FaceMate

by Steven M. Greenberg

  Best wishes,

  E. Parker, Executive Vice President and Head of Acquisitions, AthCorp, USA.

  27

  “Here,” said Eddie, “give this to the boss.”

  “He isn’t busy, Mr. P. You can run right in and give it to him yourself if you want.”

  “No, no need. It’s just some sugary stuff I brought him in to snack on if he hasn’t had his breakfast yet. Anyway, I haven’t got a lot of time to talk. I’m heading to the airport in a sec, so I’ll see you probably tomorrow sometime—You’ll be coming in to meet the kid, won’t you?”

  “I’ll be here; of course I’ll be here, but…. I don’t understand, Mr. P; what in the world are you going to the airport this morning for? Isn’t Brandon flying out to pick the two kids up?”

  “Sure he is, but I’m going with. Look, this kid is gonna meet Ben, right? Sometime tomorrow morning? So—what?—you want him going in cold? I mean, he doesn’t know beans about the situation, does he? What if he says some crazy shit that hurts Ben’s feelings? What if he brings back some of those awful memories and gets Ben in one of his funks again? What if he asks some dumb-ass questions that are hurtful or worse? Hey—what if he’s a real shithead and tries to hit Ben up for cash? OK, I talked to him on the phone, and he seemed like a fairly decent guy to talk to, but—how much can you tell just from talking on the phone? You can’t tell everything, can you? You wanna take that chance? Well, I don’t—So what I’m gonna do is fly out with Brandon, pick this Tommy fellow up, feel him out, make sure he’s the kind of guy Ben oughta deal with, and if he checks out as a normal human being who isn’t gonna put Ben in some deep depression for the hundredth time, I’ll bring him in for Ben to meet himself tomorrow morning. Otherwise….”

  “Otherwise what? You’re going to shove him out in mid-flight over the Rockies? What are you going to do if he’s not what you expect?”

  “I don’t know; probably I’d tell Ben he couldn’t come or something. What? I know that look, Cindy, I recognize that look: You’re saying you don’t approve of my trying to protect the boss from a major let-down if this Tommie kid doesn’t pan out?”

  “No, Mr. P., I guess I see where you’re coming from on this. I’m sure the both of us—I’m sure all of us at Atherton—want what’s best for Mr. Ben. But this kid—I don’t know—when I talked to him, he struck me as a real good guy, a real straight shooter. Honestly, I can’t see that he needs your intervention. For gosh sakes, look what he asked us for his sister’s sake.”

  “Oh yeah, the sister. She’s coming with him too, isn’t she?”

  “She is—didn’t I tell you why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes I don’t pay attention that great when I’m distracted by something else that’s on my mind—Why don’t you run it by me again? She’s coming to see the sights or something—isn’t that it?”

  “Uh-huh, your Mr. Mulroy told me—and this is why I say he’s a nice kid, Mr. P.—He told me he’d pass up the money you offered him if he could bring his sister on the trip. She’s never been out of Arizona, and he thought he might take some time to show her the beach. She’s never seen the ocean, I guess.”

  “Yeah, that is pretty decent of the kid, I suppose—if he really meant it. And I gotta admit to you, when I was on the phone with him, he struck me as a real straight shooter, a basically decent guy. But you never know, Cindy, you really never know; and I don’t want to take any chances with Ben’s mental welfare—So, anyway, the deal with the sister—that’s why he bumped up the pick-up time to noon instead of evening, is it?”

  “You got it, sir, damn straight. And like I say, any girl would love to have a brother like that, giving up five thousand bucks to take his little sister on a trip. But—hey I know you by now, Mr. P. You’re probably going to give him the money anyway, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Promises are promises, Cindy, so—If I don’t toss him out over the Rockies—I guess the kid’ll get his dough.”

  When Cindy taps, Ben is at his desk at the computer, checking out the latest update from Rajiv.

