People Like Us (42 page)

Only the pool room, or the room with the pool table, had been declared off bounds, because the pool table, which had once belonged to Edward VII, still had its original felt, and Elias worried that people might place drinks on it. While Dodo and Lil watched the dancing, Ormonde elected to enjoy a cigar in the company of Lord Biedermeier in a small upstairs room, adjacent to the pool room, usually reserved for cigar smoking and poker playing, which Ruby didn’t allow in her main salons.

Lord Biedermeier, whose mind was always on books, even during social occasions, would have liked nothing better than to publish a biography of the Van Degan family, whose roots in the city and the nation—politically, socially, and financially—could be matched by no other family, and it was in this little smoking room that he broached the subject to the octogenarian Ormonde Van Degan, knowing that his cooperation in such a project might entice his son, Laurance, who was, on general principles, opposed to any form of publicity whatsoever, into agreeing to speak with the biographer he had in mind.

“You’re looking particularly well since your marriage, Mr. Van Degan,” said Lord Biedermeier, although, in fact, Ormonde Van Degan looked very much at that moment as if he were about to expire. The old man, who usually went to bed at eight, was exhausted by this late-night venture into society, which his son, Laurance, had asked him to attend, and his wife, Dodo, had begged him to attend.

“Who the hell are these people?” Ormonde Van Degan replied, his voice so faint as to barely be heard.

“What people?” asked Lord Biedermeier.

“Who are using my friend Sweetzer Clarke’s apartment.”

“Oh, I see,” replied Lord Biedermeier, laughing. “Our hosts, you mean? Elias and Ruby Renthal. Elias Renthal is one of the richest men in the country.”

“I miss Sweetzer. Damn fine sportsman. And a
good shot, as he should have been; his mother was a Phelps. Gentleman, too. Something Mr. Renthal is not,” gasped the old man.

Lord Biedermeier thought it best not to pursue this avenue of conversation and, instead, offered Mr. Van Degan a cigar, which had been the point of this visit to the smoking room in the first place. His cigars were from Cuba, by way of London, and he always felt proud when cigar smokers complimented him on their excellence.

“Cuba,” he said, offering one to Ormonde Van Degan.

Ormonde Van Degan gestured to Lord Biedermeier to ready the cigar for him. When its tip was cut, he handed it to the old man, who placed it in his mouth.

“I’ve been thinking, sir,” said Lord Biedermeier, as he lit a match and held it to Ormonde Van Degan’s cigar for him to inhale on, “what a marvelous and distinguished family your family is and has always been in the history of this state.”

“My father was the governor,” whispered Ormonde.

“Exactly,” said Lord Biedermeier.

“My uncle was the ambassador to France,” he went on.

“My very point,” continued Lord Biedermeier. “You must puff harder on the cigar, sir, for it to catch.”

The old man inhaled the Cuban cigar.

“I thought that the time had come for a biography of your family, from the beginning, right up to the present,” said Lord Biedermeier. “You see, Mr. Van Degan—”

As he coughed after inhaling so deeply, the old man’s body was racked by a heart attack.

When Constantine de Rham asked Lil Altemus to dance, Lil, remembering Consuelo, her greatest friend, replied, simply, “No,” with no reason or excuse, although she was not dancing at the time, nor did she seem to have any prospect of a dancing partner once her brother,
Laurance Van Degan, had taken her around the floor. Loelia Manchester also declined Constantine’s invitation to dance, as did Mary Finch. Ruby Renthal, who had been a party to using Constantine’s house on Sutton Place during her affair with Elias when he was still married to Gladyce, said, when Constantine asked her to dance, “Not now,” pleading hostess duties, but Constantine understood her answer to mean not later either.

Looking for a place to sit, Constantine saw Laurance Van Degan place his hand over the seat of an empty gold chair at his table to indicate that it was taken, although it remained empty for the next twenty minutes. Finally, he spotted, sitting alone, a discredited Wall Street financier, Max Luby, an early business associate of Elias’s, who had briefly served time for forgery, and took his place there by him. When Elias invited Max Luby to the party, Max, who felt uncomfortable in society, had said to Elias, “I won’t know what to say to all those people,” and Elias had replied, “Don’t worry, Max, no one will speak to you anyway.” He might have been a foreigner unable to speak the language for all the attention anyone paid him. Presently Max Luby and Constantine de Rham, each happy to finally have someone to talk to, were joined briefly by Gus Bailey.

