“Instead of money?”
“Yeah, well . . . Mr. Monti said we were almost relatives. He said relatives had to help each other. And trust each other.”
“So he trusted you?”
Jeff got very busy trying to balance his knife on his spoon, and his fork on his knife. Then he said, “That isn’t the problem, Mom. The problem is that I trusted him.”
“Jeff,” I told him, well aware that I shouldn’t, but doing it anyway, “that was a big mistake. A big mistake.”
Now of course he already knew this—better than I did—so why in God’s name did I have to point it out? Don’t belabor the obvious, I strongly believe and always urge upon my readers. But who among us, especially with our children, is able to exercise that kind of restraint?
I hoped that Jeff would somehow not notice my lapse.
He noticed.
“A big mistake, Mom? Why, thank you so much. What a helpful insight. Will there be others? I can hardly wait.”
“Honey, I am really sorry I said that.”
“You’re always sorry. And you always say it.”
“I’m sitting my wrists. I’m groveling. I’m begging on bended knee. Will you please please please please please accept my apology?”
I have to point out that apologizing is one of the things I do terrifically well. I mean, why not? As I often tell my readers, the capacity to fully and freely admit that you are wrong is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition of healthy adulthood. And if some folks do not feel they are receiving a full apology unless it comes with groveling, begging, etc., I say give it to them.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, the waitress—a shapely brunette with long legs and short hair—took our order, brought us our, lunches, and replenished our drinks. “Is there anything else whatsoever you would like me to do for you?” she inquired huskily, directing her question to Jeff and hinting at sweets far far beyond the flourless chocolate cake.
“Not at the moment, thanks,” Jeff answered, tossing her a conspiratorial smile. “But promise that you’ll come back and ask me later.”
Jeff is so good at this lady-killer stuff that he can do it in his sleep, which—as I examined him more closely—it was clear he could desperately use. I also noticed that underneath the tan, his feline face had a slightly greenish tinge. He started rubbing his cleft again. I took his hand from his chin and gave it a pat. “lust tell me this,” I said to him. “On a scale from one to ten, exactly how much trouble are you in?”
“Eleven, Mom,” he answered and then my cocky firstborn son began to cry.
• • •
The last time I saw Jeff cry was in seventh grade, when he was suspended from Georgetown Day School for cheating on a chemistry exam. He swore, and I believed him, that he had only sought outside help on one of the questions. He then defended himself by observing that since the chem exam had twenty questions his dishonesty quotient was merely 5 percent.
Jeff was not an easy child to raise. A moral corner-cutter with a fast mouth, he had many close encounters with die authorities. For all I know, he still does. He certainly still displays a devotion to hedonism that the rest of his hardworking family does not share—doing dubious deals, dancing and drinking half the night away, and wasting his substance upon glitzy, shallow women who could never be the mothers of my grandchildren. In addition (though I don’t mean to sound petty) Jeff is never on time, he never phones when he says he is going to phone, and people tell me (I won’t say who, but I’ve got my ways of knowing) that he almost never bothers to use his seat belt. I guess the good news about Jeff is that after a trip two years ago to the Sibley Emergency Room, he no longer snorts, smokes, or swallows controlled substances. That afternoon at the restaurant, he finally opened up and proceeded to inform me of the bad news.
• • •
Jeff told me that back in January, soon after the Monti-Kovner family dinner, he called Mr. Monti and said he would like some advice. Asking for advice, my shrewd but currently quite chastened son informed me, was the best way to ease into asking for bigger favors. Which he did.
“You’ve made some brilliant real estate moves,” Jeff said to Mr. Monti when they met and had ordered their second round of drinks. “I’m into a little real estate myself.”
“A profitable business,” said Mr. Monti. “Even in these tough times. But if, and only if, you know how to figure it.”
“That’s just it,” said Jeff. “With prices so low now, I’d like to buy some properties in the District, but the neighborhoods I’m looking at could go either way—up or down—and frankly, sir, I don’t know how to figure it.”
