“That’s to the point. No music, I suppose.”
“Maybe a little Cole Porter. I think Bart Howard made a recording of ‘The Extra Man’ back in the fifties,” said Winkie.
“I know the lyrics,” said Xavior.
Addison Kent knew what Winkie planned to do. He knew him well enough to know never to try to talk him out of it. He knew that for Winkie it was the right thing to do. He knew Winkie’s cancer had spread to his bones and that it had metastasized. “I’m riddled,” he’d said to Addison. Later, after it was all over and people discussed the late Winkie Williams, Addison always said, “He was like a mentor to me when I first came to New York from Michigan.”
They sat at the corner table in the back room of Swifty’s. Between the two of them, they knew almost everyone in the room. They waved. “Hi, Sass. Hi, Blaine.” They threw kisses. They only nodded to Yehudit Tavicoli, who was searching for a new rich husband and dining with an obscure Arabian royal. Winkie ordered martinis. No one in the room could have guessed that they were discussing what clothes Winkie should be laid out in before his cremation. He didn’t want to be put into the flames in the blue silk pajamas with his monogram on the pocket that Perla Zacharias had given him, along with his own monogrammed towels, when he visited her at her villa in Biarritz, shortly before the terrible fire took place that killed Konstantin. His plan was to wear them to bed the night he took the thirty-seven pills he had been able to get from the pain clinic at the hospital. He thought the blue silk pajamas were perfect to be wearing when he would be found the next morning, but he had always been a fashion plate, so he wanted Addison to have his latest pale gray pinstripe suit from Huntsman in London taken up to Mr. Francis Xavior Branigan at the Grant P. Trumbull Funeral Home, along with his favorite blue shirt with his monogram on the pocket, and the lavender tie from Turnbull & Asser that Lil Altemus had given him for his birthday the previous week.
“I haven’t worn it yet. She’ll be thrilled to hear. You must tell her afterward. I’ve asked her to be the executrix of my will. It will keep her occupied in that new apartment she hates so much.”
“Is there any porn in the apartment that I should get rid of?” asked Addison. “You wouldn’t want Lil Altemus to find any of those videos I’ve seen in there, would you? Especially the one with you and the three black guys.”
“Perish the thought,” said Winkie. “The videos are in that French chest with the ormolu decoration. By the way, Lil has always said that the French chest should go to Boothby’s to be auctioned. She said it could be worth quite a lot of money if it’s the real thing, and Lil knows her French furniture. She said it’s the ormolu that makes it so valuable. Remember, Lil gave all that eighteenth-century French furniture to the Metropolitan Museum, and they named the room after her, back when she still had so much money.”
“Where did you get that chest?” asked Addison.
“There was a very rich Argentinian named Arturo Miramonte who lived in grand style in Paris back in the fifties, and he took rather a shine to me. Actually, it was more than a shine. He almost left his wife for me. Instead he left me that cabinet with all the ormolu in his will, among other things, like money, quite a lot of money, as a matter of fact. That was all years and years ago. I was quite good-looking back then. Arturo said he left it to me because I was the only one who had ever figured out there was a secret panel. I must remember to tell Lil Altemus about that.”
“I always heard that it was Pauline Mendelson’s late ex-brother-in-law, Donald Mendelson, who left you your money,” said Addison.
“That was my second inheritance,” said Winkie. “There was almost a scandal. Donald died in his apartment at the Sherry-Netherland from some bad heroin that his great friend Lady Wetmore brought with her from the South of France. Thank God for Thomas, the butler, who worshiped Donald and knew of his habits. He told the devastated and stoned Lady Wetmore to pack and fly back to France on the first plane out, went to the lobby and got her a cab, cleaned up all the evidence of needles and drugs, and then called nine-one-one, or whomever they called in those days to report a dead body. Not a word made the papers, other than a paid obituary that said he died of a heart attack. I don’t know about you, Addison, but I’m going to have another martini. After all, what difference does it make?”