“Are you enjoying yourself, Mr. de Rham?” asked Gus.

“To be able to say tomorrow that one had been here is what matters,” replied Constantine, who was not enjoying himself.

“Mrs. Lupescu is not with you?”

“Alas, Mrs. Lupescu had other plans for this evening.”

In a lower voice, Gus said directly into de Rham’s ear, “I saw your friend, Feliciano.”

“Yes, yes, I know. He called to check on whether you were good for that much money.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I said that you dined at some of the best houses in New York.”

“That, we both know, is no guarantee of solvency.”

“True, true, but it satisfied Feliciano.”

Just then Ruby walked past and spotted Gus.

“Gus Bailey, do you mean to say you’re not going to ask me to dance?” she said.

“I’m a lousy dancer, Ruby,” answered Gus. Throughout the evening Gus had tried to find a moment with Ruby to tell her about Byron Macumber, and here it was.

“I never believe men who say they’re lousy dancers. Come on.” Ruby took Gus by the hand and led him onto the floor. They danced for a time in silence.

“What do you mean you’re a lousy dancer? You’re not a lousy dancer at all.”

“Look who my partner is,” said Gus.

The music changed. The beat became slower. Gus put his arm tighter around Ruby’s back, and she moved into him, putting her cheek next to his. “I hear you called me this afternoon.”

“I did.”

“What about?”

“Where are you going to be tomorrow, Ruby?” he asked.

“Right here. Can you imagine what this is going to be like, taking this party down?”

“I want to see you tomorrow, Ruby. Just for fifteen or twenty minutes. Alone,” said Gus.

Ruby leaned her head back and looked at Gus. He looked back at her. His face was serious.

“This is not party talk, I take it?” she asked.

“No.”

“Lefty Flint?”

“No, not Lefty Flint. There’s something I think you should know about.”

“Tell me.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Three o’clock. Here comes one of those Albanian
princes to cut in on you. Give me a hint, Gus, quick. You’ve got me curious.”

“Byron Macumber,” said Gus.

She thought for a moment but could not place the name and indicated this to Gus with a gesture. The prince cut in on Gus. “Byron Macumber, Byron Macumber, it’s twilight time,” she sang to the tune of the song the orchestra was playing, and the prince twirled her around.

“I’m just a simple guy from the Midwest. Poor family. Worked my way through school all my life, but in the few years I’ve been here in New York, I’ve learned a lot about people like you,” said Elias to Loelia Manchester, as he danced her around the floor of his ballroom. Unlike Mickie Minardos, who went to great lengths to conceal his humble origins, Elias Renthal had taken to exaggerating the hardships of his background, in order to greater emphasize his spectacular rise in the world to the very pinnacle of wealth and power. “Look how even here, with the
crème de la crème
of the city gathered in my house, everyone breaks up into their own little subgroups. Over there, for instance, all those has-been royals that Ruby’s so mad about, all sitting together at one table. And over there, under that weeping willow tree, there’s all the Old Guard of New York, all together, Lil Altemus, and all the Van Degans, and Cora Mandell, and old lady Somerset.”

“Old lady Somerset is my mother, Elias,” said Loelia.

“Oh, so she is, so she is. No offense meant, of course. Have I put my foot in my mouth?”

“Not this week, Elias. My mother is cutting me out of her will.”

“Oh, she’ll come round in time, Loelia. With people like you, blood is thicker than water. Now look over at that table. You have to say about me that I am loyal to my old friends,” said Elias, observing the lonely duet of Constantine de Rham and Max Luby. “I don’t drop
them like everyone else does when they take the wrong turns in life. There is Constantine de Rham, whom people no longer invite. And poor Max Luby, recently released from prison for that stupid forgery thing they say he did, but I don’t believe it for a minute. Very few hosts would have these people, but I do.”

“Perhaps you should think about having them on a night when people like us aren’t here,” said Loelia.

“I take it you don’t approve of my friends,” said Elias.

“I don’t wish to have to dance with them,” said Loelia.

When Lord Biedermeier walked, his posture stooped slightly forward from the waist. Now, in haste to reach Elias with the news, his pince-nez, which he wore on a black string around his neck, fluttered in front of him as he loped across the ballroom, hitting his chest and flying about in all directions.

