The Bonfire of the Vanities

by Tom Wolfe

  “We got to rush it,” said Weiss.

  Kramer caught Bernie looking at him in a certain way. He could see accusations in his black Irish eyes.

  Just then the telephone on Weiss’s desk gave three low beeps. He got up, walked over to the desk, and answered it.

  “Yeah?…Okay, put him on…No, I haven’t seen The City Light…What? You gotta be kidding…”

  He turned toward the conference table and said to Bernie, “It’s Milt. I don’t think we gotta worry about any smokehead theories for a while.”

  In no time Milt Lubell, wide-eyed, slightly out of breath, was walking into the room with a copy of The City Light. He laid it on the conference table. The front page jumped up at them.

  City Light Exclusive:

  FINANCIER’S

  WIDOW IS

  MCCOY CASE

  MYSTERY GIRL

  McCoy At Funeral: “Help Me!”

  Across the bottom of the page ran a line saying: Peter Fallow’s Eyewitness Report, Pictures, pages 3, 4, 5, 14, 15.

  All six of them stood up and leaned over with their palms on the walnut table to support themselves. Their heads converging over the epicenter, which was the headline.

  Weiss straightened up. On his face was the look of the man who knows that it falls to his lot to be the leader.

  “All right, here’s what we’re gonna do. Milt, call up Irv Stone at Channel 1.” He then reeled off the names of the news producers of five other channels. “And call Fallow. And that fellow Flannagan at the News. And here’s what you tell them. We’re gonna question this woman as soon as possible. That’s for the record. Not for attribution, tell ’em if she is the woman who was with McCoy, then she faces felony charges, because she was the one who drove off after McCoy hit the kid. That’s leaving the scene and failure to report. Hit-and-run. He hit, she ran. Okay?”

  Then to Bernie: “And you guys…” He let his eyes pan quickly over Kramer, Martin, and Goldberg, to show them they were included. “You guys get hold of this woman, and you tell her the exact same thing. ‘We’re sorry your husband is dead, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but we need some answers very fast, and if you’re the one who was in the car with McCoy, then you’re in a whole lotta freakin’ trouble.’ But if she’s willing to come clean about McCoy, we’ll grant her immunity before the grand jury.” To Kramer: “Don’t get too specific about that at first. Well, hell, you know how to do it.”

  By the time Kramer, Martin, and Goldberg pulled up in front of 962 Fifth Avenue, the sidewalk looked like a refugee camp. Television crewmen, radio broadcasters, reporters, and photographers sat, milled, and lollygagged about in the jeans, knit shirts, zipper jackets, and Trapper Dan shoes their trade currently affected, and the idle gawkers who looked on weren’t dressed much better. The cops from the 19th Precinct had set up a double row of blue police line sawhorses to create an alley to the front door for the benefit of the people who lived in the building. A uniformed patrolman stood by. For such a building, fourteen stories high and half a block wide, the front entrance was not particularly grand. Nevertheless, it bespoke money. There was a single plate-glass door framed in heavy brass, highly polished, and protected by an ornate brass grillwork, which also gleamed. A canopy stretched from the door to the edge of the sidewalk. The canopy was supported by brass poles with brass guy rods, likewise polished until they looked like white gold. As much as anything else, it was the eternity of mule’s work represented by all the hand-polished brass that said money. Behind the plate glass, Kramer could see the figures of a pair of uniformed doormen, and he thought of Martin and his soliloquy on the shitballs at McCoy’s building.

  Well…here he was. He had looked up at these apartment buildings on Fifth Avenue, facing Central Park, a thousand times at least, most recently on Sunday afternoon. He had been out in the park with Rhoda, who was pushing Joshua in the baby carriage, and the afternoon sun had lit up the great limestone façades to the point where the phrase itself had crossed his mind: the gold coast. But it was merely an observation, devoid of emotion, except perhaps for a mild feeling of satisfaction at being able to stroll amid such golden surroundings. It was well known that the richest people in New York lived in those buildings. But their life, whatever it was, was as remote as another planet. Such people were merely types, far outside the range of any conceivable envy. They were The Rich. He couldn’t have told you the name of a single one of them.

  Now he could.