“Help me, O Real Estate Maven,” was Jeff’s unexpressed but unmistakable plea. Mr. Joseph Monti, for his own unsavory reasons (I’ll get to them soon), chose to oblige.
“There’s a very sweet deal coming up with a block of buildings in Anacostia,” he told Jeff, who, as he listened to Mr. Monti describe it, almost fell off his bar stool with excitement.
According to Mr. Monti’s source—a person he characterized as “my own Deep Throat”—an urban revitalization project was coming up in . . . he mentioned a section of Anacostia. “Some office buildings, a Cineplex, a mini shopping mall—the works. If you owned in this location you could sell and quadruple your money in just a few months.”
“And who,” Jeff asked him breathlessly, “gets to own?”
“Could be us, kid,” Mr. Monti replied. “Sixteen buildings are up for sale, and I’ll cut you in on eight—if you can find four hundred thou for the down payments.”
Jeff gasped. “I don’t have that kind of money,” he said. “I was thinking of something smaller. A whole lot smaller.”
“Never think small,” Mr. Monti said. “Let’s examine your resources—all of them.”
At the end of the examination Mr. Monti offered to lend Jeff most of the money he needed for the down payments, with Jeff putting up as collateral the two houses he owned out in Rockville (bought, he explained to me, after a fabulous day at the races and on which, he explained to me, he still owed plenty), his Watergate condo (bought, he explained to me, in the wake of a brilliant stock-market killing and on which, he explained to me, he still owed plenty), his brand-new Jaguar (bought, he explained to me, with the winnings from a high-stakes poker game and on which, he explained to me, he still owed plenty), and the twenty-five thousand dollars that his grandfather had left to him (but which he would not come into until he was thirty).
In the contract Mr. Monti. drew up, it said that his loan to Jeff was “payable in full upon demand.” But, he assured Jeff, “that’s just a formality, to keep my accountants happy. Listen, we’re practically relatives—you shouldn’t give the matter a second thought.”
The buildings were purchased in March. They figured to sell them in early June when the project went public. That’s also when Jeff intended to pay off the loan. But in May, Mr. Monti found out—though he neglected to notify Jeff—that the urban renewal project was dead in the water. Mr. Monti unloaded his buildings. Jeff did not.
“And then,” Jeff said to me, “you know what he did? He called in my loan. He said he wanted payment in full, immediately.”
What a surprise, I was tempted to say. I didn’t. I bit my tongue and said, “What a shame!” instead.
I completely understood why Jeff had made this high-flying deal with Mr. Monti. My boy was greedy. I also had some thoughts about why Mr. Monti had chosen to do what he’d done to Jeff.
I think he had lent Jeff the money as a way of trying to get his hooks into Wally, who was far more independent than he liked the men in his daughters’ lives to be. By helping Jeff make money, he would be saying to Wally, “Look what I’ve done for your brother. I’ll do it for you—if you’ll submit to me.”
And when Wally didn’t submit» when Wally appeared to mock and defy him on this stupendously supercharged issue of conversion, take-no-prisoners Joseph Monti took his revenge by striking out at Jeff.
Trying to look on the bright side, I said to Jeff, “You’ve still got the Anacostia buildings. Couldn’t you fix them up—make something out of them?”
Jeff groaned. “I said I had trouble figuring out if a neighborhood’s going up or going down. Well, I’m not having any trouble trying to figure this neighborhood out. It’s going down. Fast.”
He groaned again. “And Mom, so am I So am I.”
• • •
I once got a touching letter from an “Inadequate in Islip,” who wrote:
DEAR BRENDA:
When it comes to the daily disasters of life I do great like you wouldn’t believe. If my furnace conks out, if my tire goes flat, if my water, pipes freeze and burst, I am cheerful and calm and on top of things because I always can say to myself, Could be worse. My problem is that when it is worse, when disaster really strikes, I fall apart at the seams and am incapable of rising to the occasion. I am not pleased, for instance, with the way I behaved when my husband embezzled this money from his company, and ran away with the bookkeeper on exactly the day I had surgery for my . . .
