The Rothman Scandal

by Stephen Birmingham

  Now that’s the silliest thing I ever heard!

  I’m not so sure, Alex.

  Are you saying I’m a castrating female?

  You said that, Alex. Not I.

  “Let’s rehash everything from beginning to end, darling,” she said. “There’s chilled champagne in the sitting room. Shall we split that? Oh, yes, let’s!”

  “No, thanks,” he said. “I’m really pretty tired.”

  “What’s the matter? Didn’t you think everything went perfectly?”

  “Yes. Perfectly,” he said in a dull voice.

  Your husband is subject to deep depressions. It’s symptomatic of the asexual personality.

  But he isn’t! There’s a cynical side to his personality, but I’ve never seen him depressed.

  Depressions are symptomatic of the asexual personality, Alex.

  Please stop using that word. It doesn’t describe Steven at all.

  Then perhaps he’s bisexual.

  Make up your mind, Doctor!

  “I saw you dancing with the Princess de Polignac,” she said. “What did she say?”

  “She said it was a beautiful party.”

  “And I thought your toast to your grandfather was perfect, darling. Just perfect—giving him all the credit.”

  “I thought he might have given you some credit. After all, you did everything.”

  She laughed. “Oh, I’m used to that,” she said. “It doesn’t bother me, letting him take all the credit. He pays all the bills!”

  He said nothing.

  “You looked so handsome tonight,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Did you see my curtsey to President Pompidou?”

  “Yes. You did it beautifully.”

  “I practiced it long enough!”

  “And the floodlight for the hundredth candle on the cake! I couldn’t believe my eyes. How did Ho ever think of that? And what sort of strings he must have pulled to arrange it—I can’t imagine. The Eiffel Tower! The very symbol of Paris! Sometimes I think your grandfather is a genius. Didn’t you think that was spectacular?”

  “Yes. Spectacular. But I don’t want to talk about the party, Alex.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “What’s the matter, darling? Didn’t you think it was the most perfect party anyone’s ever given—ever in the world?”

  “Yes. It’s just that I’m—awfully tired, Alex.”

  She touched his hand. “Spend the night in my bed, darling,” she said.

  “Night? The sun is up.”

  “Spend the day, then. We both deserve it, don’t you think? After last night? Slip off your clothes, and slip into bed with me.”

  He lay back across the bed, still in his evening clothes, the tip of his cigarette a tiny pinprick of light in the dark, curtained bedroom. It glowed more brightly as he placed it to his lips and inhaled, and she saw that his eyes were closed.

  “What’s the matter, Steven?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I told you it was nothing, Alex. Nothing serious. Everything’s straightened out now.”

  “I mean, what’s wrong with us?” she said.

  Four

  TARRYTOWN, 1973

  32

  “Was prison awful?” he asked the young man who lay naked across his bed as the afternoon sunlight filtered through the drawn drapes of the bedroom on Central Park South.

  “Ah, it wasn’t so bad,” he said.

  “Was it in prison that you learned to do all these things that you seem to do so very well?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Say, this is a nice place you got here. It’s kind of like a museum—all this stuff.”

  “My friend and I like to collect things. We travel quite a bit.”

  “You got a regular friend?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “He live here with you?”

  “Yes.”

  The younger man propped himself up on one elbow. “He apt to come back any minute? I better get myself outta here.”

  “Oh, no. He’s off for the weekend visiting an auntie of his—an auntie he expects to leave him quite a lot of money, so it’s an important visit. No, we have the afternoon to ourselves, my friend.” Lenny stood up and threw on his red silk Sulka robe. Eyeing his visitor, he added, “Or the whole weekend, if you’d like.”

  The younger man considered this. “Well, I might just take you up on that,” he said. “I got no place to go, and I’m just about flat-out broke.”

  “Then be my guest,” Lenny said, with a little wink.

