It was a great game, the investors were happy as larks and we bankers went laughing all the way down Wall Street. The market boomed. Capital kept streaming in, and soon everyone was playing pyramiding, creating paper corporations which the public could gobble up and investing the proceeds not in commodities anymore but in other paper corporations created specifically to issue shares for the greedy public.
Occasionally I did lie awake at night wondering about it all, but I came to the conclusion that we were providing a public service. There was nothing the public wanted more than to slug the Wall Street gambling machine by buying into the big bull market and anyway all the best firms were falling over themselves to be helpful. Even the great House of Morgan eventually got in on the act when it launched its mighty holding company the United Corporation, and we all knew they were kicking themselves for not jumping on the bandwagon sooner.
I was just proud that I’d got Van Zale’s in on the ground floor.
On paper all the partners of P. C. Van Zale and Company officered Van Zale Participations, but in practice I was the one who managed the business, showing Matt where to sign his name and telling Luke where to invest the money. This worked out well for me because Van Zale Participations had made a big noise on the Street, and soon I was regarded as a wizard by the financial community.
The other partners were pleased for the firm’s sake, but except for Charley Blair, who was too much of a nice guy to be jealous, I could tell they were getting restive. Lewis got very cool behind his patrician profile, and old Walter called me “racy.” In apology he confessed he didn’t really approve of modern banking practices, although he did have the grace to admit he was behind the times. With any luck he’d retire soon, but I was fond of old Walter and it was nice to have him around as a sentimental keepsake of times past.
Martin and Clay too had come to resemble something the iceman had left behind, although Martin was at least polite enough to pretend he disapproved of my activities for academic reasons. As soon as I heard him say “theoretically” I knew I was in for some dreary talk. “Theoretically,” Martin would say, “the investment trust now serves no financial purpose. We’re no longer investing in industry but in bits of paper which have no real worth. Theoretically this can’t last.”
I wanted to tell him to go stuff himself with ticker tape. Behind his back I contented myself with referring to him as Cassandra.
Clay was as bored as I was by Martin’s pessimism, and he was certainly more honest about his jealousy. He didn’t like the investment trust because he didn’t have a big enough share of it, and since he was always trying to muscle in on my territory we had some godawful fights in the partners’ meetings. In the end Reischman’s invited us to join them in launching a new public-utility holding corporation and I managed to channel Clay into this new venture and out of my hair. Since we were playing a secondary role in the scheme I didn’t have to worry about his getting too successful, because I knew Reischman’s would win all the credit when the cream was skimmed.
There were still only six New York partners, with one partner in London. We had talked of finding two new partners—even three when business reached a record-breaking pace—but since we could never agree on a man who might have worked with us on a partnership basis we merely hired extra assistants and talked vaguely of offering them partnerships later if they turned out well. Later we found we couldn’t agree on whether they were partnership material. In fact, we found it hard to agree on anything, and Charley’s main function as the head of the firm was to pour oil on the constantly heaving waters. It made us realize how much we all missed Paul. He had taken our diverse personalities and welded them into a cohesive whole. Without him it was a continuous struggle for unity, although as the months passed we did become more stable. The prosperity helped. It’s easier to get along with people when you have a hypnotizing financial interest in staying together, and besides we were too damned busy to afford time out for a civil war. After we had finally agreed on the redistribution of the profits, we had maintained the status quo, reviewing the partnership every six months, but since the longer we waited the more difficult it became to make any alterations, we all preferred the status quo to the inevitable bloodbath of change.
I should have said there were seven New York partners, but no one really counted Cornelius. We had felt obliged to give the kid a nominal partnership out of respect for the capital he had allowed to remain in the firm, and although he did come to the partners’ meetings in order to gain experience he always had the good sense to keep his mouth shut. In fact, he and Sam weren’t doing too badly. I was surprised. I still didn’t care for Cornelius, but I couldn’t help liking Sam Keller. He was a nice down-to-earth all-American boy, and what he was doing tangled up with a little pansy like Cornelius I had no idea. However, some kids take longer than others to outgrow that kind of thing, and I was sure he’d get himself straightened out eventually.
For Mildred’s sake I did my best to point out to Cornelius what a rocky road he’d chosen for himself, but I wasn’t surprised when he took no notice. I decided to let the matter rest. If Mildred was right he’d have a hell of a good time while he destroyed himself, and if she was wrong she’d live to be proud of him. Anyway, as time passed I began to think Mildred had been worrying unnecessarily. Cornelius may have been sharing a bedroom with his boy friend, but they lived quietly at Paul’s house on Fifth Avenue and when they did condescend to entertain the partners their dinner parties were as wholesome as apple pie—and just about as conventional and boring.
“And never a queen in sight!” I commented with interest to Caroline. “Except for Cornelius, of course.”
“Maybe they’re innocent!” speculated Caroline in an orgy of lewd curiosity. “Two little babes on the edge of the Central Park woods!” And when I ridiculed that idea she said slowly, as if she were looking at the scene from a new angle, “You know, Steven, I’ve come to the conclusion Cornelius is really rather cute. I should think those gorgeous eyes of his could get quite a bedroom expression in them if he put his mind to it, and his smile is just darling.”
