A Dual Inheritance

by Joanna Hershon

  “We need to talk,” he said. As if it hadn’t been more than six years since they’d done so, since Ed had turned him down after summer number two and Ordway had refrained from shaking his hand after a particularly chilly goodbye.

  “Are you watching the news?” asked Ed, prolonging the moment when he’d hear something truly terrible and understand why Ordway had called.

  “No,” said Ordway. “This country is a disgrace.”

  Only Ordway could somehow intrude upon his evening and then make such a statement sound as if Ed was personally responsible for the state of the fragmented nation.

  “Sir,” said Ed, picking up a cushion and slamming it against the wall, “what do you want to talk about?”

  “Just business,” he said wearily. “I’ll pick you up at your office tomorrow at six.”

  “You don’t even know where—”

  “Six,” said Ordway, and he hung up, leaving Ed to feel a strange combination of relief mixed with disappointment and curiosity. He watched a replay of a clip from just days ago: Nixon defending his decision to invade Cambodia. The president trained his beady eyes at the camera; every now and then he consulted a piece of paper, held between two steady hands.

  On the following unseasonably hot spring day, the kind of disorienting weather that creates instant drama, Ed was in the office by eight-thirty and Hy was already there; the phones were ringing. Ordway Keller was going under. One of the oldest firms in America, underwriter of many of the largest and most reputable companies in the country, exquisitely jump-started by Mr. Guy Ordway in the 1950s—its problems were now insurmountable. Evidently they’d had their own paperwork disasters along with the rest of Wall Street, and—according to Hy’s various sources—by the time Ordway finally agreed to implement anything close to a modern computer system, the bedrock was so shattered that the firm had lost more than five million dollars at the start of the year. Unbeknownst to Ed, the office had already drastically shrunk, and still they’d continued hemorrhaging money at an alarming pace.

  As Hy spat out the information as fast as he could speak, at first Ed was simply relieved. He was relieved not to have stayed in that death trap, and he spent a good couple of minutes inwardly praising his instincts. But the more he heard—over the phone from others, and every several minutes from a very keyed-up Hy—the more he realized that since Wall Street firms were affiliations and the New York Stock Exchange was essentially one gigantic affiliation, if a weak link was a big weak link, the whole system could potentially collapse. And since any special trust set up for such disasters had to already be pretty depleted during such a fragile time, it alone could never cushion the fall of such a giant as Ordway Keller.

  “They’d found a way out,” declared Hy, who was holding an enormous cheese Danish in one hand and a phone in the other. When he hung up the phone, he hung on to the uneaten Danish. “You’ll never believe this,” he told Ed, at the end of a particularly long phone call.

  “Out with it.”

  “There’s a group of Texans who agreed to put cash into Ordway Keller in exchange for a huge interest rate and stock options. Everything was all set, but then one of these guys—real hard-nosed type, I guess—began to suspect Ordway Keller was misrepresenting how bad the situation was and he flew up, arrived at Ordway Keller, and wouldn’t budge until Ordway showed him the most recent results, which were basically clouded up with all kinds of crap. This guy—”

  “Named?”

  “Zimmerman.”

  Ed raised his brow.

  “Nah—he’s probably a Kraut. Anyway, this guy is enraged. Not budging. Wants to sue Ordway Keller on top of everything, even though, at this point, there’s at least thirteen million of theirs all mixed up in Ordway Keller. He’s on a rampage. Uncovering all kinds of missing assets and debits and, oh my God, what a fucking mess.”

  “That’s why he called me,” said Ed. The sun was blazing in through the window so brightly, he had to turn away.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ordway,” said Ed, suddenly needing to sit down. “Ordway called me last night. We’re robust,” he said, nearly shaking with astonishment. “We’re clean.”

  “Are you fucking kidding? For a merger? We’re unknown.”

  “Not to him.” Ed grinned. “Remember I turned down his offer, and it was a good offer. I bet you he knows all about us. I bet you he’s been following us from the start.”

  “That,” said Steve, “and—let’s be honest—the more-prominent firms probably turned him down.”