  In those days, Lenny Liebling was not always one hundred percent faithful to Charlie Boxer, and this was in 1969, years before anyone had ever heard of AIDS, and there were times in those days—particularly when Charlie was out of town, tending to the cares of his dear old Aunt Jane—when Lenny strayed from the monogamous path of his union with Charlie, and this afternoon had been one of them. He had met this young man in an Eighth Avenue bar called the Silver Stud, and invited him home with him. And now here they were and, strangely enough, and against his better judgment, Lenny found himself powerfully drawn to this young hustler.

  “This is quite ridiculous,” Lenny said. “But I’ve quite forgotten your name.”

  “Johnny,” the young man said. “Johnny Smith.”

  Lenny smiled. “Of course you don’t have to tell me your real name,” he said. “Johnny Smith will do.”

  “But I sure as hell know who you are,” the younger man said. “You’re that Lenny Liebling.”

  “Now how in the world did you know that?” Lenny asked him.

  “Hell, man, you’re famous. I saw your picture in the paper just the other day—in that column by the woman who signs herself Mona. That’s how I recognized you at the Silver Stud, and decided to mosey over to the bar and talk to you. And now—hell, man, I’ve just fucked a real celebrity!”

  Lenny lowered his eyelids modestly. “A very minor one, I assure you,” he said.

  “You work for that Mode magazine.”

  “That is correct.”

  “The one that’s run by that Alexandra—”

  “Alexandra Rothman, yes. Alex and her husband, Steven.”

  The young man whistled. “My first celebrity,” he said.

  “But really, how extraordinary,” Lenny said.

  “What’s extraordinary?”

  “That someone like you would read Mona Potter’s column.”

  “Hey, man, whatta you mean by that?” the young man said. “Someone like me.” He reached out and snapped his finger gently against the front of Lenny’s Sulka robe.

  “Now, now,” Lenny said soothingly, and stroked the younger man’s quite remarkable piece of sexual apparatus. “I simply meant that I didn’t realize that Mona’s column had such a wide—readership.”

  “Man, I can read,” the young man said, and pulled Lenny down beside him on the bed again. “I can read as well as I can do other things.”

  And by the time that second little session was over, Lenny realized that he was quite ridiculously, absurdly, mad about this athletic young roughneck.

  “And what do you do, Johnny Smith?” Lenny asked him. “Besides what you so obviously do so very well?”

  “Do? Oh, there’s lots of things I can do,” he said. “In fact, there’s not much of anything I can’t do. The thing is, man, I got to find myself a job. But weekends are bad for job-hunting.”

  “Yes, I suppose weekends are bad for that,” Lenny said carefully.

  “Those Rothmans,” the young man said. “I guess they’re pretty rich.”

  “Oh, yes,” Lenny said.

  “And that Alexandra—you know her?”

  “Certainly. She’s a dear friend.”

  “Alexandra,” he said. “It’s not that common of a name. I used to know a girl named Alexandra.”

  “Did you just?” Lenny said. “Well, well. You seem terribly interested in the Rothmans.”

  “That H. O. Rothman owns the newspaper
in the town I come from out West.”

  “More than likely. He owns many newspapers.”

  “Not that anybody’s ever laid eyes on the guy.”

  Lenny seated himself in a chair opposite the bed where the young man lay, and just then a shaft of sunlight fell directly across the young man’s face, a shaft of sunlight that was almost like a pink key light falling from a proscenium onto a stage, and when Lenny recalled that shaft of light—as he often did—Lenny often thought that that light had marked the beginning of what would become his inspiration and, later, his obsession.

  “You know, you’re very beautiful,” he said. “Except—”

  “Yeah? Except what?”

  “Well, I think you’d look much better with darker hair. With black hair, you’d look rather like a young Valentino—whom I happened to know, by the way, and who was gay.” Lenny had extended one finger in the air, as though sketching a portrait on canvas. “And I’d have that small bump taken out of your nose, and of course I’d have your teeth capped and straightened.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t afford to do all that.”

  “No, but I could,” Lenny said.

