The Rothman Scandal

by Stephen Birmingham

  “Fascinating,” she said. “Good work, Bob.”

  “Now all we have to do is find a model with nerves of steel who’ll let a bunch of bees swarm in her hair.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” she said. “It’s amazing what a girl will do to get herself on the cover of Mode.”

  “So much for bees,” he said. “But speaking of those little critters, what are we all supposed to make of this new queen bee that’s going to be joining you at the top of the masthead? A lot of people would sure like to know, Alex.”

  She winked at him. “No comment,” she said.

  He shook his head and stared at the backs of his hands. “I don’t like it,” he said. “I don’t like it one bit. We’ve all been a team here, and now—”

  “Don’t get any more gray hairs about it,” she said. “Promise me.”

  Four thirty passed, and there was still no word from the thirtieth floor. Obviously, Herb Rothman was expecting the next move to come from her, but she wasn’t ready to make that move. Let him wonder what I’m up to, she thought. Let him sweat it out a bit.

  Then she had taken a call from Mark Rinsky.

  “This is just a prelim report,” he said. “About the Brit broad.”

  “I’m not supposed to let you use words like broad,” she said. “But in her case, perhaps I will.”

  “Yeah, well, here’s what I’ve found out so far. She lives at the Westbury Hotel, in one of their fancier suites with a woodburning fireplace. She wanted a piano in her sitting room, and so the hotel moved in a Baldwin grand. She rented the place in May, on a two-year lease, first and last month paid, and this spread rents for twelve thou a month, so obviously the broad’s got dough.”

  “Either that, or a rich sponsor.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be looking into that. But meanwhile she seems to live very quietly. The hotel was a little worried about the piano—late-night parties, and all. But as far as they’re concerned, so far she’s been the perfect guest. No big demands. Hotel staff likes her, which I guess means she tips well. Oh, just one demand, besides the piano. She likes her bed made up with her own sheets—blue satin—but, what the hell, I guess a lot of rich broads do that. She doesn’t go out much—coupla times. Sticks to herself. Not too many visitors.”

  “No particular—romantic life?”

  “Not that anybody knows about. Young man brought her home last night, and went up with her. Night bell captain saw them. But then he went off duty, so he doesn’t know how long the young man stayed. Nobody remembers seeing him leave.”

  “A young man?”

  “Yeah. Her age or younger. Guy with glasses, the bell captain thinks. Obviously, we’ll be keeping a closer watch on her from now on.”

  “It wasn’t Herbert Rothman?”

  “Herb Rothman’s in his late sixties, isn’t he? This guy was her age or younger, and she’s—”

  “The Times gave her age as twenty-eight.”

  “Yeah, but it’s hard to judge a woman’s age these days, isn’t it? Particularly behind those big shades she wears. Let’s see—what else? Like I say, she appears to be something of a loner. She hardly ever eats in the hotel dining room, and has most of her meals sent up by room service. She has the hotel screen her phone calls, but the switchboard says she doesn’t get that many. Oh, and here’s a kind of funny thing. She’s also had a couple of private lines run in, both of them unlisted. But one line’s for residential service, and the other’s for business. She has an answering machine on the residential line, but not on the business one. Doesn’t that strike you as funny?”

  “I dunno, darlin’. Why?”

  “If you were running a business of some kind, wouldn’t you put your answering machine on your business line, and not on your residential one? Well, maybe it’s nothing.”

  “What about England? Have you found out anything there?”

  “It’s nearly ten at night in London now. But I have an associate there, and I’ll try to reach him early Monday morning. Be back to you as soon as I have anything.”

  “Thank you, Mark.…”

  Now it was a little after five o’clock, and Alex was packing her briefcase with a few manuscripts she planned to read over the weekend. In the morning, she and Mel were driving out to the Island to spend the weekend at his house in Sagaponack. From the outer office, she heard the telephone ring as, indeed, it had been ringing all day long, and presently Gregory was standing at her door. His look was apprehensive. “It’s Mr. Herbert Rothman,” he said. “He wants to see you.”

  She started to say, “Tell him it’ll have to wait till Monday.” But then she thought: Well, if there’s going to be a confrontation, it might as well be now, and so, in the jauntiest manner she could affect, she said, “Okay. Tell him I’ll be right up, darlin’.”

  On her way up the elevator to the thirtieth floor, she reminded herself: Chin up. Whatever happened now, she must not lose her temper. She was never at her most effective when she lost her temper and, besides, her temper had never been a match for Herb Rothman’s. She entered his office with a breezy wave of her hand at his secretary, Miss Lincoln, who hardly looked at her, and then stepped into the inner sanctum, closing the door behind her.

  Herb Rothman sat at his desk, moving pieces of paper about the top as though searching for some important document, and did not immediately look up at her. “Hi, Herb,” she said pleasantly, and quickly settled herself in one of the two leather chairs that flanked his desk. He still did not look up at her, but continued shuttling papers back and forth across his desktop.