The day after he made his cremation arrangements with Francis Xavior Branigan at the Grant P. Trumbull Funeral Home and later had dinner at Swifty’s with Addison Kent, where they decided on the clothes Winkie would be cremated in, and got a little drunk at the same time, Winkie Williams was out and about making further final decisions. He had decided to do it quickly, to get it over with. He always had an instinct for knowing the right moment to leave a party.
ORMOLU WEBB ran into Winkie on Madison Avenue, and they stopped to chat for a moment after Winkie had kissed her on both cheeks and admired her new short haircut from Bernardo. Ormolu never gave a dinner where Winkie wasn’t at an honored place at her table. “Mica said she saw you at Swifty’s last night,” said Ormolu, laughing gaily, as she always did, covering the fact that she was shocked by his appearance. Later, Ormolu said to her husband, Percy Webb, when they were dressing to go to Rosalie Paget’s dinner, “I saw Winkie Williams on Madison Avenue today on my way from Bernardo, my hairdresser’s. Poor darling Winkie, he looked simply terrible. I almost didn’t recognize him, but he was in such good humor, full of fun as always.”
WINKIE WENT into Thierry’s Wine and Liquors on Madison Avenue. He went straight to Jonsie, his old pal Jonsie, who had been selling him wine for a couple of decades for his little lunch parties in his “small and terribly chic” apartment, as Quest magazine had described it, just around the corner.
“I want the most expensive bottle of champagne in this overpriced shop,” said Winkie to Jonsie, who was once, when they met back in the 1940s, the substitute piano accompanist for Mabel Mercer, the nightclub chanteuse beloved by unmarried men of the period. Winkie was one of the few people who ever saw Jonsie accompany Mabel Mercer when she sang “You Are Not My First Love” at Tony’s on West Fifty-second Street.
“What are you celebrating? It’s not your birthday?”
“Special occasion, Jonsie,” said Winkie.
“I’ve got just the bottle of Cristal champagne, although it’s six hundred dollars.”
“Money is no object today, Jonsie. And I’ll be paying in cash, if that’s okay.”
“Fine by me. Did you read Gus Bailey on Perla Zacharias?” asked Jonsie as he rang up the bottle of champagne.
Winkie nodded agreement. “Now he’s writing a book about the whole situation. Perla hasn’t found out yet, but she will be crazed over it. I wouldn’t want to have Perla for an enemy, I’ll tell you that. I saw Gus yesterday making notes on the corner of Eighty-first and Madison. Gus has got an inside source on that story, and it’s driving Perla mad because it’s so accurate. She can’t figure out who in her employ is talking to him.”
Winkie grabbed his change and reached for the bottle.
“Listen, sorry to rush, but I’ve got to run. So long, Jonsie.”
Jonsie, hoping he’d linger just a bit more, said, “Let me give you a holiday hug.”
Later, after it happened, Jonsie told people he’d hugged Winkie good-bye. “He was just skin and bones. I knew it was for the last time.”
From the liquor store Winkie walked through the lobby of the Rhinelander Hotel into the florist shop at the rear of the hotel.
“Hi, Winkie.”
“Hi, Brucie,” said Winkie. “Oh, it looks so festive in here. Look at the color of those roses. Too beautiful.”
“Tangerine, you know, my trademark,” said Brucie. “From this marvelous man in Peru.”
“Give me a dozen of those to take with me. Actually, make it a dozen and a half. I’m here to spend a great deal of money,” said Winkie.
“Music to my ears,” said Brucie, who had been an understudy in the original cast of Company, and had gone on one time in the
two-year run, when the leading man was sick, singing and dancing to Stephen Sondheim’s music. Winkie sometimes had Jonsie play the piano and Brucie sing Sondheim selections when he had a cocktail party for his society friends.
“This order is to go out in the morning two days from now. I want the best orchid plants in full bloom that you can find. Beautiful ones. Nothing skimpy. White phalaenopsis, like Lil Altemus used to have when she still lived on Fifth Avenue. I want them wrapped dramatically, in cellophane with blue and lavender ribbons. I have the addresses here on the envelopes.”
“My God, Winkie, this is going to cost you a fortune,” said Brucie.
“I have a check here made out to the shop and signed by me. Just fill in the amount.”
“Are you going away?” asked Brucie.
