The Wrong Kind of Money (19 page)

“Public relations, public shmelations,” he said. “This is a meshuggener idea your sister has.”

But Hannah had agreed with Bathy. “Just try it,” they both urged him.

“People nowadays are turning away from hard liquor because they're afraid of what it will do to them,” Bathy said. “This ad will tell them there's a way to enjoy drinking without getting into trouble. This is very reassuring copy.”

“There's a difference between drinking and getting in toxicated,” Hannah said.

He agreed initially to run the copy, or an abbreviated version of it, in small print at the bottom of Ingraham's regular schedule of holiday ads, much the way the government-mandated warnings now appear on labels. But Bathy insisted that for the ad to have any impact at all, it must run in full pages in newspapers and magazines, and make a big splash. And finally he gave in to “this crazy experiment of your sister's.”

The effect of that first Christmas ad was immediate and overwhelming. Newspapers across the country editorialized on it, praising “this sober and responsible distiller” who “cares more for humanity than profits” (
New York Times
), and citing Jules for his altruism, honesty, civic spirit, and concern for the public welfare. The ad was even quoted, verbatim, on radio and national television newscasts, publicity that could never have been bought since liquor advertising is not accepted by the non-print media. Women's magazines, many of which also refused liquor advertising, published laudatory articles about Jules Liebling, his company, and his praiseworthy stance, and
Fortune
put him on its cover. Reporters who had never referred to Jules with epithets much kinder than “the billionaire booze baron” now called him “this caring, public-spirited citizen.”

Jules was invited to appear on radio and television talk shows, where he cheerfully took full credit for the ad, and even managed to get across the dubious point that Ingraham products were “more purely distilled,” and “contained fewer harmful esters,” making them less likely to cause hangovers, thereby reducing absenteeism in the workplace. One TV talk show host went so far as to call Ingraham “the Tiffany of distillers,” but the adjective most commonly used to describe Jules was “responsible,” and wasn't responsibility the closest thing to respectability, the commodity Jules longed most to attain? Jules Liebling was not used to hearing himself called civic-minded, and he found he thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Passing him in the corridor a few weeks after the Christmas ad's appearance, Bathy Sachs greeted him with a wink and an “I told you so.”

The competition was more than envious. It was furious at the way Ingraham's and Jules were being extolled. But since Jules had effectively preempted the anti-drunk platform, there was nothing they could do about it. (“Fucker's walking around like he's Jesus Christ,” muttered one rival.) The competition could do no more than wince as, guided by the knowing hand of Bathsheba Sachs, the words
responsible
and
trustworthy
began appearing with increasing frequency in Ingraham's advertising copy, and the slogan for Ingraham's V.S.O.P. became “The Only Scotch You Can Always Trust,” and other labels became touted as “A Trusted Brand from the Trusted House of Ingraham.”

Jules began receiving letters from teachers, saying that they were incorporating the text of the Christmas ad into their lectures to young people on substance abuse. One letter from a fourth-grader said, “My teacher says that when I'm old enough, and want a drink of whiskey, I should always ask for Ingraham's because they want to save people's lives and not make people drunk.” “Let's offer this kid fifty thousand dollars if he'll let us use this as a testimonial,” Jules suggested, only to be reminded that federal laws prohibited the use of minor children in liquor advertising. Instead, he had settled for having the letter framed and hung prominently on his office wall.

A woman from Montana wrote to Jules to say that she had stitched the words from the Christmas ad into a sampler, and sent him a Polaroid photograph of the result, asking Jules if he would be interested in buying it. Another wrote asking for permission to set the words from the Christmas ad to music. Indeed, the public response to the ad was so resoundingly positive that Jules began wistfully to suppose that he might be considered for the Nobel prize.

