“I may appear to be a calm man,” answered Gus, “but there is within me a rage that knows no limits.”
“What would you do?” persisted the man.
“What I want to do is kill him. Does that shock you? It shocks me. But it is what I feel.”
He did not add, “It is what I am going to do.”
4
On Thursday Justine Altemus canceled out of a benefit performance of the Manhattan Ballet Company, for which she was on the committee, to have dinner with Bernard Slatkin at a little restaurant on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. On Friday she backed out of a family dinner at Uncle Laurance and Aunt Janet Van Degan’s to celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary to go to the television studio and watch Bernie’s newscast and have dinner with him afterward at a restaurant on Columbus Avenue frequented by theatrical people. On Saturday morning she called Ceil Somerset and said she couldn’t possibly go to the country for the weekend because she had such a terrible cold and spent the entire weekend in bed with Bernie at his apartment on Central Park West. On Monday she told her mother she wouldn’t be sitting in her box at the opera that night for the new production of Tosca, which the Van Degan Foundation had partially financed, and took Bernie to Clarence’s, where he was curious to go, as-it was the hangout, as he called it, for all the people he read about in Dolly De Longpre’s column.
“I’m not crazy about the way they cooked this fish,” said Bernie.
“Oh, people don’t come to Clarence’s for the food. People come to Clarence’s to look at each other. Almost everybody here knows each other. We call it the club, although it isn’t a club at all. Of course, Mother says she won’t come anymore because her sable coat was stolen when she went to the ladies’ room, but she’ll be back. Just wait.”
“Point out Clarence to me,” said Bernie.
“Oh, there is no Clarence. That’s just a name. It’s Chick Jacoby who owns Clarence’s, and unless Chick likes you, or knows who you are, you’ll never get a table at Clarence’s,” said Justine.
Bernie looked around him. “Looks like we have the best table.”
“We do,” laughed Justine.
“I guess Chick Jacoby likes you.”
“He does.”
“Tell me about your father,” said Bernie. “You never talk about him.”
“Oh, Daddy,” said Justine. “He’s so sweet. Drinks a bit. More than a bit, if you want the truth. He married badly after he divorced my mother, and no one in the family sees him. He lives up in Bedford with his new wife in a house she got in her divorce settlement from one of her previous marriages. Belinda, she’s called, and she looks like a Belinda. Mother calls her a strumpet, but Mother would have called anyone a strumpet whom Daddy married. She never got over the fact that Daddy left her.”
“She loved him then?”
“It’s not that she loved him that much. They used to fight all the time, and my brother and I were glad they got a divorce at the time. Mother thought she was calling the shots in the marriage because she was a Van Degan and had so much money. The Altemuses are what’s called good goods. Marvelous family. Goes way back, but no money to speak of, at least no money in the way the Van Degans have money. Look, there’s Violet Bastedo over there. Your old girlfriend.”
“She’s not my old girlfriend,” said Bernie.
“You went to bed with her.”
“She told you that?”
“Oh, she told me a lot more than that,” said Justine, her cheeks turning pink with embarrassment.
“What else did she tell you about me?” asked Bernie, amused that this shy girl was embarrassed.
“Oh, nothing.”
“Don’t give me ‘oh-nothing,’ ” he persisted.
“She said you had a huge you-know-what.” Justine covered her face with her hands.
“At least she’s not a liar.”
Justine laughed. “No, she’s not a liar.”
“I didn’t know proper young ladies like you and Violet Bastedo talked about the size of men’s dicks.”
Justine blushed. “She said it in French.”
Bernie roared with laughter.
“Were you serious about Violet?”
“It was a one-night stand, for God’s sake. I never saw her again.”
“I wonder if Maisie Verdurin knows that you are the terror of her parties. She thinks her parties are all about conversation, you know, and all the time it’s a launch pad for Bernard Slatkin’s assignations.”
“We’re having a conversation right now. Maisie would be proud of us.”
“Violet Bastedo is getting another divorce. That’s her new lawyer she’s having dinner with.”
