“You know, Ruby, when this prison part of your life is all over, you should talk about what it’s been like at dinner parties,” said the baroness. “Talk about the prison doors clanking shut behind you. You’ll be the only one at the table who can say that. Everyone will be riveted by your stories, and you’ll beat them to the draw of talking about you behind your back.
“You’ll be the best-dressed woman in New York when I come back from the collections. I’ll e-mail you from Paris.”
CHAPTER 12
“THANK GOD YOU’RE NOT IN THAT GHASTLY orange jumpsuit again this time,” said Ruby, after kissing Elias. She held back and didn’t say one word about his breath. “You look so much thinner in the blue one. I’ve had about six of your old suits sent to Huntsman on Savile Row in London to be taken in at the waist. I told that nice man, Mr. Hope-Davies, he’s such fun on the telephone, how much weight you’ve lost and he’s personally overseeing the adjustments.”
Elias was inattentive that day, as if he had something on his mind. Ruby wanted Elias to show more interest in the magnificent house that was being completed for them on East Seventy-eighth Street in New York. She had brought plans and photographs and some swatches that she was thinking of for the chairs and curtains in Elias’s dressing room.
“Guess what, Elias? You’re going to love this one. I’m having a urinal put on the wall of your bathroom, right next to the toilet. Charlotte has suggested this color green for the bathroom walls.”
“Is there anything going on between you and the baron’s dyke wife?” asked Elias, who wasn’t interested in the swatches for his dressing room.
“Don’t call her that, Elias,” said Ruby, in an angry voice.
“Oh, I beg your pardon. I meant to ask if there was anything going on between you and the daughter of Belitas,” asked Elias.
“What I’m saying is, and listen carefully, don’t ever refer to Charlotte de Liagra as the ‘baron’s dyke wife.’”
“Max Luby says she’s your new best friend.”
“God, I hate Max Luby. No, there’s nothing going on with Charlotte de Liagra. I met her at Maisie Verdurin’s. She’s very chic. Very elegant. She looks like Jeanne Moreau thirty years ago. She came on to me.”
“See? I told you. Max Luby says in some circles they call her Uncle Charlie.”
“I let her go down on me,” said Ruby.
“You what?”
“You heard me. Just once. She likes hair pie, as you would say. She said she especially liked red hair. It’s not my scene, she knows that. Now I’ve had the experience, the curiosity’s gone,” said Ruby.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” said Elias, shaking his head incredulously. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Let me put it this way. It was not altogether unpleasant. As muff divers go, Baroness de Liagra is at the top of the charts,” said Ruby. “She liked me to talk dirty when she was down there doing her thing. There, you satisfied? Is that what you wanted to hear? Did it turn you on?”
Elias, who did have an erection, roared with laughter. “I always loved you the best when you were cheap and trashy, Ruby.”
“Charlotte says that’s what makes me unique, when I talk trash. She said it couldn’t get too low for her. She said I was cheap, but she said she meant it as a compliment. Charlotte’s at the collections in Paris. She’s helping me with my clothes for when you get out of here.”
“Does the baroness know you used to fuck her husband while your husband was in prison?” asked Elias.
“You and I were divorced at the time, Elias, so I was free to do anything I wanted to do. Charlotte does know. She mentioned it once,” said Ruby, glad she had decided to leave the ruby bracelet back in the plane.
CHAPTER 13
DINNER-PARTY LIFE WENT ON IN NEW YORK, even though the economy was on the skids. Rich people talked about money—who was making it, who was losing it. What were once considered great fortunes were evaporating. “The Lelands have had to put the Southampton house up for sale,” said Dinkie Winthrop to Addison Kent at Matilda Clarke’s dinner for Ormolu Webb’s birthday in the back room of Swifty’s. Unprincipled financiers were being indicted. Others were receiving bailouts and bonuses, attracting the anger of the public.
At Maisie Verdurin’s dinner for Dolores De Longpre, who was retiring from writing her society gossip column after forty years, Muffy de la Roche said, to the table at large, “Shouldn’t Elias Renthal be getting out of prison any month now?”
