Too Much Money (18 page)

G
US WAS
having dinner with his editor, Lance Wilson, at Donohue’s, an Irish steak house and bar on Lexington Avenue that was a popular hangout for people in the media. They often had dinner together on the day that Gus turned in his monthly diary; they read it over together, and Lance made suggestions for rearrangements of the various topics.

“Gus, I think you’ve said enough for the time being about Gerald Bradley Junior,” said Lance. “He’s been in your last two diaries. I like the story you told me about the young antiques dealer on the Upper East Side, who’s been indicted for theft that you don’t believe he committed. I think you should lead with that and end with Gerald Bradley Junior, but cut it down.”

“Okay,” said Gus. “Lance, strictly off the record, I want to ask you something.”

“Go.”

“Do you think Stokes Bishop wants to get rid of me? Do you think I should resign before he lets me go?” asked Gus.

“Don’t be silly, Gus,” said Lance.

“I just worry that this slander suit has come between us.”

“M
R
. B
AILEY
, would you mind terribly if I asked you a few questions about the Zacharias murder in Biarritz?” asked Baroness de Liagra. “My husband often did business with Konstantin Zacharias, and my friend Ruby Renthal speaks highly of you, and of course I read you in
Park Avenue.”

They were at a small dinner in the back room of Swifty’s that the much-married Yehudit Tavicoli was giving for the baroness, whom she had known during her years in Paris.

“I’m sure you know as much as I do, Baroness,” replied Gus.

“I’ve gone to Biarritz every summer for my whole life. When
I was a child, my father used to rent the same villa year after year. It was so divine in those days. I used to play with Lola de la Grange at that beautiful villa the Zachariases bought. It was built for Empress Eugénie, did you know that? My father rarely went back to the villa after the Zachariases bought it. We didn’t even go to their famous ball, and we were in Biarritz at the time. My father, who was a dashing sportsman who enjoyed social life, used to say the Zachariases had too much money and that it’s not good to be that rich. That something bad would happen in that household.”

“Your father was right,” said Gus.

“I
HEAR
P
ERCY
W
EBB LOST A BUNDLE WHEN
L
ORCAN
Styne’s company went belly-up,” said Lil Altemus at Polly. Winter’s lunch party at the Colony Club.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about him. There’s plenty more where that came from,” replied Gus. “There’s broke and there’s rich broke.”

“They say he just sits in front of the money channel on T
V
for hours. He never talks to anyone except his broker. It’s driving Ormolu crazy. He wouldn’t go to Bratsie Bleeker’s lunch at the Butterfield yesterday. Backed out at the last minute.”

G
US WAS
having dinner at Le Cirque with his son Grafton and his granddaughter, Sarah. It was Sarah’s birthday the next day, her fourteenth, and parents and grandparents were most definitely not invited to her party the next evening, so Gus was having a little private birthday dinner for Sarah, with presents. The main course over, together they enjoyed slices of a divine chocolate mousse cake with hazelnuts.

When Sarah excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, Grafton took the opportunity to ask Gus about the lawsuit. “How’s things on the case, Dad?”

“Depositions coming up,” replied Gus quickly, signaling that he didn’t want to talk about it.

“How’s the stress?” Grafton eyed his father carefully, noting the weariness in his face. He was concerned.

“A constant in my life. The novel is the only thing keeping me sane right now. I can forget about all the other unpleasantness when I’m working on it. I think it’s going to be my best yet.”

“Has the magazine come up with any money to help you out with the lawyers’ bills?”

“No.”

“Want me to call Stokes Bishop? I saw him the other night at Il Cantinori.”

“No; I’m sure this is bigger than him. This is what happens when you make powerful enemies.”

Gus was saved when Sarah rejoined them at the table and ate up the last crumbs of the delicious cake from her plate.

“Well, we’d better be off,” said Grafton. “School night. Get your stuff together, Sarah, and put the presents in this shopping bag with the cards.”

As they rose to leave, a man from another table called out, “Hey, Mr. Bailey. Hold on a minute.”

