The Rothman Scandal

by Stephen Birmingham

  “The two pieces to the puzzle,” Charlie said.

  “Rather like the two keys it takes to open a safe-deposit box, isn’t it?” He smiled.

  Charlie held the pale blue envelope by its corners, gingerly, between his fingertips. He pressed its slit open, just to be sure that the crested sheet of pale blue letterhead was still inside, along with the boxholder’s note. There was no need to take out the letter and read it. Both Lenny and Charlie knew the words by heart, and the paper those words were written on was fragile, perishable, particularly if unfolded and refolded too often. “The postmark, everything,” Charlie said. “Would her fingerprints still be on it, do you think?”

  “Possibly,” Lenny said. “After seventeen years, I don’t know. But possibly. And it occurs to me, dovey, that probably you should not leave the apartment for the next few days, at least while we’re negotiating.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “Now that Herbert has guessed that we have this letter, it might occur to him to hire someone to do a little Watergate on us.”

  “My God! You’re right!”

  “Herbert’s playing hardball now, dovey. And the Brit bitch is pushing him. My spies have been reporting to me.”

  Carefully, Charlie replaced the blue envelope in the box, and closed the lid.

  Keeping the letter in the bank’s vault had been Charlie’s idea. It was too dangerous to hide the letter, in, say, a desk drawer in the Gainsborough apartment. Apartments could be burglarized and, in New York these days, even apartments in the most secure buildings often were. Also, if a too-inquisitive guest at one of their famous Sunday soirees happened upon that letter, and grasped its significance, that would be the end of everything.

  But the vault of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust was the newest, safest, most fireproof in the city. It was also Charlie’s idea to keep the key to this particular safe-deposit box in another safe-deposit box, in a different bank—the Chase Manhattan, just down the street. Charlie knew that if one had a key, and knew another person’s bank and box number, it was ridiculously easy to gain access to that person’s box. The tellers rarely bothered to compare signatures on those little access slips they made you sign. Lord knows that he had gone into his dear Aunt Jane’s safe-deposit box often enough, and no one ever questioned the fact that he was signing a woman’s name.

  Finally, it was Charlie’s idea that both boxes be rented in his name only. After all, though Lenny never revealed his age, even he would admit that he was a few years older than Charlie, and probably would be the first to go. And both men had agreed never to have the letter Xeroxed, or copied in any way. It would be too dangerous if a copy of this letter ever fell into anyone else’s hands. Possession of the original was everything. It was their insurance, for neither Lenny nor Charlie owned a penny’s worth of life insurance. Lenny had always said that letter would be valuable someday, though he didn’t know how, and now apparently that day was at hand.

  There was also the document from the Jackson County Court House. That was a somewhat different situation, since other copies of it certainly existed. Anyone interested could easily go to the Bureau of Vital Statistics in Kansas City and obtain a copy for the asking. But the point was that, without the letter, that document was all but meaningless. Without the letter, the connection between the two pieces of paper would never be made. The letter was pivotal, and was worth much, much more—as they say—than its weight in gold.

  “I was thinking,” Charlie said now, “that if Herbert Rothman will pay that much for it, how much would Alex pay?”

  “You mean put it up for auction? Sell it to the highest bidder?”

  “Something like that.”

  Lenny ruffled what remained of his friend’s thinning hair. “Now don’t be greedy, dovey. I don’t think Alex has that kind of money. Besides, other sources of income are on their way.”

  “Really? From where?”

  “You’ll see,” said Lenny with a wink. “Irons are in the fire. All things come to him who waits.”

  “Voilà!” Lenny cried, unrolling the big rug across the parquet floor of the red-and-gold drawing room at 720 Park Avenue. “What do you think of your Isfahan, Aunt Lily dear? Isn’t it gorgeous? And it wasn’t gone too long.”

  Aunt Lily Rothman peered down at the rug. “It looks different,” she said. “It looks new.” She sniffed. “It even smells new.”

  “Of course!” he said. “Because it’s like new! It’s clean at last. Now you can see all the original colors, as they came from the weavers’ looms.”

