Rich Boy

by Sharon Pomerantz

  In the bull pen, a young man sat in the front row, in his tie and shirtsleeves, mechanically banging his head on the top of his desk in a 1-2-1-2 rhythm. In the last row, the only other occupant had disrobed down to a pair of pants and socks. He paced back and forth, talking animatedly to himself. In between them was row after row of empty desks.

  Barry’s office was empty except for the cold caller, Justin, who sat at Barry’s desk with his feet up, talking on the phone to a girl named Tia-Marie about a movie where blood spurts out of someone’s eyeball. Robert cleared his throat and then, still not getting the boy’s attention, came up closer and said: “Hang up that phone, Justin, before I strangle you with the cord.”

  Justin told Tia he’d call back, then took a cigarette out of his jacket and lit it.

  “Where is he?” Robert asked.

  “Last Thursday two security guards walked him out of the office. Day before that, he was in the conference room with the compliance guys for hours. Your account’s been transferred.”

  “What’d Barry do?”

  “You’ll have to ask him yourself.” The phone rang again, the long rows lighting up over and over.

  “So how do I get hold of my money?”

  “Contact Joe Harper. But nobody will know how things stand for days. It’s a mess.”

  “And where’s Joe Harper?”

  “Look out there, you see anyone?” Justin asked. “They’re gone. Down at the bar, probably. You know what the problem was today, if you ask me? Technology.”

  “I didn’t actually ask you —”

  “The brokers,” the boy said, ignoring him, “even when they wanted to, even when everything was going in the crapper, they couldn’t sell. Too many trades in the system, no price quotes. Everything froze. You could see the numbers on the Quotron falling and falling and not a thing anyone could do to stop it.”

  Robert took a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket. “Barry wouldn’t hire someone who didn’t know how to play the angles. Surely Joe Harper has files?” he asked.

  The boy took the money nonchalantly. “I might be able to find out what you had as of last Thursday. That’s about the best I can do.” He paused. “Today, nobody knows anything.”

  Robert let him have the money then sat down and waited, listening to the quiet, his pulse racing. When half an hour had passed, and he feared Justin was never coming back, he saw him strolling leisurely across the trading floor. He opened the door and informed Robert that he was in luck; some paperwork had been stacked on Joe Harper’s secretary’s desk for days, awaiting updating or simply thrown there in disgust.

  “What’s my total?”

  “As of Thursday’s closing, seventy thousand dollars.”

  “Before the crash?” Robert asked.

  “That’s what it says,” the boy replied, as Robert snatched the file out of his hand.

  “How did he manage to take over two hundred thousand dollars and turn it into seventy thousand?!”

  “Hey, I’m not responsible.”

  “You know what they did in Rome,” Robert said. He stepped closer, wanting, suddenly, to fling the kid through the glass wall. “What do I even have left after today?”

  “Not much,” Justin whispered, and then walked out the door.

  Robert used his inhaler again. He heard a rushing in his ears, like the whispering of a crowd. He’d lost. He had no money.

  He took the subway from the World Trade Center station up to Barry’s place, but his brother was not there—the doorman hadn’t seen him in days. He gave the man a twenty-dollar bill—more money Barry was costing him!—got the key, then took the elevator up to the top floor but found the place neat as a hotel. The cleaning woman had done such a good job that had it not been for the picture of himself and Barry with their father, taken on the Boardwalk when they were kids, he might have thought that he had the wrong place. He looked on Barry’s Rolodex and called a few names, including Victor Lampshade, but no one had heard from him.

  For hours he walked the streets of Manhattan, wandering first along Central Park West, then across the park, and then south, through Midtown, back past his office, and toward Times Square. It was dark by the time he got to those streets where, as a cabbie on the night shift, he’d delivered so many fares. Off Sixth Avenue an explosion of lights blinked GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS. Sheets of newspaper blew about his feet, broken glass littered the sidewalk, and a voice chanted in his head: Make money, make money, make money. After all these years and so much hard work, he was back to where he started. Or worse. He thought again of all the cash he handled for other people every day: IOLA accounts, escrow accounts, 1031 exchange accounts such as the one Mario had set up for Mark Pascal. He remembered his fantasy of diverting the money Pascal made from the sale of his next property into an account offshore—Pascal would sell off another investment property of his father’s in just a few weeks, this one for $11 million. With Mario gone, Robert was now the senior attorney on the deal. He had set up offshore accounts for clients before —you could do it in an afternoon, over the phone and with a fax these days. He played the idea over and over in his mind, feeling his breathing calm. He could start over and then some, and leave the country a wealthy man. The reason so many people got caught was because they stuck around. Was it such a crime to steal insured money from a wealthy man?

  Robert stopped and looked at himself in the display window of a pharmacy. His reflection floated in a sea of face creams, hair dyes, and pain medications. Sweaty and in need of a shave, he tried to imagine changing his name, growing back his beard. When he’d driven a cab, he knew a guy who serviced the cars, but everyone said that he made his real money forging passports. It would not be so hard to disappear. No ties. No money worries. Free.

  No Sally.

  No Gwen.

