"crushed by the only ikon in the house"

At first, I had thought Jay Gould was a name with a heavily implied significance that Pynchon had made up. Gould... Gold? Surely it has to do with how rich Pierce was. To an extent, I suppose, I was correct. However, Jay Gould was an actual person. Here's the passage in question:

"... a whitewashed bust of Jay Gould that Pierce kept over the bed on a shelf so narrow for it she'd always had the hovering fear it would someday topple on them. Was that how he died, she wondered, among dreams, crushed by the only ikon in the house?"

 The Crying of Lot 49, Chapter One, Page One

Maybe it's appropriate that his last name was Gould, because, damn, did he get rich. Gould was one of the late 19th century's "robber barons", a group of unscrupulous businessmen infamous for questionable business practices that amassed them a fortune. Gould himself did not give away much of his fortune, but his children were philanthropists, enabled by their father's earnings. 

Considering Pierce was a "real estate mogul", and Oedipa is the co-executrix of his will, perhaps it's a hint to what will happen to his numerous tangled assets? Although I can also see significance in the fact that Gould was an "ikon" to Pierce. Perhaps Pynchon is attempting to tell us how he earned his money.