Gus looked down now, checking the crowd. The room was almost full; the guests were talking and laughing while the friendly young waitstaff moved effortlessly among them. There was Lil Altemus talking to Maisie Verdurin, both in the same business now. Lil, liberated from God’s Waiting Room on her way to Real Estate Heaven. He glimpsed Kit Jones, who seemed to be listening intently to something Dodo Van Degan was whispering. He wondered what tidbit Kit was getting for her column. Simon Cabot and Baroness de Liagra were toasting each other while the irrepressible Julian Niccolini hovered with a bottle of champagne.
Quite a scene, Gus thought. Here were the rich, those who were about to become richer and those who were hanging on by their thumbs. These were the people he had spent a lifetime listening to and writing about, who never seemed to tire of telling him their secrets. He was always amazed by their willingness to talk at cocktail parties, lunches, and dinners—even during random encounters on the street. He had long ago decided that listening was an art, and he had mastered it. But what was surprising was how quickly his subjects returned to his willing ear after their secrets were revealed in the pages of Park Avenue magazine, or in his novels. Even O.J. Simpson had given him a big smile when he had covered Simpson’s most recent trial. And Phil Spector had been incredibly friendly when they had stood side by side in the men’s room of the courthouse in Los Angeles. Gus was about to leave his elevated perch and make his way down to the crowd when he saw Stokes Bishop walking toward him. Stokes stopped to speak with Alex von Bidder, one of the owners of the restaurant. Alex had always seen that Gus got a great table and a great meal. But right now, Gus had something important to say to Stokes.
“You’re the most popular man at the party, Gus. Everyone wants to talk to you,” said Stokes.
“I’ve got something to straighten out with you, Stokes. I’ve had a bit of an epiphany. I was pretty pissed, and blabbed too much, which is one of my more unattractive traits. I realize that we all have someone to answer to, and you have Hy Vietor, the billionaire who is answerable to no one and who didn’t go along with your plan to help me out. It’s over. It’s erased. It’s all gone.”
“Well, I’m glad. I’m sorry we had a falling-out. You’re great, Gus. You’re a superstar. Enjoy it. Say, I hear you have a big birthday coming up. Do you want help with a party?” asked Stokes.
“I had started to plan one myself, but the party’s off, Stokes. I’m pretty sick. I just returned from a quick trip to the Dominican Republic, where I had a stem cell treatment, and now I’m going off to a clinic in Bavaria. I’d rather pursue those options than the chemo I’m being offered here. I have high hopes.”
“Why don’t you write up the clinic experience for the magazine? Like Thomas Mann and The Magic Mountain. It could be an interesting piece.”
GUS BAILEY was in the Grill Room before the official dinner started, perusing the place cards to see if there were any interesting seating arrangements so he could know where to look to see the most compelling dramas of the evening. He blanched when he got to his own seat; it turned out he didn’t need to look much farther than to his right, because there, sitting in front of the place setting next to his, was a card on which Mrs. Konstantin Zacharias was written in the most elegant calligraphy.
Gus didn’t have much time to react before he saw the infamous lady herself heading directly toward him. She was somewhat distracted by something having to do with her foot, so she didn’t see him until she was almost directly in front of him. At that point she had nowhere to go.
He saw the blotches appearing on her cheeks and the hand holding her evening bag start to tremble. Gus cut her off before she could start in. “Listen, Perla, I know this has been coming for a long time and we both have a lot of things to say to each other, but I’m not going to make a scene on Ruby Renthal’s big night. I suggest we step out of the dining room and over near the stairs and get this over with.”
The calm Perla had achieved when her driver had taken her on the detour through the park evaporated at the sight of Gus Bailey. She wanted to cut him dead and walk away, but he was right, she did have a lot of things to say to him. The two moved out of the dining area together at a clipped pace.
“So, Mr. Bailey, the last time we spoke you were writing a novel. Tell me, how is that coming along? It should be just about finished, no?” Perla said through clenched teeth, a grotesque smile spreading across her face.
Gus would not allow this horrible woman to get to him. He could tell she was revving herself up to lace into him. He had long since decided that he would finish this book no matter what and do what he had to do to get it published, Biedermeier or no Biedermeier. Perla’s money and influence would have to stop somewhere.
She continued, “It’s amazing how pathetic people like you are, Gus. You just go around telling your stories and thinking you’re someone of consequence. But what you don’t realize is, people who have the resources I do don’t lose. I’m shocked you haven’t arrived at this realization before, but I’m more than happy to teach you this lesson in any and every way I can. In fact, I relish the opportunity to show you of how little consequence you are.”