I won’t go into the rest of the letter (which was quite poignant) or my reply (which was quite constructive). I simply want to say that although I, too, bring my can-do attitude to things like broken furnaces and flat tires, I find them harder to cope with than the big stuff. Indeed, unlike “Inadequate in Islip,” I’m at my best when disaster really strikes.
Leaning over and giving Jeff a reassuring hug, I said in a voice of absolute conviction, “Don’t worry, darling. Don’t worry. I promise that we’re going to straighten this out.”
Now all I had to figure out was how.
3
•
OY, IS THAT A GENIUS!
A couple of years ago, at Nora’s annual New Year’s Day party, Philip Eastlake confided to me that he had been born an Epstein in Newark, New Jersey. He said he was telling me this because he sensed what he called a “simpático something” between us, a simpático something which, were we not married to two other people, would surely have burgeoned, he said, into something quite . . . passionate, I think he fondled my earlobe as he confided this to me, but having consumed several cups of Nora’s famous champagne punch, I was feeling far too fuzzy to be sure.
Last year Philip was at Nora’s party with a Cher-like brunette approximately his daughter’s age Unhappily, he confided to me, his marriage of thirty-seven years was through. He added that although he was finding some temporary solace between the silken thighs of his well-toned companion, he remained convinced that the seasoned consolations of September were far, far richer than those of girlish May. He then plunged his eyeballs so deeply into mine that I felt that I had been ocularly raped.
Philip, who possesses the carved beauty of Gregory Peck in his middle years and whose silver hair is so magnificently coiffed that I have often teen tempted to ask him the name of his stylist, flashed me his internationally famous TV smile, “If only . . .” he began, but at that point girlish May beckoned to him across a crowded room. He sighed, pressed his cheek against mine, and departed, his padded shoulders drooping in an eloquent gesture of reluctant adieu.
This year, at the New Year’s Day party, I was ready and waiting for Philip, for only a few days before I had begun to consolidate my final adultery list. Philip was the first (and thus far the only) name in my Definite Lovers column, and I wanted to convey that information. Indirectly. Adorably. Unmistakably.
Actually, Philip made it quite easy for me, having arrived at Nora’s party both unmarried and alone, and more than willing to be led to the quiet of Nora’s den for what I called (this is the indirect part) “our annual chat.” I brought along a platter of Nora’s miniature spinach crepes (elegant and attractive when served with a dollop of sour cream and red caviar), and soon Philip and I were playfully popping crepes (this is the adorable part) into each other’s eagerly open mouth. When some of the sour cream dribbled onto Philip’s finely sculpted lower lip, he reached for a napkin. I shook my head and gently pulled it away. “No, no,” I said, “let me,” and then I flicked out my tongue and (this is the unmistakable part) slowly and thoroughly licked his lower lip clean.
I figured that after about ten years of chaste New Year’s Day flirting, my I’m-available message might take even faze-proof Philip by surprise. I decided to give him a little assistance in processing it.
“You’re quite a remarkable fellow, Philip Eastlake,” I said archly (though arch is not my strong suit), giving his lip a “there—you’re all cleaned up” tap. “You know, I watched your program on the philosophy of Wittgenstein. And the one on Lebanon. And that program you did on Oriental art. And that program on the fantasy life of children. And—what can I say?—I’m absolutely staggered.”
“I hope that means,” Philip said archly (he’s fabulous at arch), “that my humble efforts met with your approval.”
“Yes, they did,” I told him, lying only a little. “I was . . . well, I always knew you were brilliant, but—but the sensitivity, Philip. The originality. The . . . the wisdom.”
What I was doing to Philip was, I’ll readily admit, the verbal equivalent of licking his lower lip. Some might find it excessive. Philip did not. In fact, if I had to bet, I’d bet that my words were turning him on even more than my tongue had. The message in his eyes—those brooding, expressive, deep-set eyes—read, “Don’t stop now.”
I didn’t. “And I was especially touched,” I said, “by your insights into religion and the environment, when you said . . . Do you remember that part?”
