Killer Look

FORTY

The music stopped for a few seconds. I stepped away and flattened myself against the wall behind me. It was the only stone wall in this wing of the museum-the others were all glass from floor to high ceiling-and I needed something to support me.

My mind was spinning. There must have been hundreds of those animal-print blouses manufactured by WolfWear. Yet how many of them could have survived intact since-what had the woman in the button store told me-1991?

I moved to my left, sweeping the room in search of the dead man’s family, inching along toward the ramp that led to the staging area.

Why had Reed Savage-or anyone else in the company-given that particular garment to Wanda Beston? Had the fabric been damaged, in addition to the replaced button, or was it simply of no use in the exhibition downstairs or on the runway? I needed to speak to Wanda when the show ended.

I was almost at the dividing point that separated the Dendur wing from the corridor to American Art. A security guard stood with his back to the rope.

I bent down and removed the Citadel ID card from my shoe.

A loud musical chord echoing through the sound system silenced the audience and stopped me in place. It was the familiar opening of the old Bangles hit song, followed by the lyrics: “Walk like an Egyptian…”

Two stunning young women-dressed and wigged in identical fashion, wearing the same white toga that I’d bought at the charity show-emerged from the temple and struck a pose on either side of the runway. They had flat gold sandals on their feet, standing with one foot behind the other, and their arms were extended-one above and in front, the other low and behind. They could have been friezes from a pharaonic pyramid, except that the diamonds that hung from their earlobes and crowned their tiaras were way too glittery to have ever been entombed.

The guests roared with delight and applauded the human statuary. The two models held their positions for the three-minute ovation that followed.

The emcee must have been standing inside the ancient temple. The crowd had just stopped clapping for the surprise pair of Egyptian goddesses when he announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Hal Savage.”

The applause was deafening again, not because everyone there had even met Hal Savage, but out of respect for his late brother.

It was the perfect moment for me to duck out. I held up my Citadel pass to the guard at the rope and he nodded back at me, unclasping the hook and letting me slide behind him.

The corridor to the adjacent wing was about twenty feet long. The overhead lights had been turned up to their brightest to allow the models and workers easy access back and forth to the rear entrance of the temple.

The first two models waiting in the wings were clearly the opening faces and features of Savage style going global. I had no idea whether the Muslim upscale-clothing-market gurus would appreciate the debut of the line emerging from an Egyptian temple, but that’s what the clientele was about to get.

Both women towered over me, made four inches taller by the strappy shoes they wore. They had taken their instructions to heart. Neither one cracked a smile as I passed them by. No eye contact. Stoical. The one in front was wearing a full-length abaya. The pale-pink fabric was covered from neck to hem in a swirling design of black silk. The hijab-the headscarf-reversed the colors but undulated in the same pattern. The sunglasses that hid most of the model’s face were trimmed with pink stones, probably sapphires, and the alligator clutch she carried would have upped the cost of the entire outfit by another ten thousand dollars.

When I reached the closest gallery in the American Art wing, I could better understand the outrageous pricing of the museum rental for the night.

The current installation was the titanic ten-mural masterpiece of Thomas Hart Benton: America Today: 1930-1931. Its canvas panels covered the four walls of the room, depicting every section of the country from the dawn of the twentieth century: airplanes and dirigibles, locomotives and oil wells, and finally human images drawn during the Great Depression. Velvet ropes stretched in front of each one of the panels.

The center of the room had been taken over by the frenzied teams preparing the models for their runway moments. Racks of gowns from the new collection were everywhere. Spotlights had been set up so that the stylists could achieve perfection on the models’ faces and on the details of their clothing. Small folding tables had been placed around the room, covered with makeup and hair product. Hairdryers were whizzing, each one connected by an extension cord to an outlet on the wall.

The walk-through was treacherous because of all the wires and other junk strewn about the floor. The elegant room looked more like a gymnasium after a track meet.

“I’d first like to thank you all for coming to celebrate our Savage style tonight,” Hal said. The sound system was wired in backstage, too, so models and show runners would get their proper cues. “What was supposed to be a moment of great triumph for my dear brother here at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has become, instead, a spectacular send-off to him.”

Applause interrupted Hal Savage after every few phrases.

Taking care not to trip over cords or piles of jackets on the floor, I made my way farther into the room. No one seemed to take notice of another gawker, so I simply kept walking, in search of familiar faces.

I wasn’t that interested in the models or their stylists, so I looked beyond them.

In a far corner, seated on a bench below one of the murals, I finally saw Reed Savage. He was sitting with Lily Savitsky, and they seemed oblivious to the chaos all around them. I was hoping to move in close enough to eavesdrop.

Hal’s voice boomed into the large space. “But my brother refused to buy into the talk that this evening’s venture, in this city’s most spectacular venue, the Temple of Dendur, was a folly. Fortunately, we all agreed with him and with his vision that this glamorous site, in the center of Manhattan, was the perfect place to go global.”