He stared at her defiantly, letting her feel uncomfortable in the loaded silence that spread between them before he replied, “Darling, without people like me you would have nothing to fill your precious library. You know it’s books that line the shelves there, correct? It’s not just another place to throw a cocktail party?
“You can make your large donation and have your name plastered across the front of the building, but I’m the reason they’ll come—to take out the books with my name plastered across the cover. And that’s just the way it is in Manhattan society, isn’t it, my dear? I don’t have to buy my way in.”
Gus didn’t know what was going to happen. He could literally see the anger rise through Perla’s body until it reached the top of her stretched forehead. Her fists were clenched and her lips were clamped shut, as if she were holding back a scream. For a moment, he felt fear.
Then, in a sudden move, she turned and ran down the stairs. Halfway down she stumbled. Her Mickie Minardos shoe lay in the middle of the staircase, its heel broken. Perla Zacharias turned and looked at her shoe and then up at Gus like a disfigured Cinderella.
Perla had to get out of there before she completely lost her composure. She plucked up her broken shoe and slowly hobbled out of the Four Seasons, one shoe on, one off. The last Gus heard and saw of Perla Zacharias that night, she was on her cell phone yelling at her driver to bring the car around, immediately.
AFTER PERLA’S abrupt departure, Gus sat down and enjoyed a lovely dinner. For the first time in years he felt light and at peace. He had survived Win Burch. He had survived Perla Zacharias. He knew she wasn’t gone forever—people who were as rich as she was always found a way back in—but her success in society was neither here nor there to Gus anymore. Not tonight, anyway. He’d had his moment of triumph over her and, more important, he was going to write his book and no one could stop him, no matter how much money they had. And the cancer, well, he would think about that another day.
“GUS, FINALLY a hug,” said Ruby. “We can skip the compliments on how great I look. I’ve already had a thousand of them.” They both laughed.
“Did you see that Elias and I had our picture taken together laughing like we were best friends?” asked Gus.
“That was Simon Cabot’s idea,” said Ruby.
“Of course it was.”
“Gus, for somebody as sick as you are, you look great,” said Ruby.
“The magic of stem cells.”
“You’re always in the avant-garde, Gus. Why does some inner voice keep telling me that you’re moving out of my life? And now you’re leaving. I felt it the minute you walked in that you were off somewhere.”
“I am. Tomorrow. I had to come to see you in your finest hour, Ruby. You pulled it off. You’re the new queen of New York.”
“LIL,” SAID Gus to Lil Altemus when he p
assed her on the stairway, where Gus was getting ready to leave. “Have you heard that I grabbed Winkie Williams’s gold cigarette case out of Addison Kent’s hands outside the front door?” she asked him. “Oh, what a scene we had.”
“It’s the talk of the party. I hope the Times refers to you as a real estate tycoon rather than as a socialite. I hear you got the exclusive on Adele Harcourt’s apartment.”
“I practically grew up in that apartment,” said Lil. “I hear you’re off.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Gus, I don’t want you to go. Have your treatment here. Have your big birthday party. Maybe we could arrange for it to be in Adele’s apartment. Perhaps we could persuade your new friend Ruby Renthal to let Gert make the fig mousse! What a party that would be! Just like old times!”
Gus smiled and kissed Lil on the cheek. “It would be great, Lil, but it is not to be. Good-bye. I’ll e-mail, now that you’re a big executive.”
Gus ran down the stairs, opened the door, and went out into the night.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dominick Dunne was the author of five bestselling novels, two collections of essays, and The Way We Lived Then, a memoir with photographs. He had been a special correspondent for Vanity Fair for twenty-five years, and the host of the television series Dominick Dunne’s Power, Privilege, and Justice. He passed away in 2009 after completing Too Much Money.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Dominick Dunne
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Alfred Music Publishing Co., Inc., for permission to reprint lyrics from “The Extra Man” by Cole Porter, copyright © 1977 by Chappell & Co. (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Alfred Music Publishing Co., Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dunne, Dominick.
Too much money : a novel / Dominick Dunne. — 1st ed. 1. Authors—Fiction. 2. Older men—Fiction. 3. Rich people—Fiction. 4. Socialites—Fiction. 5. New York (N.Y.)—Social life and customs—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3554.U492T66 2009
813′.54—dc22 2009039443
eISBN: 978-0-307-59145-6
v3.0
Too Much Money Page 25