The Wrong Kind of Money (7 page)

Following this exchange, there is a long silence.

“And I'm going to try him, too,” she says at last.

“Try who?”

“The new hairdresser. Philippe. They say it takes weeks and weeks to get an appointment with him, but if I'm seated next to him on Thursday, I'll work on him.”

There is no immediate response to this, and another silence follows. Georgette extends one foot and studies her ankle critically.

Then she says, “He charges two hundred dollars just for a comb-out, but I'm sure he'd do me for less, considering.”

“Who're you talking about?”

“Philippe! The hairdresser! Really, Truck, what's the matter with you tonight? I don't think you've listened to a word I've said.”

“As a matter of fact, I haven't,” he says.

“And you haven't touched your champagne.”

He sticks his index finger in his glass. “There,” he says. “I just touched it.” He licks his finger.

“Really, darling, what's the matter? Something's on your mind, I can tell. What is it?”

“New Year's,” he says. “Resolutions.”

“Oh?” she says brightly. “What fun! I love New Year's resolutions. Mine's to get an appointment with Philippe as soon as I possibly can once these wretched holidays are over, before we go to P.B. What's yours?”

“I've made a resolution for you, Georgette.”

“Oh?” She eyes him narrowly.
“You
made a resolution for
me
?”

“That's right, sweet tits.”

“Oh, my, how romantic! You haven't called me sweet tits in years. Now tell me: Just what is this resolution that
you
seem to've made for
me
.”

“I want you to do something for the Lieblings.”

“For the
who?”

“Noah Liebling and his wife.”

“Oh. You mean the liquor people?”

“That's right.”

“You mean you want us to
entertain
them?”

“That's right.”

“Oh, Truckie—puh-
lease
! No, never. No way. Are you quite
mad?
The Lieblings have just come down out of the
trees
!”

“Why not? I want you to do something for them, Georgette.”

“All our friends would think we'd lost our minds. They're so N.O.C.D., those Lieblings.”

“What's N.O.C.D. mean?”

“Not Our Class, Darling. They're definitely N.O.C.D. There's absolutely nothing they could do for people like us.”

“Nevertheless, it's what I want you to do.”

“But, darling. Don't you remember? Your parents moved out of one thousand Park when the Lieblings moved in. And they made a point of having their moving people come at exactly the same time as the Lieblings' moving people, so everybody in town knew what was happening. Roxy even put it in her column.”

“My dad had some sort of business disagreement with old J. B. Liebling. But that was years ago. This is another generation.”

“But that story is too well known. People still laugh about it. What would our friends say if we appeared to be taking up with people like that? One son is a faggot.”

“So is that hairdresser you're so eager to sit next to Thursday night.”

“Darling, that's quite different. Philippe is a great artist.”

“Anyway, I'm not interested in that son. I'm interested in Noah Liebling.”

“The son still lives at one thousand. With his mother. They say the Lieblings have ruined that wonderful old building. Nobody lives there anymore.”

“Funny, but I walked past the building the other day. It looked fully occupied.”

“I mean nobody
we
know. Park between Seventy-sixth and Ninety-sixth has gone way, way downhill. And the sister who calls herself a countess. Everybody says the title is bogus.”

“I'm not interested in the sister, either.”

“And the father was a bootlegger. He had people killed.”

“The old man got his start in Canada, during Prohibition. But there was no Prohibition up there. So you can't call him a bootlegger. Everything he did was perfectly legal. Meanwhile, his son Noah—”

“Oh, Noah Liebling is all right, I suppose. He's
almost
attractive. But it's
her,
his wife, that nobody can stand.”

“What's wrong with her?”

“Oh, it's so hard to explain,” she says. “She's so pushy, so climby, so
enthusiastic.
She
smiles
too much. She's too
friendly.
She doesn't talk about the things people like us talk about. She bubbles. She bounces. She doesn't wear black at night. She doesn't even frost her hair.”

“What's wrong with a bubbly, bouncy woman?”

“New York women don't bubble and bounce. They just don't, which is why she's never fitted in. She's from somewhere like Kansas, and she has a Kansas sort of face. People do imitations of Carol Liebling, and that sort of thing. When she first came to New York, she thought Porthault was only sheets. She'd never heard of the towels. Someone had to explain to her what Rigaud candles were.”

“Of course, you, growing up in Cicero, Illinois, knew all about things like that,” he says with more than a trace of sarcasm in his voice.

“Maybe not! But when I knew I was going to marry you, I learned—and I learned fast! And I learned to do party talk. She's never learned that. She'll get on a subject and just stick to it.”

“When I first met you, Georgette, all you knew how to say was, ‘Please raise your seat backs, place your tray tables in a fully locked and upright position, make sure that all carry-on luggage is securely stowed beneath the seat in front of you, and pass all plastic cups and glasses—'”

“So what! So I was a flight attendant! I wanted to better myself, and I did! Look where I am today—
le plus bien placé
! Patsy Collingwood probably isn't even going to have her dinner party if you and I can't be there. She as much as said so.”

“You bettered yourself, all right. Thanks to me.”

“Okay—thanks to you!”

“And my money.”

“Okay—and your goddamned money. You got what you married
me
for, too! The best blow job you ever had!”

“One of the things I married you for,” he says evenly, “was to do as you're told. And I'm telling you I want you to do something about Noah Liebling and his wife.”

“Why? Tell me why you want me to entertain them?”

“Because I want his business, that's why. Old lady Liebling is getting up there in years. The old battle-ax can't live forever. She's either going to die or retire, and when she does one of those two things, the son is going to take over the company, and when that happens I want his business. Do you realize that for all the years the old battle-ax has been running Ingrahams, the biggest distiller in the world, she's never placed a single order from my bottling plant?”