  Herb Rothman’s office was no bigger than her own—in fact, it occupied the same space in the building’s floor plan—but it was much more Spartan in its furnishings. A glass case behind his desk displaying athletic trophies—polo, golf, tennis, and crew had been his sports—was the office’s only decorative touch, a hard-edged one at that. As a young man, Herb Rothman had been considered good-looking and, in many ways, he still was. He still had a full head of short-cropped, steel-gray hair, and a hard, firm jawline. “Herbert J. Rothman is all corners,” a writer had written about him once, referring to his tight, angular build and his sharply defined features. Though small in stature like his father, he had maintained his flat-bellied jockey’s physique through rigid exercise in the private gym in his apartment. He was dressed now, as he often was at the office, for sport—in a sweat shirt, sweat pants, and Nike running shoes, a style of attire certainly calculated to astonish first-time visitors, and throw them off their guard. He still jogged the fifteen-odd blocks between 44th Street and home at River House. Alex was used to all this, of course, and was no longer even amused by these affectations of his. She knew her father-in-law too well. These were Herb’s defenses—against his own father and a cruel world. She tucked her feet underneath her in the chair, touched her triple strand of pearls, and cupped her chin in her hand, waiting for him to acknowledge her. She even knew what his first words to her would be.

  Then, still without looking up at her, he spoke them: “What time is it?” It was always the same.

  She glanced at her watch. “Five fifteen,” she said, and she added, “I hope this won’t take too long, Herb. I was just on my way home, and I have to pack for the country tomorrow.”

  His answer was to press a buzzer on his desk. “Miss Lincoln,” he said, “record this conversation.”

  This was called intimidation. Alex smiled. “Very nice,” she said.

  “What’s very nice?”

  “That you’re going to record our meeting,” she said. “I have no objection. Herb. It’s just that it adds a certain—solemnity to the occasion, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding, later on, about who said what,” he said.

  “I understand.”

  A copy of that morning’s Daily News lay on his desk. He patted it with the palm of his hand. “Most unfortunate,” he said.

  “What’s unfortunate?”

  “The boating accident
.”

  “Oh, yes. But what could anybody do?”

  “Mona writes that the accident was caused by the fireworks display at your party.”

  “That’s just your usual Mona—getting all her facts a little wrong. Mode can do a lot of things, Herb, but we can’t cause a tidal bore.”

  “Isn’t it true that the boat came by to watch the fireworks?”

  “Yes,” she said carefully. “But look at it this way, Herb. If you hadn’t decided to make your little speech, and the fireworks had gone off as scheduled, the boat would have been nowhere in the vicinity. So I suppose someone could say that you caused the boating accident.”

  He scowled. “Very funny,” he said. “But it’s most unfortunate publicity. Most unfortunate for us, at this particular juncture in time.”

  “I agree,” she said quickly.

  “Will Mona print a retraction of that statement?”

  “I thought of that,” she said. “But I decided that wouldn’t be wise. When you get a journalist to print a retraction, all you do is get the misinformation printed again.”

  “I would like to see a retraction printed.”

  “Then you ask her to do it, Herb. I’m not going to.”

  He scowled again. “Fireworks,” he said. “How much did that party of yours cost us, anyway?”

  “It didn’t cost us a thing,” she said. “I paid for that party myself.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. If you like, I can show you the receipts.”

  “You have that kind of money? Of course I suppose you intend to write it off as a tax deduction.”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it,” she said. “But its purpose was to publicize the magazine, so I suppose I could.”

  He sat forward in his chair. “You see, Alex,” he said, “this is what is so unfortunate—so unwise—about your party last night, at this particular juncture in time. We face a lawsuit by the IRS. And therefore any publicity involving the expenditure of large sums of money, extravagant spending on a lavish party that is obviously tax-deductible, sends exactly the wrong message to the IRS. Exactly the wrong message. I spoke to our lawyers this morning, and I must tell you that they are dismayed—absolutely dismayed—by the kind of publicity your party has received.”

  She was quite certain that this was a lie, but she decided to let it pass. Every publication in the country, when it had something important to announce, gave a party—including Mode. But she suddenly remembered, with a shiver, another Mode party, in 1971, that had ended in a tragedy. That had been Steven’s party.

  “I suppose everyone knows by now,” he continued, “that you and I do not see eye to eye on many issues.”

  “That’s true,” she said. “But, by agreeing to disagree, we’ve managed to come up with a successful product—wouldn’t you agree? Wouldn’t you agree that, by agreeing to disagree, we’ve forged a successful partnership? You stay out of my hair, and I stay out of yours.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “But I must say I found your June cover disgusting.”

  She smiled. “Our readers didn’t seem to think so. Newsstand sales were up twelve percent over May. That’s a good barometer.”

  He sniffed. “Prurient interest, no doubt.”

  “Well, we got through the U.S. mails with no problem. Don’t you find a woman’s body beautiful? I do.”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  “I suppose it is. The point is the box office, and the figures are in. What is it your father says? ‘You don’t take your money off a winning horse.’”

  “I don’t find your imitation of Mr. H. O. Rothman’s accent amusing,” he said. He always referred to his father as Mr. H. O. Rothman. “And I hope you’re not implying that you intend to do the same thing again.”

  “Have I ever repeated myself, Herb?”

