Fannie Flagg Read online

  Pamela, in fact, did not mind. She knew that Beverly, who was sixteen years younger than Arthur, adored him, but hated all the endless socializing. She would much rather stay home with her children and read a good book. Pamela couldn’t much blame her for not wanting to come tonight. From what Arthur had said, the French ambassador and his wife were not what you would call Paris’s fun couple, and he had been correct.

  Nevertheless the dinner went well, and while Pamela was busy being a gracious hostess, she was also making mental notes about the small man with the stocky wife. After the evening was over, she closed the door and went into the living room, where Arthur was waiting.

  “Well …” she said, “I see what you mean.”

  “I told you, I can’t get a straight answer one way or the other. I never can pin him down.”

  Pamela lit a cigarette. “Well, first of all, you are never going to get any serious answer from him. He’s not the man making the decisions.”

  Arthur nodded. “That’s exactly what I thought, I just needed to get your read on it.”

  “Absolutely, that man never had an original thought in his life.”

  Arthur smiled, and suddenly winced in pain.

  Pamela looked at him. “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know, must be indigestion.” He started trying to loosen his tie and seemed to be short of breath.

  Pamela saw that he had broken out into a sweat.

  “What’s the—are you ill?”

  “I … feel sick to my stomach.”

  Then another sharp pain hit him and he fell over toward the floor.

  Pamela jumped up and tried to catch him but was not able to. She ran to the kitchen and buzzed downstairs to the doorman and screamed for help. Running back to the living room, she found him unconscious. She picked up the phone, called 911, went back to him, and took his tie off.

  By the time the doorman came running in, she was frantic. She could not feel a pulse.

  Trust Me

  New York City

  1968

  Sidney Capello was born nervous. Tonight he paced up and down in his fleabag hotel room at Forty-eighth and Third, worried even more than usual. Something was off. Sidney had made a name for himself in certain circles as a freelance reporter who specialized in obtaining private information about public people. He had paid informants stashed in many nooks, crannies, and dark corners who covered New York like a giant spiderweb. There were not many moves that the rich or famous could make without Sidney finding out about them one way or another. But lately Sidney’s people had been letting him down. His stable of snitches had been strangely silent. The gossip and rumor mill that sometimes spewed out profitable dirt twenty-four hours a day had suddenly ground down to a halt. Either people had been behaving themselves lately, or else they were beginning to be very careful. Or sneaky. Tonight Sidney hated all of them. They prevented him from making a living, with all the money they had. Greedy little ingrates each and every one. Although he himself was on an under-the-table retainer from one of the New York dailies, and two top gossip columnists, nothing made him more irritable than having to pay out money for nothing. It was making Sidney sweat. He had not had a big, fat, red-hot scandal in over two months, not even a really juicy tidbit. He was restless and couldn’t sleep. He was just itching for a little something, anything he could grab by the throat and choke a story out of. At about twelve-fifty when the call came, he was ready.

  It was Mary at the Midtown Ambulance Service. She had just dispatched a unit to Beekman Towers, Room 107. He was out the door and on the street in less time than it took a fireman to slide down a pole.

  Sidney had never been a Boy Scout but he was always prepared. He kept about two thousand dollars in cash, a small silver German camera with a great lens, and preprinted release forms in his pocket at all times. He could not afford to waste a second with all the new boys in town trying to rip him off. Sidney was excited. The Beekman Towers was an exclusive eastside residential hotel near the UN and just about anyone there might be a story. Adrenaline set in and in five minutes he hit the building running, right on the heels of the ambulance, and was able to slip past any security and was soon outside 107 watching the paramedics work on a man lying unconscious in the hall. He had perfected the art of slipping in anywhere unnoticed. The three years he had spent as a private detective, working mostly on divorce raids, had been good training. Sidney was at his best working fast among people distracted by tragedy; and while the paramedics labored, trying to save the man’s life, Sidney had taken at least ten pictures quietly before anyone knew what was happening, found out who the man was and whose apartment he had been visiting. It was all Sidney could do not to laugh out loud. There was a God after all. Jackpot! This could be a yelling and screaming headline and he could smell it, a real score, a bull’s-eye, a home run a hundred feet over the wall. Arthur Rosemond had just done Sidney a huge personal favor by dropping dead of a heart attack in the apartment of a woman who was not his wife.