“Probably because your father made a point of moving out of one thousand Park at the same moment the Lieblings moved in. Talk about royal snubs!”

“That's water over the dam. I want you to do something for Noah Liebling and his wife.”

“Truck, I will simply not have those people in my house.”

“Then invite them to dinner at a restaurant.”

“And be
seen
with them? In
public?
What if Roxy, or Liz, or Cindy, or Billy should see us? They'd think we were
friends.”

“Then they'd invite us to their place. They live at River House.”

“How that board passed them I'll never know. She knows nothing about
placement.
She has a needlepoint pillow in her living room that has ‘Thank you for not smoking' on it.”

“Maybe she's allergic.”

“No. She says the smoke would damage her paintings. Paintings! She hasn't got any, at least none that you or I would hang. Oh, she has a couple of Warhols. But nobody hangs Warhol anymore. After that disastrous sale at Christie's, I took our Warhol down. I was too embarrassed. Warhol is one of yesterday's painters.”

“I wondered where the Warhol went. Where is it?”

“Stacked behind the dryer in the laundry room. Where he belongs. But Carol Liebling—she still hangs him. So you see what I mean.” With her hand she gives her frosted hair a flip from behind.

He takes a sip of his champagne. “For someone you dislike so much, you seem to know an awful lot about her,” he says.

“She has a daughter the same age as Linda. They were at Brearley together. I used to see Carol at parent-teacher meetings. And speaking of that, do you know what that woman had the nerve to say to me?”

“What?”

“She said, ‘Have you thought about doing anything with your Chinese porcelains?'”

“What the hell did she mean by that?”

“Oh, she does some volunteer work for the museum.” She gestures vaguely in the direction of the building across the street, which is invisible behind the drawn drapes. “She's on a couple of committees. I'm sure she's hoping to get on the board, which'll never happen, of course. She asked me if I'd consider giving our collection to the museum.”

“Oh,” he says.

“She even said—and this is the worst part—she even said, ‘Just think, if you gave your porcelains to the Met, you could run across the street and visit the collection whenever you'd like.' Can you imagine a more gauche remark?”

“Actually,” he says thoughtfully, “it's not such a bad idea.”

“What's not a bad idea?”

“Giving that stuff to the museum. We'd get a nice tax deduction. My grandfather collected it. I've never given a shit about all that stuff.”

“Truck Van Degan, are you out of your
mind?
That pair of Lang Yao
sang-de-boeuf
vases
alone
is worth a fortune! I had an appraiser in. He said you almost never find a pair. No way do you give any of it away. That collection is my insurance!”

“What do you mean—your insurance?”

“You won't buy life insurance. When you die, that collection is one thing I'll have to fall back on.”

“I don't buy life insurance because I don't believe in it.”

“Don't give me that, Truck. I know you too well. You won't buy life insurance because you're scared to take the physical.”

“So,” he says carefully, “you're getting ready for me to die. Is that it, sweet tits?”

“Well, after all, you are twenty-two years older than I am, darling. A girl has to think about her future, after all.”

“Okay,” he says, leaning forward in his chair, “let's talk about the future. Let's talk about the immediate future. I've asked you to do something about Noah Liebling and his wife. I haven't asked you. I've told you. I don't give a shit what you think about his wife. I don't give a shit what she knows about
placement,
or whether she hangs Andy Warhol or not. I happen to own a glass-manufacturing business. I make bottles. It used to be that we could do okay selling to the pharmaceutical companies. But the pharmaceuticals are all switching to plastics. It's killing us.”

“Maybe you should get into the plastics business, darling.”

“Shut up. Listen to me. There's a rumor on the street that Ingraham is about to launch an important new label. A new label means new bottles. I want the contract for those bottles, and you're going to help me get it. Is that clear? Can you get that through that thick skull of yours? The girls are the way to do it.”

“What girls?”

“Linda and their daughter. They went to school together. That's your reason for inviting Noah and his wife to dinner.”

“But I can't. Our friends would—”

“Don't tell me what you can and can't do, Georgette. I'm telling you what you
will
do. Understand?”

“Well, I won't.” She jumps to her feet.
“I won't
!”

“You want to get into it with me, Georgette? Remember, I own this house. I own the porcelain collection. And I own you. You defy me, and you'll just have to accept the consequences.”

“You're saying you'll divorce me? Listen, you son of a bitch, I've got enough goods on you—all documented, don't forget—that if you try to dump me, I'll get a lawyer to slap a divorce suit on you so fast you won't know what hit you! How would you like some of your recent shenanigans, up in Westchester and elsewhere, dragged through a divorce court? You think I had your daughter for the hell of it? I had your child so if you ever tried to dump me, you'd be paying alimony and child support till you bleed to death, you bastard! You think I'm kidding? When I finish with you, you bastard, you won't know your ass from chopped liver! You think business is bad now? When I finish with you, Van Degan Glassworks will be in Chapter Thirteen!”

From where he sits, he reaches out and seizes her left wrist, which is encased in a heavy gold bracelet. “Georgette … I'm warning you,” he says.

“Let go of me!” she screams. She is a tall woman, five ten, and very thin, but also very strong. He, however, is easily a hundred pounds heavier than she. With his hand on her wrist, he tries to force her back into her chair again while, twisting her wrist in his grip, she tries to claw the back of his hand with her fingernails.

“You want rough stuff, bitch?” he says. “I can do rough stuff. Want a little rough stuff?”

“Stop! You're hurting me!”

He reaches for her other wrist, but she is too quick for him. With her free hand she reaches for her champagne glass and throws it in his face. A spot of blood appears above his left eyebrow.

“Bitch!” He raises his hand and is about to strike her when the butler appears at the door.

Pretending not to have heard the scream, or to notice anything unusual in his employers' situation, the butler says, “Dinner is served, Mrs. Van Degan.”