A Matter Of Taste Read online

  “You’re not making it any easier.”

  “All right, I’m sorry, darling.” She felt contrite. There must be some genuine difficulty. “Start again. Could it be—something about the way he decorates his apartment, maybe?”

  “Decorates his apartment?” John was looking at her vacantly. “I don’t have any idea what that means. I’ve never been up here before.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. Never mind, go on.”

  John drew a deep breath. “Well, as I was trying to say, one thing you don’t know yet, Angie, is that if it weren’t for this man you’re going to meet, the rest of me would doubtless be in about the same shape as my two missing fingers.” He raised his hands again, wriggling the eight digits he still possessed. “I mean I wouldn’t be here now.”

  This was unexpected news; but it did sound vaguely as if it might connect with the image of the eccentric philanthropist. Angie said: “No, you didn’t tell me anything like that.”

  “Now that I’ve told you, forget I’ve told you. I mean, it stays within the family, okay?”

  “You mean within the small segment of the family in front of whom it’s safe to mention Uncle Matthew’s name.”

  “Ah … yeah.”

  She gazed at him hopefully. “Okay. But surely there’s nothing shameful about his having somehow saved your life. Why should it be a secret?”

  “Nothing shameful. No. Just don’t mention this man to my father, okay? Judy is okay to talk to, and Kate and Joe.” John leaned back against the elevator wall with his arms folded. The numbers on the floor indicator over the door kept creeping higher.

  Suddenly John had a new idea. “By the way, if he doesn’t want to eat or drink anything at dinner tonight, don’t pester him about it, okay? Often he’s on a—special diet”

  “Sure.” She paused. “John, are you under the impression that you’ve explained anything to me? Because I think I’m still right in there with your father. I mean, as fitting into the category of those who don’t understand at all.”

  John stared past her, obviously nervous and trying to think. At last he said: “Maybe it’ll be better if you meet him first.”

  “Maybe it will Meet him and see his apartment.”

  “Sure,” John agreed, looking puzzled, obviously wondering why she kept mentioning the apartment. And now Angie and the man she loved seemed to be on the verge of quarreling.

  Angie liked John’s two older sisters, Judy and Kate, though she had seen very little of Judy. And she liked Kate’s husband, Joe, who used to be a Chicago cop, before he married into the Southerland money, and even for some time afterward. Was there perhaps a trend in the family to marry people who didn’t have nearly as much money as they had?

  They had passed the eightieth floor and now were slowing to a stop. The door opened. Angie, disembarking from the elevator, caught a glimpse out of a window at the end of a corridor, looking down now on most of the smog and muck of the city’s atmosphere, with a startling panorama of Lake Michigan, shoreless as an ocean. She supposed that from up here on a very clear day the Michigan shore, fifty miles away, would be visible.

  John found the door number he was looking for, and pressed the button, then without waiting for a response knocked lightly. His left hand came over and took hold of Angie’s right, as they stood together in front of the viewer centered in the upper panel.

  Fully thirty seconds had passed, and Angelina was about to wonder aloud whether they should ring again, when the door opened.

  Whatever tentative, imaginative image of Uncle Matthew Angie had been beginning to form went glimmering. Surely a friend of John’s late grandmother ought to be older than this. The man in the doorway was no more than forty at the outside. Lean, a few inches taller than John, putting him a shade over six feet. Straight black hair cut rather short, a chiseled face, high cheekbones, arresting eyes that at once fastened on her expectantly. Even as he opened the door he was still shrugging his solid shoulders into a gray-brown sportcoat.

  “Good evening,” he said in a low voice, still looking directly at Angie. There was a suggestion of some European accent in his voice, of formality in his manner despite relatively casual dress.

  “Good evening,” said John, and paused perceptibly, perhaps to swallow. “Uncle Matthew. This is Angelina. We’re going to be married.”

  “Ah. Ah!” Uncle Matthew must have been expecting them, but still gave an impression of genuine surprise. No matter, he was pleased. “Come in, come in! And such a beautiful young woman. Congratulations are certainly in order!”