“Cal!” There were no words to express my horror at her appalling taste, and when she saw my expression she laughed and said she’d rather have my balls than Cornelius’ bedroom eyes any day.
My marriage had miraculously taken on a new lease of life. Caroline had always taken a strong interest in my career, and as my success with Van Zale Participations increased, her admiration overflowed into the bedroom. Caroline’s interest in sex could plummet from one hundred to zero in no time flat, but now to my delight I found that zero never showed up on the wheel of sexual fortune, while the one-hundred slot reappeared with dazzling frequency. In the spring of 1928 I even dared to ask her if she had changed her mind about having another baby, but that was pushing my luck too far. I didn’t bring up the subject again, but I was sad. Scott and Tony were both in school by this time, and it would have been nice to have had another little tot in diapers rollicking around the nursery floor. I didn’t see much of the boys during the week because I worked such long hours that I stayed in town, but every Saturday at noon I’d be off to Long Island to take them on outings and expeditions.
I led a busy life but not busy enough to forget Paul’s murderers, and by the spring of 1928 I had maneuvered myself into a striking position. I was going to take Greg Da Costa first. He was available, unlike O’Reilly, who appeared to have fallen off the face of the earth. Of course, Greg’s role in the conspiracy had been essentially passive, but Dinah Slade had proved he’d had prior knowledge of the assassination, and that was good enough for me.
Through my brother Matt, who had a fatal gift for meeting people who would have felt at home with the Borgias, I had become acquainted with a Mr. Federico Diaconi who was raising money for a chain of hotels in California. With Greg Da Costa in the forefront of my mind, I had condescended to help Mr. Diaconi in his heroic efforts to raise money legally in order to sink into a respectable
retirement, and now he and I both knew he had to help me. Greg Da Costa was always chasing a fast buck. It didn’t take him long to accept Mr. Diaconi’s kind offer of employment, and the next thing I heard he was running one of the hotels. I never did find out if the word “hotel” was a synonym for a high-class whorehouse, but I wouldn’t have put pimping past Greg and he was the kind of guy who always knew where the nearest poker game was. Since his income was probably coming from several sources, licit and illicit, Mr. Diaconi suggested tactfully that one of his accountants could “handle” Greg’s financial affairs.
Knowing Greg, I figured it wouldn’t be long before he decided that he needed the taxes on his legal money more than the federal government did, and at a word from Mr. Diaconi I could tip off the Internal Revenue Service. That would put Greg in a tight spot. Of course he would turn to Mr. Diaconi for help, and Mr. Diaconi would play him along gently until Greg, maddened by the scent of easy money, would try a spot of blackmail connected with the hotel’s illicit activities.
After that I knew I could confidently leave everything to Mr. Diaconi. Gangland rubouts were as common as Lindy-worshipers nowadays, and the only difference between L.A. and Chicago was that Al Capone preferred the Midwest to the West Coast.
With Greg Da Costa dead, I could inform Bruce Clayton that since Greg had made a full confession the game was up. Bruce might choose to call my bluff, but with his past mental history I doubted it. He’d take his own way out, particularly if I told him I’d wait to give him the chance to do the right thing, and he wasn’t the sort of guy who’d have any trouble figuring out what the right thing was.
That left Terence O’Reilly, and he’d be the hardest of all to take but I’d manage it somehow as soon as he surfaced again. O’Reilly’s disappearance was now really bothering me. It was twenty-one months since the assassination and he still hadn’t come tippy-toeing into town to claim his bride. I made up my mind that after the second anniversary of Paul’s death I was going to launch another full-scale search for him.
It was a Sunday at the end of April when all my plans went up in smoke. I was helping the boys rebuild their tree house, which had been damaged by winter storms, and just as I was nailing down the roof Caroline arrived at the beach.
“Steven.”
One glance at her face told me it was important. “What’s wrong?”
“I just had a call from Sylvia Van Zale. She says Bruce Clayton drowned this morning off the beach at Montauk.”
II
It was supposed to have been an accident. Obviously he did his best to spare his family, but you don’t go swimming in April in the Labrador Current unless you’re the toughest of athletes, and Bruce was never known as an outdoor sportsman.
I knew I’d have no rest until I found out if he’d left a suicide note for his family.
I drove into town. It wasn’t my intention to harass the bereaved, but I felt I had no choice. At the house on Gramercy Park Eliot Clayton told me Elizabeth wasn’t receiving visitors and more or less asked me to get the hell out. Having always thought him a cuckolded nonentity, I was considerably surprised by his tough stance, but after he’d told me flatly there was no suicide note because there had been no suicide I had no alternative but to retire defeated to my apartment.
I called Sylvia, but she knew no more than she’d already told Caroline, and I was just wondering how I could get the truth without persecuting the surviving relatives when the day after the funeral Elizabeth herself asked me to call on her.