Winkie sang in a camp voice from the old Negro spiritual, “To a better land I know.”
Brucie joined in singing the spiritual, “I hear the gentle voices calling, Old Black Joe.”
They roared with laughter. “I used to cry for poor Old Black Joe when they sang that in school when I was a little boy about a hundred years ago,” said Winkie.
“I wouldn’t advise singing it in public these days,” said Brucie.
Brucie put green tissue paper in a white cardboard box and carefully laid a dozen and a half tangerine roses one by one inside.
“Do you want a card for this?” asked Brucie.
“No, the roses are for me, for the table next to my bed,” said Winkie. “I think I’ll take one of these scented candles as well.”
“Are you okay, Winkie?” asked Brucie. He felt strangely disconcerted.
“I’m fine. I’m even serene, in fact.” Winkie started to walk out. “So long, Brucie,” he said. “I’m so glad I was in the audience the night that you went on in Company when Larry Kert was sick.”
“It was the greatest night of my life, Winkie. I got a standing ovation.” The memory still brought him happiness.
“Good-bye, Brucie,” said Winkie, giving him a hug.
“Why do I feel like crying?” asked Brucie.
“Don’t,” said Winkie. “The orchid for Lil Altemus has to be extra special.”
AFTER WINKIE had gone, Brucie, still humming “Old Black Joe,” looked through the blue envelopes that Winkie had left. He recognized almost all of the ladies’ names, as either they were customers of the shop or he had read about them in Dolores De Longpre’s column. For Lil’s plant, instead of the card, there was a letter on Winkie’s engraved blue stationery from Smythson of Bond Street in London. He picked up the letter addressed to Mrs. Van Degan Altemus, East Sixty-sixth Street, walked to the back room of the shop, where the teakettle was on a hot plate plugged into the wall, and turned up the heat. When the steam came out, he held Lil Altemus’s letter over it. He checked the front room for customers, and then he took the letter out of the envelope.
My darling Lil,
I am gone. I have decided to end my life. I’m sorry not to have said good-bye. I’m sorry not to cry. Please do not be sad. I know that what I am doing is the right thing. I wouldn’t be good as a pathetic creature being wheeled up Park Avenue by an illegal alien from a Third World country, and I certainly don’t want to be incontinent like Wallis Windsor. I do hope that I have not overencumbered you with my request that you be the executrix of my will. It will give you something to do other than complain about your new apartment. About the ormolu chest that Arturo Miramonte left me in Paris years ago, I’ve told Addison Kent to call Boothby’s auction house. Whatever it sells for is my bequest to you, as spelled out in my will. Throw out those old red damask curtains from the Fifth Avenue apartment. They dwarf your little living room with the low ceilings. Brighten up the place. Tangerine is the new color this season. Call Ferdy Trocadero in to paint the walls. No one can distress walls like Ferdy Trocadero. Before Boothby’s comes to pick up the ormolu chest, you should take a look at it first to get everything out. And one last favor—stop saying Hubie died of Epstein-Barr.
Love, Winkie
Brucie, ashamed, put the letter back in the envelope and sealed it. No one would have known it had been opened. He called Jonsie over at Thierry’s Wine and Liquors and said, “I have a bad feeling about Winkie.”
“I have the same feeling,” said Jonsie. “He bought a six-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne from me. He said it was for a special occasion. What did he buy from you?”
“Like almost eleven thousand dollars’ worth of orchids, to be sent to eleven of the fanciest ladies in New York. I think he’s going to do it tonight. He bought tangerine-colored roses for next to his bed, eighteen of them at six bucks a stem, and he never buys himself flowers unless he’s having one of those little lunch parties he gives. He also bought a scented candle.”
“Which scent?” asked Jonsie.
“He wanted the one named after C. Z. Guest, but I didn’t have any in stock, so I put the one named after Perla Zacharias in the bag,” said Brucie. “Did you know that Konstantin Zacharias’s male nurse, who was taking care of him because of the ALS he suffered from, started the fire that killed him in Biarritz with a scented Perla Zacharias candle?”
