THE LAST WORD

...Wonderful...

...He said the 911 call had been made by an unidentified woman neighbor...

...Still, in the end, Rockefeller proved he was not a total washout...

...with my family and friends bereaved, yes, but spending their grief like crazy in an attempt to keep a straight face...

...The initial New York Times report on Rockefeller's demise contained this exquisite passage: "Neighbors and passers-by reported that when the ambulance arrived, a woman in an evening dress emerged from 13 West 54th Street and accompanied the attendants as they carried Mr...

...One imagines Nero Wolfe, just nineRichard Lipez is co-author of "Grand Scam, "a novel of oil and intrigue to be published in May by Dial...

...Me, I want to go out like Rocky — with mystery, confusion, a mild taint of scandal...

...Rockefeller to the vehicle...

...that is one subculture I have always shunned lest I endanger my life or at least my wallet...

...It couldn't have been from anything he ever said or did...

...teen blocks south of the death manse, scanning The Times over his eggs au beurre noir when the doorbell rings and Archie Goodwin trips up the stairs to announce, "A woman in an evening dress insists on having a word with you...

...Maybe it is the custom among Republicans to call anyone to the left of Torquemada a "liberal" — I don't know...

...The most telling comment, however inadvertent, on Rockefeller's public life came from his friend Henry Kissinger, who claimed Rockefeller often said to him, "Henry, tell me the right thing to do...

...But The Times — much to the astonishment of its detractors — did keep after the story, as did, more predictably, The Village Voice, in whose pages Alexander Cockburn produced some of the most sublime personal journalism since Evelyn Waugh was at large in British East Africa...

...Initial accounts described Rockefeller's passing as one of the most uplifting since the death of Socrates...

...At the very end, Rockefeller achieved what, for so many of us, he had failed to accomplish throughout his long and busy life: Finally, he became interesting...

...Mr...

...Wolfe, so far as is known, never became involved in the subsequent investigation into the woman's identity (which was soon revealed) and into the exact circumstances of the former Vice 'I want to go out like Rocky' President's last hours...

...THE LAST WORD Way to go Richard Lipez When Hubert Humphrey died, Vice President Mondale concluded his moving eulogy with the words, "He taught us how to live — and, finally, he taught us how to die...

...Kissinger, of course, gained fame not by doing what was right but by doing what he thought would work — and he was usually mistaken even about that...

...Hubert Humphrey's final agony was a noble one, of its kind, but Rockefeller showed us there is another way...

...Rockefeller was stricken...

...Readers of Sunday's Times found the venue of death shifted, the participants increased in number and multiplied in sex, the times clarified---- The Times, having enlivened every Sunday brunch in the city...

...While it is certainly true that Humphrey departed this life with a pluck and dignity rare among public or private persons, I'd like to put in a word for another admirable way of crossing the bar — the exemplary passing of Nelson A. Rockefeller...

...By the time The Times and Voice had finished (if they have finished), the inevitable conclusion, even among readers whose powers of mind are less than robust and whose experience in the world is less than broad, was that at the moment he was stricken Rockefeller was occupied with a pursuit other than the high-minded study of art that had originally been reported...

...And then a denial that she ever existed...

...Until his death, I never liked Rockefeller, nor could I understand how he earned his reputation as a "liberal...

...Perfect...

...A woman in an evening dress...

...Morrow, the family spokesman, said he did not 'know of any woman' being present when Mr...