Authors: Louis Begley
Mike, how do you explain, he asked, with all these psychological insights and negotiating skills at your fingertips, that you haven’t done better with your own children and your wives?
He looked up from the broiled calf’s liver to see whether he had scored. It wasn’t a bull’s-eye. Impassively, his host chewed, swallowed, and smiled. Then he addressed Schmidt: You really don’t get the point. I haven’t applied my skills in
that direction. When my kids were born and growing up, I was building my businesses. My businesses are the proof of what I can do. My wives! You’ve got to be kidding. I told you number one was a dumb mistake. So was number two. Dumb and dumber. OK, I like sex. I don’t mean I’m a good lover. I’m not. I like it, that’s all. That doesn’t mean I like marriage. Both times it’s been a pain in my ass. Now you’re beginning to understand, I can tell from your eyes. You don’t care about money—listen to me, I know you don’t—and at this point in your life you don’t have any work, any business purpose. You care about Charlotte. In fact, that’s all you care about. You see the incentive? Let me make it even clearer. You’ve got every reason to bust your chops and get this thing with Charlotte right.
That is God’s own truth. What makes you think I don’t?
It’s no problem. Busting your chops includes doing a good job. The question is, How do you go about it without screwing up? You want to hear the second part of my prescription? Make a life for yourself. Right now, there’s nothing there. It’s scary.
A leitmotiv. Blackman on the bassoon, Mansour on the tuba. These guys must rehearse. As though Schmidt didn’t want desperately to get out of the corner into which he had painted himself, stroke by stroke, over so many years.
Look, he said, I live as best I can. I love Carrie. She makes me happy. I haven’t anyone else. Right now that’s my life, and it’s not so bad.
That’s a whole other problem I’m keeping my eye on. Relax, Schmidtie, I’ll never be bad again with her, you know
that. Anyway, Jason says she’s doing great. The question is, Does Carrie help out in the situation with Charlotte? Let me put it to you this way: When Charlotte thinks about you and Carrie, does that make her say to herself, Hey, do I ever want to spend a weekend with my father? The answer is no. Am I right?
You may be right, but she is wrong. She should be grateful I am living with someone who is good to me, who makes me happy—and keeps me off her back! There is nothing worse for an only child than a retired widowed parent with no one to turn to, to think about, except the child!
This time you’re right, but you’ve brought Charlotte up to be selfish. She doesn’t think about what’s good for you. You need to impress her, make her feel you’re strong. I’ve thought of my foundation. Do you have any idea of the work we do?
Schmidt nodded.
I do. Very generally.
You should inform yourself about it. I am thinking of handing my foundation over to you, for you to run. Don’t worry. As I’ve said, I would still provide the vision—and the money! How is that for a good situation? No fund-raising, and I’d be at your side, like your senior partner. You’re in good health, so you’ve got what? Another ten years to be useful? Suppose I gave you a contract for ten years. You can fix your own salary. If you help me build the foundation the way I want you to, when Charlotte looks at you she will see that you’re once again important. Nothing tremendous, but one hell of a lot more attractive than looking at a sour old schmuck hanging on for all he’s worth to a kid like Carrie. Am I right? You’ve got no risk. So do I have a deal?
An old devil, got up in his father’s cut-down tweeds, glints of red in his unruly hair, bloodshot eyes staring hard, put his thick, veined hand over Schmidt’s mouth, cutting off the words he was about to blurt out. What, serve this man! Tell him that he has offered all you had secretly hoped for, that seemed beyond hope? Never. Gratitude is slavery. Let the thing you want with all your heart be granted, but not as a princely favor, only on your terms, and after a struggle.
Look, he said to Mr. Mansour, I’m touched that you have thought of this. I am, really, more than you can imagine. The trouble is that I’m not sure I should work for you. I think you probably like me and we get along well because I don’t. I’m afraid that would all change once I was on your payroll.
Mr. Mansour drank his wine, leaned back in his chair, and pointed to the empty glass. Manuel filled it. He drank again, had Manuel refill his own glass and Schmidt’s, and began to laugh. The laughter, which at first seemed to Schmidt forced, began to seem uncontrollable, until at last Mr. Mansour wiped his eyes, rubbed his face as though to make himself look serious, and spoke.