  Which is all good, by the way. Which couldn’t be much better, matter of fact. 237 million users of the website as of this morning, 8 a.m. Then you’ve got to figure in the ten million newbies every month, even in the slacker days of summer break. Figure in the 20 bucks a pop they’re sending in by credit card or Paypal or some such alternate payment means; add to that the advertising revenue just now ramping up—And what you’ve got is a diamond mine, a private forest of money trees! These two bright kids, Alex and Rajiv, are primed to turn into the richest up-and-coming youngsters in the universe…. And as for Atherton Corporation, whose chips are in the pot for one-fifth of the profits flowing in, things couldn’t get much better unless you tapped directly into the print room of the U.S. mint.

  “Yeah, Cindy. Come on in, it’s safe, I’m decent.”

  Bag in her hand, smile on her lips. Eddie must have stopped in this morning. Ben can guess what’s in the bag readily enough

  “Whatcha got there, Cin? From Eddie? What’d he bring?”

  “Something sweet, he said, sir. Smells like donuts to me.”

  “Jesus! Donuts! He ought to know I never eat that stuff in the morning. You want ‘em? Take the bag yourself.”

  “I really shouldn’t, Mr. A. Last thing I need is the calories. I really ought to cut down, you know. Pretty soon, I’ll need a bigger car.”

  “Bigger than your Escalade? I don’t think they get much bigger than that, do they?”

  Cindy smiles. She’s kidding, of course. When Ben gave her the Escalade, it was because he’d seen her trying to squeeze into that little Asian matchbox she used to drive when she came here from out west. That was—what? Five years ago when he’d given her the car? Not many miles on the Caddy by now, but still the thing was getting kind of long in the tooth, devoid of all the latest innovations now standard in a top-notch, recent-model vehicle, and so he offers:

  “You want something newer, Cin? Hey, why don’t you stop by the house and see if there’s something better in my garage that you’d prefer?”

  “No sir, Mr. A. I love my Escalade. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Give those exotic cars away to someone else.” She chuckled. “I know you will whether I tell you to or not, but I’ll keep the one I’ve got.”

  “OK, suit yourself; drive an antiquated vehicle if that’s what you prefer. But if you change your mind….”

  “I won’t change my mind, Mr. A., I can promise you that, but…. Can I ask you something, sir? Do you mind if I ask you something?”

  “Sure, Cindy, anything. Ask away.”

  She paused a moment, then:

  “OK, so…. Why do you even buy all those expensive cars? I’ve never seen you drive them. None of them. Ever.”

  “Why should I drive them? I’ve got Luther and the limo, remember?”

  “OK, so why even buy them then? That’s what I don’t get.”

  “You don’t? Well it’s simple, Cin: I buy them because Allan Perlman sells them to me, that’s why.”

  She shook her head.

  “I know he sells them to you. I’m the one who writes the checks—are you forgetting? But that still doesn’t explain why in the world you pay good money for something you never use, then wind up giving away.”

  “You don’t know? Nobody ever told you the story? Not even Eddie?”

  “Nope, not even Mr. P.”

  “OK, well, sit down for a minute and I’ll fill you in.”

  Cindy stepped over to the right-hand wall where there was an armless chair. The chairs in front of the desk had arms which were way too confining for her bulk, and so on the chance occasions when she was required to sit near Ben’s big desk in Ben’s big office, this particular chair had been obtained exclusively for her use. It had nice big wheels, making it easy to roll, and she rolled it slowly over to a place between the other chairs facing the desk, and while she labored ever so lightly at this work, Ben leaned back in his se
at and thought how best to explain his automotive acquisitions to her in a way she’d understand; and midway through his thought, it occurred to him, for her clearer understanding, that Cindy ought to:

  “Before you sit down, Cindy, go on over to the back wall there, where my pictures are, and look at the second picture from the left, second row down.” There were a couple of dozen pictures on that wall, some Hollywood celebrities, some major politicians of various nations of the world, some royalty, some scientists and all-around innovators whose zillion-dollar fortunes Ben had made. And, of course, his folks and Carole’s folks—In short, an abridged selection of the significant people in his life.

  “This one?” asked Cindy.

  “Yep. Take a good look at him, then come back over and I’ll tell you all about him.”