Did he remember. Philip can quote himself extensively and accurately on any subject he has ever addressed in his twenty-three years as host of “Everything Under the Sun.” He can also quote Gerard Manley Hopkins, W. B. Yeats, and Emily Dickinson—but not nearly as movingly.
“I said that there were many of us who, while having no belief in a personal God, nonetheless believed in holiness.” He smoothed the neck of his green velours shirt, just in case he was being televised, and kept rolling. “Believed in the holiness of our mountains and rivers and oceans, in the holiness of all creatures great and small, in the holiness of . . .”
I have often wondered where Philip, who is a graduate Of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, acquired his classy accent, but there it is. William Buckley should only speak that well. Philip’s voice is so modulated, so mellifluous, so mesmerizing, that even when he’s full of shit he sounds profound. But, in fact, if we exclude how he talks when he’s engaging in what he believes to be sexual banter, he really isn’t full of shit that often. (Time or Newsweek once called his “lively and wide-ranging intellect one of our national treasures” and added, “Eat your heart out, Bill Moyers.”) Well, I don’t know about national treasure, but he sure is a whole lot sexier than Moyers, and he is—in a kind of fatiguing way—supersmart. Actually, I tend to think of him as the ultimate Bar Mitzvah boy, who first tasted glory at Temple Beth Shalom, and whose eagerness to learn and digest and explicate virtually everything under the sun derives from his wish to keep hearing the awestruck whispers that filled the temple when he was thirteen: “Oy, is that a genius or is that a genius!”
Philip had finished with the environment and was now regaling me with brilliant lines from his program on the fantasy life of children. While he spoke, I indulged in my own fantasy. Without going into details, I’ll simply say that it involved the use of crepes, sour cream, and caviar in locations and combinations that hadn’t been mentioned in the original recipe.
Just as my fantasy was becoming seriously weird, Jake stuck his head into the den doorway. “I’d like to get out of here in a couple of minutes, Bren. You want to start saying your goodbyes?”
It was time to reel in Philip. “I’ve really loved being with you,” I told him, adding, with a little catch in my voice, “It’s going to be a long time until next New Year’s Day.”
“Where is it written,” asked Philip, who was gratifyingly eager to be reeled in, “
that we have to wait until next New Year’s Day? Can’t we get together for lunch?”
“I’d love that,” I answered, tossing him what I hoped was a sluttish smile.
And then I panicked.
I didn’t want him thinking I was cheap. I didn’t want him talking about me in bars. I wanted him to respect me the next morning. Everything my mother had ever said to me about sex in the days when she still believed she could keep me a virgin suddenly came surging into my consciousness.
“Listen, Philip,” I told him, “I’m having lunch with you, I’m definitely having lunch with you. But you need to know that I usually don’t—that it really isn’t my habit to commit . . . lunch. In fact—and you can believe this or not, as you choose; I won’t try to persuade you—I have never ever before committed lunch.”
I could feel my face heating up (my God, was I blushing?) but I kept on talking, faster and faster and faster.
“Not that I’m trying to turn this into something significant between us—certainly not. My eyes are wide open. I’m seeing it for exactly what it is. I am, for heaven’s sake, a consenting adult. But you need to know that having lunch is a very very big step for me and . . .”
Philip hadn’t heard a word I said. He was too busy flipping through the pages of his pocket calendar, looking for an opening in his schedule. “Hmmm,” he said. “Zurich next week, London the week after, Paris after that, and then L.A. Looks like my next several shows are on location. But wait. Wait just a minute. Excellent. What about March eighteenth, twelve noon, the Hay-Adams?”
Two months and seventeen days from now? I felt berth profoundly relieved (because I wouldn’t have to do it right away) and also profoundly offended (because he didn’t insist on doing it right away). My panic, however, was definitely gone. I recalled the words of the great William Shakespeare, who once observed, “The readiness is all.” With plenty of time to get used to the thought of adultery, I figured that, come March 18, I’d be ready.
Murdering Mr. Monti Page 5
