People Like Us (27 page)

Laurance Van Degan accepted the astonishing news without astonishment. It was not for him to register shock, or surprise, or fear, in front of a servant, although, strictly speaking, Miss Mae Toomey could not exactly be classified as a servant. Laurance Van Degan’s consciousness of his superiority did not desert him during the fifteen-minute encounter with his father’s nurse. However, when Laurance Van Degan imparted that same news to his sister later in the day, in his office, it was almost more than Lil could bear. Their father, Ormonde Van Degan, the head of the family—although stroked, incontinent, and possibly senile—had made it known to Miss Toomey that he intended to elope with Dodo Fitz Alyn.

Lil, weeping, said, “But, surely, Laurance, there can be nothing
intimate
in their relationship.”

“Don’t be too sure of that, Lil,” said Laurance.

“What do you mean? The man is eighty-four.”

“She runs dirty videos for him.”

“Oh, Laurance, for God’s sake. It’s too ridiculous.”

“It’s also true.”

“How do you know that?”

“Miss Toomey.”

“Who’s Miss Toomey?”

“The nurse.”

“Oh, yes, of course, Miss Toomey. I always called her Mae.”

“And then she jerks him off.”

“Miss Toomey jerks Father off?”

“No, Lil, for God’s sake. Don’t be so dense. Dodo jerks off Father when he looks at the dirty videos.”

Lil shuddered. “After all we’ve done for Dodo Fitz Alyn, Laurance. No one wanted her. Reared among all those peculiar people. Her father went to prison for tax evasion. Her mother ran off with one of those awful Orromeo brothers. Her uncle jumped off the
Queen Elizabeth
after doing whatever unspeakable act he did with that Cockney sailor. And we, poor fools, took her in and gave her a home and paid for her education.”

“I know her history, Lil.”

“Next thing I suppose she’ll expect to figure in Father’s will?”

“More than that.”

Lil stiffened. In matters of inheritance and heirlooms, Lil Altemus always became alert. “What do you mean?”

“Up front. Dodo wants money up front as well.”

“How much money?”

“Twelve million.”

She laughed at the absurdity. “I can’t believe any of this, Laurance.”

“Plus,” he added.

“What do you mean
plus?
”

“She wants the house in Southampton to be put in her name.”

“Mother’s house?” asked Lil, aghast.

“And she wants the Romney picture of Lady Rushington to be hers. And the Fabergé eggs to be put in her name as well.”

“But those were Mother’s things, Laurance,” said Lil.

“Now they’re going to be Dodo’s,” answered Laurance.

“But Mother always said they were to be mine.
You know that. You heard her say it a thousand times, Laurance.”

“She didn’t put it in writing, though. She just assumed Father would leave them to you in his will.”

“All this time we thought ‘poor Dodo’ was pushing around his wheelchair, she’s been taking inventory?”

“So it appears.”

“And you’re going to allow this, Laurance? You of all people? The strength of the family. You’re going to let this fat orphan dictate those terms to us? Stand up to that sneaky bitch. Show her who’s boss. What’s she going to do if you tell her no, absolutely no?”

“She’s going to stop jerking off Father. That’s what she’s going to do. And, apparently, Father likes to be jerked off.”

Lil, crestfallen, began to gather up her things. “I always thought—” she said and then stopped midsentence.

“Thought what, Lil?” asked her brother.

“I always thought Dodo was a dyke.”

Laurance looked at her. “What’s a dyke?” he asked.

“A Daughter of Bilitis,” said Lil, in explanation.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Lil,” said her brother.

“Like Aunt Grace Gardiner.”

“Oh,” said Laurance, understanding at last. “A lezzie, you mean. Do you know something, Lil? I always thought Dodo was a lezzie too.”

They looked at each other and started to laugh. Within seconds they became helpless with laughter. Laurance rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window looking down on the street below, and shook with uncontrollable laughter. Lil fell backward onto the sofa and stared upward, shrieking with laughter. Images of their octogenarian father being jerked off by fat Dodo Fitz Alyn brought fresh torrents of laughter.

