I looked pretty damn good myself. It was the first time I had ever worn my tuxedo. I bought it when I was still full of optimism and beneficence, six years before, in anticipation of my wedding. It is a long story, but suffice it to say that on the eve of the ceremony my bride-to-be took a long hard look at me and decided she was too young to be married. The tuxedo didn’t fit like it had when I bought it, but I guess that’s why they invented cummerbunds.
We handed our coats off to the coat check guy and climbed the stairs alongside the huge yellow Chagall mural of a sun and a field of wheat and a man stuck out alone in a boat. We passed statues of fat naked women, turgid bronze breasts thrust forward, and stepped into the Great Hall, where a huge formal staircase rose to a bronze of the naked Evelyn Nesbit as Venus. Underneath a soaring Calder mobile we snatched champagne glasses from a passing silver tray. The place was teeming with tuxedos and formal gowns; they leaned against the walls and huddled in cliques and glided like spirits in and out of the open galleries. A small jazz band played at the foot of the stairs. A tray of cheese sticks passed by and I swiped three.
“What’s this benefit for again?” asked Beth as she sipped her champagne and looked around.
“Drugs, I think, or maybe AIDS,” I said. “I’m not sure.”
“Misery is such a clever excuse for a party.”
“I’ve never been to one of these before,” I said. “Are those little shish kebabs over there?”
“It’s amazing how far you’ve come in just a few days, Victor. Our finances are on the edge of solvency, your face was on the television this evening, standing behind Moore as he gave his speech on the courtroom steps, and if you don’t watch out your name will be in bold print in the society column. ‘Who was that partying into the wee hours last night for AIDS? Why, our own Victor Carl, looking very chic in his black tie.’”
“I was beginning to wonder if I would ever wear this thing.”
“You look good in it.”
“Yes, I do,” I said. I did look good in it, and I felt good in it, too. For a moment as I stood among that crowd of the wealthy, the sophisticated, the elite, who had done all they could to keep me out, as I stood there and surveyed the scene something hard and cold in my gut began to ease and the bitterness seemed to melt away. I was finally where I was always meant to be. I looked around and sipped champagne and decided I would stay.
“I should wear my tuxedo more often,” I said.
“Julie doesn’t know what she missed.”
“Let’s find Prescott,” I said, suddenly scanning the crowd. “You should meet him.”
“Look at that face on you, my God. Oh, I’m sorry, Victor.”
“There he is, now,” I said and I led her to a stern looking Prescott and two sober-faced round men in the corner. Together they looked like mourners at a wake. They were standing before a Diego Rivera mural, three soldiers swathed in bandoliers cutting down a whipped and hogtied man and wrapping him in blankets. As we approached Prescott I slowed down, warned off by the demeanor of the men and the somberness of the mural, but then Prescott saw me and his face cracked into a smile that drew me to him.
“Ah, Victor,” he said over the band, shaking my hand. “Terrific that you could come.”
“Thank you for having me, Mr. Prescott. This is Elizabeth Derringer, my partner.”
“Pleased to meet you, Elizabeth. It’s a shame my partners don’t look so good in their evening wear.”
“Richard DeLasko is one of your partners, isn’t he?” asked Beth. DeLasko was the current Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association.
“Yes, he is,” said Prescott, proudly.
“Well, you know,” said Beth in a confiding whisper, “I heard the Chancellor looks just marvelous in his black pumps and red sequined gown.”
Prescott was taken aback for a moment and then he smiled tightly, saying, “Yes, well,” before turning to me. “Victor, these are two men I’d like you to meet, Jack and Simon Bishop.” I knew of them, they were names for sure, the most successful real estate developers in the area. Each month a new Bishop Brothers development was opening somewhere in the far suburbs.
“Good to see you, Victor,” said one of them, Jack or Simon, I couldn’t tell yet which. His accent was British, his voice smooth and melodious. “Bill has told us all about you. Said you might fancy working with us on a new project we’re developing. He speaks quite highly of you.”
“Valley Hunt Estates,” said the other brother, with a harsher voice and a harsher accent. “We bought ourselves an old mansion not too far from the Schuylkill. Hit upon the notion of a neighborhood of manor homes around it. Huge front lawns, six bedrooms and whatnot. For those with upscale dreams, if you gather what we’re proposing.”
“Luxury throughout,” said the first brother.
“But very traditional too, mind you,” said the second. “And the options are gorgeous. Optional stable. Optional carriage house. Optional stained-glass window running up three stories, makes you think you’re living in Westminster Abbey. Valley Hunt Estates. Simon’s the genius came up with the name.”
“Yes, well, but it does have a certain ring, doesn’t it,” said Simon Bishop.
“I’m taking a more active role in this limited partnership than I normally do,” said Prescott. “Recently I’ve begun to take an interest in the business side of things and so we were talking about the need for outside counsel. For opinion letters and the like. Your name came up.”
“Take my card, Victor,” said Simon, reaching into his inside pocket. “Ring us up tomorrow.”
“I will,” I said.
“Have you received the documents?” asked Prescott.
“Yes, sir,” I said. He had sent me over six boxes of documents released by the government and copied for me by Talbott, Kittredge and Chase, six boxes at twenty-five cents a page, all billed to CUP. I was overwhelmed by the quantity of it. “Thank you.”
“If you need anything else, let me know. Anything at all.”
“I will, sir.”
“So that is how it’s done,” said Beth after we had swung away from the trio. The jazz band was playing “Begin the Beguine,” an older couple started dancing in the open area in front of the stairs. They must have been names because, as if on cue, other couples crowded past us to start dancing alongside them. A tray of tiny egg roll squares swept through, but as I reached for them I was stymied by a broad tuxedo back and then the tray was gone.
“That’s how what is done?” I asked.
“Networking. I had heard about it but I never saw the real thing until tonight. You’re surprisingly good at it.”
“Just trying to build up the practice. You see any more of those egg roll things?”
“Yes, sir, no, sir, anything you want, sir. But you shouldn’t kiss Prescott’s butt so intently, Victor. It can leave stains on your ears.”
“It doesn’t help,” I said, “when you start accusing his partners of cross-dressing.”
“Your friend Prescott’s a snake. I wouldn’t trust him for a second. I looked him up in Martindale-Hubbell. Did you know he worked for Nixon?”
“A lot of fine people worked for Nixon.”
“Ehrlichman,” she said. “Haldeman, Mitchell, Dean, Kissinger.”
“Kissinger never went to jail. Oh, Nixon wasn’t so bad. Take away Watergate and Vietnam and he was a pretty good president. Pretty damn good.”
“Victor,” she shouted loud enough to get the attention of a group nearby.