  Mrs. Pamela Lathrope III was a socialite and ex-wife of multimillionaire Stanley Lathrope III, who had recently been elected governor of the State of New York. He had always heard vague rumors about Mrs. Lathrope and the ambassador, but he had never been able to get anything on them. Until tonight. He almost danced a jig. Man, it felt good to be back in the game. Soon, he had more names and pictures. He had a shot of the apartment, a picture of the doorman, but most important he had gotten the money shot, a great snap of the dead man’s face as the stretcher went by. The only picture he had not been able to get was one of Mrs. Lathrope, but they could pull one at the paper. They kept photographs of every famous person on file, in case of sudden death or sudden infamy, whichever came first.

  Tonight Sidney was king, on top of the world. He had been thrown a piece of raw meat and he had grabbed it right from under the noses of the other poor schmucks and was moving with it. And before the ambulance had reached the hospital, Sidney was on the phone in the lobby haggling in a low voice with an editor over how much money he could get for the story and the pictures. After he had held him up for as much as he could manage, the editor still wanted more than the facts. “Don’t you have anything else I can use? I want intimate stuff, eyewitness accounts; can you get me that? Do you have anybody?”

  Sidney thought fast. He noticed the doorman he had interviewed briefly earlier talking to a few residents. “The doorman says he was the first one in the apartment. He might give us something—for a price.”

  “All right. Just get it. Find out what the dame had on, were they dressed, did he find them in bed.”

  “He claims they were in the living room.”

  “Yeah, well, explain to him how much more the story is worth if he can suddenly remember he found them in the sack.”

  “How high can I go?”

  “Up to fifteen—just get it.”

  Sidney, still looking at the doorman, said, “I’ll get it. Don’t worry. Don’t I always?”

  “And Sidney … get him to sign. I need it to cover my ass. I won’t use it unless he signs.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Sidney opened his pad and went over to the doorman.

  “Mr. O’Connell, could I talk to you in private? It’s pretty important.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The doorman came over and Sidney flashed him a phony press ID from The New York Times. “Mr. O’Connell, my boss is on the phone waiting and I need to recheck a few facts, make sure I got everything right. Your name is Michael O’Connell and you were the first person to arrive at the scene, is that right?”

  The doorman, large, uniformed, redheaded, was still shaken. “Yes, sir, that’s right. I was in the lobby when Mrs. Lathrope buzzed, very excited like, and she was yelling for help.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Well, sir, I got up there as fast as I could, ran down the hall to her apartment. And when I got there the door was open so I ran in.”

  Sidney held up hi
s hand. “Wait. Let me get this straight. When you got there, the door was open and you ran into the bedroom.”

  “No, sir, it was the living room, and then I saw Mr. Rosemond slumped over on the sofa.”

  Sidney looked up in surprise. “In the living room? You said bedroom before. Are you sure they were not still in the bedroom?”

  The doorman looked hard at him. “No, sir, I never said bedroom. So, I helped Mrs. Lathrope lay him down on the floor.”

  “Wait.” Sidney checked over his notes. “Yes, here it is. You said the bedroom door was wide open and you ran in.”

  “Well, I don’t remember saying that … but they were definitely—”

  “I see, but the bedroom door was open, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, I didn’t notice. Might have been but I don’t recall, sir.”

  Sidney smiled sympathetically. “Of course, you can’t remember every little detail; who could, for Christ sakes? I imagine Mrs. Lathrope was pretty upset.”

  “Oh, yes, sir, she was!”

  “What did she say?”

  “She just kept saying, ‘Oh, my God’ … things like that.”

