Too Much Money

by Dominick Dunne

  “So what are you suggesting?” asked Ruby.

  “The kind of building on Fifth or Park that will take you is not the kind of building you want to live in,” said Maisie. “Am I right?”

  Ruby nodded agreement without vocalizing it. She was still beautiful, Maisie thought, watching her. More mature. She had learned about style from Ezzie Fenwick in the years when she and Elias had been in society. Ezzie had taught her how to dress, and she always had been a quick study. She had never actually been a manicurist in Cleveland, as the article in W said about her when she was riding high. She had been a stewardess on American Airlines and later on private jets, which was where she had met Elias. Maisie looked to see if there had been any “work” done on her face during the years she had dropped out of sight in New York when Elias was in prison, but she couldn’t spot any. Her red hair was smartly cut.

  “I love your haircut,” said Maisie. “That’s either Kenneth or Frédéric.”

  “No, it’s Bernardo. He’s so sweet, Bernardo. He takes me at seven in the morning, before the salon opens, so I don’t have to worry about running into any of the people I used to know.”

  “I see you’re still partial to Chanel,” said Maisie, looking at Ruby’s understated suit.

  “That prick Ezzie Fenwick turned me on to Chanel,” said Ruby. “Ezzie was fine when we were riding high and we let him borrow the Rolls and driver, or let him use the apartment in London when we weren’t there, but after all the troubles came, I never heard from him again, and he said some terrible things about us that were repeated back to us. I realize now, after Gus Bailey’s lawsuit for slander, that I could have sued Ezzie for slander.”

  “Ezzie died,” said Maisie.

  “I was happy to hear there was only a small turnout at his funeral,” said Ruby. “That’s the kind of bitch I’ve turned into. Even Pauline Mendelson didn’t go, I heard. Nor the former first lady.”

  Maisie laughed. “The one you have to get to know when you start going about again is Addison Kent. He’s much nicer than Ezzie ever was, and a better dancer, a better bridge player, and he’s just under thirty.”

  “Hold on there, Maisie. I have to get used to living with my husband again before I start thinking about a walker taking me to charity balls,” said Ruby.

  “Let’s get back to the Tavistock mansion,” said Maisie.

  “Are you really talking about that filthy dump with the boarded-up windows?” asked Ruby, clearly disappointed.

  “That filthy dump with the boarded-up windows happens to be one of the most beautiful houses in New York underneath the grime. It also happens to be the widest private house in the East Seventies. It’s the width of three brownstones,” said Maisie. “You could turn the ballroom into a projection room and show movies on Sunday nights after people come in from the country. Between your plane and your projection room, you’ll be back in no time.”

  Maisie never pushed too hard when she was selling. She wanted the client to think the idea had been hers. “How about if you and I go through the house together? There’s an old caretaker living there. I’ll make the arrangements with him. We’ll go through the service door on the side, and no one will see us.”

  “Didn’t somebody’s cook jump out the window of that house?” asked Ruby.

  “That cook was nuts, absolutely nuts,” said Maisie. “Ask Gus Bailey about that cook who jumped out the window. He mentioned her in one of his columns in Park Avenue. She was nuts.”

  “We don’t speak to Gus Bailey,” said Ruby, shaking her head.

  “Who’s we?” asked Maisie.

  “Elias and I. Not that Elias has any chance of not speaking to him from the federal facility in Las Vegas, but he wouldn’t speak to him if he did have the chance. We hear Gus Bailey is doing ‘The Elias Renthal Story’ on his television series about crime among the rich.”

  “Gus is a friend of mine,” said Maisie. “I go way back with Gus. I knew Gus when he first married Peach.”

  “Gus Bailey said that he thought Elias was guilty when he wrote about the case in Park Avenue, after he came to lunch and dinner at our house,” replied Ruby.

  Maisie looked away. She also thought Elias had been guilty. So did everyone in New York. Ruby knew in her heart that Elias had been guilty, too, but she had gone along with Elias’s insistence for the last seven years that he had been innocent of the financial malfeasance with which he had been charged.