“I want to talk about Justine Altemus, not Violet Bastedo,” said Bernie. He put out his hand across the table and took hers. Whereas Violet Bastedo was flighty and silly, Justine, Bernie could see, was more serious. Although she was no less interested in the parties, travels, comings and goings of the people she knew than Violet was, she was also a great reader, of both books and newspapers, and could converse on issues of the day, which Violet couldn’t. Justine not only watched Bernie interview news figures on his daily newscast, but could remember specific details of the interviews, and this delighted Bernie. “I didn’t believe Assemblyman Walsh for a single moment when you asked him about kickbacks.” Or, “That poor little Missie Everett girl. I wept for her when she told you about her sister. I hope that man gets life.”
“Did you ever think of having a career?” Bernie asked her.
Justine looked at him. He thought he detected a defensive look in her face. “I do a great deal of charity work,” she answered evenly. “Committees and things, and one day a week I work at the hospital as a nurses’ aide. And, of course, there’s Adele Harcourt’s book club. There’s an enormous amount to be read for that. I am, at the moment, deep in Dostoyevski.”
At that time Bernie had never heard of Adele Harcourt’s book club, but, like all New Yorkers, he knew who Adele Harcourt was, and, in time, he became impressed that Justine was a member of it, and had to have, no matter what, The Idiot read in its entirety by the following Monday evening when they would meet to discuss it in Adele Harcourt’s apartment.
“I suppose never having to worry about food or rent money must make it less urgent for you to compete,” he said.
“You’re not going to put me on a guilt trip because I was born into a rich family, are you?” she asked.
“No,” he said, smiling at her.
She smiled back at him. “I still have a brother you haven’t asked me about.”
“Hubie. Right. Mysterious Hubie. I’ve got my theories about Hubie.”
“Oh, poor Hubie. The apple of me mum’s eye. Blind to all his faults, she is. He’s always getting beaten up by all those hustlers he picks up. I mean, my mother would die if she knew. She thinks all the girls are just mad about Hubie and that Hubie’s just mad about all the girls. Half the time he’s got a black eye or a broken nose.”
“Does he drink too?”
“He has an occasional lapse into insobriety, of course, but nothing compared to the way he used to be,” said Justine. “Ever since Juanito came into his life.”
“Who’s Juanito?”
“Don’t ask.”
Bernie laughed. “We’re real square in my family compared to you,” he said.
Across the room at Clarence’s, Violet Bastedo told Herkie Saybrook, her lawyer for her second divorce, that she didn’t want anything for herself from Pony Bastedo except, as she put it, “Out. Out. Out,” of the marriage, but she did want a trust set up for little Violet, as well as all the usual things like Nanny’s salary, school fees through college, medical care, and “whatever else you can think of.”
“I can’t believe my eyes,” said Violet.
“What?” asked Herkie.
“There’s Justine Altemus over there, with Bernard Slatkin of all people.”
“Who’s Bernard Slatkin?”
�
�On TV, that one.”
“What’s so strange about that?”
“He’d fuck an umbrella,” said Violet.
Herkie Saybrook blushed.
“Sorry, Herkie. I should have said it in French.”
* * *
Voices became reserved at the mention of Hubie Altemus’s name, but his mother, Lil Altemus, doted on him completely and knew, simply knew, that the new art gallery in SoHo that she had financed for him, against the advice of her brother, Laurance Van Degan, who handled her money for her, was exactly the place for Hubie to be. All that Van Degan pressure at the bank, being one of the family and all, was what caused the problems there, she was sure.
“I know there’s something wrong, Hubie,” said Lil, replacing her cup and saucer on the tea table that her butler had set up in her library. She took a moment, before the unpleasant scene that she knew was at hand, to admire the tangerine-colored border of her Nymphenburg tea set. “I can just tell by the way you’re standing there that there’s something wrong. I can always tell.”