  It was a photograph taken not long before his death of Asher Perlman, signed in the bottom right-hand corner: ‘To my dearest buddy Bennie from Asher, your grateful friend.’ A nice picture that showed Ash in his better days, before the cancer gnawed him into the stick-figure he became at the end. There in that black and white image, six months—maybe eight months—before they put him in the ground, Ash looked himself: thin kindly face, full head of silvery gray hair, creases around the eyes from his perpetually jovial smile, and that characteristic narrow mustache of his, the kind that British royalty might wear, or governor-generals of the far-flung empire in its waning days. What you couldn’t see in the photograph was the instinctual and habitual inner goodness of the man. That was something that Ben would need to explain.

  “OK, I saw the picture, Mr. A. So how does he relate to all those unnecessary cars?” Cindy dropped into her chair with a heavy thud and leaned forward toward Ben behind his desk.

  “Well, I’ll have to go back a few years to tell you how everything began, Cindy; so it’ll take a little time. That fellow in the picture was my mentor in a way. When I was young, I ran over some speedbumps in my life—things I don’t feel comfortable talking about, even now, although lately it’s getting easier, I’m glad to say. Anyway, skipping over the bad stuff, there was a time in my life when I was really down. I’d dropped out of school, bummed my way around the world, got sick with every disease you can imagine, then somehow found my way home. My folks were horrified to see me when I finally walked in the door. But what happened then really saved my life in a way. My dad had a client of his accounting firm. Asher Perlman was his name, and he had a small investment agency—That’s him in the picture, if you haven’t guessed as much.

  “So Dad sent me over to Asher to have a chat. Everybody knew I’d been a whiz with investments, and Asher talked me into hanging out with him and giving him my input as to stocks and futures and commodities, which brought me back to functionality again—Between him and Dad, they latched me onto something they knew I had a feeling for and loved. Pretty soon, Ash was making lots of money for his clients—I’d like to think it was from me—but he wasn’t the kind of guy who was willing to exploit some young kid in the doldrums. He talked me into going back to Wharton to finish my degree—I only had a few credits to make up, so it didn’t take long. Then when I was finished and had earned my MBA, Ash pushed me out the door to start my own firm. Which is where and when AthCorp was founded, I’m sure you guessed. Ash sent me some of his clients to get started, and since I was successful from the outset, it wasn’t long before I was, in turn, referring folks to him.

  “There was a period in the ‘Nineties when the markets went south. I was lucky—or maybe I was smart, I don’t know which—but I managed to ride it out and show a pretty hefty profit while the other guys mostly lost. But for Ash, it was disaster. I had to bail him out; and I was glad to bail him out—That’s what his note about the gratitude is for—But Ash rally fell upon hard times from that point on. What I wound up doing in the end was bringing him in with me as a kind of advisor. I gave him a nice office, had him write reports and analyses, paid him ridiculously well—His input wasn’t very useful, I’m afraid, but no one ever let on—And then one day he got sick. That picture was taken after the diagnosis was made, but before the effects showed up—which wasn’t very pleasant for me to witness, I’ll tell you that.

  “Anyway, Ash had a kid, a nice kid, but not particularly gifted in anything useful and not particularly brilliant in school. What he wound up doing for a living—Ash’s son, I mean—was selling premium used cars. And one of the last things Ash asked of me, one of the last times I visited him in the hospital, was to consider buying a vehicle from his kid Allan if I happened to need a vehicle. So? What would you have me do? I don’t really need a vehicle, I never really have needed a vehicle, but I buy them from Allan anyway. Then, since I don’t need the damn things he sells me, I wind up giving them away.

  “Bottom line, Cindy—You sure you wouldn’t like a newer model Escalade? Those goddamn Lamborghinis I bought last year are probably way too small to suit your needs.”

  28

  The sister—whew!— she was a mousy little thing. Oh, maybe she’d blossom out a trifle when she filled out some, grew some grown-up tits, got some big-girl clothing on that beanpole frame, and finally tossed the metal braces in the trash. She was the kind of teeny-bopper who looked like she’d never been to the ocean before. Hell, looked like she’d never been anyplace really, outside the schoolroom and the local shopping mall on weekends to get ogled by the other pimply kids. An innocent, a girl of the sticks. If they had time, it would be a kick, after the ocean view she was flying way cross-country to see, to take her on a copter flight over Manhattan, just to catch the awed expression on her face.