  Kramer, Martin, and Goldberg got out of the car, and Martin said something to the cop in the uniform. The raggedy pack of journalists bestirred themselves. Their itchy clothes flopped about. They looked the three of them up and down and sniffed for the scent of the McCoy case.

  Would they recognize him? The car was unmarked, and even Martin and Goldberg were wearing coats and ties, and so they might pass for three men who just happened to be coming to this building. On the other hand…was he any longer just an anonymous functionary of the criminal-justice system? Hardly. His picture (by luscious Lucy Dellafloria) had appeared on television. His name had appeared in every newspaper. They started walking up the alley between the police barricades. Halfway there—Kramer felt let down. Not a tumble from this huge twitching assembly of the New York press.

  Then: “Hey, Kramer!” A voice over to his right. His heart leapt. “Kramer!” His impulse was to turn and smile, but he fought it. Should he just keep on walking and ignore it? No, he shouldn’t high-hat them, should he?…So he turned toward the voice with a look of high seriousness on his face.

  Two voices at once:

  “Hey, Kramer, you gonna—”

  “What are the charges—”

  “—talk to her?”

  “—against her?”

  He heard someone else saying: “Who is that?” And someone answering: “That’s Larry Kramer. He’s the D.A. on this case.”

  Kramer kept his lips set grimly and said, “I got nothing for you right now, fellows.”

  Fellows! They were his now, this bunch—the press, which was formerly merely an abstraction so far as he was concerned. Now he was looking the whole itchy mob of them in the face, and they hung on his every word, his every step. One, two, three photographers were in position. He could hear the whine of the rewind mechanisms of their cameras. A television crew was lumbering over. A videocamera protruded from the skull of one of them like a horn. Kramer walked a bit slower and stared at one of the reporters, as if considering a reply, to give the fellows a few more seconds of this solemn mug of his. (They were only doing their job.)

  When he and Martin and Goldberg reached the front door, Kramer said to the two doormen, with guttural authority: “Larry Kramer, Bronx District Attorney’s Office. They’re expecting us.”

  The doormen hopped to it.

  Upstairs, the door to the apartment was opened by a little man in uniform who appeared to be Indonesian or Korean. Kramer stepped inside—and the sight dazzled him. This was to be expected, since it was designed to dazzle people far more inured to luxury than Larry Kramer. He glanced at Martin and Goldberg. The three of them were straightout sightseers…the two-story ceiling, the enormous chandelier, the marble staircase, the fluted pilasters, the silver, the balcony, the huge paintings, the sumptuous frames, any one of which, just the frame, cost about half a cop’s annual pay. Their eyes were gobbling it all up.

  Kramer could hear a vacuum cleaner going somewhere upstairs. A maid in a black uniform with a white apron appeared on the marble floor of the entry gallery and then disappeared. The Oriental butler led them across the gallery. Through a doorway they got an eyeful of a vast room flooded with light from the tallest windows Kramer had ever seen in a private home. They were as big as the windows in the courtrooms of the island fortress. They looked out over the tops of the trees of Central Park. The butler took them to a smaller, darker room next to it. Or it was darker by comparison; in fact, a single tall window facing the park admitted so much light that at first the two men and the woman who wait
ed inside were visible only as silhouettes. The two men were standing. The woman sat in a chair. There was a set of rolling library stairs, a large desk with gilded decorations on its curved legs, and antique knickknacks on top of it, plus two small couches with a large burled-wood coffee table between them, several armchairs and side tables and…and this stuff.

  One of the silhouettes stepped forward from out of the glare and said, “Mr. Kramer? I’m Tucker Trigg.”

  Tucker Trigg; that was the guy’s actual name. He was her lawyer, from Curry, Goad & Pesterall. Kramer had set up this meeting through him. Tucker Trigg had a nasal honk Wasp voice that really put Kramer off, but now that Kramer could see him, he didn’t look like his idea of a Wasp. He was big, round, pudgy, like a football player gone to fat. They shook hands, and Tucker Trigg said in his honk voice:

  “Mr. Kramer, this is Mrs. Ruskin.”

