A Family Trust

by Ward Just

  She said to him, “That was my friend from Ireland on the phone. He’s in London now and just wanted to call.”

  “That was very thoughtful of him.”

  “He’s a very nice man,” Dana said. She looked at her father, smiling. “A bachelor.”

  “A European?”

  “Chinese,” she said. “Russian father, Chinese mother. French grandparents. A Spanish aunt.” She looked at him, grinning.

  “Well,” he said. “As long as he’s not Red Chinese—”

  She laughed and put her hand over his, resting on the seat. “What did Marge say?”

  “Well, Marge.” He shook his head. “Marge thought it was a betrayal. I’ve delivered the town into the hands of the enemy, to hear her tell it. Normally I wouldn’t’ve listened to that sort of thing. Who is she to tell me what to do? But Marge is entitled. She had a right, she was a member of the committee. So I listened politely and then I hung up.” He smiled bleakly. “But it wasn’t very damn pleasant for me.”

  Dana said, “No.” They were driving now. Dement’s outskirts looked no different than they had the last time she was home, or the time before that. Growth had ceased and the general shabbiness was now a year older. Ashes to ashes, she thought. In a hundred years the plastic would sink into the swamp, the old Reilly Bog would win after all. They passed the billboard, The Dement Intelligencer

  SERVING DEMENT COUNTRY

  and she noticed that it had a fresh coat of paint.

  She said, “Doesn’t Mr. Bohn live in Phoenix”

  “Harry Bohn has a place there, bought it when. he sold the bank to Bill Eurich’s friends. And Bill has a condominium there. He’s quite a fella, has moved on to another town. Has operations in three states and his son is now a partner. He’ll be taking over in another couple of years. Bill Eurich made a fortune by getting guys together. That’s all he ever did. Well, he’s been urging me to get out, retire. He and Bohn and I can play golf all day.”

  They were passing an automobile graveyard. She did not want to talk about Bill Eurich. She pointed at the graveyard. “When did that happen?”

  Charles smiled. “You know who owns that now? You may not remember because he died a number of years ago. Aces Evans’s boy.”

  She laughed out loud. “The poker game.”

  “Good memory” he said.

  She asked, “How do they do it now? Is it still the poker game, or is it done some other way? Manila envelopes? Numbered Swiss accounts?”

  Her father shrugged. “You know, it’s the damnedest thing. I don’t know. I don’t know how they do it now. Probably the same way. The ante’s bigger, is all. It’s been a long time since I checked. A hell of a long time.” He thought a minute. “Probably too long.”

  In downtown Dement there were a few solitary shoppers, mostly elderly people walking in twos and threes. The town’s heart looked more deserted than ever; it might have been a Sunday morning except there were no church bells. Charles parked the car and turned to face her. “Did Cathy know what I meant when I said I was selling the I?”

  She hesitated, then smiled. He was owed the truth. “She said you couldn’t sell an eye. ‘I don’t understand what Grandpa’s saying,’ she said.”

  Charles nodded, still looking at his daughter. “Isn’t it the craziest thing?”

  Dana looked away. It was indeed.

  He said, “My earliest memories—”

  She turned to face him. “I know. Mine, too.”

  He shook his head. “Not to know the I, Not to know it ... Well,” he said, “I suppose Cathy has other memories.”

  “Who knows? Maybe they’re better.”

  “Better?” He smiled widely then. “Impossible!” Then he was out of the car and moving confidently across the street, Dana in his wake, turning the heavy revolving doors and walking quickly through the building. She shook hands and chatted with several, of the older employees while her father looked on, jiggling coins in his pocket and grinning. A few of the employees she had known all her life. Half of those who had served as pallbearers at her grandfather’s funeral were still at the paper.

  In his office she asked him, “Does anyone know?”

  He shook his head. “But they will as soon as Dows and Butler walk through the door. This place, they could never keep a secret. They can smell a newspaperman a mile away.”

  “What are they going to think?”

  “It’ll be upsetting as hell at first. But then they’ll get used to it, like any death.”