  “I see, yeah, when people are upset, they get confused. How in the hell could people expect you to remember every little detail, for Christ sakes, right? Let me ask you this. Is there the slightest possibility that he was in the bedroom and the open door you remember was the bedroom door? Couldn’t that be possible, that in the excitement you forgot? It would certainly be a reasonable mistake.”

  “Why are you back on that? I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that. Mrs. Lathrope and I lifted him off the couch and put him on the floor and she loosened his tie—I remember that. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Mrs. Lathrope.”

  Sidney backed off. “Oh, no, we wouldn’t want to bother her now. She was probably so upset she’s not going to remember if he was in the bedroom, in the living room, or where the hell he was. You might not even remember that you ran into the bedroom; people get mixed up all the time. I cover these things and—”

  He had pushed too far. O’Connell stiffened. “Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but he was in the living room and that’s that.”

  “Hey, OK, OK. Have it your way. Whatever you say.”

  Then he sighed, shook his head, and slowly closed his notebook. “That’s too bad … you can’t remember, you being the first one on the scene. But, hey, look, it don’t matter to me. It’s just that my boss was willing to hand out a big hunk of change for a firsthand, eyewitness account. You got kids?”

  The doorman said, “Kids? Yes, sir, I got six.”

  “I thought so. I just hate like hell to see them lose out on this deal. A thousand dollars is a lot of money. I just hate to see you lose it, that’s all.”

  The doorman frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  Sidney looked around and lowered his voice. “I’m talking about a thousand dollars. Tax-free. I’ve got it right here in my pocket … yours if you want it.”

  The doorman looked confused.

  Sidney quickly glanced around the lobby and said, “Come over here with me for a minute,” and took the doorman around the corner. He turned his back and pulled out ten brand-new hundred-dollar bills, as if they were dirty postcards. “Here, take it. You found him in the bedroom, so what? What the hell difference does it make now? The guy’s dead, for Christ sakes, he don’t care.”

  The doorman looked at the money. Then he said, “But he was a nice man. And he was in the living room.”

  Sidney was getting frustrated. “Look, my boss might even go up to twelve hundred.”

  Then Sidney saw what he had been looking for, working for: little beads of perspiration began to pop out on the doorman’s forehead.

  “Oh, hell … as a matter of fact, I know he’ll go as high as fifteen hundred. You’re in the catbird seat, man, the only eyewitness, you have him by the balls. That’s a lot of money; you can’t afford not to take it. Come on, don’t be a chump. Can’t you use the money?”

  “It’s not that I can’t use the money.” The doorman took his handkerchief out, took his hat off, and wiped his brow. “It’s just, I don’t think I can lie like that.”

  “Hell, it’s not really lying. For all you know, it probably did happen that way, you just don’t remember. Besides, you’re not hurting anybody. Who’s to hurt?”

  “No, I don’t think I could. I couldn’t take the money for something—”

  “Well, that’s a damn shame. I bust my balls trying to do you a favor and you’re too dumb to appreciate it. Don’t say I didn’t try.”

  Sidney put the money back in his pocket, slowly, and walked away from the doorman. Then he stopped for a moment and came back. “Look, I don’t know why I’m doing this, goddamn it, but I’m going to tell you something that could cost me my job, you understand?”

  He glanced around and spoke as if in confidence. “Listen, the truth is, my boss don’t even need you. He’s gonna write it the way he wants it and what you say or don’t say don’t make a shitload of difference one way or the other. See, it ain’t no skin off my teeth if he wants to give away his money, I just hate to see you turn down a chance of a lifetime … if not for you, for your kids. Don’t be a chump. He’s got plenty, he won’t even miss it. Come on … take it …”

  The doorman swallowed hard. “What would I have to do?”

  “Nothing, that’s the beauty part—nothing. Just sign a simple paper saying you are giving us the exclusive rights to your story—there’s no record of the money, and it’s tax-free. This way none of the other newspapers … will be bothering you. This is for your protection as well as ours.”

  Sidney reached in his pocket and brought the money back out. “Oh, hell, make it two thousand. I’ll tell him I had to bid. What he don’t know won’t hurt, right?”