  Holding the Danish with great and unmistakable authority—as if he were Moses with the Ten Commandments—Hy Bechstein smiled before finally taking a huge bite. His mouth was full, but Ed heard his every word. “I am so fucking happy.”

  Early August, seven years after his first summer working at Ordway Keller, Ed sat with Hy, Steve, and Marty across from Guy Ordway and more than one hundred of his subordinated lenders, including the furiously white-haired, red-faced Donald Zimmerman, at the Metropolitan Club on East 60th. The building was imposing, the room was frigidly air-conditioned, and there was a lovely breakfast spread that even Hy did not touch. Ed and his partners had learned their nickname among this crowd, most of whom had never before heard of their firm:

  Corned Beef On Rye.

  Even Ed had to admit it was clever. He looked them all in the eye—the widows, the retired Ordway Keller partners, the sons and grandsons—and when they looked back at him, he could read their thoughts:

  This? This is our legacy? But they also looked stunned and weak, and Ed almost pitied them their helpless expectations.

  He hadn’t yet looked at Ordway. He was almost afraid to see him act grateful, and he felt simultaneously dizzy and angry, and suddenly he realized he was thinking about Helen witnessing her father like this, Helen whom he had vowed never to allow into his thoughts other than as a correction, a way to stay clear-eyed through life. He was thinking of Helen as he listened to a Keller—great-great-grandson of the original company’s founder—comment on CBOR’s proposed acquisition, and Ed could not take in a word. He was only able to focus on avoiding Ordway’s eyes, and since he could not stop thinking of Helen, Ed was so overcome—so unexpectedly thrown off balance—that, after years of abstention, he drank a whole cup of coffee; he needed something bitter, something strong.

  The news here at the Metropolitan Club just got worse and worse, with a call-in from Chicago’s board of trade demanding Ordway Keller transfer all of its customers’ accounts to other firms within forty-eight hours. The pièce de résistance was the announcement by Donald Zimmerman that he would not sign an agreement promising not to sue CBOR, even after the crisis committee chairman of the Exchange gave a stern speech about the very real possibility of at least two hundred securities firms collapsing based on his singular decision and gave Zimmerman a hard deadline. The merger had to happen in two days.

  But when the two days passed and the chairman and chief executive of the Exchange telephoned to let Zimmerman know that he was still the only one standing in the way of the merger with CBOR, Zimmerman’s lawyer called back and said he was unable to discuss the matter and that he was away on business. The Exchange hastily extended the deadline until nine-thirty the next morning, and when Ed got the word that afternoon, he told Hy they were going to Dallas.

  “Are you nuts?” Hy asked.

  “Are you?”

  “How the fuck are you going to get there on this late notice?”

  Ed was already dialing. “We’re chartering a plane.”

  “Chartering a plane,” said Hy. “Chartering a plane?”

  “Teterboro Airport,” Ed said to the operator. He wrote the number down.

  “Fine,” said Hy. “Okay, fine. FINE. Fuck.” He slammed his fist on his desk. “I’m calling Franny.”

  When the evening brought fog and pouring rain, they were stranded for hours at the airport, and by the time the plane actually took off at two A.M., they had each rehea
rsed their arguments so many times that the reasoning had started to seem thin. But the good news was that, after using nearly twenty dollars’ worth of quarters alternately telephoning the Dallas office and the crisis committee, they had finally located Zimmerman, and he’d agreed to meet Ed and Hy at his offices as soon as they touched down.

  At four A.M., on the Dallas tarmac, against the washed-out oil-spill sky, and after more than two sleepless nights, Ed insisted on stopping for coffee and a donut. At the moment he had zero interest in eating, but he doubted Hy would put up much of a fight about stopping, if he mentioned the donut.

  “What if he changes his mind?” hollered Hy, as they scrambled into the taxi. “No coffee.”

  “We’re stopping,” said Ed, and then to the driver: “I’m sure you know a place to get a strong cup of coffee, am I right?”