  As soon as she had stepped across his threshold, he reached for both her hands. A moment later she was being embraced and kissed on both cheeks. John and Uncle Matthew were pumping each other’s hands. And then she and the two men had all burst into a pleasant babble of phatic utterance, even as Uncle Matthew, with a city-dweller’s routine caution, made sure that the door was closed and bolted behind his guests.

  “Angelina, John, you must each have a drink to celebrate. But no, later perhaps, dinner reservations have been made on the ninety-fifth floor, and it would be good to be prompt.”

  There wasn’t much time to look around the apartment, But, for the time being, enough. Angie noted with relief that of naked women, exploitive photographs, pornographic paintings, there was no sign, not at least from her vantage point near the entrance.

  In fact, at first look, what she could see of the entry and the living room struck her as almost disappointingly ordinary, except for the unusual number of bookshelves, and a crossed pair of wooden spears, or harpoons, serving as wall decorations. She could heartily approve of bookshelves.

  The furniture was unobtrusive, generally modern, with the notable exception of an upright piano. Living room, with a half bath off the entryway, small dining area, and a glimpse of what must be the kitchen beyond. Two closed doors were visible down a hallway, before it angled out of sight. Those must lead, Angie supposed, to bedrooms. Maybe the bedroom walls were covered with raunchy pictures, but somehow she doubted it. One thing that struck her as something of an oddity was the art. To judge from the modern furnishings, you might have expected to see contemporary art framed on these walls, but instead, along with the spears, hung mostly reproductions of Renaissance masters. My God, they were reproductions, weren’t they? Skillful copies? Or might they be … but that was silly. These paintings, with the piano and all the books, gave the apartment a vaguely old-fashioned air despite the modern furniture.

  In a matter of moments they were all three back out in the corridor, then striding, all arm in arm, toward the elevators again.

  They reached the elevator lobby just as an upward-bound car opened its door to discharge a fortyish lady with an elaborate dark coiffure, smartly gowned for indoors, carrying a bag of groceries in one arm. She smiled and nodded to Uncle Matthew, and he returned the smile with a small gentlemanly bow. I bet, thought Angie, there are days when he has to beat them off with a stick.

  “Neighbor of yours?” John asked, making conversation, once they were in the car and on their way up to the ninety-fifth floor.

  “Yes … devoted to the residents’ association, in which she persists in trying to interest me. Well meaning, I am sure.” Uncle Matthew’s expression conveyed a subtle irritation, which soon disappeared.

  The ninety-fifth floor was occupied by one of the city’s finer restaurants. As far as Angie could tell, no one among the staff recognized Uncle Matthew, but, in some way she could not quite put her finger on, he seemed to convey to them a sense of his status and importance.

  Once they were seated, Uncle Matthew conversed cheerfully and urbanely on a variety of subjects. Skillfully he drew out his guests with questions on their work and on their pastimes.

  Until Angie seized the opportunity offered by a pleasant pause and cleared her throat. “Look, Uncle Matthew—shall I call you that?”

  “You certainly may.”

  “We’d like you to come to our wedding.”

  Th
eir host glanced with faint amusement at John, who was awkwardly trying to find words with which to second the invitation. “Thank you, Angelina. But I fear there may be a problem about the date—?”

  “Twenty-fifth of next month,” John blurted out.

  “Ah, almost a Thanksgiving wedding. Too bad, but I shall be unable to attend. So, the three of us must celebrate this evening—we ought to achieve a memorable celebration of some kind.”

  And soon the two young people were relaxed, eating and drinking heartily. Uncle Matthew, true to John’s prediction, but still to Angie’s concern, ate nothing and drank almost nothing. He pleaded the requirements of a special diet. “But do not concern yourself, my dear. Enjoy yourself, and I shall feast my eyes upon your beauty.”

  John reacted to that with a swallow. Angie, feeling Uncle Matthew’s gaze, found herself wondering how she would have reacted had she not been recently engaged.