“Let up, will you?” said Hubie. Hubie was not as tall as Justine, his sister, but the aristocratic Altemus forehead and the aquiline Van Degan nose made him unmistakably her brother. There was, however, an unsureness of self about Hubie that showed in his eyes and facial expressions. His Altemus father, and his Van Degan grandfather, uncle, and cousin had all gone to St. Swithin’s and Harvard, but Hubie had been asked to leave St. Swithin’s, under embarrassing circumstances, and then went to several other schools of lesser stature. He was kicked out of Harvard in his first year for cheating in a Spanish examination and called before his Uncle Laurance, who was the head of the family. “Cheating in Spanish? The language of maids,” Uncle Laurance had said contemptuously, as if it would have been a lesser offense to have cheated in economics or trigonometry.
“Just tell me one thing, Hubie,” said Lil.
“What?”
“Is it murder?”
“Good God, no. How could you ask me that, Mother?”
“Drugs, then?”
No.
“You haven’t embezzled, or stolen, or anything like that?”
“Of course not.”
“I just wanted to get rid of all the serious things first. So, you see, whatever it is, it doesn’t really matter. You’re not overdrawn again, Hubie? Oh, please don’t tell me that.”
“I’m not overdrawn.”
“Don’t make me play guessing games, for God’s sake, Hubie.”
Hubie breathed in deeply. “Lewd conduct,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“What it sounds like.”
“Well, explain it to me.”
“I was caught—” He stopped, unable to finish his sentence. He turned away from his mother before he finished his confession. “I was caught, doing it, in Central Park, with a man.”
For a moment Lil was tempted to say, “Doing what?” for innocence was her trademark in the family, but she knew what he meant, and she knew, too, that her son would answer her question with the sort of words she could not bear to have repeated in her presence. Instead she said, quietly, “I don’t want to hear.” Her copy of Vogue slipped from her lap and fell to the floor. She turned her forlorn face toward the fireplace. Hubie, scarlet now, looked down on his mother as she stared at the fire. Her King Charles spaniels, Bosie and Oscar, awakened by the sound of the magazine hitting the carpet, jumped on the side of Lil’s chaise, trying to get her attention. Without looking at them, she reached over to a damask-draped end table and took two cookies from a plate and threw them in the air for the dogs to leap at. Hubie watched for a minute and then turned and moved quickly toward the door of his mother’s room. “Isn’t this what happened at St. Swithin’s?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And in Newport that summer with the lifeguard?”
“Yes.”
“You promised me when Uncle Laurance got you into Simsbury that it wouldn’t happen again.”
“It did. At Simsbury, and at college too.” Hubie opened the door.
“Don’t go, Hubie,” said Lil. “Look, we’ll figure this out. Come over here. Sit down. Uncle Laurance will know how to get this fixed without any publicity, or fine, or anything. You’ll have to go and see Uncle Laurance, Hubie.”
“I can’t.”
“It will be just as important to Uncle Laurance as it is to you, Hubie, that this thing is handled with dispatch.”
“I can’t go to see him, Mother. I can’t. He hates me. He makes me feel like I’m nothing. He’s always comparing me to young Laurance. I can’t go to see him. I’d rather go to jail,” said Hubie, whose body was twisted in anguish. For a minute Lil was afraid Hubie was going to start to cry.
“Don’t cry, Hubie. Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying, Mother.”
“I’ll go to see him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“If you knew, simply knew, how I hate to have to go to see your Uncle Laurance.”
“I’m really sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
“I’ll tell you what. After this is all over, you and I will go away for a little vacation together. We could go to Venice, and stay at the Gritti, and swim at the Cipriani, and have lunch at Harry’s. It’ll be divine. Alessandro will be there, in that heavenly old palace of his, and I tell you, Hubie, you have never seen ceilings like the Tiepolo ceilings in Alessandro’s palace. To die. It’ll be such fun. You’ll see. By the time we get back all this will be over. We can count on Uncle Laurance to straighten all this out.”
* * *
In Justine’s mind, marriage was the logical sequel to love.