“In my day, we didn’t know people who went to prison,” said Lil Altemus to Percy Webb at Kay Kay Somerset’s dinner.
“Ferdy Trocadero is painting the walls of Ruby Renthal’s indoor swimming pool room that she copied from the indoor pool at Hearst Castle,” said Addison Kent to Petal Wilson at Teddy Vermont’s dinner at the Butterfield Club.
“Has anyone heard that the small Vigée Le Brun painting of Marie Antoinette that was Adele Harcourt’s favorite painting is missing from her bedroom wall, according to George, the old butler that the nephew from Wyoming fired?” asked Figgy Watson at Pauline Mendelson’s small dinner in the back room of Swifty’s.
“I hear Lorcan Styne lost three hundred million in that Ponzi scheme,” said Percy Webb to Cricket Williams at the Epstein-Barr Ball at the St. Regis Roof. “I always got a bad feeling from that guy.”
“Lorcan Styne had to give up his plane,” replied Cricket.
“And the helicopter,” said Percy. “His own board of directors took it away from him.”
“It nearly killed him, Christine told me,” said Cricket.
“Strictly between us, no repeats, I mean, let’s be practical. That plane was what Lorcan had to offer. I mean, Lorcan’s perfectly nice and all that, at least to people like us, although not necessarily to his employees is what they say. He once flew us back from Paris, after we ran into him at the de Ravenals’ dance, which was terribly nice of him, and so much more comfortable than first class on Air France, believe me, but Lorcan’s not everyone’s cup of chamomile, as we all know. When you have a plane to take your friends anywhere, and Lorcan’s plane was divine, the last word, Nicky Haslam did it up for him in that rich Russian look, you become very popular and you get invited to all the parties. And now he doesn’t have it anymore.”
GUS WAS dining with Loelia Minardos and her shoe designer husband, Mickie Minardos, at their Park Avenue apartment, a rare occurrence indeed, as Loelia and Mickie felt they had been portrayed unkindly in Gus’s much-publicized novel Our Own Kind. A rapprochement of sorts had taken place, engineered by the television news star Christine Saunders. It developed that there was a purpose to the dinner invitation, as there often is at society dinners. Gus was seated next to Constance Sibley, a rich and rarefied figure in social New York, who was a member of the board of directors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of New York society’s most prestigious honors. She limited her acquaintances to a very small and select group, among them Loelia and Mickie, on whom she doted. She had suggested to Loelia that Gus be invited.
“I hear you’re writing about Perla Zacharias,” said Constance into Gus’s ear, once the general conversation had started about the divorce of Tina and Ted Dudley, to which everyone at the table had something to contribute. The conversational buzz was loud enough so that Constance knew she would not be overheard. Normally not loquacious with people she did not know, Constance monopolized Gus’s ear through the entire dinner.
“Now I know why I was invited,” Gus said, laughing. “Actually, I’m writing about Konstantin’s death, which I find very mysterious. The confession of the male nurse is too preposterous. I’m not specifically writing about Perla. I was to meet with her in Paris, but her lawyer called that off.”
“She lives in my building when she’s in New York, which is more and more. I heard that Konstantin hated the dinner parties that Perla so enjoyed throwing. He was only interested in money, not their social life. The man was also obsessed with security, and yet that night, none of the su
rveillance equipment was working. He built a barracks on the grounds for the twenty-five guards he had on the payroll. All that I want to know is, why were there no guards on duty on the night Konstantin was murdered?”
“That’s one of the mysteries of the story,” replied Gus.
“Is it true that the Biarritz police handcuffed the guard who finally arrived with the key to Konstantin’s room when he still might have saved him?”
“Yes. That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m writing about in the novel.”
LORD CUDLIP was late for Ormolu Webb’s dinner at the Rhinelander Hotel, where Ormolu and Percy Webb were living temporarily since their cook, subsequently dismissed, had accidentally set fire to the kitchen stove, causing smoke damage and blackening the walls of the dining room, “ruining, simply ruining,” as Ormolu told anyone who sympathized, the seventeen coats of persimmon paint that Ferdy Trocadero had taken three weeks to apply when they bought the apartment. And, worse, Ormolu couldn’t get Ferdy Trocadero back to repaint the dining room in time for the dinner party, because Ferdy Trocadero, thank you very much, was tied up for months to come by Ruby Renthal in the refurbishing of the mansion on East Seventy-eighth Street that was being readied for the homecoming of Elias Renthal from prison.
