Too Much Money (25 page)

Most of all, though, it thrilled her that she, a born mimic, could keep Xavior in hysterics as he went about his work with her accounts of her lunches with Lil Altemus. Lil and her daughter, Justine, had always just ignored Dodo. She was a
family embarrassment. She had been a poor, distant relation of the Van Degans when her father had jumped overboard off the
Queen Elizabeth
in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean after an immoral incident with a seventeen-year-old Cockney deckhand in the engine room had scandalized the voyage. Dorothy Kilgallen, who happened to be on board for the maiden voyage, wrote a front-page story in the
Journal-American
, giving every detail of the perverted shipboard encounter, which caused enormous embarrassment to the Van Degan family. Dodo’s mother, a hopeless drunk who once had been considered a beauty, had long lost her looks and spent more time at Silver Hill than she ever did with her forgotten daughter. Dodo grew up sleeping in maids’ rooms of rich relatives, going to public school rather than Brearley, where her cousins all went. Now, in her new incarnation, she loved the feeling of making Xavior laugh. She felt honored when Xavior told her that his friends Jonsie and Brucie thought she was a camp. Dodo didn’t even know what a camp was, but she liked the sound of it and took it as a compliment, as it was meant to be. Xavior was very good at needlepoint, and he made a needlepoint pillow for her birthday that said MY FAVORITE CAMP. No one had ever given her a gift that was made just for her before. She kept it propped up against the pillows on her side of the bed.

P
ETER
L
OMBARDO
, G
US’S SLANDER LAWYER, HAD
been hard at work trying to prepare Gus for the upcoming deposition. He had just hired another, younger lawyer in the firm, Miranda Slater, whose parents Gus knew. She asked him the difficult sort of questions that Win Burch, the greatly feared lawyer for the former congressman Kyle Cramden, would probably ask him, using the mocking tone of voice that Burch was certain to use. He was known to bring people to tears during depositions. These theatrics were taking their toll on Gus, and Peter Lombardo could see it.

He and Gus had become close in the months of preparation, and Peter thought that Miranda Slater, the smartest and toughest of the younger lawyers in the firm, would be tougher on Gus than he would, or could. They had listened to a tape of the radio show on which Gus had said that he felt Kyle Cramden knew more about the disappearance of Diandra Lomax than he had ever let on, which was the basis of the slander suit that was so complicating his life. Just as difficult was the matter of going silent on the subject, which of course was required at present, and which Gus had a hard time doing. But he soldiered on—refusing to discuss the lawsuit or the upcoming deposition—for fear of being quoted.

On this day, however, Peter Lombardo was waiting for Gus when he arrived at his office and was without the newest addition of their legal team, Ms. Slater.

“Gus,” Peter said uneasily, “something unexpected has come up. I had a call from Win Burch this morning.”

Peter dispensed with the usual morning handshake. Gus took a deep breath.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “I hate the sound of your troubled voice, Peter. What terrible thing has Win Burch wrought now?”

“I’m afraid this is going to upset you, Gus.”

Peter walked into his office and offered a seat to Gus, which he readily took.

“Go on.”

“Two men of foreign origin who claim they were trained in intelligence by the Mossad in Israel went to see Win Burch and Kyle Cramden. They claim to have done Perla Zacharias’s investigation of Augustus Bailey, meaning you.”

Gus sat up, startled, and gazed at Peter wide-eyed.

“Me? Perla Zacharias did an investigation of me? She’s getting involved with the lawsuit?”

“The investigation began after you started writing about her, and it’s apparently escalated since the book deal. She doesn’t like you, Gus. She knows you know things. She’s after you. People say she always gets even. She knows how upset you are about Kyle Cramden and Win Burch.”

Gus replied, “I shouldn’t be surprised, really. I always thought I was being followed, and I had my suspicions as to who was behind it. Did I tell you about the time at Claridge’s in London when I went into my room and there was a man standing there?”

Peter rested his hand on his chin. He couldn’t help but notice how weathered Gus seemed. The light in his eyes had faded, replaced by a new, uncertain appearance.

“Gus,” he inserted calmly, “if you were being followed, you certainly didn’t tell me. That much I would’ve remembered.”

Gus leaned forward, placing his hands on the edge of Peter’s desk.

“I was scared, Peter. My heart was beating a mile a minute. There was this big tall heavy guy with a mustache in a gray flannel suit. Cool as a cucumber. Not a bit unnerved by my unexpected arrival. ‘I was checking your minibar, Mr. Bailey,’ he said. So likely. Third World men with aprons to the floor check the minibars at Claridge’s, and they don’t know the names of the guests whose minibars they are checking. I was afraid of him.”

“It sounds like you interrupted whatever it was he was there to do.”

Gus nodded.

“I opened the door. I said I never use the minibar. He left.”

“Jesus, Gus.”

“How did he get a key to get into my room at one of the most expensive hotels in the world? What was he looking for, or what was he planting?”

Peter sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. Gus went on to explain how a year later he saw the same man in New York at an auction at Boothby’s of Perla Zacharias’s Fabergé eggs. Gus spoke frantically, explaining how the man recognized him and then vanished quickly into another room. Gus was convinced he must have been one of Perla’s guards.

“He gave me the creeps,” Gus remarked, almost in a whisper.

Peter smiled, reaching out his hands.

“Oh, come on, Gus. Really? The same guy? Are you sure? Don’t you think you’re just overexhausted with this whole ordeal?”

Gus crossed his legs and folded his arms.