Only the appearance of Miss Wentworth, Laurance’s secretary, entering without knocking, quelled their near hysteria. Lil reached again for a handkerchief in her handbag and blew her nose and wiped her eyes. In
charge of herself once more, she wondered why Miss Wentworth dyed her hair so very black. She considered offering Miss Wentworth a free appointment with Bobo, to have her hair colored and frosted correctly, and then abandoned the idea.

“Yes, Irene,” said Laurance, collecting himself.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Van Degan, but I rang and you didn’t hear me.”

“What is it, Irene?”

“Elias Renthal is on the telephone. He says it’s important.”

“Oh, yes, thank you, Irene.” Laurance Van Degan was back to business again, his momentary lapse into mirth already forgotten. He picked up the telephone. “Hello, Elias,” he said, with the sort of cordiality he usually reserved for cabinet ministers. It was only later that Lil remembered that note of affability in her brother’s voice as he spoke to a man she still considered the most vulgar man in New York.

24

“I’m thinking of writing a book,” said Yvonne Lupescu.

“These days everyone’s thinking of writing a book,” replied Gus Bailey.

“Very few people know anything about Albania, as it was, before communism, of course, but it has a fascinating history. My grandmother was the mistress of King Zog.”

Gus stared at her. “You once told me that, as I remember,” he said.

“I wondered if you’d help me with it,” she said. They were sitting at Clarence’s, having lunch.

“Is that the urgent thing you wanted to discuss over lunch at Clarence’s? Court life in Albania?” asked Gus.

“Yes.”

“It is not a topic that enthralls me,” said Gus.

“But it’s fascinating. You know what Constantine always says, don’t you?” she asked, smiling in advance at the quotation she was about to give.

“No, I don’t know what Constantine always says,” he replied.

“He always says, ‘Life at court is rotten to the core, but it spoils you for everything else.’ ” She laughed. “Don’t you think that’s marvelous?”

“It was even more marvelous when Congreve wrote it,” replied Gus.

Undeterred, she proceeded. “I’d tell you everything, and you would write it.”

“I’m planning on writing my own book.”

“You’re not turning me down?”

“Yes.”

“You turn me down a lot, Gus.”

“You’ve noticed.”

She stared at him.

“Why did you aim so badly?” asked Gus.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“People say you shot Constantine,” said Gus.

Yvonne smiled wearily and shook her head slowly, as if what Gus had said was a falsehood that she had grown accustomed to hearing. “It’s not true,” she said calmly. “Constantine shot himself. What is true is that I was going to leave him. My bags were packed. The police will tell you that. He couldn’t bear it when I told him I was going to leave, and, poor darling, he tried to do away with himself.”

“Where were you?”

“When?”

“When he shot himself.”

“I was at Justine Altemus’s wedding reception. You saw me.”

“So did half New York.”

“I hear Bernie Slatkin’s playing around already,” said Yvonne, her eyes sparkling with the latest gossip.

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Gus quickly, determined not to let her change the subject.

“Someone I know saw him at an out-of-the-way restaurant on the West Side with a young lady. Very beautiful,” she said.

Gus ignored her. “You weren’t invited to Justine’s wedding, and you came.”

“But I was meeting you.”

“But I didn’t ask you to meet me.”

“Gus,” she said, in a tone a mother would use to a favorite forgetful child.

“Yvonne, it’s me,” said Gus, pointing to himself. “Don’t bullshit with me. You crashed the wedding. You pretended you were meeting me. You caught the bride’s bouquet just to make sure everyone saw that you were there. The wedding reception was your alibi.”

“You should take up fiction, Gus.”

“Aren’t you afraid Constantine will blow the whistle on you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because Constantine needs me in a way you know nothing about,” replied Yvonne, smiling mysteriously.

“He likes it when you whip him, is that it?”

“Wherever did you hear such a story?”

