Charming Lenny, they said. Delightful Lenny, witty Lenny. This was the Lenny who always knew the inside story of the latest scandal, who always knew the juiciest gossip, particularly when it dealt with the Rothman clan, who always knew who was trying to stab whom in the back, and who just might be going to get away with it.
This was the Lenny who, just that morning, had decided, from bits and pieces of information that he had fitted together, that it might be a good time to pay a little extra attention to Aunt Lily Rothman.
“Secretary! Secretary!” he had called out from his office, clapping his hands, just before leaving to dress for Alex’s supper dance. When the latest girl appeared, he said, “Ring up Renny the florist on Sixty-fourth Street, and have him send a really nice arrangement to Mrs. H. O. Rothman at seven twenty Park. Tell her on the card that everyone at the office is terribly concerned about Ho’s latest illness, and that she’s in all our thoughts and prayers. Just sign my name. No, wait—I have a much better idea. I’ll tell you how to do this, secretary. I know we’ve got some old Renny boxes lying around, so find one of them. Then go over to West Twenty-seventh Street and the wholesale flower market, pick out some flowers, and arrange them in a Renny box. Then deliver them to Mrs. Rothman—yourself.”
Looking pained, the young woman departed, and Lenny made a little note to put the price of the flowers on one of his radio cab vouchers.
The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.
The timer on the tanning bed ticked quietly away, while Lenny Liebling’s thoughts swirled to the strains of Mozart. He was listening to Mitridate, Rè di Ponto, marveling at Mozart’s genius, marveling at the noble pathos of the recitative, and marveling that Mozart was only fourteen when he composed this opera—already a genius composer, singer, master of the harpsichord, organ, and violin, his head already in the heavens of melody, orchestration, vocal and choral style. If only Lenny had been possessed of such genius, who knew to what heights in life he might have climbed. Still, he had climbed far enough with his own particular genius, which was the genius of survival. Aunt Lily had called tonight. There had been a message waiting for him on his answering machine. That meant that Aunt Lily wanted something, and that was good. It was always good when one of them wanted something. Aunt Lily would not have called at midnight to thank him for his flowers. No, she definitely wanted something, and that was another aspect of Lenny’s genius, the genius to be wanted.
It might not be the genius of a Mozart, perhaps, or of an André Charles Boulle, inspired cabinetmaker to kings, but it was a genius nonetheless. And, with the thrilling music pounding in his ears, he let his thoughts drift blissfully off to the Isfahan, thirty by forty feet, so marvelously colored, and to the genius of half-naked Persian peasants crouched in the desert sun by the banks of Zaindeh Rud, going blind over their looms tying six hundred knots to the square inch. In his mind, the gnarled brown fingers knotted the bright threads as the music rose. Genius.
The Mozart was just reaching a particularly exciting arpeggio when he realized that Charlie Boxer was trying to say something to him. He removed the earphones and lifted the lid of the tanning bed a fraction of an inch. “Yes, dovey?” he said, mildly annoyed at the interruption.
Charlie was standing by the bed in his pajamas, Mark Cross slippers, and his red silk Sulka robe, looking worried. “I was just saying,” Charlie said, “that if Alex leaves the company, won’t that mean that our principal insurance policy will become almost worthless?”
“I had thought about that,” Lenny said. “And I admit there is some risk. But then there is always risk where insurance is involved. Insurance is a business about risks. It is a gamble. You are always betting against the underwriters, who have the statistics in their favor. With insurance, you are always betting against the odds. But, if things work out the way I think they will, our insurance policy may turn out to be worth more than we ever imagined in our very wildest dreams. So don’t worry your pretty head about it, dovey-pie. Leave everything to Daddy.” And he replaced the earphones, lowered the lid of the tanning bed, and returned to Mozart and the vision of peasant weavers squatting in the dusty sun. You underestimate the vasty deeps of Herb’s bitterness toward her, he thought. So does she.…
9
Once again the telephone at her bedside was ringing, and she reached to pick it up.
“For God’s sake, turn that damned thing off,” Mel muttered. “People will be calling you all night if you let them.”
“I’d better see who this is,” she said. “Hello?”