  The young man sat straight up in bed. “You mean you’d do that for me—a guy you’ve just met?”

  “Just thinking aloud,” Lenny said. “Pygmalion and Galatea.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. Have you ever thought of a career in the theater? I might be able to help you. My friend Charlie and I have lots of friends in the theater.”

  “You mean you think I could be an actor?” The young man whistled. “Well, I guess I know a little bit about show business.”

  “You could,” Lenny said. “You have a good, strong voice. It would take some work, of course. There would have to be those little cosmetic changes I mentioned. There would have to be elocution lessons, work with a drama coach, perhaps dance lessons, singing lessons, perhaps fencing lessons, things like that.”

  “Yeah, but I could never afford things like that.”

  “Perhaps not, but I’m saying that I could.”

  “You’d do all that stuff for me?”

  “I might,” Lenny said with another wink, “if you promised me you’d be a good pupil.”

  “Hell, man, you must be rich too.”

  “Let’s just say moderately well-to-do,” Lenny said. “But what do you think of my idea?”

  “Hell, man, I’ll try anything—I’m just about desperate at this point. If you really want to try it. But what about your friend? What will he think? You know—about you and me?”

  “Charlie is very tolerant, very understanding. And knowing him as I do, I think he’ll be amused by the challenge,” Lenny said.

  And so that was how the creation of the young man who was to become Adam Amado was conceived.

  “Man, you’re really nice,” the young man said. “I mean, you’re the first older guy I’ve been with who’s turned out to be really nice.”

  Lenny laughed. Then he rose and sat on the young man’s lap. “You are a true rough-cut diamond,” he said. “Why do I so very much look forward to polishing you? Why do I find you so utterly enchanting, Mr. Johnny Smith? I think it’s because you manage to radiate a certain sense of—menace. We’re going to get you to radiate that sense of menace from behind the footlights.”

  The young man chuckled. “You ready for round three?” he asked.

  What a fool I was twenty years ago, Lenny thought now. And now, not foolish, he was in Herbert Rothman’s office in suite 3000 at 530 Fifth Avenue. “I see you’ve taken over Ho’s old office,” he said. “Very clever. Once again you’ve stolen the jump on brother Arthur. Congratulations, Herbert.”

  Herb ignored this. “Sit down, Lenny,” he said.

  Lenny seated himself in one of the big low leather chairs, the ones that, even with Lenny’s height, placed the visitor’s eyes at a considerably lower level than Herbert Rothman’s eyes. They had been designed to do the same for Ho’s. “Your map is out of date,” Lenny said, glancing at the wall. “I don’t see a gold star for Boise.”

  Herb Rothman waved his hand. “I’m having this entire office redecorated,” he said. “The map is coming down.”

  “Pity,” Lenny said. “I always found it so marvelously daunting. So symbolic of the Rothman power.”

  Herb Rothman changed the subject. “You’ve been unavailable all week,” he said. “May I ask what you’ve been doing at our printing plant in Paramus?”

  “Certainly. Alex is considering a story on how our magazine gets printed. I’ve been researching it for her.”

  “Stupid idea. Typical Alex. Who’d want to read a story like that?”

  Lenny steepled his fingers. “Alex is my editor-in-chief,” he said.

  “Yes. For the time being. But let’s get down to business, Lenny. Do you remember that incident in Tarrytown in September of nineteen seventy-three?”

  “Of course. Tragic business. Best forgotten about, at this point.”

  “I am in possession of a photocopy of a certain letter. It offers a clue as to what may have happened there that afternoon. Unfortunately, it offers only half a clue. The other half is missing. You see, the letter which I have is clearly a response to an invitation to ‘Rothmere.’ What I am looking for is the invitation itself.”

  “Really, Herbert, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What invitation? What in the world are you suggesting?”

  “That the alleged intruder and assailant was actually invited there. By Alex. And I have reason to believe that you may be in possession of that letter of invitation, Lenny.”

  Lenny’s eyes widened innocently. “Why?” he said. “Why me?”