“One of your cohorts.”

“That awful Jorgie Sanchez-Julia, I bet.”

Gus did not reply.

“It was never an every-night sort of thing,” said Yvonne, dismissively. “Nor remotely dangerous. Quite mild, in feet. I just whip him on his buttocks and sometimes on his back. A few welts, that’s all, enough to feel pain, but nothing serious. I call him a failure, a flop, a nothing, while I whip him. It’s his deepest fear, you see, under all that pomposity of his, that that is what people think of him. Curiously, it excites him. Otherwise he can’t become erect.”

Gus stared at her. He never knew if she was lying or not.

“The boredom, of course, is that he becomes so bad tempered on the mornings afterward, after begging me to do it,” said Yvonne.

“Where did you first connect with Constantine de Rham?”

“I was in Paris on my way to Brazil to meet the grandmother of a man I was at the time engaged to marry,” said Yvonne. Yvonne enjoyed telling Gus tales of her adventures. She saw herself as the basis for a character in a novel and could even imagine herself saying at some future dinner party. “Oh, that Gus Bailey. That awful man. He based that character on me, but he got it all wrong. I should sue. Really, I should,” but all the time basking in the importance that the notoriety gave her.

“Rudi Guevara, he was called,” she said, going on with her story. “Did you hear of him? His brother was the polo player, Carlos Guevara?”

“No,” answered Gus. “I don’t know any of those people.”

“His grandmother had all the money, and Rudi insisted I meet her before we married so that we could be in her good graces. At the last minute the grandmother got sick, and the trip was canceled. At least I got canceled. Rudi went on to Brazil. I was all alone in Paris and didn’t know many people there. There was a big party that night for an American financier, and they needed an extra girl, someone pretty, and a friend of a friend suggested that I go.”

“Was the friend of the friend Madam Myra, by any chance?”

Yvonne looked at Gus and ignored his interruption. “I suppose I was meant to provide amusement for the rich American. I was asked to come in late, after dinner, something I wouldn’t do now, come in after dinner—it’s an insult to be asked to come in after dinner—but I was lonely and had nothing better to do. Are you listening?”

“Yes, I’m listening,” said Gus.

“I was looking great that night. I even remember what I was wearing, a little number from Dior that Rudi bought me to knock them dead in Brazil, and I put his engagement ring on the other hand and went to the party. When I walked into the party, there was the financier sitting on a chair with his teenage daughter on his lap. When he saw me, he stood up, and the daughter went toppling over on the floor. The financier didn’t even notice her. He came right over to me and introduced himself. He had a big fat stomach, and he was drunk, but he was said to be one of the richest men in America, and everyone overlooked his drawbacks. He followed me around all night and kept whispering to me that he was going to marry me.”

“How does Constantine de Rham fit into this story?”

“Constantine rescued me from the rich, fat, drunk American. He was so charming.”

“I see. And it went on from there?”

“It went on from there,” answered Yvonne.

“What about the Brazilian?”

“Oh, Rudi. He got lost along the way.”

For a while they sat, saying nothing.

“I thought you were a good reporter, Gus?”

Gus shrugged.

“You didn’t ask me who the rich, fat, drunk American was.”

“You’re right. I didn’t.”

“Elias Renthal.”

Gus did not react to what she had said. He had long ago learned to look as if nothing startled him.

“That was just before he met the present Mrs. Renthal, of course, Ruby, and she classed him up,” said Yvonne.

“You mean, if you’d played your cards right that night in Paris, you might be the immensely rich Mrs. Elias Renthal these days, instead of the companion, with quotation marks, as Mavis Jones refers to you in her column, to Constantine de Rham.”

“Something like that,” replied Yvonne, shaking her head, to indicate she had made a wrong choice.

“My feeling is that Constantine is not generous with you. Am I correct?” asked Gus.

“It’s a myth that Constantine is so rich,” answered Yvonne. “He’s not. A few million, that’s all, that he can’t even touch the principal on.”