“Yeah, I read that in Gus Bailey’s diary in Park Avenue. Why do you think he’s going to do it tonight?” asked Jonsie.
“If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell?” asked Brucie.
“I promise.”
“No, swear to God on your word of honor you’ll never tell.”
“I swear to God on my word of honor I’ll never tell,” said Jonsie.
“I steamed open his suicide note to Lil Altemus,” said Brucie.
“You didn’t!” replied Jonsie, in a shocked voice.
They became helpless with shamed laughter.
“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard,” said Jonsie when he caught his breath from laughing. “What did the note say?”
WINKIE WAS in his bed. As planned, he was wearing his blue silk monogrammed pajamas that Perla Zacharias had had made for him at Charvet in Paris, when he visited her at the villa in Biarritz. His best Porthault sheets, pillowcases, and sham were on his bed. On his bedside table were his beautiful tangerine roses in a Steuben vase that Lil Altemus had given him from the house in Northeast Harbor, when she had to give it up. A Louis Vuitton bag had been packed with the clothes Addison was to take to the Grant P. Trumbull Funeral Home the next day. For a person taking his own life, Winkie was in very good spirits. He and Addison were drinking very expensive champagne from beautiful glasses. The vial of pills from the pain clinic at the Medicine Center was next to him on the bed.
“How many have you taken?” asked Addison, who was simply ecstatic at being present at such a time as this.
“I think about fourteen or sixteen,” said Winkie. “I’m kind of getting hazy. I’m planning on taking thirty-seven. The thing you mustn’t do is take too many. Did I ever tell you about poor Lupe Vélez? She was divine, Lupe. She was madly in love with Gary Cooper, and he went off with someone else, and she got herself all dressed up in the best nightgown she had, and her hair was done, and she was made up to within an inch of her life so she’d look beautiful when they found her in the morning, and then she took far too many pills, like sixty or something like that, and she vomited, and the maid found her the next morning with her head in the toilet bowl full of puke. Mustn’t have that.”
They both roared with laughter.
“Do you know something, Addison?” He took two more pills. “That was the last big laugh of my life.”
“I guess so,” said Addison. “I’m going to miss you, Winkie.”
“Now you’ll wash up the champagne glasses and then get out of here and come back in the morning and find me,” said Winkie in a very weak voice.
“We’ve been over this fifty times,” said Addison. “I’ll wash up the glasses, take the dirty videos, and be out of here. I’ll leave the Vuitton bag here until tomorrow when I find you. How many have you taken now?”
; “About twenty-two, I think.”
“Is there anything else?” asked Addison.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Tell me something about yourself that you’ve never told anybody in the whole world. Tell me your deepest secret,” whispered Winkie.
Addison thought for a moment. “Okay,” he said. He reached out and pulled over toward the bed a French bergère chair that Donald Mendelson, Winkie’s second rich benefactor after the death of the rich South American in Paris, had bought for him from the Kitty Miller auction at Boothby’s back in 1962. Addison loved the history of the bergère chair and hoped that it would soon be his. What he was about to say he had never told another soul, but he knew that his secret would be safe with the nearly dead Winkie, and he knew that it would help him to speak the words.
“Tell me,” said Winkie.
“Do you remember the story you told me about the cook who jumped out the window at the Tavistock mansion on East Seventy-eighth Street?”
“I was there when the poor woman jumped,” whispered Winkie. “So was Adele Harcourt. She landed on a terrace outside the dining room where the lunch party was going on. Plop, right there in front of us. Ruined the party.”
“You’re pretty alert for—what is it now—thirty pills?” said Addison.
“That’s as good a memory as any to die on. What’s your secret?” asked Winkie.
“The cook was my mother. Her name was Doris. I was a year old at the time, living in a maid’s room on the top floor,” said Addison, relieved for having finally told his deepest secret.
Winkie, dying, smiled. “You never let me down.”
Addison took the glasses to the kitchen, rinsed them out, dried them, and put them in the bar. He picked up the tote bag of pornographic videos. He went over to the bed and looked down at Winkie’s dead body. “Good-bye, Winkie. Thanks for picking me up at the Red Lobster in Pensacola when I was still a waiter.”
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