You’re telling me you don’t want the job?
It’s just that I’m afraid that this very generous idea could turn out to be a trap. For you and for me.
You’re really something. Listen, Schmidtie, I’ll worry about myself. What do you say? Am I a good friend?
Mostly.
Then cut the crap and say yes. I’ll get Holbein to do the paperwork.
Don’t you think you should at least run the idea past Holbein and the board of directors of your foundation before we commit to each other? I mean if you really want to have me take on the foundation you should follow the usual governance procedures, just to avoid any misunderstanding.
Mr. Mansour nodded and remained silent while the table was cleared. Then he smiled and said, Schmidtie, I’ve got to hand it to you. You think of everything. All right, I’ll do it your way. I’ll run the concept past Eric and the board of directors. Holbein talks about governance too. The question then becomes what he says and how the whole thing shapes up. Let’s say I tried it on you for size. We’ll talk again.
Driving home, where Carrie wouldn’t be until dinnertime, because the seminar she was taking finished late and afterward the students and the professor had coffee together, Schmidt remembered he hadn’t asked Mansour about Jason. Why were those two discussing her? That was a stupid question. An even better question, to which, alas, he knew the answer, was why he, Schmidt, had listened to the prompting of his old incubus when he might have jumped over the net, shaken Mansour’s hand, and gotten the job. No one, not even Gil Blackman, had so far offered him such an opportunity. Instead, he had set it up so that Mansour, quite rightly, hedged something that at first was unconditional. He had positively told him how to do it, had pushed Mansour to begin to equivocate and retreat! There was no mystery about the outcome: Mansour would never offer him the job again,
not in that form, not on those terms, and he, Schmidt, would never bring himself to ask Mansour what Holbein had said or whether the board—all of them Mansour’s compliant hangers-on, waiting for a bone he might throw their way—had expressed any opinion. As though Mike had a wish or need to consult them! This cloud has a silver lining, butted in the old devil. The likelihood of Mansour’s paying attention to governance principles of his foundation was about the same as the likelihood of Mansour’s actually keeping his word whatever Schmidt’s answer had been. No harm has been done to your prospects, you dummy. Mike Mansour would not make good on a promise of such generosity; he would not, to borrow that preposterous expression, give you a life, not unless you were full-time on his back, riding him like a jockey, giving him the whip. Cheer up, sop, you’ve kept your dignity! You’ve got your pride, your own money, and your father’s money, all intact. You don’t need that vulgarian’s foundation to give you standing. As for Charlotte, let that bitch screw whom she wants.
Quick, from the overgrown patch, a sprig of mint. Add bourbon and ice. Crush the mint under the ice cubes and stir. His own mind thus eased into high gear, Schmidt ponders Old Nick’s advice. The bugger’s off the beam; the case isn’t about whether Mansour will keep a promise once he has made it. Sure, one could make the point that Schmidt has grotesquely let the big fellow get away, but there was nothing at the end of the line to bring in, except his own misery and failure. He’d bet dollars to doughnuts that Mr. Mansour had seen right through him, and knew he risked nothing in the
game he played with Schmidt. Schmidt could be counted on to let him off the hook before any offer was made and there was any promise to keep or break. One small consolation: in fact, he had handled Renata better than he had handled Mike, better than Mike made out. It could be that Mike had not bothered to listen to what Schmidt had said; more likely, he had found it amusing to construct a version of his own, with which to beat Schmidt over the head. That also made no difference. He knew his own version and could hang on to it with some satisfaction.
