People Like Us by Dominick Dunne

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