“Lexy!” she heard Lucille Withers’s voice exclaim. “I watched it all on television. You know, this Arnold Arms really is a nifty little ole hotel. For two dollars a day extra, they’ll let you rent a TV set. Not bad, huh? Anyway, you looked terrific. When ole Herb Rothman let you have it, you had just the right expression on your face—mad, but tough. It was the old chin-up look I taught you on the runway. You really did old Lulu proud tonight. So—how’s it feel to be the most-sought-after woman in New York?”
“Right now, I feel like the most-shat-upon woman in New York,” she said.
“Oh, but what golden shit! He shat on you with shit of twenty-four-karat gold! Every big shot in this town is going to be after you now, Lexy, and all you have to do is sit back and name your price. Head-hunters’ holiday begins at the opening bell tomorrow morning. I can just see them all lining up outside your door, dangling their offers. Well, you just let ’em dangle for a few days, honey, and let the offers get bigger and bigger. Then snap at the biggest one of all. Honey, you-all have got this town by the balls!”
“Actually, I haven’t quite decided what to do,” she said.
There was a shocked silence at the other end of the connection. Then Lucille Withers said, “Well, you’re going to quit, aren’t you? My God, you’ve got to quit!”
“I haven’t decided yet, Lulu.”
“Come on, honey. If you don’t quit after this, you’ll look like a damned fool. Right now, Herbert Rothman looks like the damned fool. He’s the one out there with shit all over his face.”
“There are other considerations, Lulu. There’s a contract, and—”
“Contract, shmontract. Take his contract, and shove it down the little shit’s throat. You’re about to move into the big time, honey, and I mean the really big time. To hell with the chicken-shit Rothmans, who never paid you a tenth of what you’re worth. Guess—for one—who’s after you right now.”
“Who?”
“Rodney McCulloch, that’s who. How does that grab ya? You know who he is, I guess.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve never met him, but I know who he is.”
“We’re talking billions,” Lucille Withers said. “With Rodney McCulloch, we’re talking really big bucks. Next to Rodney, the Rothmans look like two-bit pikers. This is Big League, honey, and compared with him the Rothmans are out in the sandlots somewhere. Anyway, Rodney is an old pal of mine from way back, and he knows I know you. And fifteen minutes after that TV show was over, he managed to track me down here at the Arnold Arms, and wanted your private number. He wanted to call you right now—tonight—at midnight! But of course I wouldn’t give it to him. I told him to call you at your office in the morning.”
“Thank you, Lulu. I don’t think I could have dealt with Rodney McCulloch tonight.”
“Oh, bullets, honey, don’t thank me. I wouldn’t give out your private number if it was the Queen of England calling. Don’t you think, running a modeling agency, I’ve had plenty of experience saying no to mashers who want a girl’s private number? But, boy, that made him mad! He was so mad at me he slammed the phone down in my ear. But, boy, that really made me feel good, Lexy—saying no to a man like Rodney McCulloch.”
“Thank you, Lulu.”
“Anyway, I thought I’d better warn you. You’re going to be hearing from Rodney in the morning. He wants to be the first in the line that’s going to be forming on the left outside your
door with offers tomorrow morning. Just one word of warning when dealing with Rodney, honey. Don’t accept his first offer. Don’t even accept his second. Keep him dangling, play hard to get. Believe it or not, Rodney likes to be kept dangling. He likes people who play hard to get. That’s part of the game for him. That’s how he gets his jollies. Aw, honey, I’m just so excited for you!”
“But, Lulu,” she said, “you seem to be assuming that I’m going to be leaving Mode.”
There was another shocked silence at the other end of the line. “Aw, honey, talk sense to Lulu,” she said finally. “Of course you’re gonna quit. You gotta quit! But what a way to go! Talk about golden parachutes!”
“I’m considering my options,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, well, let me just tell you one final thing, Lexy honey. There’s a lot of women in this town who’re gonna be pretty jealous of you, ’cause you’re sitting in the catbird seat. But I’m not jealous of you, Lexy. I’m proud of you, I really, truly am. You said tonight you wanted to introduce me around as the old belle who discovered you, and I said bullets to that. But when I saw your face on the TV screen tonight when the little shit was trying to dump on you—looking so proud, so tough, and I mean the good kind of tough—I said to myself: ‘Hey, I’m gonna go around town from now on, and I don’t just mean this town, and I don’t just mean Kansas City, I mean every town, just crowing—shoutin’ it from the rooftops—sayin’, Hey, I discovered that li’l ole gal!’”