  She was seated in a high-backed armchair that made Kramer think of one of those series on Masterpiece Theatre. There was a tall gray-haired guy standing beside her. The widow—how young and bouncy she looked! Foxy, Roland had said. Arthur Ruskin had had a lot on his hands, seventy-one years old, with his second pacemaker ticking away. She wore a plain black silk dress. The fact that the wide shoulders and cadet collar treatment were currently quite chic was lost on Larry Kramer, but her legs weren’t. Her legs were crossed. Kramer tried to keep his eyes from running up the highlit curve of the top of her foot and the glistening curve of her calves and the shimmering curve of her thighs under the black silk. He tried his best. She had the most wonderful long ivory neck, and her lips were parted slightly, and her dark eyes seemed to be drinking his right up. He was flustered.

  “I’m sorry to intrude under these circumstances,” he stammered. He immediately felt he had said something foolish. Was she supposed to conclude that under other circumstances he would be happy to intrude?

  “Oh, I understand, Mr. Kramer,” she said softly, with a brave smile. Oh, I unnerstin, Mr. Krimmuh. Or was it merely a brave smile? God almighty, the way she looked at him!

  He couldn’t imagine what to say to her next. Tucker Trigg spared him the task by introducing the man who stood next to the chair. He was a tall, older man. His gray hair was combed back smartly. He had the sort of military posture seldom seen in New York. His name was Clifford Priddy, and he was well known for defending prominent people in federal criminal cases. This one had Wasp written all over him. He looked at you straight down his long, thin nose. His clothes were subdued and rich, as only these bastards knew how to do it. His shiny black shoes were oh-so-sweetly fitted in the instep and trim in the toe. The man made Kramer feel clumsy. His own shoes were heavy brown sloggers, with soles that stuck out like rock ledges. Well, this case wasn’t in federal court, where the old Ivy League network still looked out for its own. No, they were dealing with the basic Bronx now.

  “How do you do, Mr. Kramer,” said Mr. Clifford Priddy, affably.

  “Fine,” said Kramer, shaking hands and thinking. Let’s see how smug you look when we get you up to Gibraltar.

  Then he introduced Martin and Goldberg, and everyone sat down. Martin and Goldberg and Tucker Trigg and Clifford Priddy; there was a quartet for you. Goldberg sat hunched over, a bit subdued, but Martin was still the Tourist Unfazed. His eyes were dancing all over the room.

  The young widow in black pressed a button on the table beside her chair. She recrossed her legs. The curved sheens flew apart and reassembled, and Kramer tried to avert his eyes. She looked toward the doorway. A maid, a Filipino, if Kramer had to guess, was standing there.

  Maria Ruskin looked at Kramer and then Goldberg and Martin and said, “Would you gentlemen care for some coffee?”

  No one cared for coffee. She said, “Nora, I’d like some coffee, and—”

  “Cora,” the woman said tonelessly. Every head turned toward her, as if she had just produced a revolver.

  “—and bring some extra cups, please,” said the widow, ignoring the correction, “in case any of the gentlemen change their mind.”

  Not perfect with the grammar, thought Kramer. He tried to figure out exactly what was wrong with what she had said—and then realized that everyone was quiet and looking at him. Now it was his show. The widow’s lips were parted in the same strange little smile. Was it bravery? Mockery?

  “Mrs. Ruskin,” he began, “as I say, I’m sorry to have to come to you at this particular time, and I’m very grateful for your cooperation. I’m sure Mr. Trigg and Mr. Priddy have explained to you the purpose of this meeting, and I just, uh, want to—” She stirred her legs under her dress, and Kramer tried not to notice the way her thighs welled up under the shiny black silk. “—uh, emphasize that this case, which involves a very serious injury, possibly fatal, to a young man, Henry Lamb—this case is highly important to our office, because it’s highly important to the people of Bronx County and to all the people of this city.” He paused. He realized he was sounding pompous, but he didn’t know how to get back down off his high horse. The presence of these Wasp lawyers and the scale of this palace had made him get up here.

  “I understand,” said the widow, possibly to help him out. Her head was slightly cocked, and she smiled the smile of an intimate friend. Kramer had rogue stirrings. His mind leapt ahead to the trial. Sometimes you ended up working very closely with a cooperative witness.