  She studied it some more. “It just doesn’t look like the same rug,” she said.

  “Of course it doesn’t, because it’s been so long since you’ve seen it clean. How long has it been since it’s been cleaned? Twenty years? Thirty years? You’re seeing your rug with thirty years of filth and grime removed.”

  “My house isn’t full of filth and grime.”

  “The cleaner did a really lovely job. And he only charged a thousand dollars. Can you imagine? I’m having the bill sent to you.”

  “Hmm. I don’t think that’s so cheap.”

  “It’s an absolute steal, Lily dear. Now what about those two Boulle commodes?” he said. “Look at the way your stupid maids have chipped and barked and scratched their legs with their vacuum cleaners. As luck would have it, I have a little man who’s a superb refinisher. Of course he’ll have to have the pieces for a while. Refinishing fine furniture takes longer than cleaning a rug.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “Taking those out will leave big holes in the room.”

  “Only for a few weeks.”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “But when you own fine furniture, Lily dear, you must not let it fall into disrepair. If you do, it’s a sign of aging. And we can’t have people think you’re aging, can we, Lily? Letting things go?”

  “Well, I’ll think about it,” she said. “But meanwhile, what about the other business?”

  “Aha!” he said, reaching for his briefcase. “I have something for you. Hot off the presses.” He opened his briefcase and withdrew a sheet of parchmentlike paper. “The first Rothman Communications stock certificate. I had it issued in your name—a thousand shares.” He handed it to her, and she examined it closely.

  “Notice the date,” he said. “Nineteen twenty-two. You could say it was Ho’s wedding present to you. Wouldn’t that sound nice? I particularly like the Mercury symbol at the top—Mercury with his winged feet. Mercury was the messenger of the gods. Mercury—communications. See? And I also like the scroll and key design along the border. It’s printed on something called distressed paper—new paper that looks old. Aren’t I clever at making new things look old?” And he hoped, briefly, that she would not look down at the rug again. She did not.

  “If you approve, I’ll have more printed up,” he said. “In different denominations, different people’s names, different dates, as we discussed.”

  “What about the people at the plant? Does anyone know what we plan to do with this?”

  He smiled. “Fortunately,” he said, “I have found a pressman who is not too bright.” He tapped his head. “He has been my sole accomplice.”

  “I don’t like that word accomplice, Lenny.”

  “Assistant, then. Anyway, he thinks we’re printing party favors.”

  She nodded. “Let me study this awhile,” she said. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

  When Lenny had gone, Aunt Lily walked quickly down the linenfold walnut-paneled hallway to her husband’s room. “Why don’t you take a coffee break, Mrs. Zabriskie?” she suggested. “I’ll sit with Mr. Rothman for a while.” Mrs. Zabriskie gathered up her needlework, and rose.

  And when Mrs. Zabriskie had gone, Ho Rothman opened his eyes and pushed himself up on his elbows in the hospital bed. “Damn bedpan,” he said. “Damn pipple make me use this bedpan.” He pushed the offending object out of his way. “Okay, whatta you got?” He pointed to the parchm
entlike sheet of paper in her hand.

  “I think we’ve just had a rug ripped off us,” she said. “Now he’s after my Boulle chests. How much more do we want to give him?”

  “Chests, shmests,” he said. “Let’s see what the schnorrer’s done for us,” and he snatched at the sheet of paper.

  “Three million,” Herb Rothman’s voice said into the telephone.

  “Three million what?” Lenny said.

  “Three million dollars. For the letter, you rubber asshole. That’s my final offer.”

  “My dear fellow, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lenny said, and hung up the phone.

  And at that moment, Alex was taking a telephone call from Rodney McCulloch. “I think we need to talk,” he said. “Let’s do another lunch. The fish place again? Ha-ha-ha.”

  She hesitated. “Our last meeting at the fish place got us written up in Mona Potter’s column,” she said. “If you think we need to meet again, maybe you’d better come to my house. But I ought to warn you, I haven’t made any decision about your offer, Rodney.”