  “When shall we look at that house?” asked Ruby.

  CHAPTER 5

  GUS BAILEY WAS OFTEN STOPPED IN THE STREET or in restaurants by people who recognized him from his appearances on the Harry Sovereign Show, or as host of his own television show, Augustus Bailey Presents. Mostly they were interested in hearing if there was anything new on the Konstantin Zacharias case. He told his friends and his editors that he felt like a magnet for people with some sort of information on that story. Several times men said things like, “I was a friend of Konstantin Zacharias’s. Konstantin wanted to tell me something, but Perla wouldn’t let me be alone with him.” Gus wrote notes in his green leather notebook from Smythson of Bond Street in London; Stokes Bishop gave him one for Christmas every year.

  After all the distress he felt over Kyle Cramden and his expensive lawsuit, the only thing that distracted Gus was his novel. He had been feeling so tired lately and so weighed down by anxiety, but when he was writing, the creative energy made him feel renewed. It was a refuge for him. He found himself thinking about it most of the time.

  Gus stopped on Madison Avenue and Eighty-first Street in front of the Grant P. Trumbull Funeral Home, the most prestigious mortuary in New York City, to make a note about Perla Zacharias’s having been seated next to the secretary of state the previous night at a Washington dinner in honor of a former first lady. He wrote that he was astounded that such a universally disliked person had been seated so importantly.

  Looking up for a moment, Gus noticed that a green Nissan Sentra, the same one he’d seen parked there earlier, had a driver in it who seemed to be staring at him. But before he could react, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Winkie Williams, the popular society walker, slowly exiting the funeral home, looking left, then right, before turning left in the direction of his apartment.

  Winkie Williams had been an extra man on the New York social scene for decades. Every hostess in New York wanted Winkie Williams at her table. “Winkie Williams told me the most hilarious story last night about the Duchess of Windsor being a hermaphrodite,” said Ormolu Webb after one of her dinners. He was a particular favorite of Lil Altemus, who doted on him and never gave a party without him, before her lifestyle had become so reduced. “He adds so much to the table,” Lil said to a reporter from Quest, who was writing an article on Winkie’s lunch parties. “He’s such fun, such a good dancer, such a good bridge player, he gives charming lunches in that tiny apartment of his. Everybody loves Winkie. You’d never know he was ninety in a million years. Ninety’s the new sixty, he always says.”

  “Winkie,” called out Gus, quickly scribbling something down before closing his notebook and tucking it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He noticed that Winkie, who was over ninety, had suddenly begun to look very old, after having frequently been described as sprightly and full of fun for the past few decades. Winkie seemed nervous at meeting Gus.

  “What scandalous thing are you writing in that famous green leather notebook of yours on the corner of Madison and Eighty-first Street?” asked Winkie, who was adept at social conversation, so as to forestall any questioning.

  “Actually, I was just jotting down the license number of that green Nissan Sentra, with the big guy in dark glasses staring at me. Do you see him? I think the guy is following me or trying to freak me out. The doorman in my apartment building told me yesterday he thought I was being followed by a tall man in a green Nissan Sentra, and here he is.”

  “Oh, heavens! You don’t suppose Perla Zacharias is behind the whole thing, do you? You’re not he
r favorite writer,” said Winkie, his eyes twinkling as he teased Gus flirtatiously.

  Gus laughed. Winkie took a gold cigarette case out of his suit pocket. He offered a cigarette to Gus, who declined it.

  “Haven’t smoked for years,” said Gus. “But I sure do like that gold cigarette case. I haven’t seen a gold cigarette case since people stopped smoking.”

  “Cole Porter gave it to me,” said Winkie. “It has the lyrics of ‘The Extra Man’ engraved inside. I’m leaving it to the Costume Institute at the Met.”

  “That’s a treasure. By the way, who died?” Gus said, pointing his head toward the door of the funeral home.

  “What do you mean?” asked Winkie.

  “I can’t imagine anyone going into Grant P. Trumbull unless he was visiting a corpse.”