  Yep, she was nothing to write home about, thought Eddie, as he looked on smiling wanly, waiting for her brother to climb out of the limo’s big back seat. Cindy had arranged the car, along with everything else, and you could bet the kids were loving it totally, limousine, private jet, the works. The boy, this Tommie Mulroy kid, was sitting in the car still, talking to the driver, thanking him, maybe; or maybe telling him that his brake pads were too worn, or his mufflers needed to be replaced—Mechanics do that sort of thing, you know—But soon enough a leg emerged, and then a shoulder, and then….

  Eddie’s mouth dropped open wide. Literally it did: The kid was…. That picture on the print-out was…. Well it hadn’t done him justice, that was for goddam sure! He was a handsome, kid, no denying that—beautiful in a sort of young-man’s definition of the term—But it wasn’t just his physical beauty that struck Eddie with such a mega-voltage jolt. It was his shocking, unbelievable, unearthly resemblance … to Ben.

  Not the Ben of currently, not the mildly weathered Ben he’d worked and played with these past thirty-some-odd years, no, but the Ben of Eddie’s youth, the Ben of Eddie’s memories. This kid emerging from the limousine with the overnight case in his hand, was Lizzie’s Ben—exactly—the jarring spitting image. Eddie had no language to describe what he felt, looking on, no words to express it, not even silent words sufficient to put his feelings into thought. This boy, this youth, this Tommie Mulroy fellow, was a vision from the past, a memory half-forgotten, half-remembered, but now brought back to stunning actuality in an absolutely mind blowing way.

  The boy came up to him and extended the hand that was available—the one unencumbered by the bag. It was all Eddie could do to put his own hand out and shake it. Up went Eddie’s hand and forward, but his voice, his train of thought, the presence of his mind—all that failed him utterly. All he could get his discombobulated tongue to mumble out was, hi, hello, welcome, something rote like that. But they were words of the unconscious, for his consciousness was focused on the past. This handsome kid in front of him had returned him to his youth, and for the moment he was living in the ‘80’s again, looking at Ben the way Ben used to be, leaving Eddie Parker, for the moment, hopelessly disoriented as to time and place. The boy and his sister must have thought he was a mute.

  But he snapped out of it soon enough; Eddie was resilient. And after a bit of stumbling and stammering and
acting like a goddamn fool, he finally blurted out:

  “My God, kid!—Uh, Thomas—I … I’m speechless. I don’t even know what to say. You’re Ben as I remember him thirty years ago—You’re a perfect carbon copy of my closest childhood friend.”

  “That’s the guy in the picture, right? That’s the friend you’re referring to? You know, sir? when I saw the photo that the matching web site sent out, I kind of thought the same. But your friend’s a whole lot older now, you said?”

  “Yeah, like thirty years. So…. So, this must be your sister, then, I guess. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  “Rachel.”

  “Great. A lovely name. Thomas and Rachel, I’ll remember both. And I’m Ed, Edward Parker; though everybody calls me Eddie, which is the name I like the best—So call me Eddie, OK?”

  “We’ll do that, sir,” said the boy; the girl just nodded; then Brandon helped them up the steps, and the three of them climbed aboard.

  They’d opted for the Gulfstream—more room on a five-hour flight to spread out, get comfortable, and maybe even lie down a bit if the two kids felt inclined to take a nap. But they weren’t tired. If anything, both of them seemed a little hyper, or maybe excited about this transcontinental journey in a private jet. Lots of room, but the three of them sat together in the front, just behind the open cabin door, Eddie on the starboard bank of seats, the kids across from him on the port. He had lots to talk to them about, but there was lots of time as well—the plane did Mach-point-eight, meaning six hours flight time, more or less, and he could finish all his prepping work in two. Still, it was better to start sooner than later, so once the wheels were up and the plane starting to smooth out over the valley, Eddie began:

  A capsule history to start with: Ben’s incredible success in business—which was easy enough to summarize, since both the kids had seen him on the talk shows and were familiar with his name. If Ben’s wealth impressed them, neither one showed it on their faces or in their words. What did kind of get to them, as the narrative unfolded, was the tragic story of Ben’s early life: The tale of Lizzie and her death and Ben’s misery and collapse—Hell, that was a story that’d bring tears to anybody’s eyes.