  The doorman looked as if he was about to take the money but again he hesitated. He backed away, shaking his head.

  “No, I just can’t. I’d never be able to face Mrs. Lathrope again; she’s a lovely person.”

  Sidney did not miss a beat. “I can understand that. And why should you? Face her, I mean. My boss can set you up in any building in town; hell, he owns about twenty of them himself. I’ll explain the situation. He’ll put you on at the same salary, a little higher, even. He’s a compassionate man; like I said, he’s a generous guy. He don’t have to pay you a dime, remember that.”

  Sweat was now pouring off the doorman’s face.

  “I’ll make it easier for you. We won’t even use your name. I’ll just say ‘an unidentified witness,’ OK? Will that make it easier for you?”

  “You won’t use my name?”

  “Give you my word on it.”

  Sidney looked at his watch. “Look, pal, I’m not trying to rush you but I’m on deadline. I gotta run. Yes or no?”

  The doorman made no move.

  He pushed the money at him. “Here, take it! I’m not gonna let you blow this chance.” He slammed the money into the doorman’s hand. “Put it in your pocket, sign right here, I’m gone, you’re rich, nobody’s hurt.”

  The doorman took the pen in a daze. “If you’re not gonna use my name, why do I have to sign?”

  “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it, just an in-house deal. It’s filed for legal reasons. Nobody ever sees it. You don’t have a thing to worry about. Trust me—I wouldn’t steer you wrong.”

  As the doorman was signing, Sidney kept talking. “You’re gonna thank me for this. Believe me, working guys got to stick together, right? Right?”

  As soon as the last l in O’Connell was written, Sidney grabbed the paper and ran. He called over his shoulder, “Thanks, pal, you won’t regret this.”

  The doorman called, “Are you sure you won’t—”

  But Sidney was out the door. When he reached the editor’s office, he handed over the signed paper.

  “Here it is. But it wasn’t easy. That greedy mick held us up for twenty-five.”
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br />   The editor opened a drawer, and pulled out the cash. “If I find out there isn’t a doorman named O’Connell, you are dead meat, Sidney.”

  Sidney looked indignant. “What, don’t you trust me? I could have held you up for three with a story like this. You think I would try and skim off you? You’re like a father to me.”

  The editor waved him away. “Yeah, yeah, get out of here, you creep.”

  Sidney laughed and walked out the door. He was too high to go to bed so he hit a bar or two and the sun was coming up just as he reached the hotel. The world looked swell to him today. He even noticed the flowers in the window boxes. Were they always there? By the time he reached his room he was tired and could finally get some real sleep.

  Not more than three minutes after Capello had drifted off, fat stacks of newspapers were being tossed off the backs of trucks all over town. You could almost hear the front page shout up from the sidewalk. To a few readers, the families and friends of the two parties involved, the headline and photographs would seem as brutal and heartless as a man exposing himself to children on a playground. To others, strangers hurrying by on their way to work, it was just another of the morning’s entertainments, a slight jolt, an eye-opener, a sudden rush like a cup of good, strong coffee to help get the day started.

  ROSEMOND DIES IN LOVE NEST!

  Nobel peace prize–winner and United States ambassador Arthur Rosemond died suddenly last evening in the bed of his longtime mistress, Mrs. Pamela Lathrope, socialite ex-wife of Governor Stanley Lathrope.

  Michael J. O’Connell, doorman at the swank East Side Beekman Towers hotel, told this reporter in an exclusive interview that last evening at about 10:40 he received an urgent call from Mrs. Lathrope’s apartment. When he reached the apartment, the door was open and he ran into the bedroom, where he found the scantily clad Mrs. Lathrope, hysterical with grief, leaning over the stricken Rosemond, O’Connell said.

  O’Connell confirmed that Rosemond had been a frequent visitor to the Lathrope suite. O’Connell, still visibly upset from witnessing the night’s tragedy, shook his head in sorrow. “He was a nice man but I guess he went out the way most men would want to.”