  “Disgusting,” he said again. “But never mind. That’s water over the dam. I wish now to turn to another matter. This,” and he picked up a second piece of paper. It was yesterday’s edition of the New York Times. “This advertisement.” He held up the whale ad.

  “Like it?” she said brightly. “The agency’s submitted it for a Clio Award. They think it might win.”

  “Whether I like it or not is beside the point,” he said. “But since you ask me, I don’t like it. I don’t like it—again—because it sends entirely the wrong signals to the IRS. We are boasting of our bigness, of our financial success. The timing of this is all wrong. It is wrong at this juncture in time.”

  “We owe it to our advertisers to announce what they’re getting for their money. If they’re getting something big, we need to announce it big.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, putting down the newspaper with an expression of distaste. “Was this ad your idea, or the agency’s?”

  “We both worked on it.”

  “You know, of course, that an agency is only interested in generating commissions. But you haven’t answered my question, Alex. Whose idea was it to run this ad?”

  “It was mine.”

  “I see,” he said. “Which brings me to this,” and he picked up a third piece of paper. “I am holding in my hand Mode’s advertising promotion budget for fiscal nineteen ninety. I see no provision here for a full-page advertisement in the New York Times for Thursday, June twenty-first.”

  She bit her lip. “It seemed important,” she said. “We had to announce. We thought—”

  “Are you now making budgetary decisions, Alex? I thought budgetary decisions were made by the publisher, which I am. I believe an important step in the chain of command has been omitted. Or am I wrong?”

  “I’m sorry,” she began. “I suppose in the excitement—five million—I suppose we—”

  “So you admit to making a mistake,” he said. “And a very costly mistake. Do you know how much the back page of the New York Times—national edition—costs?”

  “Of course I know.”

  “Thirty-five thousand dollars. Where is that money to come from in your publisher’s advertising budget? Or are you taking it upon yourself to assume the duties and decisions of your publisher? Or do you admit that you seriously overstepped your authority?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I suppose, in the excitement of it all, I forgot to consult you on this one. But shouldn’t the agency have—”

  “Don’t try to blame the agency. An agency is not to be trusted. All an agency is interested in doing is spending our money, and taking their fifteen percent off the top.” He leaned toward her again, and suddenly his attitude was grandfatherly. “You see, Alex,” he said, “you keep making these mistakes. First you run a cover with a girl exposing everything but her—never mind. Then you spend unauthorized advertising dollars. You look tired, Alex. You look tired, and you look overworked. I think you could use a long vacation, or perhaps a leave of absence. I would gladly give you an extended leave of absence, if that would help you through this midlife crisis. After all, none of us are getting any younger.”

  “I’m not tired, I’m not overworked, and I’m not going through any midlife crisis!”

  “That’s what they all say. But that’s why I’ve brought in Lady Fiona Fenton, to give you a hand. She’s young, she’s vital, she’s full of fresh ideas. Also, having worked in retailing, she’s got good business sense, which you have admitted you lack. And she has good public-relations sense, which you lack. You haven’t said, incidentally, what you think of my addition of Lady Fiona to our masthead.”

  “What do I think of it? I’m appalled, that’s what I think of it.” She could feel the edge of anger in her voice. Careful, she told herself. Anger is not the way to deal with this.

  He had picked up a yellow pencil and was rolling it between the palms of his hands. “It’s a move designed to provide a better balance between the publishing and editorial divisions of the magazine,” he said. “Between the way the magazine is edited, and the way it is merchandised and sold—and advertised. She will be a much-needed liais
on between the editors and the sales staff, who, incidentally, had no inkling about yesterday’s promotional ad in the New York Times. As I say, she has highly developed, and much-needed, business skills. With her influential circle of acquaintances—”

  Suddenly she realized he was reading from a press release. “And I can’t imagine where you intend to put her. There isn’t an inch of space left on the fourteenth floor,” she said.

  “What about whatsername, the beauty editor?”

  “Carol Duffy.”

  “Is she really needed? I gather all she does is copy off the releases sent to her by cosmetics companies.”

  “Carol is a very valuable editor! She does much more than that.”

  “And your art director, Mr. Shaw. Drinks, doesn’t he?”

  “Bob Shaw is the best art director in New York!”

  “Well, Fiona expects to find a good deal of dead wood down there. I expect we shall be doing a bit of pruning, a bit of streamlining, of the staff, thereby reducing the magazine’s not-inconsiderable overhead. There are people down there who have just been at their jobs too long.”

  “I can’t believe this,” she said. “This woman hasn’t even joined the company yet, and she’s already messing with my staff. My staff.”

  “Fiona has already proposed some much-needed cost-cutting measures.”

  “Like taking away my company car, for instance? It wasn’t there to pick me up this morning. But that’s all right. I can take a taxi, or the bus.”

  He dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “Meanwhile, you asked where Fiona will be sitting. For the time being, at least, I intend to let her use this office, which would be appropriate, since she will be working closely with the publisher. And I myself will shortly be moving into Mr. H. O. Rothman’s old office, which is now just wasted space.”

  She stared at him. “So,” she said, “you really are taking over Rothman Communications. Just like that!”