  “Oh, I just had a sudden urge to pee,” he said quickly. Then, changing the subject, he said “Gus, I can’t get enough of the Zacharias story, and now I hear a hush-hush rumor that you’re working on a novel about it. How exciting! I visited several times at their villa in Biarritz that used to belong to Empress Eugénie of France. I’ve never seen such luxury. I don’t believe word has reached Perla yet, but I don’t envy you when it does. She thinks that what you have written about her in Park Avenue is what’s really keeping her from making it in New York society. She’d love to be the next Adele Harcourt, you know. And speaking of society, I thought you’d be at Lil Altemus’s first dinner party in her new apartment last night.”

  “Well, the book deal is just about to be announced, so I guess I have something to look forward to,” said Gus. “I couldn’t go to Lil’s last night. You probably heard, or read, that I’m being sued for slander. I stayed home to watch Kyle Cramden’s lawyer, Win Burch, on the Harry Sovereign Show. Mr. Burch is one slick customer, with a lot of fake charm. I’d never seen him before, but I’ve certainly heard a lot about him.”

  “How’s your lawsuit coming?” asked Winkie.

  “Slowly. Expensively. I’m scared shitless of this Win Burch. He’s said to be terrifying when you’re on the stand. People say that he scares people for a living. They call him The Pit Bull.”

  “Everyone’s rooting for you, Gus,” said Winkie.

  Gus shook away the thought of Win Burch. “How was Lil’s new apartment?” he asked.

  “A bit charmless. Low ceilings. Poor Lil. She hates it, but she’s being brave about it. She can’t stand her nephew for having her move out of her Fifth Avenue apartment after she lived there for so many years, and she never lets up on poor Dodo for inheriting all the family money. Thank God she has Gert.”

  “Yes, yes, good old Gert,” said Gus.

  WINKIE WENT off to meet Addison Kent for an early dinner at Swifty’s. Winkie had lied to Gus when he said he had gone into the Grant P. Trumbull Funeral Home to use the men’s room. He had gone to make the arrangements with an assistant funeral director named Francis Xavior Branigan for a cremation in three days.

  “For whom?” asked the assistant funeral director, eyeing Winkie somewhat suspiciously.

  “For me,” replied Winkie. He was an elegant-looking fellow, even in his advanced years, and the assistant funeral director noticed how beautifully he was dressed, although his recent weight loss made his gray pinstripe suit appear to be too large for him. Though dazzled by this glamorous figure, Xavior was made uncomfortable by his request.

  “A cremation for you, Mr. Williams? Tell me, how exactly do you know the precise date you will be ready for cremation?”

  Winkie just held his gaze, silently communicating to the assistant funeral director that he knew what he was doing and that he would not be deterred. “This is a very delicate matter, Mr. Branigan. You won’t breathe a word, will you?”

  “You’re putting me in a very awkward position, Mr. Williams.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” Winkie replied airily.

  Xavior changed the subject.

  “I feel like I know you. I recognized you right away. I’ve been reading your name in Kit Jones’s and Dolores De Longpre’s columns for years, and I see your pictures in Park Avenue at the grandest parties. You’re the most famous extra man in New York. Is it true that Cole Porter wrote ‘The Extra Man’ about you? It’s one of my favorite songs of his.”

  “Cole always said it was about me, yes,” said Winkie, who loved his social celebrity. “Of course, I was awfully young then, and I was the best dancer in New York; at least that’s what Dolores De Longpre always wrote about me.”

  “Is it true what I read that you never go out on the anniversary of Marie Antoinette’s death?” asked Xavior.

  “No, no, no. I don’t know who started that ridiculous story,” said Winkie, shaking his head.

  Francis Xavior Branigan was bursting with excitement that he was engaged in such a glamorous conversation and was completely charmed by the handsome Mr. Williams. He hated to turn back to the boring business of practicalities, but he felt it his duty to get to the bottom of the request.

  “What brings you to this very sad act that you are contemplating? Is it all right if I call you Winkie?”

  Winkie laughed. “Of course. I would like you to call me Winkie. All the waiters at Swifty’s call me Winkie. I love it.”