“Such haste!” said Lil Altemus, pulling in the satin skirt of her elaborate dress, as he brushed by her.

“Ah, Lil,” he said, stopping. “Forgive me.” For an instant he considered telling Lil that her father had had a heart attack in an upstairs room, but at that moment Elias came up to them to ask Lil to dance.

“How kind, Elias,” said Lil, getting up and handing her bag to Dodo to hold for her.

“I must first have a word with Elias,” said Lord Biedermeier, trying to forestall the dance so that he could tell Elias that one of his most important guests, the father of the woman he was about to dance with, was possibly dying upstairs.

“No, no, not until after this dance,” said Elias, taking Lil to the floor.

“This is so gay, Elias,” said Lil, beaming graciousness, as she danced backward, leading.

For an instant, Elias looked at her. “I don’t think that’s quite the right word anymore, Lil,” he replied.

“Oh, no, it’s a word I simply refuse to give up. My
friends all know I mean it in the old-fashioned way,” said Lil. As they danced by Laurance and Janet Van Degan, both couples smiled and waved, duty being properly adhered to on all sides.

It was only when Elias returned Lil to her seat next to Dodo that Lord Biedermeier was able to pull Elias aside and whisper to him that Ormonde Van Degan had had a heart attack.

“It’ll ruin the fucking party,” said Elias.

“Yes,” agreed Lord Biedermeier.

“And the First Lady’s about to arrive,” whispered Elias into his ear. Elias had been awaiting the arrival of the First Lady with the same secrecy and suppressed excitement that a newly rich English financier might await the possible arrival of a member of the Royal Family under his roof.

“No!” said Lord Biedermeier, who had not heard that the Renthals were to be so honored.

“You didn’t tell anyone, did you, about the old man?” asked Elias.

“Heavens, no. I almost told Lil and Dodo, but you came along.”

As the two men rushed off together, Dodo Fitz Alyn Van Degan rose and said, “But it’s my turn, Elias. You promised to dance with me after Lil.”

Just then Gus Bailey walked by, and Elias grabbed him by the arm and delivered him in front of Dodo Fitz Alyn Van Degan, with an elaborate gesture of affability to indicate an introduction without introducing him with words, as if he had forgotten Gus’s name, which he had. His mime went further to indicate that the two should dance together and then he turned and rushed off with Lord Biedermeier.

“We met at Lil’s at Easter,” said Dodo.

“I remember,” said Gus. “I’m not much of a dancer.”

“I don’t care,” said Dodo. “I’d hate to have to say that I went to the Renthals’ ball and hadn’t once danced. We don’t have to be Fred and Ginger, you know.”

“That’s true,” said Gus, taking Dodo out to the dance floor.

Upstairs, outside the small room used for cigar smoking and poker playing, Elias and Lord Biedermeier looked in both directions to be sure they were not being observed before opening the door. Inside, Elias locked the door behind him.

“Where is he?” asked Elias.

“He was in that chair,” said Lord Biedermeier.

“My God, he’s on the floor,” said Elias.

“He’s dead,” said Lord Biedermeier.

The two men looked at each other.

“It’s going to ruin the party,” said Elias.

“You already said that,” said Lord Biedermeier.

“How about if we don’t say a word until after the First Lady leaves, and then you come up and discover him, and we’ll call an ambulance and get him down the freight elevator then,” said Elias. “I mean, he’s an old man, for Christ’s sake. It’s not like a big tragedy.”

“Okay,” said Lord Biedermeier.

“Jesus Christ,” said Elias. “He took a shit in his pants.”

“Apparently, they all do,” said Lord Biedermeier.

“Gus, have you seen Elias?” asked Ruby, coming up to him and Dodo on the dance floor. Ruby had changed again, into her third dress of the evening, and she was bespangled with a new set of jewels, this time her rubies, in preparation for the imminent arrival of the First Lady.

“I saw him go upstairs with Lord Biedermeier,” said Gus.

“I’m sure he went up to smoke one of his damn cigars,” said Ruby. “Excuse me, will you, Dodo. I need to borrow Gus for a minute.”

Ruby took Gus by the arm and walked with him toward the door.

“Go upstairs,” she whispered in his ear. “Get him,
will you, Gus? The First Lady has left the Rhinelander and we have to be at the door to meet her and bring her in.”

“I didn’t know the First Lady was coming,” said Gus.

“Tell Elias to meet me at the front door.”