  “And Tony knows.”

  “Sure. He didn’t like it but there wasn’t much he could do about it. So he’s selling too. It’s a sale of one hundred percent of the stock. Dows wouldn’t want it any other way”

  She sat in the visitor’s chair while he read the mail. She picked up yesterday’s Intelligencer and leafed through it, stopping at the editorial page. She wondered if they’d keep the Rising name on the masthead. They probably would, for a while. Then one day it would be gone and it would take some time for people to notice. It would make no difference anyway.

  Then two men were at the door, both in overcoats, their manners grave. She said, “Dad?” Charles Rising looked up from his correspondence and waved them inside. He introduced them to her, Harold Dows.Jr., and Victor Butler. He took their coats and hung them on the tree in the corner and asked if he could get them coffee. They shook their heads politely. Harold Dows, Jr., turned to her and said that he understood she lived in New York. and worked for a publishing house. Was that right? It was. She edited books. Butler and her father were exchanging documents. Harold Dows had a manner older than his years, and when he offered his condolences to her his eyes and voice were heavy. His eyes were magnified behind aviator glasses and he wore a conservatively tailored blue suit and striped tie. She thought suddenly that he looked like an aging tennis pro. He seemed to have an easy, bantering relationship with her father; he paid the older man deference, but it was Dows who was at ease in this office, He sat back in the armchair, his legs crossed, one foot swinging. He said to her, “The newspaper business never held any attraction for you? Lady publishers aren’t as rare now as they used to be.”

  My, she thought, wasn’t he up-to-date, young Dows. “I’ve been away for fifteen years.”

  He said, “It’s a shame. Editing books, editing newspapers. There’s not a lot of ditference.”

  She glanced at her father, who was following the conversation. “There’s quite a lot of difference, actually.”

  “Well,” he said, “you’ll have to explain that to me sometime.” He didn’t believe her and didn’t care that she knew he didn’t believe her. He gave the impression of having sensed tension between her and her father. And he was not a man to let an opportunity pass by. A chilly man, she thought; cold all the way down. He was looking now at Charles Rising, sitting quietly at his desk, hands folded, a stapled document in front of him. Dows said, “It’s the best year you could ’ve done this, but of course you know that.”

  “Taxwise, yes,” her father said.

  “Well, that too,” Dows said. “But I wasn’t thinking of taxes. I was thinking of your plant.”

  “The stuff, most of it, is old but good.”

  “It’s going to have to be replaced,” Dows said.

  Her father leaned forward. “How soon do you think you can do it?”

  “The quicker you get in, the cheaper it is in. the long run.” He looked at Dana and smiled. “I’d guess we’ll be entirely cold type in two and a half years. Thank God, most of your composing-room people are either at retirement or nearing retirement.” He smiled at her again. “That’s the nut of it, the new technology will only work if you can get rid of people. That’s what costs money not It costs money now and it’s going to cost more in the years to come. And salaries are the least of it, it’s the benefits.” He looked at her and frowned; he didn’t want to bore her with these business statistics, though there were women in the business now who understood these complicated matte
rs at least as well as he did. Of course she too was a modern woman who could grasp the numbers and draw the appropriate conclusions. “The maoment these papers are signed Vic starts making telephone calls and I take a dozen selected men and send them to school to learn the new language.”

  She said, “No more back shop.”

  Dows shook his head happily. “In our plant in. McLean we’ve got Muzak in the back shop. Instead of linotypes we’ve got Mantovani. It’s a paste-up operation, all of it’s done with cameras and computers ...”

  Then her father and Dows began to discuss a technical point, She was impressed with his grasp of the language. He was not as secure in it as Dows but he understood it well enough. He rarely discussed the details of the business at home, and she realized suddenly that there were whole regions of his mind crammed, with arcane facts and concepts. She looked at Harold Dows, another son-of-the-founder. His father would be proud of him, no doubt. A modern man. at case in the technological world ...

