on top of the heap

I don’t want a world where the über-rich are sitting on top of the heap and everyone is scrambling for scratch at the bottom.

He gently placed it on top of the heap in the little red wagon.

“The victim, as you heard, has been traumatized. The accused has lost the life that he knew, which was quite exciting, lucrative. He was on top of the heap and he’s no longer there; he’s in jail.”

He seems to be the last man standing, outliving his collaborators on “Top of the Heap” and securing a place in the history of American independent film.

The answers, respectively: a half-stride behind the best and gaining, and directly on top of the heap.