I.O.U

by Nancy Pickard

  “I was sorry to hear of your misfortune, Jenny.”

  “Thank you, Sam.”

  He flicked a glance over my shoulder, where I knew he could see my husband seated in the modest little lobby. Sam, Jr., was the picture of old-fashioned propriety in his trademark suspenders and bow tie. On this day, the suspenders were black and the tie was red. When Sam blinked, behind his wire-rimmed glasses, it was an oddly slow and deliberate-looking movement, like an owl. Hard to believe this 1890s-looking man was younger than me. As I studied him, puzzling over how the same generation of parents could have produced the two of us, he said, “We had to run something about it, of course, but we tried to keep it vague.”

  “I appreciate that, Sam.”

  “You saw the article? We mentioned the fact that earlier that day you quit your job at the foundation.”

  “No, I didn’t see it.”

  “Oh. Would you care to make a statement about that?”

  “What? About quitting my job?”

  “Well, yes, and about—uh, the other.”

  “The other” was a euphemism, I gathered, for trying to kill oneself.

  “Okay, here’s my statement.” I cleared my throat, and sat up straighter. “I have enjoyed my years at the foundation. I am grateful to the trustees for the faith they have shown in me during all of those years. I believe they can look forward to many years of excellent service to the community under the stewardship of the woman I hope they will select as their new director, my former assistant, Faye Basil.”

  Sam looked sour around the mouth, as if my “statement” was far too bland and inoffensive to sell any papers. Before he could interject any questions whose answers might get me into trouble, I said, “As to the… other… it was an accident, Sam. I was tired and fell asleep in my car before I turned off the ignition. Fortunately, my husband arrived home in time to rescue me. It was a close call, and I feel lucky to be alive.”

  Geof and I had agreed that was the story we would spread, and that we’d be safe in doing it because all the police were saying publicly was that it was “accidental.” It would be better, we thought, if the person who had tried to kill me could be led to believe that nobody was looking for him, because nobody suspected the truth.

  Sam appeared to be sucking on a sour cherry ball, but except for a hard glance up from his notes, he didn’t try to challenge me.

  “Sam?” I shifted my weight, and the subject. “The reason I want to see you has nothing to do with any of this. I’ve been studying the articles that appeared around the time of our bankruptcy, and I’m baffled by them. Can you explain them to me?”

  He cocked his head, looking more owl-like than ever.

  “You may not remember those stories—that was way back when you were still in high school with Sherry—but I’ll tell you that this paper covered those events as if they were less important than the high-school football games. And I’m wondering, Sam, what sort of grade that coverage would have received in journalism school.” I gave him a nice, bland, inoffensive little smile. “I think maybe it would have been an F. For failure to fully investigate and report, for failure to properly place it on the front pages where it surely belonged, for failure to take an editorial stand on the events of enormous magnitude that were happening in this town.”

  “Now, Jenny, that was my father’s—”

  “I know it was, Sam, and that’s why I can talk so frankly to you, since it wasn’t your responsibility.” I gave him another nice, bland, inoffensive little smile. “Let me explain why I think this coverage was so—if you’ll pardon the expression—piss-poor. Cain Clams was the town’s major employer, right?”

  He nodded, with apparent reluctance.

  “And it was going belly-up, right?”

  Again, he had to nod in agreement.

  “But what kind of coverage did the town receive from the only newspaper in town? A fistful of little bitty stories, that’s what, and most of them in the business section. This story should have been trumpeted all over the front pages, Sam. There should have been interviews with the principals, there should have been frequent and lengthy analysis of exactly what was happening to the business.” I shook my head, in real bewilderment. “This was the most pitiful coverage of a major civic event that I’ve ever read. If your reporters turned in stories like that—if PFF were going under today, for instance—you’d fire their asses.”

  I took a perverse pleasure in saying crude things to Sam. Like his father before him, he regularly used his editorial page to inveigh against “creeping vulgarization” in the arts. His editorial against the exhibit at the New East Gallery alone had set a whole new standard for advocating censorship. But I knew that, like his father before him, he had a mouth as foul as Richard Nixon’s when he was alone with the boys. (This I knew from various other “boys” in town, including my own Geof, who played racquetball in the court next to him.)

  “Jenny, I can hardly defend an editorial policy that existed when I wasn’t even involved with the paper,” Sam protested. “And I must say that I don’t understand your attitude. I would think you would feel grateful that my father did keep the story on the back pages, and that he didn’t turn it into major, front-page news.”

  “Why didn’t he, Sam?”

  “It wouldn’t have been good for the town,” he said, in tones that implied, you dumbshit. “Better to downplay these things, better to accentuate the positive, get the town back on its feet as soon as possible.”

  “Wouldn’t have been good for which part of town, Sam? Not the part that depended on Cain Clams for their livelihood. They needed to know what was going on, they deserved to know, it seems to me. So who was it good for?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said, defensively. “I wasn’t here.”

  “You’re on the board of PFF, right?”

  He looked puzzled, wary, at this apparent change of topic, but he said, drawing out the word reluctantly, “Yes.”

  “Did you inherit that position from your father?”

  He chewed on that question for a moment, obviously looking for some trap beneath it. The trap was there, all right, but I didn’t think he had sufficient moral principles to see it. Any journalist who would serve on the board of any entity on which he might have to report was not worth the parchment in his J-School degree. Finally, Sam said, “I guess you might say so, yes.”