  “Look, you’re fighting a losing battle,” he said. “Everybody in this whole damn town knows you’re fighting a losing battle now. Why fight a losing battle? Why not shake hands with Rothman and get out of the ring? Why wait till there’s blood all over the floor?”

  33

  “I usually try to read my so-called fan mail,” Mel Jorgenson said. “But not the way things have been going this week. Luckily, one of the secretaries thought this letter might be of particular interest to me. I want you to read it.” They were sitting in her dark green, book-lined library, and he reached in his jacket pocket, withdrew a letter, and handed it to her. She read:

  Dear Mr. Jorgenson:

  My name will mean nothing to you, but your name means a great deal to me. And since you performed a particularly kind service to me, I am writing not only to thank you for that, but also, I hope, to perform some equal service to you.

  I don’t-know whether you will remember this, but at the outset of a recent week-end, my daughter and granddaughter and I were stranded on the median of the Long Island Expressway with a flattened tyre. Suddenly a mechanic’s lorry appeared, and came to our rescue, and with his spanner the mechanic changed our tyre in a trice. When I offered to pay this gentleman his fee, he replied that there was “No charge,” and explained that you, who had passed us on the motorway, had rung him by motorphone and described our plight and instructed him to send the bill to you. That was an extraordinarily kind thing for you to do, and two helpless women, my daughter and myself—not to mention my infant granddaughter, who was already wailing for her bottle (and in need of a nappy change, I might add!)—will always be extraordinarily grateful to you for that kindness. I am an Englishwoman, visiting in America, and everywhere I have gone I have been impressed by the extraordinary kindness and courtesy of Americans. But you, sir, are truly a Good Samaritan.

  Which brings me to my second reason for writing to you. As I say, I am English, visiting my daughter and her husband, who live in New York, from my home in London to inspect the new grandchild. In reading American newspapers recently, I have run across the name and photograph—particularly in the Daily News column by a woman who signs herself “Mona”—of a young woman who styles herself Lady Fiona Hesketh-Fenton. I wonder if you are fully aware of who this woman is. To begin with, her given name is indeed Fiona, though I am not sure of the Fenton part. As my maiden name was Fenton, I can only say with surety that she is not a member of our own, rather small, Fenton clan. In England, I believe she used another surname, though I can’t recall what it was, but I am quite sure that she does not bear the title “Lady.” But what I am quite positive of is that she is not the daughter of Viscount Hesketh. Viscount Hesketh is, in fact, a distant cousin of mine (the Hesketh and Fenton families merged in the late seventeenth century) and a sometime neighbour, since he lives near Reigate, Surrey, where I keep a small week-end cottage, though I have never met him. The Viscount is one of our famous “English eccentrics,” and something of a recluse and misanthrope.

  But I have checked the Hesketh and Fenton family charts, and, as I was quite certain even before checking the “tree,” Viscount Hesketh has no daughters, though there was a son who was killed in the Falklands War. Furthermore, if there were a daughter, she would normally style herself a Marchioness, which I suppose is neither here nor there since there are no daughters.

  It is true that until rather recently this young woman worked in a dressmaker’s shop in Knightsbridge, though she was not the proprietress of it, as I have read in your news dailies, and it seems to me most unlikely, considering her position, that she ever designed or selected clothing for H.R.H. the Princess of Wales or the Duchess of York, or that she was the recipient of any sort of Royal Warrant, as I have also read. All that, I suspect, is a fiction.

  I should also tell you that when this young woman left England earlier this year, she left under a considerable cloud. In fact, it is my understanding that, should she return to England, she could face criminal charges as a result of certain financial peculations alleged to have taken place while she was employed at the dressmaker’s shop. I confess not to have all the details of these, but it was alleged that she had embezzled or stolen sizable sums of money from the shop’s till. The proprietress of the shop was a Mrs. Alcock, if memory serves.

