“I feel bad about this,” I said. “Can I think about it over the weekend?”
“Don’t,” she said. “Nothing’s going to change. This arrangement will be better for you. You can concentrate on what you do best.”
My long career in network news had taught me many things; one of them is that when a boss says, “This will be better for you,” it means nothing of the sort.
“But, Wendy, I’ve been able to give much more time to the show lately. I’m working the same number of hours as when Howard was alive.”
“You’ve only booked Rosie, Marv, and Calvin Klein,” she said, shorting me by several other solid bookings. “And what about the pope? You haven’t booked the pope. He’s the number one target of Barbara Walters.”
“Wendy,” I said, “are you serious? Do you actually believe that if the pope were to do his first television interview it would be with Barbara Walters?”
“I have to end this,” she said. “I have a call to make.” The meeting was over.
This turn of events was more humiliating than heartbreaking. As I sat there talking to Wendy, I also stood outside my body watching myself beg for my job while Becky sat behind me saying nothing.
Later Wendy said to me, “My God, Carol, you have a full-time job at the restaurant and a child to raise. I don’t know how you think you can do all this.” She paused. “Tell me something. Is it that you want the job, or that you need the job?”
“Wendy, it’s both. I want and need the job.”
“We’ll talk again,” Wendy said. “We’ll try to work something out.”
The next morning, a Sunday, I went for my usual run. Along one of the prettiest stretches of the running path, where it skirts the Potomac River in front of the Kennedy Center, I took a bad fall, landing on my hands and knees, ripping open my running pants, and tearing the flesh. I pulled myself into a sitting position and rested my back against the railing, with the river behind me. My hands and knees were bloody. I sobbed like a little kid who had fallen off her bike on the playground, but I wasn’t crying over my physical wounds; I was crying over all of it—Nathans, my no-longer-brilliant career at CNN, my debts, the IRS, the uncertainty, the fear, and now my bleeding leg. I sat in a heap on the running path feeling sorry for myself. Then I got up, wiped myself off, and limped home.
Sometimes—and this was one of them—I felt that Spencer was the only thing that kept me going.
Chapter 28
DEBORAH MARTIN FROM the IRS contacted current and former members of Nathans’ staff who had received the notorious “pink checks.” She wanted to tell the employees the obvious: The pink checks were income that had to be reported on their tax returns. The money had come from a slush fund Howard had created with the withholding tax money that he hadn’t sent to the government. Miriam assumed that Howard had told Doug and that Doug had advised the staff that nobody needed to report it. But this off-the-books money was recorded in a checkbook, not doled out the old-fashioned way, in cash and under the table. A check is a check is a check; it’s a paper trail. When Deborah did her audit, the checkbook was right there in Doug’s desk.
The employees were as scared as I had been when the IRS first landed on me in February, which now seemed like a long time ago. Several of them were immigrants and the attention of the IRS made them crazy. Doug Moran asked what we could do to ease their fears. “What do we tell them? Do they have to get lawyers?”
I wanted to help the staff, but I was struggling to satisfy the IRS myself and I had no money to pay for any more lawyers. “If they declared the income, then no, they have nothing to worry about,” I said. “If they didn’t declare the income then they should contact at least an accountant.”
“Well, no one declared the income,” Doug said. I still remember the pink oxford-cloth shirt and flowered tie he was wearing that day, and that he hadn’t shaved. Maybe he was growing the stubble that was coming into fashion.
“I figured that,” I said. “But, Doug, I’m the least smart about this stuff and even I know if an employer gives you a check and you cash it, that’s income and you have to report it. There’s a paper trail. It can be traced.”
“This was Howard’s doing,” he said.
I wasn’t about to let Howard off the hook, but I had no doubt that he and Doug had worked in tandem. “Well, you didn’t declare it as income,” I said. “So a lot of the staff probably thought they didn’t have to, either.”
“A lot of them think Nathans, meaning you, will cover their tax debt.”
Later I asked Miriam if I was personally liable for their debt.
“No,” she said. “You have your own debt and the corporate debt, and that’s that. You got what they got a thousand times over.” Nonetheless, Miriam agreed to come to Nathans to talk to the staff, to answer their questions, to try to calm them.
Miriam arrived on a Thursday morning wearing a black suit and carrying her briefcase. She was in serious lawyer mode. About a dozen staff filed into the office, finding places to sit on the tattered sofa or on chairs they’d brought with them. Some leaned against the counter that held the copy machine and the paper cutter. The kitchen workers were in their white jackets, black-and-white checked pants, and aprons. It was an hour before opening and the rest of the staff was dressed casually. With the gray walls and the low ceiling, the room felt cramped. The atmosphere was quiet, expectant. When Miriam spoke, one of the Latino staff quietly translated. To me, their need for a translator underscored their vulnerability. It made me sad.
Miriam’s talk was tough. She stood in front of my desk and I sat behind her, watching their faces. They looked shocked and helpless when she told them they could each owe thousands of dollars. Watching their reactions I could feel only sympathy. They’d been duped, just like me.
A full half hour after the meeting began, Doug ambled in, eased his way through the group, and tossed his keys down on his desk. He went about his business as Miriam continued talking.