“Thank you, Lulu.”
“And give Rodney McCulloch a big kiss for me. Actually, you won’t want to give him a kiss—he’s the ugliest-looking man you ever met. But when you think of those deep, deep pockets of his, he’s Tom Cruise. ’Night, now, honey. Love ya. And congratulations.”
“Love ya too, Lulu,” she said, and replaced the receiver with a sigh.
She lay back against the cool pillows, and pulled the cool sheet up around her neck. “What am I going to do?” she whispered.
But Mel had rolled over on his right shoulder, and was fast asleep. She reached out with one bare arm and turned off the telephone.
In another darkened bedroom not far away, the young woman raised herself on one elbow and whispered, “I shouldn’t have let you do this.”
“Do what?” the young man said.
“Let you seduce me.”
“But it was wonderful for me, my darling. I loved it. I love making love to you, and I want to do it all the time. Wasn’t it just as wonderful for you?”
“Yes, but … but it was wrong. I know it was wrong. I didn’t intend this to happen, but I was so upset. Never in my life—never in my life have I felt so much open hostility from a whole terraceful of people. So much anger, so much envy. So much hatred. I just had to get out of there. And you were kind enough to take me home.”
“And you were clever enough to think of a way for us to do it. Didn’t you love it when old Otto whipped out his gun? His piece, he calls it. I loved that. Ha-ha … tra-la … tra-la.” He was laughing, and singing a little tuneless, wordless song at the same time.
“You have a beautiful body,” she said, and with one finger she stroked the light hairs on his chest, and caressed his nipples.
“Now look what you’re doing to me again,” he said, and he threw the sheet back and lowered her moving hand to show her what he meant.
“Oh-oh-oh-oh,” she said.
“You are so lovely,” he said.
“Your mother hates me too.”
“She won’t when she sees how sweet you are.…”
From Joel Rothman’s journal:
6/22/90
4:16 A.M.
Tra-la … tra-la. Life is full of unexpected wonderments, isn’t it? No one would ever guess what I’ve been doing half the night. F---ing my brains out is what! Whoopee and hallelujah, free at last! There was a nurse I used to have who wanted me to call her “Mamzell,” even though she wasn’t French, but Irish—thought “Mamzell” sounded a little “tonier,” she said—who told me that if I touched myself it would drain the fluids out of my brain cavity. Well, shit—surprise, surprise—tonight I spent half the night just f---ing my brains out, and look, my brain’s still here, fluids and all! The Boy in the Bubble is out of the Bubble at last—ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay! And this was so different from the other time, the time I’ve already written about, when old Otto took me to see that whore in Concord—a “hoor,” he called her—the one with the dirty underwear who only pretended (I’m sure of it) to come. An experience like that one could turn a guy off sex for the rest of his life, I guess, but thank God it didn’t. But this was entirely different. This was the real thing. This was the real turtle soup, not merely the mock. This was Granada I’ve seen, not just Asbury Park! And I think I’m in love. Her name is Fiona—isn’t that a lovely name? And she is so sweet—so sweet, and so clever. It was so clever the way she got rid of old Otto, I’m still laughing about that—pretending she’d seen a man on the roof (my would-be killer!) with a gun, so she and I could make our escape together. Old Otto’s probably still tearing around the city looking for me! He wasn’t in the lobby when I got home a few minutes ago, and I’m sure he wouldn’t dare tell Mom he lost me! Well, old Otto’s days are numbered anyway, thank God. Christ, a guy couldn’t have any social life, much less a sex life, with old Otto tagging along. I couldn’t even jack off in bed at night, with old Otto sleeping in the same room! Know where I had to go to jack off? In the shit-house stall in the dorm, and even that wasn’t all that private because someone could always come in and take the stall next to mine. But anyway, those days are gone forever, and back to Fiona. Took her home in a taxi—she lives at the Westbury—and she asked me up to her apartment for a nightcap, in return for the favor, and when I started to go she asked to kiss me goodnight, and when I kissed her she stuck her tongue between my teeth, and the next thing I knew we were f—ing! We were f---ing our brains out, right in her living room on her big white sofa. But that was just for starters. After it was over, the first time, we got to talking a bit, and she told me a little about herself. She has no real friends in New York, she told me, having come here from London not long ago. She told me she felt like an alien in a strange land. She finds New York to be kind of an unfriendly city. I told her