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

plant?”
    â€œProbably because your father made a point of moving out of one thousand Park at the same moment the Lieblings moved in. Talk about royal snubs!”
    â€œThat’s water over the dam. I want you to do something for Noah Liebling and his wife.”
    â€œTruck, I will simply not have those people in my house.”
    â€œThen invite them to dinner at a restaurant.”
    â€œAnd be seen with them? In public? What if Roxy, or Liz, or Cindy, or Billy should see us? They’d think we were friends.”
    â€œThen they’d invite us to their place. They live at River House.”
    â€œHow that board passed them I’ll never know. She knows nothing about placement. She has a needlepoint pillow in her living room that has ‘Thank you for not smoking’ on it.”
    â€œMaybe she’s allergic.”
    â€œNo. She says the smoke would damage her paintings. Paintings! She hasn’t got any, at least none that you or I would hang. Oh, she has a couple of Warhols. But nobody hangs Warhol anymore. After that disastrous sale at Christie’s, I took our Warhol down. I was too embarrassed. Warhol is one of yesterday’s painters.”
    â€œI wondered where the Warhol went. Where is it?”
    â€œStacked behind the dryer in the laundry room. Where he belongs. But Carol Liebling—she still hangs him. So you see what I mean.” With her hand she gives her frosted hair a flip from behind.
    He takes a sip of his champagne. “For someone you dislike so much, you seem to know an awful lot about her,” he says.
    â€œShe has a daughter the same age as Linda. They were at Brearley together. I used to see Carol at parent-teacher meetings. And speaking of that, do you know what that woman had the nerve to say to me?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œShe said, ‘Have you thought about doing anything with your Chinese porcelains?’”
    â€œWhat the hell did she mean by that?”
    â€œOh, she does some volunteer work for the museum.” She gestures vaguely in the direction of the building across the street, which is invisible behind the drawn drapes. “She’s on a couple of committees. I’m sure she’s hoping to get on the board, which’ll never happen, of course. She asked me if I’d consider giving our collection to the museum.”
    â€œOh,” he says.
    â€œShe even said—and this is the worst part—she even said, ‘Just think, if you gave your porcelains to the Met, you could run across the street and visit the collection whenever you’d like.’ Can you imagine a more gauche remark?”
    â€œActually,” he says thoughtfully, “it’s not such a bad idea.”
    â€œWhat’s not a bad idea?”
    â€œGiving that stuff to the museum. We’d get a nice tax deduction. My grandfather collected it. I’ve never given a shit about all that stuff.”
    â€œTruck Van Degan, are you out of your mind? That pair of Lang Yao sang-de-boeuf vases alone is worth a fortune! I had an appraiser in. He said you almost never find a pair. No way do you give any of it away. That collection is my insurance!”
    â€œWhat do you mean—your insurance?”
    â€œYou won’t buy life insurance. When you die, that collection is one thing I’ll have to fall back on.”
    â€œI don’t buy life insurance because I don’t believe in it.”
    â€œDon’t give me that, Truck. I know you too well. You won’t buy life insurance because you’re scared to take the physical.”
    â€œSo,” he says carefully, “you’re getting ready for me to die. Is that it, sweet tits?”
    â€œWell, after all, you are twenty-two years older than I am, darling. A girl has to think about her future, after all.”
    â€œOkay,” he says, leaning forward in his chair, “let’s talk about the future. Let’s talk about the immediate future.