Gus turned to see a man getting up and approaching him from his table. Although he was seated at a table in the section of the room where prominent people were seated, he was not dressed properly for that location, especially in a restaurant with a strict dress code. Later Gus modeled a character in his novel after this man, and he described him as follows: “He was dressed like one of those hoods in Tony Soprano’s gang on television. He looked out of place, but he was very sure of himself.”

The stranger went on talking. “We were just speaking about you at our table over there. One of the guys recognized you. We were wondering why you don’t write about the Zacharias case in
Park Avenue
anymore. You were the only one writing about it, and then you stopped.”

“Yes, I did,” said Gus. “The trial was over.”

“But the story wasn’t.”

“That’s right.”

“Then why did you stop writing?”

Gus looked at the man before he answered.

“I got a warning.”

The man turned back to his table and called out to one of the men sitting there watching them. “Joe—Joe, come over here,” he said, waving to another gentleman. “Joe’s the one who recognized you. He was telling us things about the case. He wants to speak to you. Joe, this is Gus Bailey. Joe Carey. I asked Mr. Bailey why he stopped writing about the case, and he said that he got a warning.”

Gus told Grafton and Sarah to go on after saying his goodbyes. He had a feeling this was going to take some time.

Gus and Joe Carey shook hands as Joe nodded his head in understanding. Gus saw instantly that Joe Carey was someone to be reckoned with. Later, in his novel, Gus would describe the character based on Joe Carey as “a handsome, mid-forties, twice-divorced, slightly mysterious man.” Unlike his badly dressed tablemates, Joe Carey was wearing a dark blue suit and a Turnbull & Asser striped tie that fit in perfectly with the dress code of the exclusive restaurant.

After his thuggish friend left, Joe and Gus sat back down at the table Gus had just shared with his son and granddaughter, and Joe began talking.

“Konstantin was my friend,” he said. “I knew him before he married Perla. She never liked me. She never liked anyone who got too close to Konstantin. I never got invited to any of the parties, but I’m one of the few people he ever confided in. Konstantin didn’t trust many people. I was there in Biarritz the night of the fire. For two days he had wanted to talk to me alone. He was very medicated for his ALS and his anxiety. I could see in his eyes he had something he wanted to tell me,
but Perla would never let me be alone with him. She knew that anything negative that was said about their household could tarnish their social standing, and she was careful to control all information. I no sooner got into Konstantin’s room than she walked in and stayed until I left. He didn’t want to sell the bank. He wanted that bank to stay in the family and go to his brother. Perla’s the one who pushed for the sale. Believe me, she doesn’t want to have to have any dealings with Konstantin’s brother, who never liked her and had discouraged Konstantin from marrying her.”

Joe paused for a moment to catch his breath and then added, hesitantly, “There’s something wrong, you know. Konstantin was a dear friend, and it kills me that Perla’s obsession with making this story die down so she can be Adele fucking Harcourt is standing in the way of giving all of us who cared about Konstantin some peace and letting us understand what really happened. Has she tried to stop the publication of your book that I saw announced in Kit Jones’s column?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“She will. Who’s the billionaire who owns your publisher?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, whoever he is, she’ll get to him. Those billionaires all know each other. They stick together.”

Gus’s stomach churned at the thought. He had already been forced to stop writing about the Zacharias case in the magazine, he had this terrifying lawsuit pending, and he just generally wasn’t feeling like himself lately. He did not have a personal life. He had two sons and a granddaughter he loved dearly but didn’t see enough. There was no companion to keep him company. The book was the only positive thing in his life right now that was all his own. He couldn’t stand to lose it.

“Has she offered you any money?” Joe Carey pressed.

“No.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she offered you as much as two million not to write,” said Joe.

“I might be tempted,” said Gus, joking. “These legal bills are looming in my slander suit.”

“She’s afraid of you, Gus. The word’s out that people from Johannesburg and Paris are phoning you. Your core audience is the kind of people she wants to be in with. If you need any help with that lawsuit when the time comes, let me know,” said Joe. “I read about it in Toby Tilden’s column. You could have been set up on that, you know.”