I wanted to be her friend, and she told me quite a lot about herself then. She comes from a really good family in England, where she even has a title—“Her Ladyship,” but she hates the whole idea of titles. And, title and all, she has really had a pretty unhappy life. Good family or not, her father abused her. She didn’t say how exactly, and I could tell she didn’t want to talk about that, so I guess she was abused in some really awful way. Then, when she was six, her mother ran off with another man, and she’s never seen or heard from her mother since. She was left to be raised by the abusive father—like me, she was raised by a single parent—but she really hates her father, and she’s actually afraid her father might do something to try to bring her back, even though she’s a grown woman. Incidentally, I didn’t ask her how old she is. I guess she’s a few years older than I am, but whatthehell. Mom’s dating a guy who’s a few years younger than she is, and she’s probably going to marry Mel one of these days. Besides, I’ve always kind of been attracted to older women, haven’t I? I’m thinking in particular of K.G., and all that stuff at St. Bernard’s. Anyway, she said, “Bertie rescued me.” Bertie is what she calls Gramps. I never heard the Great Herbert J. Rothman called Bertie, but I guess that’s the English of it. Seems she met Gramps in London a couple of months ago, and when she told him how bad the situation was with her father, Gramps offered to bring her to this country and give her a job with the magazine. I guess Gramps must have his sentimental side. (Funny, I’ve never seen it!) Anyway, Fiona said she doesn’t think Mom’s too happy about the job he’s given her. She said she really wants to be Mom’s friend, but doesn’t think Mom will let her be. I promised to help her any way I could—with Mom. And then, as we were talking like that, she did the cutest thing. We
were lying there, bare-assed on her sofa, and she suddenly took this crazy big pair of sunglasses she wears and wrapped them around my limp cock, and made my pubic hair stand out around the frames like a pair of bushy eyebrows, and she said, “Oh, look at the little old man!” And then she said, “Oh, look, his nose is getting bigger. Are you Pinocchio? Have you been telling lies to me?” And before I knew it, we were starting to f--- again. But she said, “No, this time we’re going to do it right,” and she got up and led me by the hand, just like a little girl, into her bedroom, with her crazy sunglasses still hanging from my stiff cock, and she turned down the covers of her big Hollywood king-size bed, and there were these beautiful pale blue satin sheets, and I was so excited I almost came again before I could get inside her! Oh, she is a wild thing, wild and beautiful, and I think she loves me, too. I would like to ask Mom what it’s like for a woman to be in love, how it feels, but I don’t know if she could even tell me, because I think it’s so different for a woman, being in love, from what it is for a man. But if what I feel now is love, then it’s a wild and wonderful feeling that has nothing to do with f—ing, a feeling that seems to creep up on you after the f—ing’s over, a feeling of wanting to protect, and comfort. Because after it was over, this time, she said she felt it was wrong, that we shouldn’t have f—ed, and she shouldn’t have let me because of her new relationship with Mom. I told her it didn’t matter because I would never tell Mom about it, or anybody else in the world about it, for that matter. And then she even got a little tearful, and said that she thinks Mom hates her. And I tried to comfort her and reassure her that Mom would never hate her, and that I would take care of that because I loved her, and before we knew it—well, we were f—ing again! So—what other words can I use to describe this lovely girl I’ve met? Pert is one. She is pert, lively, spirited, bubbly (like champagne), energetic, peppy, snappy, frisky, bouncy, sparkly, as hard to pin down as quicksilver, but also brave and strong and sad, and I want to make her happy. But look, it is almost 5:30 in the morning, and the sun is coming up, and I am f—ing tired! And I haven’t even bothered to make paragraphs for tonight’s entry, and this is probably the sloppiest piece of writing I have ever done, but whatthehell—I’m in love. Tra-la! Just one more item for my collection of misused words in the public press. Headline in yesterday morning’s Times: “DATA SHOWS CHINESE POPULATION GROWTH IS STABILIZING.” Of course “data” is a plural word, and so it should be “DATA SHOW.” Who edits the Times, anyway? I could do a better job. And one new vocabulary word: FIONA. Those three lovely vowels, and just two consonants. All the loveliest, most delicate words in the language have more vowels than consonants.
The Rothman Scandal Page 14
