a gigolo, and he wasn’t going to pay for drinks at a club if a woman would.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Lorenzo was so stupid. Pretty, but stupid. He thought it was perfectly fine to ask his mistress’s daughter out. He was so pleased I said yes. I guess he thought he’d screw the mother and the daughter.”

“You killed him because he came on to you?” As I asked the question I made a deft move forward and karate-chopped the knife from her hand. She laughed as she watched it fall to the floor.

“You didn’t have to do that. I wouldn’t hurt you, Caroline. You’ve always been my friend.”

“Then tell me why you killed Lorenzo.”

“You’re so smart to have figured everything else out. You should have thought of this, too. My handbags. If I got in the news I would be famous. It would be fabulous publicity. Any of the big fashion companies would back me then.”

“That’s horrible,” I said.

Miranda shrugged. “It’s the way it’s done, Caroline. Grow up. Paris Hilton, Naomi Campbell. Big names in the news for breaking the law, and I’d be one of them.”

“But you’d be in jail for murder.”    “I’d say it was self defense. I killed my mother’s
gigolo, remember? Who’s to say he wasn’t trying to rape me.”

“In an ATM lobby?”

“That just makes the story more thrilling. Scott says we can get a TV movie out of it.”

“All this to sell handbags,” I said sadly.

“Except now I’m not so sure.”

“Sure you needed to kill him?”

“No, the name. Scott wanted to call the line Miranda Avery. It’s a good society name. But what do you think--?”

“Not Lorenzo,” I said angrily.

“No, I’d never use his name.”

“What then?”

“Gigolo. The Gigolo Bag. It’s just too perfect. By Miranda Avery, of course. It will take New York by storm.

***

Anne-Marie Sutton is a native of Baltimore now living in Connecticut where she works in the family's marketing business. But her first love is creative writing. She has published three mystery books set in Newport, Rhode Island (www.newportmystery.com); the most recent, Keep My Secret, came out in 2013. Her short mysteries set in Manhattan are published in the Sisters In Crime's Murder New York Style anthology series, Fresh Slices and Family Matters (due out later this year).