Chapter Fifteen
THE BLED MANSION lorded over the avenue six houses down and across the street, past the invisible line that separated the upper class from the truly rich. Hawthorne Avenue was a gated street so from the outside we were all lumped in together. It takes bucks to be gated, but on my parents’ half of the street those bucks could’ve been earned the hard way. Doctors, lawyers and businesspeople owned those houses. The rest of the street was another story. Those people didn’t work for corporations, they owned them. Their mansions ran in the high seven figures, but it was rare for one to come on the market. The last time was five years ago and caused quite a stir. Highpoint House went for a cool million seven to the heir of the Lange auto empire and a sigh of relief was breathed by the neighborhood. They lived in constant fear that someone would buy in and try to commercialize their world for boutiques or bed-and-breakfasts.
Myrtle and Millicent Bled didn’t worry about such trivial concerns. I doubted they realized that anyone could or would want to change the world in which they’d lived their entire lives. They lived in the house they’d been born in, been raised by nannies in and received their ultra-private tutored education in. As far as I could tell they had no desire for a different kind of life, but they would hardly have spoken to me about it if they had. In many ways, I was like their child. I, too, was born in the Bled mansion, delivered by a private medical staff and surrounded by an unbelievable collection of art, including framed leaves from the Gutenberg bible, a Matisse, a Degas, and a Vermeer sketch. The Girls said I should be born in the presence of greatness and so I was. The Girls had insisted on caring for my mother at the end of her pregnancy. They liked to call it her confinement. Neither of my parents denied The Girls anything, since they loved them and owed them for their entrance into the exclusive world of Hawthorne Avenue. Neither Myrtle nor Millicent said that we owed them. They didn’t operate that way. I think they fell in love with my parents and did as they pleased. The Girls wanted to give them a house, so they did. They wanted to care for my mother and they did that, too. There was no question of Myrtle and Millicent’s intentions — they were good, always good, even if they infringed on our lives a bit.
“I love this street,” said Pete as we crossed Hawthorne Avenue. “I never knew it was here until we met. It’s like another world.”
“It is another world, believe me.”
My phone rang, but it was an unknown number, not Dad having a seizure. I let it go to voicemail. I could check the heavy breathing later.
“It must’ve been strange growing up here with all these rich people and your dad being a cop. No offense, but you know what I mean.”
“I do and it was, but I think they always liked having us here. Dad made them feel safe when the neighborhoods around them were going down the crapper. He used to check out their security for them and install new locks. The rich can be pretty paranoid.”
“Did they pay him?”
“Are you kidding? The rich don’t pay; they expect.”
“That’s nice. All the money in the world and they won’t pay some guy to put locks in for them. They make your dad do it for free.”
“It’s not about the money. It’s about trust. Dad’s a known entity. He’s a cop and lives here.”
“He’s one of them.”
“Sort of. Close as a regular guy can get and still be able to install locks.”
“Does he still change their locks for them?”
“He would if it came up.”
“Which house is it? Or should I say mansion?” Pete shifted the dishes to one arm and put his arm around my shoulder, rubbing it gently.
“It’s the next one. The one with the green marble columns.”
“Whoa. I’ve seen it before in some book. I can’t remember which one,” he said as my phone rang again.
He took it out of my hand and said, “Hello.”
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Do you do private parties?” Pete asked with a big grin.
“Shut up!”
“They’ll pay three thousand for two hours.”
“That’ll happen.” I took the phone and switched it off. Dad probably wouldn’t die in the next ten minutes.
We stopped at the front gate and I pushed the buzzer. It made a little buzzing noise that made me think I was about to be electrocuted. A couple minutes later there was another buzz and the eight-foot-high black wrought iron gate swung open. We walked through the gate and I looked up at Pete. He stared up at the house, his eyes jumping around as if they didn’t know where to land. I’d seen plenty of people look at the house that way. It was that kind of house. It wasn’t unusual to see a tripod set up across the street with a camera clicking away or an art student working over a sketchbook. It wasn’t hard to see why; the house was just plain weird. Nicoli Bled, The Girls’ father, built it in 1920 after Prohibition was passed. He took the act as a personal attack since the family fortunes were linked with the consumption of beer. The house was his act of defiance against the whims of public opinion. He wanted it to be noticed and it was.
I stood by Pete, looking up at the mansion with my own feelings of devotion. It was big by Art Deco standards, but whether it truly was Art Deco was difficult to say. The mansion was two exaggerated stories high. In any other building, it would’ve been three. The main structure was rectangular with a flat roof and rounded corners with the exterior covered in pale gray stucco. Four green marble columns decorated the front façade. It was the columns that caught the passerby’s eye. They were huge and spanned the height of the building and bowed out against the house like a child blew them up with a tire pump. Large green ceramic tiles, each with hand-painted palm fronds, edged the top and bottom of the house all the way around. All the many windows were covered in black wrought iron in geometric shapes. None of the windows matched and on either side of the building were glass rooms that The Girls called conservatories. Neither conservatory had walls; only iron columns that held up the flat ceiling. The panes of glass were held in place with elaborate ironwork that suggested Egyptian hieroglyphics, although there were no people done in iron.
It was dusk in the Central West End and a single light above the front door beckoned us to come forward. It wasn’t the welcoming sight I was used to. The conservatories were usually lit to show off their beauty. The Girls liked light. They rarely turned off any switch. In recent years, Dad had gotten them hooked on a computerized lighting system. They liked to fiddle with it and turn the lights to different intensities, have some go on or off at special times of the day. The last I’d heard, Millicent was trying to program the garden walkways to follow a musical program. But that night, it was all dark, even the stained glass windows. I felt weird about going up to the door. The Girls were home, they buzzed us in, but the house was all wrong. I looked around and realized the grass was uncut and there were leaves floating in the four fountains, the water, for once in my life, not gushing.
“It looks abandoned,” said Pete.
“I know. It’s weird. I wonder if the lighting program got fried,” I said.
We walked up the marble steps to the oversized front entrance. The doors themselves were recessed by a foot and encased in more ironwork. I reached through and lifted the iron crow that served as a knocker. I dropped it and it made a heavy plinking noise that would echo through the hallways. A second later, Millicent opened the right door half a foot and peered out at us.
“Hello, dear. How are you this evening?”
“I’m fine, Millicent. This is my friend, Dr. Peter Linderhoff. We wanted to return your dishes.” I waited for her to invite us in. She didn’t.
“Thank you, dear. So kind.” Millicent reached back and I heard a buzz and a click. The iron door slid back into the wall. Millicent took the dishes from Pete, apologized for not being more hospitable, said Myrtle was ill, and bade us goodnight. Before I knew it, the door closed and the iron door slid back into place.
“Okay. I know they’re like fami
ly, but that was odd,” said Pete.
“Something’s wrong. They love me. They love men. I figured we’d be here until midnight if we weren’t careful.”
We walked back past the neglected fountains and out the gate. Stern’s, the grocery that existed only to serve Hawthorne Avenue, was six blocks away. I held Pete’s hand and we walked there in silence. Pete bought Dad’s crackers and cheese while I tried to think of a way to get in that house.