Percy Webb, who always deferred to his wife, suggested to her that perhaps they should go in to dinner in the private dining room beyond the hotel dining room, where the tables had been set with Ormolu’s own dishes and glasses and candlesticks, brought over from the apartment to the hotel for the occasion.
“We shouldn’t wait any longer,” said Percy. “People were asked for eight, with dinner at eight forty-five, and now it’s nine fifteen. They’ll be leaving if we don’t sit down.”
“I think it’s so odd that Stanford Cudlip hasn’t called me, or hasn’t had one of his secretaries call me,” said Ormolu, beckoning her guests toward the dining room. “I have him seated to my right, forgodssake. Perhaps there’s a crisis in the world we haven’t heard about yet. You know how he’s always going on about terrorist attacks. Do you think anything’s happened?”
Just then Lord Cudlip rapidly walked in, assuming a supplicant’s pose, full of apologies. “My dear Ormolu, do please forgive me. The phone was out on my plane, if you can imagine, or I would have called before I left Las Vegas.”
“What in the world were you doing in Las Vegas, Stanford? You’re seated over there next to me, and Mimi’s on the other side. Lil, you’re over there next to Addison. If you knew how much I miss my dining room, and I can’t get that damn Ferdy Trocadero back to repaint. Don’t tell me the next terrorist attack is going to be in Las Vegas?”
“No, no, my dear Ormolu. I was visiting Elias Renthal at the federal prison. He’ll be getting out soon, a few months at most. And it’s not true what you’ve heard at all the parties, that he has massages in prison. He doesn’t. No special privileges at all, and he’s just about done his seven years, and he hasn’t complained. My hat’s off to him.”
“What a good deed, Stanford,” said Ormolu. “You are a perplexing person. Now sit down, sit down. Percy said everyone was about to leave if we didn’t sit down, and Lil Altemus has let me know that you never should wait for a late guest.”
“Sounds like Lil,” said Lord Cudlip.
Lord Cudlip didn’t tell anyone that Simon Cabot in London had suggested the trip to Las Vegas in his private plane. It would make Lord Cudlip look like a loyal friend, visiting Elias Renthal in prison, and it would make Elias Renthal look like a man who was still important.
FROM A public relations point of view, it was Simon Cabot, “our man in England,” as Ruby Renthal always referred to him when talking to Elias, who more or less orchestrated Elias Renthal’s release from prison, or the facility, as Ruby insisted on calling it, sternly and quickly correcting anyone who used the word prison, a word she could not bear. Ruby’s persistence, as well as a call from Baroness de Liagra in Paris on Ruby’s behalf, as well as a call from Chiquita Chatfield, as in Duchess of, changed Simon Cabot’s mind about representing someone in an American federal facility, an association he had feared that his other powerful clients in distressing situations might object to. Secrecy was part of the lucrative bargain they came to. Simon Cabot was a great one for e-mail and gave his ideas to Ruby without ever leaving England. The Renthals were most anxious that there be as little press as possible on Elias’s departure from the prison in Las Vegas. “Oh, dear me, no,” said Simon, advising Ruby not to wear the suit she described to him with the sable collar and cuffs that Baroness de Liagra had privately comissioned Karl Lagerfeld to design especially for her. “Play it down, like Perla Zacharias did at the trial of the male nurse in Biarritz after Konstantin’s murder,” said Simon. “Wear that black suit you were wearing when we met at Claridge’s, and leave your ruby bracelet home,” he said. “There’s certain to be photographers there. Don’t get out of the car to greet Elias. Don’t have any sort of a public welcome-home situation. Pictures are less likely to be published if you’re not in them. It’s you they want to see. You make the picture more valuable to the tabloids. People are beginning to talk about Ruby Renthal again. Elias should be dressed in a business suit, with a white shirt and a striped tie, as if he were going to the office. Have him walk directly to the car. Tell him not to stop to pose when the photographers call out his name. Just keep walking to the car. If they yell, ‘How was prison, Elias?,’ which they probably will, or, ‘Is it true you had to clean toilets, Elias?,’ tell Elias to ignore them and, for god’s sake, not to get angry in public. I have heard all about his temper. The driver should be holding the car door open for him, so that he can slip right into the car. It’s all right for the chauffeur to tip his hat to Elias. Kiss him inside the car, after the door is closed. Put your arms around him, in case they shoot through the back window. It should be very discreet and proper. There may be more photographers and reporters at the airport after you leave the prison, so be forewarned. I know the Financial Times is sending someone. And, of course, the New York Times and the Daily News, Toby Tilden from the New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal, who have been very tough on Elias from the beginning. The driver will take the car out onto the tarmac, as close as possible to the stairs up to the plane. You get out first and walk up the steps, where you wait for Elias. Think of Jackie O and how she would have played the scene and do that.”
