Our little group was in the corner beside the terrace that wrapped around the penthouse and hung high over the avenue. Even though it was a cold night, with so many guests packed into one place and with so many different perfumes mixing and so many people smoking, our hostess had left the door cracked open to let in fresh air.
Smoothly, despite having a gun pointed at him, Monty began backing up, stepping through the door and going outside onto the terrace. He was mitigating the damage his brother could do in the congested apartment. Quickly, Ari followed Monty outside. So did Tommy. Clara tried, but I stopped her, putting my arm around her trembling body and holding her back.
“Stay here,” I said. “There’s nothing you can do, and it’s too dangerous for you to be out there.”
She turned to face me, terror contorting her features. The lovely creature who had been sitting for me just minutes ago was gone. She was Eve now, a temptress, in pain—no, in agony—confronting her sin and panicked by what she had wrought.
“It just happened one day,” she whispered urgently, as if telling me would make it right. “I just couldn’t seem to help myself. Every time I turned around, Monty was always there, charming and exciting, while Ari was so taciturn and grumpy all the time, and then—”
Pop.
Clara and I froze, staring out at the scene on the terrace, both of us certain that Ari had fired the gun at his brother. But they were both still standing, flinging accusations at each other.
I turned around. Over at the bar, Fred Steward, the party’s host, not realizing the drama unfolding across the room, had opened a new bottle of champagne. The noise we’d heard was a cork popping.
Clara clutched my arm, her nails digging into my skin. “What is going to happen? What are they going to do to each other?”
I held on to her as she struggled to go out to the terrace.
“I don’t know.”
Locked in some primeval battle, the brothers created a horrifying tableau with the marvelous nighttime skyline of New York behind them. A surrealistic canvas of forefront juxtaposed against backdrop, two unmatched scenes.
As Ari, gun pointed, advanced on his brother, Monty backed up, talking to him without pause. We couldn’t make out the words, but clearly they weren’t effective, as the gun remained pointed at Monty.
“Is Ari going to pull the trigger? Or is he just trying to frighten Monty? What is Monty saying?” Beside me, Clara kept up a stream of questions, not one of which I could answer.
Suddenly, Monty’s face twisted into a pained smile. He must have said something that enraged Ari, who raised his arm and aimed the gun more squarely at the center of his brother’s chest.
Monty took a step backward to get farther away from the gun and his brother and the nightmare he’d put himself in the middle of. And then he took another step. And another. And then one step too many.
“Oh, God, no!” Clara cried.
She saw what was happening before I did. My eyes were frozen on the gun itself. At how the mother-of-pearl gleamed in the moonlight, opalescent and resplendent. But Clara had been watching Monty. The man she loved. The man who, in that very moment, she lost.
The iron railings on the terrace must have been old or rusted or just not strong enough to withstand the pressure of Monty backing up against them. It didn’t matter why. It happened. The railing gave way, and Monty fell into the darkness as, at exactly that moment, we heard another sound.
Pop.
Not more champagne being opened. Not that time. Ari had fired. The flare lit up the terrace.
What was he thinking? That he had to be the one to destroy Monty? Not to allow fate to take a hand? Had Ari forgotten for the moment that we were twenty-six stories above the pavement? Had he thought Monty was getting away?
Either the sound of the gunshot or the realization that Monty had fallen roused Ari out of his rage-induced state. Understanding what had happened, he rushed toward the gaping hole and leaned over so far it looked as if he might be about to follow his brother.
Just then, Tommy darted over, grabbed him around the waist, and pulled him back.
Clara and I stayed where we were huddled, holding on to each other, staring at the men, her husband and my fiancé, as they stood side by side at the edge of the abyss.
Chapter 4
The morning newspapers all carried the story. The Champagne Suicide, they called it. Despite Tommy’s efforts to shield me from being questioned, the police had asked me for a statement, and every article included my name and my involvement in the tragedy.
The incident began when French artist Delphine Duplessi, who is something of a regular at blue blood parties, drew a cartoon of the deceased with his sister-in-law in a compromising position. According to Mimi Palmer, a party guest, Duplessi’s drawing left nothing to the imagination, and as soon as he saw it, Ari Schiff went after his brother, accusing him of seducing his wife. Monty Schiff either fell or jumped off the twenty-sixth-floor terrace. Currently, his death is being reported as a either suicide or an accident, pending further investigation. One source in the police department said there is a possibility that Ari Schiff will be accused of second-degree murder, since he was threatening his brother with a loaded pistol when the accident occurred.
As is the custom in the Jewish religion, the funeral was held within twenty-four hours. Given the scandalous way Monty had died, his family was anxious to have him put to rest as quickly as possible, in the hopes of curtailing the attention focused on them. Not only did they have to endure the tragedy and the farewell, but as soon as Monty was buried, they would need to attend to the business of hiring lawyers and helping their other son avoid a prison sentence.
Despite the family’s wishes, and as I had expected, the scene at Temple Emanuel on Forty-third Street and Fifth Avenue was anything but private. The press crowded the sidewalk, shouting questions, cameras at the ready to snap pictures of the society mourners.
Tommy’s parents, friends of the Schiffs, preceded us out of the car. As Tommy escorted me from the curb, one of the reporters recognized me and pointed me out to his photographer.
Click. Click. Click.
I shielded my face and walked with my head down.
“I told you it wasn’t wise for you to come,” Tommy whispered harshly, as he hurried me toward the front door to the temple.
“Given my involvement, how could I stay away?”
“This will do nothing but stir up even more gossip about you.”
I turned to look at him. “Gossip would only improve my popularity. You’re upset about how it will affect you because of your association with me. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”