Nor was the Christmas ad the only important or innovative touch that Bathsheba Sachs managed to apply to Ingraham's advertising. From repeal through the 1950s, an unwritten rule of the liquor industry was that no woman could be shown drinking in a liquor ad. Women could appear in illustrations, but only as background figures, and never with glasses in their hands, and most certainly never to their lips. No federal regulation dictated this. It was simply a gentlemen's agreement within the industry itself, and as a result, all liquor advertising was aggressively masculine in tone. Again, over Jules's objections—what he and others in the business feared most were changes that might bring about further government controls—Bathy succeeded in producing a series of Ingraham's ads that actually depicted women enjoying the cocktail hour. The general public scarcely noticed this revolutionary step. But the reverberations from the “women's campaign,” as it became known, were profound within the industry itself.

Typically, of course, Jules Liebling never thanked his wife's sister for any of her contributions to his company and its prestige—not even when, in the quarter following the publication of the famous Christmas ad, Ingraham's sales figures rose fourteen percent above the corresponding quarter the year before, and Ingraham became the industry's acknowledged leader. To Jules they were always “my advertising campaigns.”

“How are the children?” Bathy asks Hannah now, sipping her martini.

“Oh, much the same,” Hannah says with a sigh. “Ruthie came by Carol's on New Year's Eve with a most inappropriate young man. I just hope she's not planning to embark on another of her marital adventures. And Cyril is—just the same. Slouches to annoy me.”

“And Noah?”

She frowns. “Noah is a good boy,” she says. “He's always been a good boy. Noah works hard, and does a good job for the company. It's just that he's so—stubborn. He's always been stubborn. I'm trying to work on that stubborn streak of his.”

“You don't suppose he could have inherited that from his mother, do you?” Bathy says with a wink.

“He's so headstrong and determined.”

Bathy laughs softly. “We certainly don't need any more headstrong and determined people in this family, do we?” she says.

“I gave him a nice raise this year. That should satisfy him.”

“But not the job he's been promised.”

Hannah lowers her eyes. “No. Not yet,” she says.

“Not experienced enough? Is that it?”

“No, it's not that. Not exactly. It's just that—”

“What is it, Hannah?”

“It's just that I don't know what the boy would
do
with that much power.”

“The boy will be forty-nine years old this year. Isn't he getting to be a little old to be called a boy, Hannah?”

“I can't help it. I think of him that way. If he were given all that power—all that stock, all that money—what if he were to blow it all on some harebrained scheme?”

“Aesop,” Bathy says. “Does he still talk about Aesop?”

“No. He hasn't talked about that for a long time. That's what worries me.”

“Why should it worry you? Maybe he's forgotten all about that.”

“I worry more about the things he doesn't tell me than the things he tells me. Or maybe it's some other harebrained scheme. Save the world! I've lived long enough to know that nobody's going to save the world. Jesus Christ tried it, and look what happened.”

“In other words, you still don't trust him.”

“I just don't know what he'd do with all that independence. Go off on some crazy tangent, like the Aesop business. Save the world.”

Bathy twirls the stem of her glass. “So,” she says carefully, “because you can't be sure what he'd do with his independence, you keep him—dependent.”

“It's because I just can't bear the thought of him getting all that money and all that power, and then—
poof
!—seeing everything I've worked so hard for go down the drain.”

“And everything Jules worked for. And everything that I worked for. Don't forget Jules and me.”

“That's what I meant.”

“And Carol, too. She's done her share. I'm sure Carol wouldn't want to see that happen, either.”

“You bet your socks she wouldn't!”

“What do you think Carol wants?”

“For him to run the company, of course.”

“And that's what Jules wanted, too.”

“Yes. Eventually.”

“Well, you haven't asked for my advice,” Bathy says, “but I think eventually is now. Of course there's a risk. This is a high-risk business. But I think the longer you wait, the greater the risk that he'll—”

“Fly the coop?”

Bathy nods. “Give him the company now. I think you'd feel a lot happier with yourself if you did this now.”

“Happy? Are you saying I'm not happy?” She puts down her glass abruptly. “You're right,” she says. “I'm not happy.”

“I know. I can always tell. Give him the company now. And with no strings attached.”