  I would not go into such exhaustive detail with you, dear Mr. Jorgenson, had I not also read in the American press that this young woman has recently been engaged as co-editor of the American magazine Mode, whose other co-editor, Alexandra Rothman, is often mentioned in the press as a dear friend of yours, and sometimes as your fiancée. I felt it my duty to warn you and Miss Rothman that the woman who now calls herself Lady Fiona Hesketh-Fenton seems to be “flying under false colours” in America today.

  I hope that you and Miss Rothman will take this letter in the spirit in which it is intended, which is one of helpfulness—the kind of helpfulness which you so generously showed to me whilst my daughter and I were so ignominiously stranded on the motorway. I cannot thank you sufficiently for that.

  Yours most sincerely,

  Elizabeth Fenton Hardinge

  (Mrs. John D.B.R.)

  Alex put the letter down. “She’s a little vague, and fuzzy on some details,” she said. “But I’ll fax this over to Mark Rinsky in the morning. Maybe it’ll give him a few more clues.”

  “I’m getting bad feelings about this girl, Alex. I’m getting the feeling that she’s very bad news.”

  “Ha!” she said. “She’s just about the worst news I’ve had in a long time.”

  “She told me she has a sister who lives in Australia. She told me she and her sister were both sexually abused by their father when they were little girls. She told me she had a husband who was killed in the Falklands War. She told me she has a daughter, who’s retarded and lives in Switzerland. Suddenly I don’t believe any of that crap.”

  “I didn’t realize you’d gotten to know her so well, Mel!”

  “I guess I felt sorry for her that night I took her home from the Van Zuylens’. But I’ll tell you something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I will. She tried to put the make on me.”

  “She didn’t! That night?”

  “A couple of days later. She asked me for a drink at her place at the Westbury. She wanted me to try to get you to call off your lawyers. She said she wanted me to help her make her peace with you. Then she tried to put the make on me. Literally.”

  “And what did you—?”

  “Got up and left, of course. I sensed then that she was a phony, but …”

  “A phony! The word begins with ‘b’ and rhymes with rich!”

  “And remember that night after the Van Zuylens’ party? When we got back to Sagaponack, and I went for a swim? And you thought you saw a prowler?”

  “Of course.”

  “That
was her. She came to the house in a taxi, thinking I’d be alone and feel like bedding her down. Then she saw you through the glass, and ran off.”

  “Oh, Mel!” she cried. “This is just getting to be too much! Fix me a drink, darling.” She jumped to her feet, and found herself facing the René Bouché portrait.

  From where he stood at the drinks cart, Mel said, “There’s just one more thing I want to tell you, Alex. I know you’re going through hell with this right now. But, whichever way it turns out, I don’t want you to worry about your future. I don’t want you to worry about where Steven’s trust is, or whether you’re going to lose your job, or whether this apartment will be taken away from you, because I’ll always take care of you. Just as soon as this mess is settled, I’m going to marry you, and your future is going to be our future. Together. That’s all I have to say.”

  “But you don’t think I’m going to lose this, do you, Mel? Not now—when I’m suddenly, and for the first time since all this started—when I’m all at once beginning to enjoy this?”

  It was a second or two before she realized that he had just asked her to marry him and, in his own way, set the date.

  She ran across the room to him and hugged him as he poured whiskey into their glasses. “Oh, Mel, what a dear, sweet, wonderful thing to say,” she said.

  “Let’s see if we can nail the bitch,” he said gruffly.

  “So that’s Alexandra Rothman,” Adam Amado said. It was 1971, and Adam had been with Lenny and Charlie for nearly two years. Lenny was just home from Paris, and they” were going through the press clippings from Mode’s hundredth anniversary gala the week before.

  “Yes, that is she,” Lenny said. “Lovely, isn’t she?”

  “Husband’s good-looking, too.”

  “Yes, but unavailable, alas.” Lenny sighed.

  “Tall guy. Look at him standing next to his father.”

  “That’s his grandfather, actually,” Lenny said. “That’s the great Ho Rothman himself. But Steven’s father is also a small man. There’s a picture of Ho and Herbert Rothman standing together.” He pointed to the clipping.