“Didn’t you ever hear of an affair?” asked Bernie, for whom marriage held no allure.
“Isn’t that what we’re having?” asked Justine.
“I was never one to believe that every romance had to end up in marriage,” said Bernie.
“But this isn’t just any old romance, my darling. Can’t you tell? Can’t you feel it? This is incredible, what we have.”
Justine was fastidious about herself, not only in her neatness of grooming, but in the care of her body, which always carried the expensive scents of deodorants, and bath oils, and powder, and perfume. After they had made love several times, Bernie asked Justine not to mute her natural woman’s scents with sprays and atomizers. He told her a woman’s scent was like her fingerprints, hers alone, and it aroused him to know her as she really was.
Bernie rubbed his finger up and down Justine’s rib cage. Too thin, she wished her ribs did not protrude so much, but she was proud of her breasts, not too big, not too small, just right, perfectly formed. She watched Bernie lean down to kiss them. She liked to watch the total absorption of his eyes on her nipples, and the look of desire on his face.
“I’m glad your nipples are pink,” he said. “I like pink nipples better than beige.” As his hand traveled down her body to between her legs, he brushed his face back and forth over her breasts, moaning with pleasure, and then his lips began the slow descent downward to where his moist fingers were preparing for his tongue’s reception.
“Oh, Bernie,” whispered Justine, her hands now in his hair. She had never known there could be such bliss as Bernie Slatkin had brought into her life. She did not know it was possible to love the way she loved him.
“My Aunt Hester asked me if you were pretty,” he said, without lifting his head from his carnal task.
“What did you tell her?” Justine asked.
“I said you were as tall as me.”
“That wasn’t an answer to her question.”
“I said you were refined looking.”
Justine, enthralled with her lover’s lovemaking, replied, “Did you tell her I’m going to marry her nephew?”
5
You could pick out Constantine de Rham from a block away when he walked up or down Madison Avenue. His enormous head with its black beard and hooded eyes had a kind of reptilia
n magnificence. He was taller by far than most people and walked with such great strides that strollers on the avenue stepped aside as he passed and turned to stare after him at his aristocratic swagger. In fall and spring he wore his topcoat over his shoulders like a cape.
He had that day, in what was for him a rare burst of generosity, given a dollar to a beggar on the street, and, then, not ten minutes later, returning the same way, was offended and irritated that the same beggar held up his hand for more, having already forgotten him, rather than rewarding him with a smile of recognition and gratitude that he felt his previous contribution to the fellow’s welfare deserved.
Augustus Bailey and Constantine de Rham sighted each other from a block away and passed each other without speaking, each aware of the other and each aware that the other was aware of him. An unpleasant feeling stirred within Gus Bailey, as he turned to peer into the window of the Wilton House Bookshop, pretending to concentrate on the display of copies of Nestor Calder’s latest novel, Judas Was a Redhead, until Constantine de Rham had passed. Sometimes Gus felt prescient, and he felt in that moment of passage that he was sometime going to have to play a scene, as he used to call it in Hollywood, with Constantine de Rham. Concentrating on Nestor Calder’s book, Gus did not see Elias Renthal pass behind him and enter a coffee shop, carrying a briefcase.
Inside the bookshop he could see Matilda Clarke, looking at the latest books with Arthur Harburg, the proprietor. He walked in.
“I’m sick, sick, sick to death of reading about the Mitfords,” said Matilda.
“There’s Judas Was a Redhead,” suggested Arthur.
“I’ve read that. I even went to Nestor Calder’s publication party at Clarence’s.”
“Have you read Inspired by Iago?”
“Heavens, no!”
“It’s not what you think. It opens in a trailer park.”
“Right away you’ve lost me. A little trailer park goes a long way with me.”
“What do you like?” asked Arthur Harburg, patiently. He was used to dealing with his spoiled clients.
“I like a book with short chapters,” said Matilda. “I love to be able to say. ‘I just want to finish this chapter,’ and do it. Such a feeling of accomplishment. What have you got with short chapters, about rich people?”
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