  “Thought I’d come for the ceremonies.” It was Tony, standing in the doorway; she could smell whiskey ten feet away. “Just sit and watch you do it,” he said with a smile.

  Charles stared at him a moment, then shrugged and waved him to a vacant chair. “You know Harold Dows and Victor Butler?” They both stood and Tony Rising shook hands formally, peering at each man. Then he sat down, next to Dana.

  “Thought I ought to be here,” he said.

  She said, “It’s not very interesting.”

  “Just wait,” he said.

  They were winding down now and she noticed Butler making lengthy notes. The agreement of sale was in order and they would both initial it. Announcement to come Friday.

  Charles looked at the younger man. “You going to keep Bill Eurich on the board?”

  “Probably,” Dows said.

  “He hasn’t attended more than three meetings in five years, but he’s a valuable man.”

  “Four meetings,” Tony said.

  “So they tell me,” Dows’s eyes shifted, “I expected to see Mr. Townsend here.”

  “Elliott doesn’t move around much,” Charles said.

  “How old is he now?”

  “Ninety-four, ninety-five. Something like that.”

  Dows looked at Butler. “Charles, this is certainly none of my business. I hesitate even to mention it. But this is a very complicated transaction. I’d want to make certain that everything was understood, I don’t believe in surprises. I don’t want to be surprised somewhere down the line and I don’t want you to be surprised.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Charles said dryly.

  Dows held up his hand, pax. “So there’s just the last item.”

  Charles shook his head. “It’s not going to work.”

  “Charles, it has to work.”

  “It’ll work,” Tony said. “If Charlie’s involved in it, it’ll work. Take my word.”

  Charles and Dows ignored him. “Can’t,” Charles said.

  “Let’s review again exactly what the requirements are. You stay as chairman of the board, a two-year contract so far as the money is concerned. The money is guaranteed. Obviously if there were severe policy disagreements we would have to make other arrangements. But to tell you the truth I don’t think we will have disagreements. Your salary: fifty thousand dollars a year. That’s part of the payout. Vic, here, will be chief executive officer and publisher. But we want your firm hand here—”

  “Here, here,” Tony said, clapping slowly.

  “—for guidance. I don’t believe we’ll be operating the business substantially differently than you did, except for the technical end. And of course we will bring in some of our own people. But you know this town top to bottom and your expertise is—will be—invaluable, I must say to you, it’s crucial.”

  He said, “It’s over, Harold. You people own it now, or will when I put pen to paper. It makes no sense for me to hang on. I don’t give a crap about the fifty thousand. Fifty thousand or a hundred and fifty thousand makes no difference to me. I’m going to Florida.”

  “That’s all right,” Dows said. “You can go to Florida, just so long as you’re near a telephone and four times a year return here—at our expense, naturally—and preside at the board meetings. And talk. Spend some time with the merchants and developers, make certain that we’re doing our job. Make certain that we haven’t caused offense in some way.”

  “Hell, Charlie—”

  “Tony” Charles said patiently “Hush.”

  “When are you goan’ talk tradition with these assholes? Jesus, Charlie, there’s eighty years—”

  Charles Rising looked at Dows, and then at Butler. The expression on his face was one of bemusement, as if somehow a harmless mad-man had wandered into their midst and if they all kept calm, would shortly go away again. “Why not Tony here? Tony’d make a hell of a chairman.” Charles grinned but the faces of Dows and Butler were tight, both glaring at Tony.

  Tony said, “Wish to hell Mitch were here. Bomb you people—”

  Charles began to laugh. “You think that’s what the major would do?”

  “Christ, yes,” Tony said. “Mitch was an asshole, too. Takes one to know one.” He took a pint bottle from his pocket and drank from it.

  “Now just a minute—” Dows began. Dana looked at him. His son-of-the-founder demeanor was unraveling and he looked frightened. He was unprepared for Tony Rising and his voice began to bluster.

  But Charles held up his hand. “Tony,” he said. “It’s done.”

  “Firebomb the bastards,” he muttered. “Back to the Stone Age.”