“I TOLD you Simon was brilliant,” said Ruby when Elias told her about Lord Cudlip’s prison visit. “I told you. You didn’t believe me. Was I right or was I right?”
“Lord Cudlip’s the one who’s brilliant,” said Elias. “Or Stanford, as he told me to call him. I don’t know why, but I got the feeling that he’s going to ask me to go on his board of directors.”
“Oh, my god, Elias. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” said Ruby. “That would show New York that you were back in the big time. His board of directors has some of the swankiest people in New York, London, and Paris on it. The Infanta of Spain. People like that. I’m sure that was Simon Cabot’s idea too.”
“Cudlip’s like a real intellectual. He’s writing a biography of Benedict Arnold, at the same time that he’s running his empire. He’s bought all the family papers from Benedict Arnold’s descendants. Twelve million bucks he paid for the papers. It’s going to be eight hundred sixty pages long. I don’t know where he gets the time to write it, running that media empire of his.”
“Just between us, Elias, you name me three people we know who are going to read eight hundred sixty pages about Benedict Arnold,” said Ruby. “Who gives a shit?”
They both roared with laughter.
GUS WAS at the office of Lance Wilson, his editor of many years at Park Avenue, handing in his prison interview with Erik Menendez, whose trial for the murder of his parents Gus had covered for the magazine years earlier. Erik and his brother were currently doing life without the possibility of parole in different California prisons, where Gus had visited him.
Stokes
Bishop, hearing that Gus was in the building, popped into Lance Wilson’s office. Lance stood up and welcomed Stokes back from his holiday in St. Bart’s on Larry Yelster’s three-masted schooner built for him in Germany. Stokes raved about the yacht.
“How’s the case going, Gus?” asked Stokes. “Do you like your new lawyer?”
“I want to settle,” said Gus. “I kid you not when I say I’m afraid of a heart attack.”
“Don’t settle, Gus. Take it all the way,” said Stokes. “What a trial that will be. Christine Saunders, every big news person will cover it. Cramden doesn’t have a chance in a New York courtroom. You saw his interview with Christine Saunders. He was a creepy little disaster.”
Gus had stopped asking about Stokes’s promise to cover his legal fees. He had long since realized that this matter was out of both of their hands.
CHAPTER 14
GUS BAILEY WAS SEATED AT HIS REGULAR CORNER table in the back room of Swifty’s with Bobby Vermont, whom he always described as his oldest New York friend. Their wives had gone to the same school. Their offspring had known one another as children. They had worked together in the early days of television. Bobby was one of the few people Gus discussed his slander suit with.
“You must know that everyone’s afraid to ask you about your lawsuit,” said Bobby.
“Is everyone talking about it?” asked Gus.
“You know they are,” replied Bobby. “With concern, I might add.”
“I get pity letters from friends,” said Gus. “Especially after that shit Toby Tilden wrote in the Post that I was hiding out in the country as much as I could, only attending the social events I have to, afraid to see anyone, and worried about money. I know they mean well, but I can’t stand to read the letters, even though I do worry about money. ‘Dickie and I are so sorry to hear of the terrible predicament that you find yourself in.’ That sort of thing.”
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