III
I had always admired Elizabeth Clayton. I liked her manner, which was graciously intelligent, and I stood in awe of her regally handsome looks. Caroline always dismissed her by demanding to know how Paul could possibly have found her sexy, but I always thought Elizabeth was much sexier than Sylvia. Elizabeth gave a man the impression that she understood him absolutely and that while making no demands she would always be available if ever he needed her help. This intuitive sympathy, coupled with a total absence of possessiveness, was far more alluring than a dozen pairs of perfect thighs, and I could well understand why Paul had fallen for her in a big way. Good thighs are a dime a dozen, but Elizabeth’s personality was unique.
I had been jolted by her appearance at the funeral, and now I was jolted again. Her face was haggard, her eyes shadowed, her hair white. She looked nearer seventy than sixty.
She gave me the note. I didn’t have to ask her for it. She just unlocked a drawer inside her bureau, took out an envelope and gave it to me.
“Read this,” she said. “I want you to read it.” Her voice was calm, but her hand shook as she pressed it to her forehead.
“If you’re quite sure …”
“Yes.” She turned away and walked to the other end of the room. She was silent, but presently I realized she was crying.
I unfolded the letter. My heart was banging away like Jack Dempsey revving up for a knockout. At first I couldn’t focus on the small disorganized handwriting. I had to steady myself and try again.
The first paragraph was spent apologizing for his suicide and ended: “… but I can no longer live with my guilt.”
In the second paragraph he admitted that he had plotted Paul’s murder and had shot Krasnov to silence him.
The third paragraph began: “For months I deceived myself that the action would be justifiable on both moral and ideological grounds, but as soon as he was dead I could only remember how good he was to me, how much he contributed to my growing up, and how happy the three of us used to be together. …”
At that point I lost my place, and it took me a good ten seconds to find it again. I had anticipated the truth but not such suffering. I was hating him and thinking “The poor crazy sonofabitch” at one and the same agonizing moment.
At last I managed to read on: “When I came out of the sanitarium I knew I owed it to Grace and to you to put my terrible remorse behind me, but whenever I met the elder of my two fellow-conspirators and saw that he was not only unrepentant but profiting richly from his crime …”
The bottom dropped out of the world.
Unable to believe the sentence, I read it again. O’Reilly was my age, but Greg Da Costa was a contemporary of my brothers, who were five years my junior. That meant that Bruce had to be referring to O’Reilly, but I had had Bruce watched since Paul’s funeral and I knew for a fact not only that O’Reilly had disappeared but that he and Bruce had never met. I also knew that where O’Reilly was concerned there were two possibilities: either he had retreated to some remote corner of the world or else he was dead, and a guy like Terence O’Reilly doesn’t go kicking the bucket when he has a girl like Sylvia to look forward to at last. I was prepared to bet he was alive and scheming in a smartly feathered nest overseas.
I thought of O’Reilly putting his feet up in some alien Eden, apparently untroubled by the need to earn a living.
I thought of the ten thousand dollars in Krasnov’s bank account.
I thought of Paul’s fifty-percent share of the profits being split among his surviving partners.
I thought of the keys to the Willow Alley door.
Elizabeth took one look at my face and rang for brandy.
I was in such a state I couldn’t even dig out my hip flask. I just sat on the couch with the letter in my hands, and eventually I remembered I hadn’t finished reading it. I went back to that terrible paragraph but kept getting stuck, just like a phonograph needle trapped in a groove. The butler was placing brandy before me by the time I managed to complete the sentence: “… whenever I met the elder of my two fellow-conspirators and saw that he was not only unrepentant but profiting richly from his crime I knew my guilt would never let me rest. Forgive me, Mother, but …”
There was more, but I couldn’t cope with it. Putting down the letter, I swallowed my brandy, wiped the sweat from my forehead and tried to think what I could say.
After a long silence Elizabeth took the letter and locked it away again in the bureau drawer. Her hands
were steady now and her eyes were tearless.
“I never believed the Russian acted alone,” she said. “I always knew Bruce was guilty, but I knew too that he couldn’t have planned such a thing by himself. The murder was so …” She paused for the right word and found more than one. “Calculated. Cold-blooded. Bruce wasn’t like that. I don’t know how long it was before I thought of Terence O’Reilly. During that summer, the summer of ’26 when Dinah Slade was in New York, Sylvia confided so many things to me—poor Sylvia, she was so desperate and I was the only one she could turn to. She told me how O’Reilly had approached her, and later when I remembered her story I knew it was O’Reilly who had planned the assassination. I wanted to talk to you then, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t talk to anyone, even Eliot. All I wanted was to protect Bruce.”
“I understand.”
We were silent again. She was sitting opposite me. The empty brandy glass stood on the table between us.
“I thought there was just one other conspirator besides Bruce,” she said. “I never dreamed there were two. I never imagined that there could be someone here in New York—someone Bruce saw regularly—someone unrepentant and profiting richly from his crime. … Steve—” She stopped.
The Rich Are Different Page 46