  “Tony—”

  “A black day for our father,” he said. “You can bet your ass he’s up there now; mad. You bastards”—he pointed at Dows and. Butter—“better have the insurance up to date on this building, Amos might just throw a lightning bolt at it, Hell, I might do it myself.” He capped the bottle, put it in his pocket, and lapsed into silence.

  Dows demanded, “What the hell is all this—”

  Dana said, “Mantovani in the executive suite.”

  Charles could not stop grinning. “Well, let’s get down to it.”

  Butler was reviewing his notes and. Dows was staring at the ceiling. Dows said at last, “This is all very unfortunate. But the point we were discussing was the board chairmanship. And what I was about to say was that it was good for the town. Good for the newspapers. Charles, you know as well as I do that the I is just about the last institution left around here, downtown. Your departure would be like a bugle—”

  “Ta-da, ta-da!” Tony wailed.

  “—to the rest of the people here, sounding retreat.” He’d decided that the way to deal with Tony Rising was to ignore him. “We sure as hell don’t want that and I can’t imagine that you want it either.”

  Charles thought a moment before replying. Then, to her astonishment. he said, “Do you have any ideas, Dana?”

  She had sat numb, listening to all this. Tony, ineffectual and mild his entire life, roaring now like all Old Testament prophet; her father, so humorless where, the I and his family were concerned, apparently enjoying it. She shook her head. Dows looked at her politely, then turned away; his smile was sardonic. Then she said, “Do you think Junior here is right, a bugle sounding retreat?” Dows’s smile vanished.

  Charles said, “Maybe.”

  “Well,” she said. “Maybe it’s time.” She leaned forward, glancing pleasantly at the young man, and then winking at her father. “We’ve stayed at the party longer than anyone else. Maybe it’s time to go.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Tony mumbted.

  Charles said again, “Maybe.”

  “Sharp breaks are not always bad,” Dana said.

  Tony stood up then. weaving a little, and wandered to the door. They all watched him in silence; he was hypnotic as he slowly made his way across the room. He was completely unpredictable now.

  Charles said, “Come on, Tony. Sit down.”

  He shook
his head. “Isn’t it the damnedest thing?” He turned away and was silent again. His back was to them all. Dana looked at her father, and at Dows and Butler. Dows leaned forward and began to talk again about the chairmanship. She cut him off in mid-sentence. “What’s the damnedest thing?” Tony turned to look at her and when he spoke it was to her alone. “This thing, this I. Mitch and I spent our lives serving it and came away with nothing. Your father spent his life serving it and came away with a little more than nothing, though not a lot.” Then, without taking his eyes off her, he spoke sharply to Dows. “Don’t smile, young man. It’s not a question of money, never has been. You can take cash flow and stuff it up your ass for all the good it does. Rest of us never understood it anyway. Charles understood it. So Mitch and I in different ways spent our lives at the side of the old man. And those years were all right, I have no complaints about them; Mitch did, but Mitch is dead. But this thing, good or bad, was all there was. We all lived inside it, like”—he fluttered his hands—“moths inside the cocoon. It was what we had, and at the same time it brought us together and drew us apart. The I was like the news itself, ambiguous. Or like the news became, after Amos died. There was no way for Mitch or me to work with your father, there wasn’t enough left. So we hung on inside the cocoon long beyond our time. Long after we were entitled to By away. I ought to hate it, this place, but I don’t. I ought to hate your father, too, but I don’t. I can’t stand to see it go, Dana. I’d rather see it die, killed by greed or incompetence, than live at the hands of—these two. That’s the difference between your father and me. He says it’s got to live at all costs and I say it’s better off dead, exactly like the world it served. It’s dead the way monarchies are dead. Sell it off, hell, it’s like selling a nation.” He stood with his hand on the doorknob, his large watery eyes glaring at them all. “But that’s the view from inside the cocoon. The rest of you, you’ve been outside. No doubt you’re doing what’s best, Charles. But I hate it. Hate it to death.” Then he turned and walked out the door.