  The thought stopped him in his tracks. Leave his daughter? How had he not thought of her all afternoon, not for a second? He stared at himself one last time in the window. He could not envision his next move, did not know what his resources were or what he should do. And so he went to the one place he seemed to go when he was up against a wall, desperate and uncertain, and to the one person whose life was just then as complicated and filled with disappointment as his own. He walked east to Park Avenue and up to Fifty-fifth, where he turned into a luxury building and asked the porter, someone new, if Mr. Trace was in and up to seeing company.

  He was left to pace back and forth on the mocha-colored marble until, finally, the man waved him through and he took the elevator to the top. Tracey was standing in his doorway, waiting for him. “A day full of surprises,” he said. “Only this one is pleasant. Come in.”

  “So you’ve been listening to the news?” Robert walked into the apartment, and Tracey, barefoot and casual in jeans and a T-shirt, padded over to the bar to fix them some drinks. “A big drink,” Robert said, sitting down, “really big.”

  “You’ve lost a lot today?” Tracey asked, his back still to Robert.

  “I have no idea exactly how much, or even how much money was in there to begin with. Let’s say Barry didn’t keep the most accurate of records. He was walked off the floor last week.”

  “So he wasn’t even trading?”

  “Nope,” Robert said. “The stock market managed to crash without Barry Vishniak.”

  Tracey walked toward him with the cocktail shaker and two full martini glasses on a tray. He was as calm as Robert had seen him in years.

  “You’re not concerned by this?” Robert asked, grabbing his drink.

  “Win some, lose some. That’s the stock market. Barry never had much of my money, and I closed that account before Claudia left. But in any case, I’m sure I lost a small fortune today. I’ve just never seen much point in worrying.”

  “I gave Barry most of what I had.”

  “Your family loyalty is admirable,” he said. “Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”

  “You don’t sound very convinced.”

  “Robert, you’re healt
hy and you have a good job. And a wealthy wife. You’ll be fine.”

  Robert told Tracey what had happened that day in Jack’s office, told him about Sally and the state of his marriage, told him, in short, the whole pathetic, confusing condition of his life.

  “Will you give this girl up?”

  “She gave me up. She’s in Hartford in a show.”

  “She’ll be back,” Tracey said.

  Robert was quickly getting drunk on an empty stomach. He felt light-headed. “Any crackers in this joint?”

  Tracey went into the kitchen again and began to grab things off shelves.

  “Please don’t trouble yourself to cook anything,” Robert said.

  “It’s a day of surprises, Vishniak, not miracles.” A few minutes later, Tracey came back with three cheeses on a board, a grouping of crackers, some grapes, and sliced melon, all artfully arranged, along with two small, gold-rimmed china plates. “I’ll bet that until this moment you still wondered if I was actually gay.”

  Robert stared. “I’ve never heard you say the word before.”

  “I’ve closed up the Tuxedo house and put it on the market.”

  “But it’s your family house, isn’t it?”

  “My brother doesn’t want it and my mother isn’t ever coming back to the U.S. I can’t stand to be there anymore. Too much house for one person.”

  “You’ll live here full-time?” Robert asked, helping himself to more cheese and crackers.

  “No, I’m going to sail around the world. Or at least as far as I can stand it. What good is a boat you can live on if you don’t use it?”

  “By yourself?”

  “No, I’ve hired two strapping young men for my crew. Both very good-looking.”

  “I envy you,” Robert said, “getting away from New York.”

  “Come with me,” Tracey said, sounding suddenly serious.

  “I think I have to claw through this mess and figure it out.”

  “To me, that’s about the best time to cut and run,” Tracey said, finishing off his drink.

  “What about Claudia?” Robert asked, taking some more crackers.

  “I believe she’ll stay in Paris, once she’s out of that place. Her family’s there. And the Parisians mind their own business —probably why Rock Hudson went there to die.”

  Robert had wanted to ask Tracey a question for a long time. The alcohol, and mention of the dead actor, gave him courage. “Are you ever going to, you know, get the test?”

  “I don’t much see the point.”

  “Don’t you want to know?”

  “Aren’t I dying to know if I’m dying? Not at all. I’m a coward, and if you haven’t figured that out after all these years then you haven’t been paying attention.”

  “What about if you meet someone else?”

  “Sex is over. Gone with the bell-bottom and the typewriter.”

  “Seriously, Tracey.”

  “I am being serious.” He picked up the shaker and stood up. “I’ll make more, if that’s all right with you.”

  Robert nodded. Tracey went back to the bar as Robert took more food onto his plate.

  “You never did love Crea, did you?” Tracey said. “I didn’t want to see it. I wanted to keep you close.”

  “You could have done that anyway.”

  “Will she settle anything on you, if you leave?”

  “Airtight prenup,” he said. “I get nothing if I leave her, not even this watch.” He held up his wrist. “I could have renegotiated after Gwen was born, but I was too proud. And I knew I didn’t deserve it, frankly. I’ve been a lousy husband. It feels good to admit that.”

  “You’ve always thought too much about money,” Tracey said, surprising Robert again, as he set their drinks on the table.

  “Easy to say when you’ve always had it.”

  “You’ll either be wealthy very soon, or you’ll be wealthy in twenty years. Either way, you’ll have plenty.”