“Strings? He's the one who keeps attaching strings!”

“Are you quite sure, Hannah?”

Hannah looks away. “Well, maybe one little string,” she mutters.

“Detach that string. It isn't getting anybody anywhere.”

“Oh, I just wish you could be back in the family again, Bathy,” she says a little distractedly. “All of us, the way it used to be. We could discuss things, argue about things, even fight about things. Didn't we used to have the best doggone fights? The fights were the best times of all, looking back! We were all a family. Maybe we weren't exactly happy. But we were us. But now—”

“Don't, dear,” Bathy says, lightly touching the back of Hannah's hand. “I know how Noah feels about me. I'm used to it. It used to upset me, but it doesn't anymore.”

“But it hurts
me,
knowing how you—how much you gave up.”

“Hush,” she says. “It was just that Noah idolized his father so as a little boy. Worshiped the ground he walked on.”

“That was my fault. I raised him to think his father was a kind of god, that his father could do no wrong, that his father was an absolutely perfect father in every way!”

“That's a good way to raise a son, if you ask me.”

“It was wrong! No mortal being is a god. There's no such thing as a flawless human being, and Jules Liebling was hardly a flawless human being. I was wrong to lie to him like that.”

Bathy hesitates. “Hannah,” she says at last, “do you think it's time we told Noah the truth?”

“We promised never to do that, Bathy.”

“I'll tell him my part of the truth, Hannah, if you'll tell him yours. But your part, I think, has to come first.”

The two women's eyes meet.

Hannah's eyes withdraw first. “Are you ready for another cocktail?” she says. “I think I am. Waiter—” she calls out loudly. “Two more martinis, with Ingraham's gin!”

“Don't change the subject, Hannah,” Bathy says. “Let's tell him the truth—but you first. Then give him the job, but with no strings. I have my own life now. Don't try to use my life to control Noah's.”

Now Hannah blurts it out. “But if you were back in the company, you could keep an eye on him. You
could
help keep him under control. After I'm gone, that is.”

“That is not going to work, Hannah,” she says. “I can never control Noah. For that matter, neither can you. You have got to let Noah become his own man. But if you want someone who might help control Noah, there's only one person who can do that—and you know who that is.”

“No. Who?”

“Carol.”

“Carol?
But she's only his wife. I'm his mother!”

“Yes, dear,” Bathy says with a smile. “That's always been your problem.”

Once more their eyes meet, then withdraw.

Their drinks arrive.

“Now might be an especially good time for you to start being especially nice to your daughter-in-law,” Bathy says.

From Roxy Rhinelander's column the following day:

Glimpsed at Le Cirque yesterday, with their heads together like a couple of li'l ole magpies, were
Georgette Van Degan
and
Carol Liebling,
the wife of
Noah,
who's the son of
Jules Liebling,
the late billionaire booze baron. What was on the ladies' minds? Well, Topic A was the lavish coming-out bash the two will be tossing for their deb daughters,
Linda Van Degan
and
Anne Liebling,
who've been best of chums since grade-school days. An early June date is planned. And who'll supply the bubbly and the Barleycorn for the 1000-plus-guest dinner dance? Aw, you guessed it. And Topic B? Could it be the ultra-exclusive dinner party
Carol Liebling
gave on New Year's Eve, honoring best-selling author
William Luckman,
who's so-o-o tall, so-o-o dark, so-o-o handsome, so-o-o successful and so-o-o sexy that every deb's mother's got her eye on him? Has peppy
Carol Liebling
got the lead position? Watch this space, kiddies.

The morning newspapers, including the one containing this item, are delivered to Hannah Liebling on her breakfast tray.

Carol Liebling reads it while sipping her coffee in her dining room at River House. She jumps up from her chair, spilling her coffee all over the newspaper in the process. Her reaction is one of frustration and rage. She hasn't even discussed Georgette's plan with Noah—or even with Anne—and already Georgette has made it official!