  “But you haven’t answered my question,” said Xavior.

  “I’m riddled with cancer. Absolutely riddled. I don’t have a chance. I’m not in pain, thank God, or thanks to Lil Altemus, rather. She’s on the board of the hospital. She took her brother’s place after Laurance had that terrible stroke. The pain clinic is at my command, so I’m a little high at all times. I have gone to my last party, and seen everybody one last time, and kissed a lot of ladies on the cheek, and discussed Tina and Freddie Tudor’s divorce, and asked Lil for one last dance. Now I am ready to do it. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone. I have prepared the announcement for the New York Times obituaries.”

  Xavior stared at Winkie for a moment, his mouth slightly agape.

  “Oh, dear. I find this so sad,” he finally answered, shaking his head. “I believe I have a legal responsibility to inform someone of your plans.”

  “No you don’t,” Winkie stated pointedly. “Who will ever know we had this conversation?”

  Xavior looked away for a moment.

  “Don’t they call you a social gadfly in the columns?” Xavior asked, deciding at least to humor Winkie.

  “This is my reputation, yes,” said Winkie.

  “You seem deeper.”

  “I am deeper. But, you see, I have wasted my opportunities,” said Winkie. “It’s not good to inherit a few million when you are as young as I was. Especially way back when a million dollars was still considered a lot of money.”

  “Rich family?”

  “A rich lover or two would be more accurate,” replied Winkie, and they both chuckled. “It made me idle. There were things I could have done. I could have written, I’m sure. My eye was perfect. I missed nothing. I could turn a phrase better than anyone.”

  “But why didn’t you?” asked Xavior.

  On Winkie’s face was a look of profound weariness that had nothing to do with being tired but had a great deal to do with having seen too much. He stared straight ahead. Xavior was aware of a moisture that appeared in Winkie’s eyes, as if he were fighting tears. He shook his head slowly. “It’s a terrible thing to come to the conclusion that your life has been so unimportant as mine has been.”

  “But you have friends. Many, many friends.”

  “Yes, yes, there is that,” replied Winkie.

  “Do you have a friend who will find you? It’s awful when nobody stops by for a few days, and the cleaning woman comes a week later and she tells the television reporter for the evening news that your body had started to stink,” said Xavior.

  “Oh, no, we mustn’t have that,” said Winkie, with a gesture of horror. “I wouldn’t like it a bit to be found in a state of decay. I am about to have dinner at Swifty’s with a very close friend of mine who will find
me the next morning. His name is Addison Kent, a charming young man. He will send the announcement to the Times, and he will be in touch with you about picking up the body. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Francis Xavior Branigan.”

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Branigan.”

  “Xavior,” he said.

  “Xavior, yes. Let’s discuss price, so I can pay in advance,” said Winkie. “I’ve brought my checkbook along.”

  Seduced by the profound role that the famous Winkie Williams was asking him to play in New York social history, Xavior chose to go forward with the suicide plan.

  “The basic cremation price is six thousand.”

  Winkie’s face took on a look of financial surprise. “I think that’s a little pricey for a burn-up, Xavior. I hope you’re not thinking about a fancy casket. I read Jessica Mitford on the American way of death, and I know about the exorbitant charges in the mortuary world. I want the cheapest wooden box there is. I wouldn’t mind if it was cardboard, as a matter of fact.”

  “It’s still six thousand,” said Xavior. “Make the check out to Grant P. Trumbull Funeral Home.”

  Winkie took his checkbook from the inside pocket of his pinstripe suit and wrote out the check. “Outrageous, you know,” said Winkie.

  Francis Xavior Branigan smiled. “I know a funeral home up on One Hundred Twelfth Street and Amsterdam Avenue where you can probably get a better deal, but that wouldn’t be the right thing at all for you, Winkie.”

  “Here,” said Winkie, handing him the check for six thousand dollars.

  “Will there be a service?”

  “No funeral. No memorial. It’s in the announcement. It says, ‘William (Winkie) Williams passed away in his sleep on such and such a night. There will be no funeral or memorial service.’”