  “Are you offering me a job?”

  “No, but I’m going to die.”

  Robert put his drink down. “But you haven’t even had the test.”

  “Sooner or later, I’m going to die. We all are. If I have the plague, which is certainly possible, even probable, then you’ll get rich soon, within a year or two. If I don’t have it, well, the Trace men rarely live past sixty. I could be the exception, but that’s not likely.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “You say that now, but I’ve left you quite a bit. Just a small slice of the pie, but there’s an awful lot to go around.”

  “What about your family?”

  “Plenty passes back to them, and to the charities, but that still leaves more than enough. And who have I got to leave it to? You’re about the only one.”

  “You put me in a terrible position.”

  “Of wishing to speed up my death?” Tracey laughed. “Don’t be too cheerful. Right now I’m fit as a fiddle. Not so much as a cold.” As if to prove his point, he finished off his fourth martini. “I’ve always wondered what you’d be like if you actually had enough, or more than enough, to satisfy yourself. Not having to covet and pretend. Not having to work so hard, and be quite so careful or so angry. Just to have more than you need, and to understand that even with so much freedom, a man still has the capacity to be utterly miserable. Hopefully you won’t be. But I won’t know, will I? I’ll be dead.”

  “Stop it, Tracey. Jesus Christ!” This last piece of news, coming at the end of such a long and horrible day, and then the alcohol—he felt as if he would break in half.

  “Oh, calm down. I could live to be a hundred. Wouldn’t that be a good joke?”

  “I hope you do.” Robert wiped the crumbs from his mouth. “When do you leave?”

  “Next week.”

  “That soon?”

  “I don’t see any point in staying. I could die at sea, you know?”

  “If you keep making a joke of this —”

  “No, it’s not a joke,” Tracey said. “Not at all.”

  Robert stood up, shakily. “I think I’d better get home.”

  “Yes, it’s late. Will you be all right?” Tracey asked. “The doorman can get you a cab.”

  Tracey walked him to the door. Everything they had to say had been said. Robert told Tracey to take care of himself, and Tracey came toward Robert as if about to kiss him, but instead he put out his hand and smiled. Robert took that hand forcefully and pulled his old friend close, hugging him. Then, as quickly as he’d drawn Tracey to him, he let him go, and walked toward the elevators.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Telling Gwendolyn

  He arrived just before 1:00 a.m. The house was dark. He took off his shoes and socks; the polished wood of the entrance hall felt cool and soothing against his tired feet. Stumbling toward the stairs, he thought only of bed. Then he crept past Gwen’s room, and heard her calling out to him. How had she heard? She called him again. He opened the door just enough to peer in; the room was dark except for a few strands of streetlight coming through the blinds and the twinkling of tiny iridescent stars and a moon painted on the ceiling. She yawned. “Daddy, where have you been?” she asked, sitting up, her voice still thick with sleep.

  “I was at the office, sweetheart,” he said, closing the door behind him and walking over to the side of the bed.

  “You’re always at the office,” she said, reaching for the desk lamp. Robert turned it on for her, and the tiny square around her head was flooded with light. “And Mom gets in one of her moods and doesn’t talk to anyone and I miss you,” she added in one breath. He wondered how, at six, she managed to sound like a little girl and an adolescent all at once. Her hair came down in front of her eyes in a curly heap; she parted it with both hands, as if opening a curtain.

  “I’ve been trying to make partner. It means being at the office a lot.”

  “Did you?” she asked. “Make it?”

  “No,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed
. “I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

  She furrowed her brow. The idea of him not getting what he wanted was strange and confusing to her. “What does it mean, Dad, being a partner?”

  “Making more money, having more say in decisions. Like when you’re a kid and then you get older—and Mom lets you pick your own clothes, or decide sometimes how you want to spend your time. A partner is like becoming more of a grown-up at work.”

  “If I had more say, then you’d be home all the time. And we’d play on the floor. Like we did last year, remember that day? When we built the Empire State Building out of Legos? And watched Singin’ in the Rain? When the guy dances up the wall, remember?”

  “I remember.” If he left, he would have to fight hard for any time he got with her. Would her mother turn her against him? In that moment he imagined staying, making amends at the firm, not seeing Sally again. People made such sacrifices for their children. His father and grandfather had given even more than that for him. They had given their health, their lives.

  “Dad, what’s wrong?” she asked, and took his hand.

  “Gwen-Gwenny-Gwendolyn, did I ever tell you that I named you after someone I loved very much?”

  “More than Mom?” his daughter asked, her voice high and uneasy. “Do you and Mom love each other?”

  “A person can have more than one love, sweetheart. There’s lots of room in the human heart. It’s only when you stop thinking you have any room left—that your heart is so broken that you can’t love—only then do you make mistakes.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I named you after a girl named Gwendolyn who was very beautiful and smart and the kindest woman I’ve ever known. We were engaged to be married and we lived in Boston. You know where that is?”

  “Where you went to college? With Uncle Tracey?”

  “Exactly,” he said. “You never forget anything, do you?”

  “And what happened to her, Dad? What happened to the girl named Gwendolyn?”