The Wrong Kind of Money (23 page)

“Yes, but in a rather special sense, Nana. It isn't like a book that you don't have to read if the subject doesn't interest you. It's not like a painting that can be passed by, or a piece of music that you don't have to listen to if you don't like it. A building—particularly a corporate building, and a building of the size you have in mind—imposes itself on people. If you have business to do there, you have to find the building on the street, enter it, and find your way around inside. Buildings envelop us, wrap themselves around us, so they should be both pleasing to the eye and pleasing to the spirit.”

“Huh!” she said again. “And you don't think this one is?”

“I really don't, Nana. It seems to me that when a business organization decides to build a building, it takes a moral position. And it's up to the architect to try to express that moral position.”

“And you don't think Frankel and Steiner have done this?”

“Frankly, in this case, Nana, no.”

“Well,” Hannah said, “I don't suppose you have anybody better in mind, do you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Carol said.

“Who?”

“His name is Jean-Pierre Selancy. He's a Frenchman—quite young, only twenty-eight. He's won prizes for a theater complex he designed in Paris and an office tower in Marseille. His work has never before been represented in the United States. He's quite wonderful.”

“Hmm,” Hannah said. “If he's never worked in this country before, then he might be willing to work for less—for the opportunity to design an important New York building.”

“That's a good point, Nana,” Carol said. “He just might.”

“Make a note of that name, Noah,” his mother said.

The subject of the new Ingraham Building did not come up again for several months. Carol made a point of not mentioning it to Noah. She knew the situation was a tricky one, and she knew that Noah was on her side. She had heard that invitations to submit designs had gone out to four more architects. But she didn't know whether Jean-Pierre Selancy was one of these, and she was a little too afraid to ask. She did know that, in the end, the decision would be Nana Hannah's. Though Hannah always made a great point of insisting that she bowed to Noah's judgment on many matters, Carol knew that it was still Hannah who had the final word.

Then, one evening, Noah came home beaming. “I've got great news,” he said. “She's chosen your French architect. Congratulations, darling.”

Carol clapped her hands. “Wonderful,” she said. “We've won!”

He hesitated. “But then, the bad news is—”

“Wait,” she said. “Let me guess what the bad news is. The bad news is that she's taking all the credit for having found Monsieur Selancy. Am I right?”

He gave her a rueful look. “Well, yes,” he said.

“That doesn't surprise me in the slightest,” she said with a shrug.

The next morning she picked up the
New York Times
and saw, on the front page, the headline:

Design for New Ingraham

Building Is Unveiled

The illustration showed the architect's rendering of a slender, graceful tower to be built of bronze and glass, facing a plaza landscaped with trees, pools, and fountains. Paul Goldberger, the
Times
's architecture critic, went on to praise the design's “splendid simplicity,” its “fluidity of upward motion,” and its “timeless grandeur and glowing elegance.”

And toward the end of the article, Carol read:

The building's prize-winning architect, Jean-Pierre Selancy of Paris, has never before been represented in America. His design was chosen, over many other candidates, by Mrs. Hannah S. Liebling, the farsighted CEO of Ingraham's.…

“You're not upset, I hope,” Noah said to her that night.

“Heavens, no. I'm used to the way she operates. I'm just happy that you're going to have a beautiful new building, and not that upended egg crate she wanted in the beginning.”

A few days later, Hannah mentioned it to Carol. “What did you think of the
Times
story?” she asked her.

“I thought it was absolutely wonderful,” Carol said.

“They called me farsighted,” Hannah said.

“It was exactly what you wanted, wasn't it? Of course, I noticed the misprint. It should have said the architect was chosen by Mrs. Noah Liebling, not Mrs. Hannah Liebling. But that's understandable. The names—Noah and Hannah—are so similar.”

Her mother-in-law gave her one of her narrow looks. Then she said, “I think you ought to be spending more time on your museum work, Carol. And try not to get too involved with the distilled spirits industry.”

