“Money can buy you champagne”

“Money can buy you champagne” is the Twin’s saying, adopted by Hugo Nestor as a shorthand for the polished, transactional world of Vermont, where wealth lets financiers and criminals mingle under the cover of luxury and familiar police presence. In Nestor’s hands, the maxim becomes a practical test: a stranger’s willingness to pay is treated as a reason to hear him out, not as cause for suspicion.

Origin and Meaning

The saying originates with the Twin, but Nestor has made it his own. Its literal promise is modest—money can purchase champagne—yet in context the line points to the social access and appearance of respectability that money can buy. The maxim belongs to a district where ostentatious consumption helps business proceed in plain sight, while the boundary between legitimate finance and criminal enterprise remains deliberately blurred.

The Vermont Setting

Vermont is presented as a place of style and tradition, with oysters, Périgord truffles, and foie gras on offer. Nestor and his people occupy a cordoned-off table there night after night, watching the outside world deteriorate while conducting business in a room shared by bankers, financiers, and criminals. Police officers frequent the establishment, but their presence does not prompt them to read too much into the company or the transactions around them. The maxim condenses this arrangement: luxury is not simply decoration but part of the environment that makes illicit dealings appear ordinary.

The Stranger’s Request

A stranger pushes through the crowded room toward Nestor’s table. Bo stops him when he tries to cross the red cordon marking the group’s territory, then reports that the man wants an Asian girl for a client who will pay whatever it costs. Nestor tilts his head and sips champagne before asking whether the visitor looks like a police officer. Bo says no; Nestor agrees and tells him to get the man a chair. The saying’s logic is enacted rather than explained: wealth and the apparent absence of police suspicion are enough to admit a prospective customer into conversation.

Narrative Significance

The maxim connects the luxury of Vermont to the criminal economy operating within it. The cordon is a visible marker of Nestor’s territory, but it does not seal that territory off from the respectable world; instead, the crowded room allows the two to overlap. By making money the measure of both access and credibility, the saying exposes the ease with which commercial polish can mask exploitation and criminal business. Its calm, almost convivial reference to champagne sits against the request for an Asian girl, sharpening the contrast between the venue’s refinement and the human trade conducted through it.