  “It would seem likely, considering your—ah—relationship with the deceased.”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Herbert.”

  “If you have such a letter, Lenny, it would be worth a lot to me to have it.”

  Lenny’s eyes narrowed. “Really? How much?”

  Herbert hesitated. “Suppose you tell me how much you would ask for this letter?”

  “Five million dollars,” Lenny said. “Mind you, I’m not saying that I have such a letter. Since I assume this conversation is being recorded, I would like to place that fact on the record. I’m merely saying that if I had such a letter, which would presumably incriminate Alex, and destroy her career and life forever, I would ask five million dollars for it. That’s all.”

  Herb’s face reddened. “Too much,” he said. “Out of the question. The company can’t afford that kind of money. This IRS business is costing us—”

  “The company’s problems with the IRS are of no concern to me,” Lenny said. “And I was not suggesting that company funds be expended for this. I am suggesting that, if you want such an important letter so badly, you should be willing to dip into your own pockets—pockets which, alas, have always been so much deeper than mine—to obtain such a letter. If, that is, such a letter exists.”

  “Two million five,” Herb said. “But only after I’ve had a chance to examine the letter and determine its authenticity.”

  Lenny rose to his feet. “Five million seems cheap for a woman’s life,” he said. “It certainly seems cheap for a man as rich as you are. But I’ll tell you something, Herbert. I’ve never liked dealing with you. I don’t like dealing with you now. In fact, I’ve never liked one thing about you, nor, I dare say, do you have much love for me. We’ve been able to tolerate each other—just barely—over the years, for reasons that you and I both understand. As a matter of fact, I hate you, Herbert, and am in no mood to do any special favors for you and your friend Fiona. Steven, on the other hand, was quite another matter. I adored Steven—the son that you helped kill.”

  Herbert jumped to his feet. “Kike faggot bastard!”

  “Good afternoon, Herbert,” he said. “Let’s stay in touch.”

  When Lenny had gone, Herbert Rothman reached for the telephone on his private line. “My darling?” he
said when she answered. “I’ve got him on the hook. And you were right—I’m certain he has the letter.”

  “How much does he want for it?”

  “Too much. But I’ll work him down.”

  “Oh, pay him whatever he bloody wants, Herbert, and let’s have done with the whole bloody mess.”

  “Now sweetheart, you never pay a man his first asking price. You offer him half, and settle somewhere in between. Just let me handle the negotiations, my darling. Lenny’s hungry, and I know how to handle him. Can I see you tonight, my darling?”

  She hesitated. “I suppose so. But I warn you, my bloody nerves are bloody shot from all of this.”

  “Not mine,” he said. He lowered his voice. “In fact, now that we’re getting close to the end of this, I’m feeling bloody horny.”

  She giggled. “Sevenish,” she said.

  From time to time, over the years, Lenny Liebling and Charlie Boxer dropped by the vault of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust to pay a call, as it were, on their letter. They slipped safe-deposit box number 369 out of its narrow slot, and withdrew with it into one of the small windowless rooms where there were a table and chairs, and a door that could be dead-bolted from the inside. Then they snapped open the box and checked its contents—their respective wills (each bequeathing whatever he had to the other), a few stock certificates and savings bonds, and the letter, along with that document from the Court House of Jackson County, Missouri.

  Now, in the windowless room of the vault, Lenny removed the pale blue envelope and handed it to Charlie. “Your house in the Hamptons,” he said.

  “Not just a house. A showplace,” Charlie said. “And this is the time to buy, you know. The real estate market is in a slump. There are ‘For Sale’ and ‘Price Reduced’ signs all over the South Shore.”

  “So I’m told,” Lenny said.

  “Will he really pay that much?”

  “I’m quite sure he will. He faces a very expensive lawsuit if he doesn’t. And apparently he has the letter that was written in response to this, which makes our letter much more valuable to him, doesn’t it? Yes, ever so much more valuable.”