  “We’re not stopping,” hollered Hy. “You want me to get a burned tongue right now? You want me to spill coffee on your shirt?”

  “You can wait in the cab—”

  “Not happening,” said Hy, and he gave the driver the address.

  When they approached the office complex and took in the metallic-gray high-rise, Ed saw that Zimmerman Enterprises was just as free of personality as he had expected. When the security guard let them in and led them through the halls, the blandness was increasingly intimidating. The blandness seemed to say: I need nothing other than to complete the task at hand. It was still dark when a nervous-seeming woman in her fifties showed them to the conference room, and when she flipped on the fluorescent lights, a galaxy of colors flitted across Ed’s vision. It took him a second to realize Zimmerman was already in there and that he’d been sitting alone in the dark. He was no longer florid, but he looked angry and tired; from his pale hair to his pallor to his steely demeanor, the man was a study in gray.

  Ed stepped forward, offered his hand to Zimmerman, and Hy did the same. Zimmerman’s youngish attorney rushed into the room and shook hands. When they all settled into their chairs again and silently prepared for what promised to be a protracted debate, Ed saw their reflection in the dark wall of the windows, and what he saw there—aided no doubt by the greenish light—were four ghouls. Four men with hollow eyes and bright white shirts; four souls sitting around a table, looking haunted and hungry and waiting to be served.

  Before anyone else had the chance to do so, Ed stood and launched into his primary plan of attack. He used every ounce of his intensity to break down what would happen if Zimmerman didn’t change his mind. “This isn’t about saving Ordway Keller,” said Ed. “Not anymore. In fact, forget Ordway Keller.”

  “Believe me,” muttered Zimmerman, “it’s my greatest wish.”

  “There will be such a massive crisis of confidence in the very idea of investing. All kinds of firms will close—responsible firms with whom you’ve done business for years—and thousands of investors—responsible investors!—they’ll all be completely destroyed.”

  “You think I haven’t considered this?” barked Zimmerman. “You think I don’t know? Young man, this is what happens when men are deceitful. There are consequences for everybody—simple as that.”

  “It’s hardly simple, sir.”

  Zimmerman looked as if he’d tasted something rotten. “Excuse me?”

  “Has it occurred to you, sir, that Wall Street—based on your one decision over the next few hours—might be taken over by the banks or … the government? That, based on your decision, we might be delivered into socialism?”

  Zimmerman laughed, but Ed could tell the bit about socialism had rankled.

  “Mr. Cantowitz, I have written off this investment. I have already written it off as a total loss.”

  “But you don’t have to,” said Ed. He said it more quietly, more intensely.

  “You don’t,” added Hy.

  The woman who’d shown them into the room stuck her head in and said, “Sir, Will Baines is flying in. He’s on his way from a meeting in Chicago.”

  “Thank you, Gloria.”

  “Y’all need anything?”

  Ed made a silent prayer for food and hot coffee, but Zimmerman dismissed her.

  “Will Baines won’t convince me, either,” said Zimmerman. “Thinks just because we went to school together … Goddamn fool for signing the agreement. He was swindled same as I was.”

  “Maybe you should listen to his reasoning,” said Hy.

  But Zimmerman didn’t even answer. He stayed firm as the sun rose, exposing flat highways and other homely office buildings in the distance. He held steady as a fellow Texan, now a top man at Lehman Brothers, called in several times over the course of the morning, urging him to sign. He did not budge as they all descended ravenously on the breakfast trays when they finally appeared or when the big guns were brought in via phone conference, in the form of every major player on Wall Street. Even the trucking suppliers for Zimmerman Enterprises were calling in, offering heartfelt speeches of their own. Ed frankly didn’t understand how one man could hold so true to his stubborn opinion, and he started to think about his father up in Dorchester, his father who would always be his father whether or not this deal went through.

  Hy was wiping sweat from his brow and eating everything in sight and once in a while giving Ed a look that said, What the fucking fuck do we do now?

  Things took a surreal turn when one member of the crisis committee in New York apparently had not only tremendous chutzpah but also one hell of an eleventh-hour connection, and Gloria once more stuck her head into the room and said, with notable grace, “Sir, President Nixon is standing by.”