“Don’t placate me, Peter. It was the same guy. I told you
about the doorman in my building who told me a man in a green Nissan was following me every time I left the building?”

“Gus, that could simply be a crazy fan. You’re getting carried away.”

Gus closed his eyes for a moment and cleared his throat. While he knew he sounded crazy, it was all true. The guy had been there, and Gus wasn’t about to dismiss it as a mere fluke.
Things like this just happen to me
, he thought.
They always have and always will
.

Gus studied the look on Peter’s face and immediately realized he didn’t want to know whatever news his lawyer had to impart. There was a tremendously awkward sort of expression taking hold as Peter opened his mouth to speak.

“Gus, these two men Perla hired—well, they’ve told Win Burch a very distressing story about you. I’m embarrassed to have to repeat it to you.”

Gus felt a lump forming in his throat.

“What?”

“They said some documents have come into their possession that allege you molested a young boy when you were staying at the Hôtel du Palais. Supposedly there is a maid who says she walked in on you.”

Gus, stunned, stared at Peter. “But that’s not true,” he said quickly. “No such thing happened. No such thing has ever happened. That’s based on an old rumor that someone tried to start about me when he didn’t like how he was depicted in one of my books. It never got off the ground because it was so absurd. That’s exactly the kind of ruinous story that Perla Zacharias would spread, and she’s got enough money and power to make people pay attention this time around.”

Gus could feel the adrenaline rushing through his body. His fingers began to tremble.

“I know it’s not true,” Peter replied immediately.

“It’s not,” Gus repeated.

“Listen, Gus—I think Win Burch knows it’s not true, but he’s going to bring it up in the deposition, which is being videotaped and will be available to the media.”

“Dear God,” said Gus, covering his face with his hands. “This is the sort of story you can never live down.”

Collecting himself, Gus sat upright. His defeated expression was replaced with a new one of determination. He recrossed his legs and crossed his arms smartly.

With each thought Gus grew angrier.

“Call the manager of the Hôtel du Palais. His name is Valentino Piazzi. He used to be at the Ritz in Paris. He knows me. Ask Valentino if a maid made a report on this incident to the manager of the hotel at the time. Or has she just suddenly remembered this?”

Peter waved down Gus’s directives.

“It’s a form of extortion,” he said calmly. “They think you’ll settle quickly rather than go through the deposition, knowing that the story will be out.”

Then Peter paused for a moment, leaning back in his leather chair.

“Gus, there’s other gossip about you. Gossip that, unlike this preposterous story, might be closer to the truth. You must know that.”

Gus sighed, looking down at the striped tie that he’d bought for himself at the Turnbull & Asser shop just a few days earlier.

“I do, yes. It’s very old gossip, however.”

The room grew silent but for the distant sound of cars honking on the streets below.

“Probably true, whatever you’ve heard,” Gus added as casually as he could.

“Heard?” Peter inquired.

“Oh you know, that I’m deep within the closet.”

Peter shifted uneasily in his chair and nodded.

“Well, maybe I am … in the closet. So what? What you haven’t heard is that I’ve been celibate for almost twenty years. Such a relief, celibacy. That should read well in Toby Tilden’s column after Win Burch plants it.”

“Gus, you didn’t have to tell me all this,” said Peter.

“Yes, I did. Actually, I feel quite relieved having said it. I’m beyond eighty, you know. Mustn’t have any more secrets. Can’t die with a secret, you know. I’m nervous about the kids, even though they’re middle-aged men now. Not that they don’t already know. I just never talk about it. It’s been a lifelong problem.”

Gus got up and walked to the window of the small conference room where they were meeting. He looked down at the street twenty-seven floors below. Peter could see that he took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. All his life Gus had dreaded leveling with his children on that topic.

“You have no idea how wonderful my sons have been,” he said, tearing up. “If I still drank, I’d order a martini right now. Straight up with a twist. And I’d light up a joint at the same time.”

“Gus, I’ve always heard great things about your sons. And your sexuality should have nothing to do with this extortion plot. Please don’t lose sleep over it. Do you want to postpone this rehearsal for the deposition?” asked Peter.

Gus turned around and managed a smile.

“No, let’s get back to work. There’s no way I’m going to be blackmailed into a settlement.”

“I thought you always wanted to settle from the beginning.”

“I did, but not this way,” said Gus. “I’ve gotten tough in my old age, Peter.”

“I like to see you pissed off,” said Peter. “It adds color to your face.”

T
HAT NIGHT
G
US ARRIVED HOME FROM
P
ETER
Lombardo’s office and pulled his laptop from the other side of his bed to write in his diary before he went to sleep.

G
US TELEPHONED
the real estate tycoon Maisie Verdurin, who was having another of her famous dinner parties for sixty, where nearly every guest was a person of accomplishment in the world of media and money in New York.

“Maisie, it’s Gus.” Years earlier, way back in the fifties when they were all young, before she had become a full-fledged real estate agent, Maisie had found Gus and his late former wife, Peach, their first apartment in New York after their marriage. Years later, after Gus moved back to New York following his Hollywood career, he became a regular at Maisie’s dinner parties.

“You’re not calling to back out on me again, are you, Gus? I’m going to be furious with you.” said Maisie. “Last time I had you seated next to Baroness de Liagra from Paris, and you backed out at ten minutes of eight, as I remember.”

“No, Maisie, I’m not backing out. I’m coming. I promise. Best conversation in town is at your tables. But I need a favor from you,” said Gus.

“What?”

“Who are you seating me next to?”

“I’m just doing the place cards now. I can’t give you the baroness again. She’s in Paris.”