The Wrong Kind of Money Read Free Page B

payments. He’s scrambling for money to pay off his wife in what could become a very messy divorce suit. He’s also a vice president of Miller Publications, and Stuyvie Miller won’t be very pleased to see some of McCurdy’s wife’s accusations if they hit the newspapers. I also know that your fancy building isn’t very happy with the—shall I say, caliber?—of the young men Mr. McCurdy has been—shall I say, entertaining? shall I say shacking up with?—since his wife moved out on him. I happen to know that your building would do anything to be rid of McCurdy and his friends. Am I correct?”
    â€œWhat—?” Truxton Van Degan sputtered. “What—what do you call this, Mr. Liebling? What do you call what you’re trying to do to us?”
    â€œWhat do I call it?” Jules said. “It’s called doing business.”
    As it happened, the Lieblings’ new apartment and the Solomon Brinckmanns’ were on the same elevator stem at 1000 Park. Solomon Brinckmann died in 1976, and his wife sold the apartment and moved to Arizona a year later. Through the years when they shared the elevator, the Brinckmanns and the Lieblings did not encounter each other much. But whenever they did, they nodded and smiled at each other politely.
    â€œGood morning, Mrs. Brinckmann.”
    â€œGood morning, Mrs. Liebling.”
    Only once had Hermina Brinckmann attempted something that might have been termed an intimacy in the elevator. “Someone told me that the great Mr. Al Capone himself offered to be your son’s godfather,” she said. “How exciting!”
    â€œWe Jews don’t have godfathers,” Hannah Liebling said.
    â€œOh, how I envy you your traditions,” said Hermina Brinckmann.
    â€œYou have a few traditions of your own, if you cared to observe them,” Hannah said.
    After that exchange relations between the Brinckmanns and the Lieblings were somewhat frostier. The Brinckmanns often gave large parties. So did the Lieblings. In her ballroom Hannah could comfortably accommodate a seated dinner for sixty. But the two families never entertained each other. About a year after Jules and Hannah Liebling moved in, however, they received an invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Stuyvesant Miller.
    â€œWhat shall we do about this?” Hannah asked her husband. “It’s for a Christmas tree-trimming party. But they’re not people we visit. We hardly know them.”
    â€œWe do this with it,” Jules said. He took the invitation and tore it in half, then in quarters, then in eighths.
    â€œBut it says R.S.V.P. on it,” she said.
    â€œThey need us more than we need them,” he said.
    This is one of several episodes that are never talked about in the family. It is not a family secret, exactly. The Liebling family secrets are quite another matter. But the episode is a painful reminder that Jules Liebling’s money was not made in one of the more fashionable ways. In fact, there are some who hint that his money was made illegally. The connection with people like Al Capone is the circumstance most often cited.
    Ahead of the Lincoln now, the traffic on Park Avenue has come to a complete standstill. There seems to be an almost newsworthy case of urban gridlock at the corner of Fifty-seventh Street. Nothing moves. Police whistles sound shrilly. Arms in orange slickers gesticulate furiously in the air, to no avail. Park Avenue has become a parking lot. “I suppose it’s the rain that’s causing this,” Hannah says to no one in particular.
    â€œAnyway,” Anne says, “I think it’s silly to talk about how important it is to get married, and to marry the right sort. It’s so old-fashioned, Nana. Nowadays a woman doesn’t have to get married at all to have a successful life. In fact, I don’t think I’ll get married at all. I’ll just have a lo-o-o-o-ng series of lovers. Like your