Read Online The Wrong Kind of Money by Stephen; Birmingham - Free Book Online

faggot.”
    â€œSo is that hairdresser you’re so eager to sit next to Thursday night.”
    â€œDarling, that’s quite different. Philippe is a great artist.”
    â€œAnyway, I’m not interested in that son. I’m interested in Noah Liebling.”
    â€œThe son still lives at one thousand. With his mother. They say the Lieblings have ruined that wonderful old building. Nobody lives there anymore.”
    â€œFunny, but I walked past the building the other day. It looked fully occupied.”
    â€œI mean nobody we know. Park between Seventy-sixth and Ninety-sixth has gone way, way downhill. And the sister who calls herself a countess. Everybody says the title is bogus.”
    â€œI’m not interested in the sister, either.”
    â€œAnd the father was a bootlegger. He had people killed.”
    â€œThe old man got his start in Canada, during Prohibition. But there was no Prohibition up there. So you can’t call him a bootlegger. Everything he did was perfectly legal. Meanwhile, his son Noah—”
    â€œOh, Noah Liebling is all right, I suppose. He’s almost attractive. But it’s her, his wife, that nobody can stand.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with her?”
    â€œOh, it’s so hard to explain,” she says. “She’s so pushy, so climby, so enthusiastic. She smiles too much. She’s too friendly. She doesn’t talk about the things people like us talk about. She bubbles. She bounces. She doesn’t wear black at night. She doesn’t even frost her hair.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with a bubbly, bouncy woman?”
    â€œNew York women don’t bubble and bounce. They just don’t, which is why she’s never fitted in. She’s from somewhere like Kansas, and she has a Kansas sort of face. People do imitations of Carol Liebling, and that sort of thing. When she first came to New York, she thought Porthault was only sheets. She’d never heard of the towels. Someone had to explain to her what Rigaud candles were.”
    â€œOf course, you, growing up in Cicero, Illinois, knew all about things like that,” he says with more than a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
    â€œMaybe not! But when I knew I was going to marry you, I learned—and I learned fast! And I learned to do party talk. She’s never learned that. She’ll get on a subject and just stick to it.”
    â€œWhen I first met you, Georgette, all you knew how to say was, ‘Please raise your seat backs, place your tray tables in a fully locked and upright position, make sure that all carry-on luggage is securely stowed beneath the seat in front of you, and pass all plastic cups and glasses—’”
    â€œSo what! So I was a flight attendant! I wanted to better myself, and I did! Look where I am today— le plus bien placé ! Patsy Collingwood probably isn’t even going to have her dinner party if you and I can’t be there. She as much as said so.”
    â€œYou bettered yourself, all right. Thanks to me.”
    â€œOkay—thanks to you!”
    â€œAnd my money.”
    â€œOkay—and your goddamned money. You got what you married me for, too! The best blow job you ever had!”
    â€œOne of the things I married you for,” he says evenly, “was to do as you’re told. And I’m telling you I want you to do something about Noah Liebling and his wife.”
    â€œWhy? Tell me why you want me to entertain them?”
    â€œBecause I want his business, that’s why. Old lady Liebling is getting up there in years. The old battle-ax can’t live forever. She’s either going to die or retire, and when she does one of those two things, the son is going to take over the company, and when that happens I want his business. Do you realize that for all the years the old battle-ax has been running Ingrahams, the biggest distiller in the world, she’s never placed a single order from my bottling