“Because this income was not reported, the IRS now expects you to pay the taxes owed,” Miriam said. “You may want to hire a lawyer to represent you in this matter.”
Hire a lawyer? With what? Miriam was making clear she couldn’t represent me and them.
Doug continued shuffling papers on his desk, acting as though we weren’t there. Both Miriam and I gave him the eye, and he stopped shuffling and began to pay attention. When the meeting came to its dismal conclusion, after the last questions had been asked, the busboys, cooks, waiters, and managers had climbed up the metal stairs to get back to work, and Miriam had packed up her briefcase and prepared to leave, Doug cleared his throat. “There’s something you don’t know that may be important,” he said.
“Yes?” Miriam said, turning to face him.
“Some of the kitchen staff get two checks under two different names,” he said. “I thought you might want to know.”
“Has this gone on a long time?” I asked.
“For a while,” he said. While I was no longer shocked to learn the questionable ways in which Nathans paid the staff—on the books, off the books, or even, in this instance, paid twice—I wondered how many other dark secrets were still unrevealed.
“Have you put a stop to it?” Miriam asked.
“No,” he said, “but I will.”
Miriam sighed. “This may be a problem down the road,” she said, sounding exasperated. “We’ll deal with it when we get there.”
Before dinner that night I was playing with Spencer in the den. I was Darth Vader and he was Luke Skywalker. The phone rang. It was a man who’d worked at Nathans a couple of years back, before Howard died. He’d been the bookkeeper, and he was among those who had received the pink checks and had heard from Deborah Martin.
“You bitch, you fucking bitch, you selfish bitch, I can’t believe what you are doing to us!” he screamed before I could finish the word “hello.” Spencer looked up, wanting me to get back to our light-saber duel. “You dump this on employees who don’t have
any money and you don’t offer to pay it for us, and just who the hell do you think you are?” His voice was scorching. “Do you know how much money I owe? The IRS wants almost five thousand dollars from me! I don’t have this kind of money. Where am I going to get it? You are a goddamned selfish bitch!”
Shouting back wouldn’t help. I let him scream himself out before I spoke. Spencer wanted my attention. I was worried he could hear the man’s voice through the phone receiver. He was ready to climb up my arm. I held my index finger to my mouth.
When I opened my mouth to speak I was calm, or sounded calm, anyway. “Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish I could pay everyone’s debt, but I can’t. I also wish all of you had reported the income. You did the books, for goodness’ sake! If you were getting money on a check, didn’t you know there would be a record?”
“Thanks for the sympathy, Carol.”
“Hey, it’s not that I’m unsympathetic. I know all too well what you’re going through. The IRS has me against the wall, too. I’ll trade places with you, how’s that? Did you know I owe the government almost three million dollars? Why don’t you take my debt and I’ll take yours?”
There was a pause. “Oh, fuck,” he said. “I had no idea. This landed on you, too?”
“Yes, it landed on me, too. It landed on me like an avalanche, like one avalanche after another. It hasn’t stopped yet.”
“Does the staff know what you owe?”
“I don’t know. I don’t go around talking about it to them. I know they know I’m in a bind. They’ve probably heard rumors. But they have their own problems. I’m not going to drag them into mine.”
“I hope you’re mad as hell,” he said.
“Well, no. There’s too much else on my plate right now. Mostly I’m scared.”
“Carol, I’m sorry I said what I said. Really, I had no idea you were in the same boat. Please forgive me.”
“I understand. It’s terrible for everybody, and if people want to call and yell at me, that’s okay. They can’t yell at Howard and there’s no point in yelling at Doug.”
I served our dinner at the kitchen table. Spencer talked nonstop about whatever was on his mind. On any other night this would enchant me and we would chat back and forth. But on this night I played with my food, staring into the middle distance, lost in thought. “Mommy, don’t ignore me,” he demanded.
“I’m not, angel, I’m not. I just have a lot on my mind. I never ignore you. Honest. Even if I look like it.”
But I was ignoring him. In my head all I heard was the violence and rage in the voice of the former bookkeeper. That wasn’t an experience I was accustomed to, and I tried to find a place to put it. I felt terrible for the employees. I feared their anger toward me would undermine my effort to move Nathans forward. I was afraid stealing would become rampant. I wished I had money to pay their debts, to make everything right, but I could do nothing except try to save the business and protect their jobs.
In the day’s mail, along with the past-due bills and dire threats from collection agencies, was an envelope that got my attention. At first I put off opening it, because I saw it was from a lawyer. Oh, God, I thought, not another lawyer! I’d reached my daily threshold for bad news. I tossed the letter on the desk and did a dozen other things before I came back to open it. Howard’s previous wife, the third wife, and their two sons were filing a claim against the estate, wanting their piece of the presumed pie. This was a shock, because when Howard died his share of the family trust had passed on to those sons, making them rich. Spencer was born too late and had no claim to his grandparents’ estate.
I called Miriam at home. She was unfazed. “They can stand in line behind the federal government,” she said. “They always get their money first, and when they get done with Howard’s estate there won’t be any money left.”