  * * *

  Somewhat to John’s relief, the waitress who was serving their table soon began to replace Angie as the object of Uncle Matthew’s admiration.

  This waitress was a statuesque and impressive redhead, somewhere in her middle or later thirties, Angie estimated. It was obvious that something about this dark haired, fortyish customer impressed and intrigued her. When he looked at her with interest, the woman was unable to keep her mind entirely on business.

  Fortyish? Squinting at Uncle Matthew now, Angie decided she had better add a few years to the estimate of his age she had formed in his apartment. There was a touch of gray in his hair she really hadn’t noticed before. Very distinguished.

  During the lengthy intervals when the waitress was elsewhere, and Uncle Matthew’s attention more or less fully available, Angie pressed him as subtly as she could for information.

  “John tells me that you saved his life. I mean that time when he was kidnapped.”

  “Ah? And how much did he tell you? It must be a painful subject for him to talk about.”

  “He told me very little, unfortunately. Nothing more than the mere fact. I was hoping that you’d be willing to fill in some of the details.”

  Uncle Matthew was looking at John, who said uncomfortably: “Well, since Angie’s going to be marrying me, well, I thought she ought to know, uh, all about family affairs.”

  “Apart from certain occasions—of which this evening is one of the more pleasant—I really have little connection with such affairs.” Uncle Matthew’s fingers, pale in slender muscularity, long-nailed, and somewhat hairy on the backs, toyed with his glass of almost untasted wine. There was a dinner plate before him too, but it had remained smooth and clean. He had unfolded his napkin, but that was about it.

  John was stubborn. “I thought she ought to know,” he repeated.

  “That opinion certainly poses an interesting problem. She is not marrying me, John.”

  “You thought I ought to know what?” Angie demanded bluntly. Infuriatingly, the two men continued to ignore her for the moment. John was still hesitating. “Well…”

  Uncle Matthew produced a winning smile, which he could do better than almost anyone Angie had ever met before. He reached across the table and took a hand of each of his young guests. “Come, come, we must not allow such questions to interfere with our evening. My affairs can surely have no crucial bearing on your marriage.”

  John heaved a sigh, as if a weight had been removed. “I guess you’re right.”

  ‘‘Of course I am. Depend upon it.” Uncle Matthew patted both hands and released them.

  “It’s not that I want to push into your affairs, sir, believe me. Far from it. But well, dammit, you saved my life. And I’m not going to forget that. I want you to know that—well, that you’re welcome to come to our wedding if you want.” The young man raised his head with a look of determination, ready to confront his parents and anyone else who might object.

  “Of course you are,” Angie agreed warmly. She liked Non-Uncle Matthew, was coming to like him better and better as the evening progressed, and it was her wedding, and if that scandal-mongering liar Valentine Kaiser ever dared to call her again …

  Uncle Matthew said nothing for a moment. His face hardly changed, but nevertheless Angie had the impression that he was moved.

  The dinner moved along. Uncle Matthew entertained his guests with stories of extremely odd people he had known years ago when he had lived in Paris and in London. Unlike many fascinating speakers, he was a good listener too. When Angie ventured an anecdote or two of her own, he seemed genuinely interested in the problems of hospital administration.

  The food and wine and coffee were superb, and in Angie’s perception time passed with amazing speed As they were leaving the restaurant Uncle Matthew took the opportunity to return to the table to leave a cash tip, and at the same time to manage a few quiet words alone with the red-haired waitress.

  Angie, looking on from a distance, nudged her fiancé. “I wonder if something’s developing there.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.” John’s tone was dry.

  Neither of them felt inclined to resist Uncle Matthew’s invitation to stop in at his apartment for a nightcap.

  Reentering the tastefully decorated condo a few floors down, Angie was on the point of starting to tell the two men about Valentine Kaiser. But at once she felt reluctant to mention the man and his ridiculous suspicions—or insinuations—for fear of spoiling the evening.