And that, in fact, was precisely what Carol planned to do. Just that morning, in
Art & Antiques
magazine, she had read:

Perhaps the most extensive, and valuable, collection of antique Chinese and Japanese porcelains is in private hands, and has never been seen by the public. This is the collection begun by the late Truxton Van Degan, the glass manufacturer, in the late 1800s, and greatly added to by his son, Truxton Van Degan, Jr., in the 1920s. The bulk of the Van Degan collection remains in the vaults of several New York banks because of the enormous insurance costs that would be entailed if it were to be removed.

Carol decided that this would be her next project. She had met Mrs. Truxton Van Degan several times at Brearley parent-teacher meetings. At that point she and Georgette Van Degan were little more than nodding acquaintances. But that would be a good place to start.

In the darkness of their bedroom, Noah said to her, “I'm sorry your ‘Uncovered Treasures' wasn't a go.”

“I think I made a mistake,” she said. “I thought all I needed was the director's approval. I think I should have spent more time lobbying among the trustees—taking them to lunch. That sort of thing. That might have made a difference.”

“Kissing asses,” he said.

“Yes.”

“But you want to know what I think?”

“What?”

“I don't think your director ever showed your presentation to the board of trustees.”

“Really, Noah? What makes you say that?”

“I think he decided it didn't make him look good. I think he decided it would look like sloppy housekeeping on his part. All that valuable art lying around in warehouses, and he didn't even know it existed. He killed your idea to cover his ass.”

She hesitated. Then she said, “You know something, Noah? I think you may be right.”

“I'm sure I'm right. Think about it for a minute. He's the chief honcho of the Met Museum. And suddenly all this important stuff he's supposed to be in charge of gets turned up by a mere—woman.”

“And a mere volunteer,” she said. “Of course.”

“Kissing asses. Covering asses. That's what business is all about.”

She lay in silence, thinking about this. Then she heard him rise from the bed next to hers. She felt him pull back the sheet and coverlet from her bed, and kiss the hollow between her bare breasts. “Uncovered treasures,” he said.

8

A Delicate Matter

You may have got the impression, from the story thus far, that Cyril is something of a cipher in the Liebling family. He is in some ways, but in some ways he most definitely is not. Certainly Cyril himself does not think of himself as a cipher. In fact, Cyril often reminds himself, if it were not for Cyril, his younger brother would never have attained the position he did. One could go even further and point out that if it were not for Cyril (and Cyril's misdeeds in his father's eyes), there might never have been a Noah Liebling at all. Without Noah there would have been no Carol. Without Noah and Carol there would have been no Anne; without Anne there would have been no Melody Richards; without Melody, William Luckman would never have come into any of their lives, and none of these people would have come together so explosively as to create a homicide case, as became clear at the trial.

Looked at this way, Cyril becomes the pivotal figure in the ennead. And so, though it involves a matter of some delicacy, Cyril's story deserves to be told fully and honestly.

Cyril's engraved business letterhead reads:

CYRIL DE R. LIEBLING

Public Relations

1000 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10028

The “de R” is something of an affectation. Cyril's actual middle name is David. But Cyril does not object too strenuously if some of his clients suppose that “de R” stands for de Rothschild, and that Cyril is somehow connected to the European banking family. Cyril is not above inventing relatives. He might say, “My cousin, Baron Guy de Rothschild …” Just as often he will say, “My sister, the Princess di Pascanelli …” This is all right. This is all part of what is called public relations.

Which brings us to the matter of clients. If you ask his mother, she would no doubt snort and say that Cyril doesn't have any clients. Where his mother is concerned, Cyril encourages this view. Living, as he does, on the upper floor of what used to be her duplex apartment, Cyril does his best to keep his mother's nose out of his business. He will often speak mysteriously of having to leave for “an important client lunch” or “an important client dinner.”

“Who's the client?” Hannah will demand to know.

“I'm not at liberty to say.”

“Huh!”