AS MUCH AS Nathans careened around, steeped in employee rage and frustration, there was satisfaction in rebuilding the business, making it new again. We had to get the buzz back. But, you know, for a phoenix to rise, it first has to be ashes. Vito Zappala wrapped up his analysis and presented me with a five-page report. Bearded and looking like a pin-striped bear, he was smiling broadly as he handed me the neatly typed and stapled pages. He was back in his chosen game and he liked it.
In sum, the report said that there were opportunities for change and improvement in every department of Nathans. Vito outlined the steps that needed to be taken. He assessed the building (“falling apart”), the financials (“obviously Nathans needs to make more money”), and the staff (“their good attitudes should be used to improve the restaurant”). He wrote, “What is needed is a view for change as well as the leadership to make the change happen.” I gave a copy to Doug Moran.
JAKE STEIN AND I had a meeting with Dimitri Mallios, the lawyer for Nathans’ five landlords. We were no closer to a new lease. We just continued to go round and round. Jake asked, “Will the landlords mind if Carol fires the manager?”
I was afraid he’d say they’d want him to have the lease. Instead, Dimitri smiled like a Cheshire cat. “All the landlords care about is that they get their rent checks in full and on time. Period.”
After the meeting, Jake and I walked together, his arm looped through mine. He had a way of asking me questions or making statements that were unexpected. Soon after Howard died he asked, “What did you think of Howard?” I was so surprised all I could come up with was, “I loved him.” Now, as we walked, he said, “Widows have it the worst, don’t they?” I couldn’t answer for all widows, but at that point in my experience it was a decided yes.
I moved ahead and offered the general manager’s job to Vito, contingent on my removing Doug. “I want you to be ready to slide right into Doug’s chair, because after I fire him I don’t plan to let him back in the building.”
At Larry King Live I redoubled my efforts to demonstrate to Wendy how much I wanted to keep my staff job. In my head it was so simple: I would settle with the government, sell Nathans, return to television work full-time, and live happily ever after. “Please don’t give up on me,” I begged. I booked Dominick Dunne for his O. J. Simpson book. I had Marv Albert on deck. I made progress with Donatella Versace, scheduling a “get to know you” meeting for her and Larry in Washington. Wendy was delighted.
My colleague Dean Sicoli said, “You’re back in favor. Wendy’s mellowing. Maybe it’s because Becky is away for three weeks. You can make this time work for you.” Dean was right. With Becky away, I gained ground. It was better but not without bumps in the road and odd requests from the office. I give Wendy credit for many strengths, but above all was she was fearless about pursuing shows, an essential for a talk-show boss. Her motto: If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.
Wendy got excited when the New York Post had an incendiary item saying that lawyer Alan Dershowitz had accused Sarah Ferguson of being an anti-Semite. “Call Fergie to see if she wants to come on tonight and defend herself.”
Sure. Why not? What the hell? If the report was true—or even if it was false—I couldn’t imagine the duchess wanting to get anywhere near such an accusation. But from Wendy’s point of view, no guts, no glory. I phoned Fergie’s publicist and my good friend Jeffrey Schneider at Howard Rubenstein’s agency. “I’m calling to talk to you about the New York Post item and to find out whether the duchess wants to come on to defend herself tonight against the accusation she is an anti-Semite. Before you say anything I want to be on the record as having asked.”
“You are,” he said, “and the answer is N-O! But, Carol, I want you to know that you and the Sun are the only media to call and ask for an interview about this.” The Sun is a sensational and gossipy British tabloid.
“Well, what can I say? The best and the brightest, eh, Jeffrey?”
“You got it, Carol.”
A few weeks later and quite out of the blue, Jeffrey called to say the duchess had finally agreed to go live for a full-hour interview with Larry. It could be wide ranging but, t
he duchess insisted, was not because of Alan Dershowitz. The downside was that we would follow Oprah. Jeffrey was beside himself with apologies and hoped that following Oprah wouldn’t get me in too much hot water with Wendy. It didn’t. Wendy was fine about it. Once again, we would promote it as her only “live” interview. Larry was delighted. Wendy rewarded me by asking me to book King Hussein of Jordan, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Yasser Arafat to come on together. Oh, and, “put in a bid for Saddam Hussein, too.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure. Why not?”
The evening of the interview, the duchess arrived at the CNN Washington studios with a small entourage and gifts for Larry, which she presented to him on the air. They were a random assortment of sweets and included gooey chocolate caramels that she fed to him on camera. Standing on the sidelines, I asked one of her entourage if the treats came from England. “No,” he said, “she cleaned out the minibar back at the Four Seasons.”
LARRY AND I needed to be in New York in November. It would be a long trip, almost a full week. Larry had shows to do, and together we had a few important meetings. I’d been yearning for the isolation, for the sight of Manhattan and the ease of a hotel room. The trip would be a tonic; the work would be interesting. Wendy, in a moment of compassion, said, “New York is medicinal to Carol,” and she was right.
The high point of the trip was a meeting I had managed to get with Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister of Iraq under Saddam. We planned to get him live on the set in New York with Bill Richardson, at the time the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The interview excited me. It was hard news, my former expertise, and it would be big. Lots of Wendy points.
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