I saw Tiziana Bolt’s spiky hair, her height lifting her above most of the others, before I noticed the man who had engaged her in conversation. It was Mike.

“Which is why tonight you’re going to see all these magnificent sheep,” Hal said, “in Wolf’s clothing.”

More laughter.

“And you know they’re really not sheep,” he went on. “They are the most beautiful women in the world, which is just as Wolf planned it. Savage beauties, all of them.”

Instinctively I turned my face to the wall, hoping not to make eye contact with Mike.

There was a description of the famed Benton work affixed to the wall and I pretended to be reading it. A guy in jeans and a sweatshirt, holding a makeup brush in his hand, walked up beside me.

“Mind if I give you just a touch-up? You could use some more color,” he said. “Are you a handler for one of the girls?”

“Just security,” I said. “No need to bother with me.”

“These paintings are amazing, aren’t they?”

I was sideways to the wall now, talking to him so I could continue to watch the room. “They really are.”

“Imagine,” the makeup artist said, pointing with the tip of his brush to the description of the murals. “Benton didn’t even get paid to do them, according to this description, for a boardroom at the New School, no less. He just got a year’s worth of free eggs.”

“You’re kidding,” I said, watching Tiz pick a hair off the lapel of Mike’s tux. Watching his face, I almost laughed out loud at the idea that some might think it was tough work to do a security detail at a fashion show.

“Read it yourself. Benton used the yolks from the eggs to create the tempera he painted with,” the guy said, waving his brush in the air.

“So interesting,” I said to him. “Excuse me. I’ve got to keep circulating.”

“Nice to talk to you,” he said.

I didn’t know whether to disrupt the show by confronting Reed about the silk blouse Wanda Beston was wearing, or just wait till the event was over. There was no reason to give myself up to him or to Lily at this point. It was all the interactions, conducted in public, that I was interested in observing. Maybe the alliances would make themselves apparent.

I was getting closer to Reed and Lily when the matter was decided for me. Hal Savage finished his introduction, the familiar musical score from the movie Lawrence of Arabia soared in the space over the runway as well as in this gallery-another oxymoronic choice, it seemed to me-and Reed and Lily stood up to clear a path back to the main room. I assumed they were going to claim their seats.

I waited until some of the other dressers and stylists made their way after Reed and Lily, then took the same route they had.

I glanced over my shoulder again. A few more models seemed ready to queue up, and Mike was still talking to Tiz Bolt, holding a champagne flute as he engaged her in a lively conversation.

It was indeed standing room only as I squeezed into a place against the wall. The first model was rocking her abaya down the runway as the great music swelled. All it conjured up for me, though, was hours of watching Peter O’Toole on his camel, racing across the desert sands.

Mercer was standing now, too. Directly opposite me, outlined against the backlit glass, framing him against the bare trees in Central Park. He was as still as a statue, ignoring the figure on the runway but looking over the lineup of guests.

Lily Savitsky had taken her seat, I noticed, next to her husband, David. They were in the back row, the corner nearest the temple, so not actually in a position to see the models until they were a third of the way out on the runway.

That signaled to me that David Kingsley’s two-million-dollar infusion of cash to Wolf Savage to allow the show to go on bought him whatever he wanted, but that he was discreet enough to avoid center stage at this point-smart enough to avoid questions from his adversaries.

Reed and Hal Savage had slipped into the room and chosen to stand with their backs to the glass wall, not far away from Mercer. They were not letting each out of the other’s sight, is how I read it.

I kept looking around to see who Tiziana Bolt linked herself with, but she had still not joined the main action in Dendur. She must have been keeping Mike Chapman amused in the dressing area.

I couldn’t make out who had replaced Mercer in the seat beside Anna Wintour. There still appeared to be a Citadel security guard on one side of her.

As the first model made her way back into the temple entrance, the second one-also in a black abaya, but this one sequined, like the headscarf, from head to toe-strutted out.

I took a few more steps to my right, much to the annoyance of the folks standing near me.

The man with the best seat in the house, next to Anna Wintour, was George Kwan. What possible connection could those two have? Then I noticed that Kwan’s personal security agent, Oddjob’s body double, was in the chair to his right.

The fashion industry was in fact, as Tiz had described it to me, a world of fantasy, of smoke and mirrors. That was so evident to me as I watched all the creatures preening backstage to perform before this crowd-magazine writers and clothing gurus who thought there was a place in the world for millions more dollars of haute couture to line the pockets of all the designers and vendors.

It was a business that now seemed to be as full of mystery to me as my own professional world. Thugs, thieves, and murderers-any combination of whom might be taking in this spectacle with me.

The music reached a crescendo as the second model stopped at the foot of the runway. She was unaffected-as directed to be-by the thunderous applause. She continued to stare straight ahead, not daring to turn until the clapping died down.

Reed Savage didn’t wait for her runway return. Without a word to his uncle, he slipped through the crowd and headed for the dressing room in the adjacent gallery.