  The party, having developed delightfully during dinner, continued in the same vein. The old piano was a natural conversation piece, and it proved to be in excellent condition when Angie picked out something on the keys.

  “Do you play, my dear?”

  “Very little. I should say, no, not really. I did have lessons once.”

  After he had served the drinks Uncle Matthew was not shy at all about sitting down at the piano, where he revealed an impressive talent. Within half an hour, Angie, a glass of amazingly good brandy in her hand, found herself singing what her host assured her were old Balkan folk songs, parroting from his instruction what he said were the words of the original language. John, not usually much of a singer, and somewhat flushed with brandy, was gamely joining in.

  Time, in Angie’s mind at least, was soon forgotten. Then her concentration on the music was interrupted by a savage slosh and rattle of sleet against the curtained windows, and the building could be felt swaying, minimally, in the wind. Their host, evidently a long-term resident, took no notice. Momentary uneasiness was quickly squelched by an obviously sincere invitation from Uncle Matthew, offering Angie and John one of his spare bedrooms in which to spend the night. During the dinner conversation, enough had been said to make it plain to him that they were already cohabiting.

  They both accepted, with relief; and John was reminded of old times. “Remember the big snow we had, sir, about the time we had that—trouble?”

  “Yes indeed. No storm like that tonight, fortunately, but plenty of freezing rain and icy streets.” Thoughtfully he struck a chord, then began to pick out from memory yet another simple but lovely melody that Angie had never heard before. “Here is a song about winter. Hunters wandering in the snow.”

  John, his brandy glass in hand, had gone to the window and pulled back a curtain to peer out past its edge. “Yep, looks like rotten weather out there,” he announced in the cheerful tone of a man who has already made his arrangements to stay in.

  Angie yawned. Not so their host. Despite his years, he seemed to be getting only more wide-awake as the evening—actually for some time now it had been the morning—progressed.

  Again she yawned, quite uncontrollably. The old man, she thought, perhaps subliminally noticing that he looked even a trifle older than at dinner, had probably slept till noon. But she’d had a tough day at work, and it was really getting late. And of course she’d been drinking, more than she ought, really, while he never seemed to drink at all.

  “I hate to be the one to call it quits—but—” A helpless yawn preempted the explanat
ion Angie had been about to offer.

  There were actually three bedrooms in the apartment, she noted while making her way down the angled hallway to the one her host had specified.

  John had lagged behind in the living room, where he was still talking with his energetic non-uncle. Angie groped inside the doorway at the hallway’s end; a bedside table lamp came on when she found the wall switch. The bedroom she and John had been assigned was as neatly furnished as the living room, with no signs of recent habitation. A couple of commonplace paintings were on the walls. Certainly the room contained no more sign of disgusting pornography than did the more accessible areas of the apartment. Valentine Kaiser! she thought with disgust. What had that man’s real game been? Angie had a notion to tear up his business card and flush it away. No, she was certainly going to tell the men about him. Only—it would have to wait till morning. She wasn’t in the best of shape for any serious discussion now.

  On second thought—it might be important.

  She was on her weary way back to rejoin the men in the living room when the door chime sounded melodiously. Who would that be, at this hour of the morning? Probably some sleepless neighbor with a complaint about their noise, though Uncle Matthew had told them earlier that the building’s soundproofing was excellent.

  As Angie reentered the living room, her host had just admitted someone from the hallway and was closing and bolting up the door. Angie needed a moment to recognize the waitress from the ninety-fifth floor, whose red hair was now bound up under a scarf, and who naturally had changed out of her uniform. While the newcomer stood looking a shade hesitant and awkward, Uncle Matthew helped her out of her cloth coat as if it had been a mink, and indicated with gracious gestures and murmurs that she ought to come in and make herself comfortable.

  Introductions were soon made. John and Angie, one after the other, shook hands with Elizabeth Wiswell. Angie thought she caught the faintest whiff of garlic, barely detectable, from the other woman. Well, if you worked in a restaurant, she supposed, that must be one of the least worrisome of the occupational hazards.