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flattering stories in the fashion press and later in mainstream journals that were increasingly feeding their readers trendy pap about styles and clothes in lieu of hard news.
    In the hands of Amy Reed's publicity department, she became a beguiling Native American princess, a direct descendant of Chief Red Cloud. (Her father, long since dead from the effects of fire-water, and her mother, more recently deceased from natural causes, were not around to correct the record.) She even went back to the environs of the Platte, to be inducted as a member of the South Dakota Hall of Fame.
    Public notice brought private attention to Sue as well, most notably from Harry Brandberg, the chairman of the board of Brandberg Industries (or BI, as everyone called it) and the assembler of the odd cluster of businesses that it owned (from charcoal grills to burial caskets to the Amy Reed division). A
W
piece on Sue had caught his eye and he invited her to lunch at La Grenouille. The chemistry was good and Harry was proposing the next date by the time the cerises jubilee were served.
    No fool, Sue had seen a possible opportunity to increase even further her distance from tepee life. She considered several relevant statistics about Harry: his net worth (in excess of $1 billion), his age (72), his girth (46 inches and climbing), his chins (two and a half) and his complexion (ruddy, ruddy red). From her handicapping she concluded that he would not be racing too much longer, so she was enthusiastically receptive to his advances.
    There was only one problem: the reclusive little brown wren named Paula Brandberg, sitting quietly in the family nest in Chappaqua. Quietly, that is, until she learned of Sue's insinuation into her husband's life and even less quietly when Harry proposed a divorce.
    Fortunately Paula eventually saw the light of day, or more precisely the bottom-line figure of the proposed marital settlement, and quietly flew away from the nest a sadder but much richer chick (her husband's anachronistic term for all women).
    Once married, by a Native American federal judge in Florida (a nice touch), Harry proudly showed off his new trophy at every opportunity—charity benefits in New York and Palm Beach, movie premieres (BI owned a studio) and house parties at their new, highly decorated mansion (fabrics by Sue) in Salisbury, Connecticut.
    Harry himself had gone through an interesting cycle after the marriage. Energized by his new partner, with sex of a frequency and variety that were not at all wrenlike, he basked in the reflected glamour radiated by his sexy acquisition. Then his excesses began to catch up with him—first a warning siege of gout, then a tricky heartbeat.
    Having always been of the
if-
I-die, devil-may-care school, he came to realize that
when
I die, and the question of his post-humous reputation, were more realistic considerations. He retiredfrom BI, the better to enjoy his sybaritic life while he could and to devote greater attention to philanthropy.
    Sue had cheerfully supported Harry's eleemosynary undertakings and had left her own job at Amy Reed to help dispense the largesse; she was well provided for and there would be plenty of money left over for her once Harry's heart stopped pulsing. And she could not deny that she enjoyed being accepted, albeit often with condescension, in what passed for New York high society.
    She did have reservations about the medical-scientific focus of Harry's gifts. Why not the arts? she pleaded. Music, dance, the theater, the Fashion Institute. Finally one night, as they frisked in bed, he made her a proposition: for each "Clinton" (his cute expression for oral sex) she performed, he would donate $100,000 to any arts charity she chose. The result was impressive: the Harry and Sue Brandberg Print Room at the Metropolitan Museum, the Harry and Sue Brandberg Production Fund at the Metropolitan Opera and even the Harry and Sue Brandberg Poetry Fund. Fortunately the couple's private