Actually, he has several clients. One is a young dress designer whom Cyril is trying to establish as a fashion force. Another is a hair stylist from France who calls himself simply “Philippe,” and whom such powerful and important New York women as Patsy Collingwood and Pookie Satterthwaite and, more recently, Georgette Van Degan have begun to use. Cyril's plan for Philippe is to help him launch his own line of hair products. That's where the money is in the hair business, not in doing comb-outs. Cyril has promised to make Philippe the next Vidal Sassoon. Or at least to try.

In 1956, however, Cyril was involved in a much graver matter. It was a summer Sunday evening in Tarrytown, at Grandmont, and Hannah, Jules, and Bathy were gathered in what was called the music room—watching
The Ed Sullivan Show.
Just a month earner, Ruth Liebling had run off and married the Brazilian copper heir Antonio Fernandez-Just, much to her father's displeasure. There had been much publicity about this, mostly centered on the fact that Ruth was only eighteen, while Sr. Fernandez-Just, who had had four previous wives, was fifty-seven. Jules had been spending quite a lot of time on the telephone to Sao Paulo, trying to persuade Ruth of the unwisdom of this union, but without success, and so this was not the most relaxed of times in the Liebling household. Still,
The Ed Sullivan Show
was one of Jules's favorites, and the three of them had planned to spend a quiet evening at home.

Cyril, who was twenty-two, had taken his car to join a friend and drive to Manhattan to see a performance of
My Fair Lady.
Little Noah was in his room being read to by his governess. The other servants had been given the afternoon and evening off, as they always were every other Sunday. One of Ed Sullivan's guests was a trained chimpanzee, and Jules was laughing at its antics. Hannah was passing a bowl of fresh popcorn that her cook had made earlier in the day. And in the middle of this almost tranquil scene, the telephone rang. Jules, thinking that it might be Ruth ready to capitulate, picked it up on the first ring, and Bathy reached out and lowered the volume on the TV set.

“Pop
!” he heard Cyril's voice shout. “Pop! I've been kidnapped!”

“Kidnapped? What do you mean? Where are you, Cyril?”

At the word “kidnapped,” the others in the room froze. Hannah dropped the bowl of popcorn, and it scattered across the carpet. Bathy jumped to her feet and turned off the television. It had been one of their worst fears, not so much for Cyril, their grown son, as for little Noah.

“Tell me what happened, Cyril.”

“Two men. I was coming down the drive, headed for New York to pick up my friend and go to the show. When I got to the gate, there was a car parked across the drive.…”

“What kind of a car?”

“I don't remember. I think it was black. I got out of my car to see what the matter was.… It was dark, I couldn't see …”

Bathy stepped quickly to the phone and whispered to Jules: “Keep him on the phone as long as possible. I'll call from the other line and see if they can trace this call.” Jules nodded, and Bathy ran to the next room.

“And then what happened?”

“Two men came out of the bushes. They were wearing ski masks. They had guns. They grabbed me. I tried to fight them off, but they knocked me down in the gravel. I struggled, but one of them put his gun at my head and told me not to move. Then they tied me up, put a blindfold on me, and put a gag on my mouth. Then they carried me, and threw me in the backseat of their car.…”

“Where did they take you, Cyril?”

“I don't know. They drove a long time—maybe a half hour. We crossed two bridges. At least it
sounded
like we crossed two bridges. So I don't think I'm in Westchester County anymore.”

“You don't know where you are?”

“I'm in this
room,
Pop! I don't know where it is. There're no windows. I can't see out. They carried me up two flights of stairs to get me here, I know that.…”

“Can you describe the room, son?”

“Pop, they're right
here
! They're here in this room with me. They're both sitting right here with me. Pointing guns at me. Wearing ski masks. They've got me tied to a chair. One of them is holding the phone so I can talk to you.…”

“Does either of these men wish to speak to me?”

He heard his son's voice say, “My father wants to know if you want to talk to him.”

Then a man's voice came on the line. “Mr. Liebling?” the voice said. “We have your son. He is quite safe, for now,” and Jules thought he detected a foreign accent.