  And Zimmerman closed his eyes. He calmly shook his head.

  The room, for the first time all morning, fell silent. Ed looked up at the clock, at the minutes ticking by. There was one half hour left. Back in New York, Ed knew, the floor would be packed with young brokers ready to kill one another, with older brokers worrying over unstable hearts and agitated ulcers, as everyone waited for the trading to start and for word to come.

  Ed took a slug of coffee and looked across the table at Donald Zimmerman. “Donald,” Ed said. These raw and terrible hours had worn down any doubts about being on a first-name basis, but even saying his name felt like a calculated risk. “May we go into your office and speak privately?”

  “Ed—” attempted Hy.

  Zimmerman pushed back his chair and stood up. Ed followed him out to the industrial-carpeted hallway and into his spacious corner office. Zimmerman was a man with stooped shoulders, probably not any younger than Ed’s own father, and Ed wondered if he had children. I’m exhausted, thought Ed. But he’s more exhausted.

  “Donald,” said Ed. “I want you to listen to me very carefully.”

  “Son, I’ve been listening,” he said wearily.

  “This is different,” said Ed, and his coffee-laced heart started to pump wildly. “You’re a Jew,” he said. He waited a moment for the incensed reaction, but—as he’d expected—it didn’t arrive. “You’re a Jew and so am I. I am not speaking to you as someone invested in this deal. I am speaking to you as someone who knows what’s going to happen if there is a disaster as momentous as everyone is predicting.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m listening.”

  “The story,” continued Ed, “is going to go like this: One stubborn Jew brought down Wall Street. A Jew brought on a second Great Depression. You know I’m right. You know it.” He fixed his gaze on Zimmerman and willed himself not to blink. “We have already lost so much, sir,” Ed said, and—taking his voice down—added, “I beg of you: Don’t do this.”

  When—after what must have been a good two minutes—Donald Zimmerman finally nodded, when he sat behind his desk and grabbed hold of a blue Bic pen, Ed ran out of the office and into the conference room, where he grabbed the telephone as if it was a lifeline. He called their trusted floor partner on the Big Board, the one they all owed big-time for that first successful year of CBOR’s shaky existence. “Get the order tickets printed,” Ed told
him hoarsely. “CBOR–Ordway Keller.”

  “You serious?” the floor partner whispered.

  “Very. The deal is done. Oh, and one more thing: Do me a favor and don’t hang up the phone.”

  Ed stayed on the line as the news spread throughout the floor. He would never forget the sound. It sounded like being at a stadium, a boxing stadium: a slow and ruthless roar.

  Chapter Ten

  New York City, 1971–1972

  Since that fateful day when Donald Zimmerman folded and the Ordway Keller deal was done, Cantowitz, Bechstein, Osheroff, and Rabb went from having five thousand accounts to fifty thousand.

  They’d also found their blueprint for success.

  Ed’s Dallas vision of four ghouls around the table turned out to have been something more prescient than the mere hallucination of an exhausted man. For what catapulted CBOR–Ordway Keller to the big leagues of Wall Street, and what would necessitate not only a Beverly Hills office but fifteen others throughout the country, was that they capitalized on the deaths of once-powerful firms; they listened for the struggling, wheezing last breaths and moved in like surgeons or vultures, depending on one’s perspective. One could (and Ed did) argue that what they specialized in was facilitating graceful exits; they preserved shreds of dignity, upheld fading reputations.

  He’d also persuaded enough traders to buy shares in CBOR–Ordway Keller that he was, officially, a big shot. Ed had acquired not only the legitimacy of history but enormous capital through the initial public stock offering, once the SEC finally allowed it. But these were volatile times, and his success did not change the fact that the markets were sluggish and investors were more or less consistently bowing out. Nothing was a sure thing. And because Ed still lived in his boxy impersonal apartment and he spent all of his nights either at the office (now in Midtown) or at increasingly frequent business dinners, life had not changed nearly as much as he would have imagined.