In the end, he had changed his mind and left a message on her answering machine asking her not to come to the club. If he was to be torn apart by the furies let it be in a place of indifference, not on that hallowed ground. He gave her the address of a North Italian restaurant, where he had been accustomed to invite insurance company businessmen and lawyers who might have thought lunch in the democratic precincts of the Harvard Club an insufficient reward for the work they brought him, while he considered that they would stand out unpleasantly in his grander club or the French restaurant to which he took Mary and clients who fit in but didn’t care for club food. The headwaiter, a beefy Sicilian, was his friend. He would provide a corner table as far removed as possible from the roar of investment bankers, lawyers, and clients outshouting one another over the midday meal. Schmidt supposed that in an emergency, his Sicilian would also oblige him by throwing Renata out into the street. Afterward, he might put a manly arm around Schmidt and murmur something about the old
strega
and the evil eye. She was
waiting for him. Arriving a good fifteen minutes late himself, because the first garage he tried was full and going to the second required threading his way first west and then east through side streets bursting with disorderly midday traffic, he was from the start in the wrong, although he had telephoned to the restaurant so that Dr. Riker would know he was only minutes away, had not stood her up. No matter, she took the high ground at once. It was perfectly understandable, she told him, that one would be held up by one thing if not another going to an appointment one had not wished to make. The appropriate response was to understand the motive, not to feel annoyed. His response, to which he did not give voice, was to note that, since no quarter was to be given, he might as well fortify himself with gin. She passed on that and drank tomato juice, hoping, he supposed, that gin would untie his tongue. It did: enough for him to ask about the health of the male Dr. Riker and to express satisfaction upon hearing there was nothing to complain about, but not enough to inquire further or comment on her appearance. In fact, he was struck by how she had aged. Perhaps it was the effect of her hair, now completely gray, no longer gathered in a tight bun at the back. Instead, she sported an old-fashioned pageboy of the sort one used to see on young girls. He catalogued the pockets of yellow around her large unsmiling eyes, the new thinness of the Aztec face, the way she no longer seemed quite so tall. It was possible that she stooped. There was something less fresh and attractive as well about the way she was turned out, although once again she wore a suit that he would have sworn was by Chanel, of
an era before the look changed. It crossed his mind unpleasantly that the Chanel outfit was an allusion to their last lunch together, rather than what she habitually wore lunching out on Thursdays. The fingers of her right hand were stained with nicotine. She had been through a lot, rather more than he, but the observation stirred no sympathy within him.
Just as well, because no sooner had they ordered lunch than she challenged him. Have you nothing to say to me, she asked him, to which he replied, he thought reasonably, that their meeting was at her suggestion. He was there to listen.
Really, she said, I would have thought you might have some urge to comment on the way your partners at Wood & King have treated Jon. I would have thought you might have some regret that you might mention about not coming to his defense.
All I know about the matter is what I have read in the newspapers, which squared with what Jack DeForrest related. Neither you nor Jon gave me any version whatsoever of what happened, let alone any version that was different, less damning for him.
Do you always believe everything you read?
I wasn’t called upon to have any opinion. My former partners, though, must have had an unusually strong opinion of Jon’s conduct as a lawyer. Based on what I’ve been told and what I’ve read, it was execrable. I cannot begin to imagine how else they would have voted unanimously to exclude him.
They lynched him. Jack DeForrest and his cronies went out on a limb to condemn him. Then the rest of them closed ranks. That’s all. Jon was the scapegoat.
The scapegoat for what?
The fools who manage your firm. For their bigoted and mistaken judgments. For the injustice. For that senile man with a ridiculous name—Buzz Williams!—who claimed to have made an investigation.
Schmidt didn’t answer. It was no longer his job to defend the infallibility of DeForrest or the management committee of W & K. Schmidt knew that in general she was right; that was how the firm worked. In this particular case? He preferred not to think about it. It really didn’t matter what he said to this woman: she would manage to turn it against him and his old firm—and tell Jon Riker. She had drunk her wine and twirled the empty glass between her fingers. This gave him the opportunity to escape from her stare. He motioned for the waiter to fill her glass. He had barely touched his own.
You won’t drink with me, she remarked. That’s new.
I have to drive back to Bridgehampton. It’s as simple as that.
And you know I am right about what they did to Jon. That’s why you are so untypically quiet.
Renata, he said, I thought you got me out here to talk about our children. By that I mean what has happened to them and Jon’s shameful refusal to let go of Charlotte’s property. If Jon thinks he has been wronged by the firm, he is, or anyway used to be, a good enough lawyer to know how to seek redress. It’s no use badgering me.