“Come to think of it, she has been suspiciously quiet recently. When she first heard about the deal she tried to arrange an interview with me before it was killed by her lawyer, Pierre La Rouche. Then Perla had one of her lesser legal minions invite me to his office in Gramercy Park to meet and discuss the book I intended to write about the case.”

“Did he hint at an offer?”

“Not exactly, but he did give me some first editions of very rare books, which I happen to collect. I guess they wanted to try honey before vinegar. Two of my favorite English novels were among them: Anthony Trollope’s
The Way We Live Now
and Evelyn Waugh’s
Brideshead Revisited
. She’d done her research on me. I opened the wrapping paper. I held the books in my hand, yearned for them briefly, and then didn’t want them anymore. I haven’t heard anything since then, but I can’t imagine she would have given up. That’s just not the kind of woman she is.”

“Gus,” Joe said quietly, “there’s a very hush-hush rumor that Perla is going to make a very substantial contribution to the Manhattan Public Library, but there are strings attached.”

“What sort of strings?”

“She wants the library to be renamed the Perla and Konstantin Zacharias Library. She wants their names carved into the stone on the Fifth Avenue side.”

“That will never happen,” said Gus.

“It might if she pays the hundred million in one lump sum, not in increments of ten million a year for ten years, or something like that.”

“That’ll be enough to send Adele Harcourt to her grave. Listen, Joe,” Gus continued. “Here’s my card. It has all my phone numbers and fax numbers and my e-mail address. I’d love to meet you for lunch or dinner. We have a lot to talk about.”

Joe motioned with his hand that he had one more thing to say. He leaned in.

“I made a condolence call the day after the fire. There was no sense of mourning whatsoever in that household. She has this fancy Johannesburg butler in livery who showed me to the library. I thought she’d be dressed in widow’s weeds, fighting back tears, receiving her friends. Instead, she was sitting at a desk and making out a list of people to be invited to the funeral, as if she were making out a guest list for a party. I told her how sorry I was about Konstantin. She simply said, ‘So sweet of you,’ clearly wanting to get back to her invitation chores. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, maybe she’s just ice-cold, but she avoided answering my questions about the fire. In a very matter-of-fact voice, she revealed the astonishing news that the male nurse, whose name she couldn’t remember, had confessed to setting the fire and had already been arrested and put into the Biarritz jail. Then she more or less dismissed me from her presence. On my way out, she asked me to tell her secretary that she needed the address for the Infanta of Spain, whom she wanted to invite to the funeral.”

Joe leaned back in his chair.

“By the way, I didn’t get invited to the funeral.”

“But the Infanta of Spain did, I bet,” said Gus.

“Yeah, and her picture was in
Hello!”
They both laughed.

Joe Carey telephoned Gus the next morning to set up a date
for lunch, and Gus found it amusing how specific he was as to where he did
not
want to meet.

“I don’t want to go to Swifty’s, or Michael’s, or ‘21,’ or the Four Seasons, or Le Cirque, where you seem to know all the people. I was watching you last night at Le Cirque. People kept stopping at your table,” said Joe. “I’m a background player. It’s not a good thing for you and me to be seen together.”

“I understand that,” said Gus. “Tell me where you want to go, and I’ll meet you there.”

“I’ll have my driver pick you up at your building at twelve thirty, and I’ll take you to lunch where you won’t see a soul you know, and no one will know you either.”

“I
KNOW
it doesn’t look like much, but the food’s good,” said Joe, after Gus joined him in the back of the somewhat dingy steak house. It was slightly dark and depressing, without any sort of atmosphere at all. They could talk freely there.

“Everything’s fine,” replied Gus. “I like it here. This lunch isn’t about food or being recognized. Tell me about Konstantin.”

Joe let out a heavy sigh and began talking.

“Konstantin was like a father to me. Ever since he ratted out the Russian mafia to the FBI for money laundering, he knew that what happened to him was going to happen at some time. He was frightened. He became paranoid. He thought assassins were hiding behind the curtains in the villa in Biarritz. All the doctors he felt safe with were fired, and the new doctors kept him overmedicated. And, as I mentioned yesterday, Perla was always in the room with him whenever anyone came to visit. If he ever got to talk on the telephone, she was listening on another extension.”