Free Bloody London by Reggie Nadelson Page B

huge building where I’d met Sal Castle. Now I got a better look.
    The doorman, this time in evening gear that included a wing collar and even more gold braid, greeted Lulu effusively. The lobby itself included six kinds of marble: green marble, chocolate marble, white marble, pink, gray, black. The walls, floors, tables, and urns were marble and there were bouquets of pastel-colored silk flowers everywhere. A sweeping staircase had marble steps that were lighted from underneath by tiny bulbs and lit from above by the chandeliers that dripped crystal like a waterfall.
    â€œDon’t you love it?” Lulu said. “The staircase ends in a closet. I love the fucker, it’s so bloody vulgar. It drivesthe assholes at the Middlemarch bonkers. We call it the Staircase to Nowhere Building.”
    The elevator opened. A burly, handsome man in a dark-blue suit, hand made, double vents, got out; his son followed. You could see the man’s rough good looks, the dark hair, blue eyes, the surprisingly sweet smile, transformed into real beauty on the boy, who was about sixteen. Black hair like his father. No smile. I couldn’t see the eyes: the kid wore a pair of designer shades. He had a yellow blazer over his shoulder.
    The man whispered to him in Russian and the boy said, irritably, “Talk English, will you?”
    The doorman saluted them and went to hail a cab. Lulu got her mail from a concierge and we went upstairs. I had seen the boy earlier, hanging out in the pocket park, glittering in the sun. He had waved to me.
    On the twentieth floor, Lulu unlocked her door and I followed her into a vast living room about forty feet square. At one end were some leather sofas and chairs, a glass coffee table stacked with magazines and books and a stray coffee cup. At the other were crates stacked neatly, shopping bags, objects covered with padded moving blankets, plastic sheets. Lulu picked one up and showed me German furniture in red leather and white suede, showed me French chandeliers with a million crystal drops tucked inside bubble wrap. There were bags of linens and blankets (“Frette,” Lulu whispered), china and silver, flowers made out of glass beads, oil paintings in gold-leaf frames so heavy they could crash the precious metals markets. Some bronze sculpture. Modern art.
    Lulu looked at her watch, replaced the plastic, said, “I’ll let you in on my secret,” she said.
    I said, “What’s your secret?”
    â€œRussians.”
    â€œYeah?”
    Lulu jumped up on to one of the packing crates and perched there, legs crossed, grinning. “Well, you see, hon, it’s rather brilliant. The market doesn’t worry those girls, they got cash stashed place you would not believe. They got lotsa money, I mean up at the top of the heap, it’s mega, and just starting out. There’s quite a few in this building. Sometimes it’s the babes, you know, they call ’em Natashas, though that’s not always fair since it’s the bloody Turks who gave them that name, the Russian hookers who work Turkey. Anyhow, mine are called ‘Ultra Natashas’, gorgeous girls, but they come over from nowhere, from some provincial dump, they find a guy, and the guy isn’t into shopping. Now someone has to purchase the Cristal, the Prada, the Hermès, the furniture, so I’m there to help. Sometimes I help them find the guy, nice banker, maybe. I get a nice deal on suites at the Four Seasons when they fly in. I get them a table at the bar. You’re shocked?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œI can do decorating, auction houses. You ever pass Sotheby’s? It’s all Russians with mobile phones hanging outside on the steps. They like oil paintings. Big ones. You want to drink something?” she said, I nodded, and she disappeared then returned with a bottle of white wine. “OK?”
    She grabbed my arm. Gestured to the window. “Superb, don’t you think?