  “That’s why your cooperation would be of such great value to us.” He threw his head back, to emphasize the grandeur of his sternocleidomastoid muscles. “Now, all I want to do right now is to try to explain to you what’s going to be involved if you do cooperate or if for any reason you decide not to cooperate, because I think we have to be completely clear on that. Certain things are gonna naturally flow from either decision. Now, before we start, I should remind you that—” He paused again. He had started the sentence off wrong and was going to get tangled up in his syntax. Nothing to do but plow on. “—you’re represented by eminent counsel, so I don’t have to remind you of your rights in that respect.” In that respect. Why these pompous, pointless block phrases? “But I am obliged to remind you of your right to remain silent, should you want to for any reason.”

  He looked at her and nodded, as if to say, “Is that clear?” She nodded back, and he noticed the swell of her breasts moving under the black silk.

  From beside the chair he lifted his attaché case up to his lap and immediately wished he didn’t have to. The case’s scuffed corners and edges were an exposé of his lowly status. (A $36,000-a-year assistant D.A. from the Bronx.) Look at the goddamned case! All dried out, cracked, and scuffed! He felt humiliated. What was going through these fucking Wasps’ minds at this moment? Were they just holding back their smirks for tactical reasons, or out of some condescending Wasp politeness?

  From the case he took two pages of notes on yellow legal paper and a folder full of Xeroxed material, including some newspaper clippings. Then he closed up the telltale luggage and put it back on the floor.

  He looked down at his notes. He looked up at Maria Ruskin. “There are four persons known to have intimate knowledge of this case,” he said. “One is the victim, Henry Lamb, who is in an apparently irreversible coma. One is Mr. Sherman McCoy, who is charged with reckless endangerment, leaving the scene of an accident, and failure to report an accident. He denies these charges. One is an individual who was present when the incident occurred and who has come forth and has positively identified Mr. McCoy as the driver of the car that struck Mr. Lamb. This witness has told us that Mr. McCoy was accompanied in that car by another person, a white female in her twenties, and the information provided makes her his accomplice in one or more of the felonies that Mr. McCoy is charged with.” He paused, for what he hoped would be maximum effect. “That witness has positively identified that woman as…yourself.”

  Kramer now stopped and looked the widow squarely in the face. At first she was perfection. She didn’t blink. Her lovely brave little smile never wavered. But then her Adam’s appl
e, almost imperceptibly, went up and down just once.

  She swallowed!

  An excellent feeling came over Kramer, in every cell and every neural fiber. In that instant, the instant of that little swallow, his scuffed attaché case meant nothing, nor did his clodhopper shoes nor his cheap suit nor his measly salary nor his New York accent nor his barbarisms and solecisms of speech. For in that moment he had something that these Wasp counselors, these immaculate Wall Street partners from the universe of the Currys & Goads & Pesteralls & Dunnings & Spongets & Leaches would never know and never feel the inexpressible pleasure of possessing. And they would remain silent and polite in the face of it, as they were right now, and they would swallow with fear when and if their time came. And he now understood what it was that gave him a momentary lift each morning as he saw the island fortress rise at the crest of the Grand Concourse from the gloom of the Bronx. For it was nothing less than the Power, the same Power to which Abe Weiss himself was totally given over. It was the power of the government over the freedom of its subjects. To think of it in the abstract made it seem so theoretical and academic, but to feel it—to see the looks on their faces—as they stare back at you, courier and conduit of the Power—Arthur Rivera, Jimmy Dollard, Herbert 92X, and the guy called Pimp—even them—and now to see that little swallow of fright in a perfect neck worth millions—well, the poet has never sung of that ecstasy or even dreamed of it, and no prosecutor, no judge, no cop, no income-tax auditor will ever enlighten him, for we dare not even mention it to one another, do we?—and yet we feel it and we know it every time they look at us with those eyes that beg for mercy or, if not mercy, Lord, dumb luck or capricious generosity. (Just one break!) What are all the limestone façades of Fifth Avenue and all the marble halls and stuffed-leather libraries and all the riches of Wall Street in the face of my control of your destiny and your helplessness in the face of the Power?