  I smiled at him. “So, your father was probably a member of the board of directors of Port Frederick Fisheries at the same time that Cain Clams was going under and PFF was buying the plant, is that right?”

  “I guess. What’s the point of this, Jenny?”

  Sam was not only unprincipled, he was stupid, I decided. With him in charge, it was no wonder we had such pitiful local news coverage.

  “Was there some sort of cover-up, Sam?”

  “A cover-up of what, for God’s sake?”

  “Of the truth about what was going on at Cain Clams, Sam.”

  “I resent that! On behalf of my father, I really, really resent that, Jenny!”

  I was really, really impressed by his vehemence.

  “Do you remember anything your father said about it at the time?”

  “No, no I don’t!”

  “And you wouldn’t tell me if you did, Sam?”

  And then I suddenly realized: Why should he? Why should he tell me anything? It wasn’t Sam who was stupid, it was I. I’d handled him all wrong, ruffling his owl-feathers and putting him needlessly on the defensive about his father. And all because I didn’t like his tie? I searched for the motivation for my blind aggression toward this man. It was because… because I didn’t like him… because… because… I was still ticked off about my mother’s obituary? Great, Jenny, I thought with self-disgust, so you insult his father to get even because he insulted your mother. Self-awareness is a wonderful thing: It allows you to realize in humiliating detail exactly how you have made a complete ass of yourself.

  “Sam, I’m sorry, it wasn’t your doin
g—”

  I started to get up to leave. There was no need for me to stick around the newspaper any longer that day; I’d gotten the one piece of information I’d sought—which was that his father had been on the board of directors of PFF at the crucial time, thus providing a motive for a journalistic cover-up—but basically, I’d blown it.

  “Jenny?” Sam leaned forward on his arms, and stared at me with his slow-blinking gaze. “What do you think you’re doing? It was over, years ago. A lot of people have helped you and your family through those times and in the years afterward, and you ought to be grateful, instead of accusing us of covering things up. You’d better stop whatever it is you think you’re doing, or you might end up hurting some of the very people who’ve helped you the most. You’ll certainly hurt yourself and your family.” He smiled, his eyes as cold as an owl with a mouse in sight. “And frankly, right now I don’t think your reputation can stand any more damage, do you? Everybody knows you quit your job because Pete Falwell tried to hold you to your responsibilities and you couldn’t handle it. You folded. And if you think anybody’s buying that accidental asphyxiation story, you’re crazier than your mother ever was. In this city, at this moment, your word’s about as reliable as a two-week weather forecast. You say anything to disparage my father or any of the other fine businessmen in this town, and you know what the reaction’s going to be? That you’re crazy. Flipped out. Bonkers. You want to know what your word is worth on the open market in this town, on this day, Jenny? It ain’t worth shit.”

  I stood up. “May I quote you on that, Sam?”

  “I could print all that, Jenny. And don’t think I have to have anything as bothersome as the truth to do it. A little article here, an editorial there, that’s all it takes to ruin somebody.” A hint of self-knowledge and maybe even self-hatred showed for a second in his eyes. “Believe me, I know how to do it. I took lessons from my father, who was a master at it. Maybe you’re right, maybe he did that to your dad. Print a little something incriminating here, don’t print a little something exonerating there. A little bit of the truth, a little less than the truth. Story placement. Type size. It all adds up to an impression, Jenny, an image made, a reputation ruined. And before it’s over, Jimmy Cain—or somebody else—is o-u-t out, a has-been, a nonentity, which, in my opinion, is exactly what your father is best suited to be. So if my dad did have a hand in your father’s downfall, I’m not going to cry about it, or apologize for it. Your dad didn’t deserve to run that business. He wasn’t smart enough. He never could have turned it into what it has become under PFF and Pete Falwell.”

  I made an educated guess: “Your family owns stock in PFF, does it, Sam?”

  “Yes we do, goddammit, and so do a lot of other good people in this town who are plenty happy that things turned out the way they did.”

  “I guess that doesn’t include our former employees.”

  “They found other jobs, big deal. Listen, you go causing any more inconvenience to my friends, let me tell you right now that I will kill you in print I will paste you to the pages of my newspaper so tight that for the rest of your life you won’t be able to peel off the things I write about you.”

  He leaned back in his chair, and tapped a pencil on the arm of it, appearing suddenly to feign nonchalance. “You’re fucked, Jenny.”

  For once in my life, I had no smart reply. I turned and left his office with my face burning and my hands shaking. In the lobby, Geof asked me what was wrong, but I grabbed his arm and forced him out the door with me. Once outside, where the frigid air cooled my cheeks, I turned and said to him, “Even if we catch the person who tried to kill me, there will always be some people in this town who refuse to believe it, won’t there? People who think the police are covering up to protect your wife, or people who want to believe the worst, or people who never hear the truth.”

  “Jenny—”

  “What do I do now, Geof? Every time somebody looks at me, I’ll be wondering if they know who I am, do they think I’m crazy, do they think I tried to kill myself? What a funny thing a reputation is,” I said with a self-mocking laugh, “you don’t even know you have one—and God knows, you don’t know how much you value it—until you lose it.”

  “What in the world happened in there, Jenny?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way to the bank. I want to see my dear old family friend—” I felt my mouth twisting in bitterness. “—Jack Fenton.”

  13

  “HOW ARE YOU, JACK?”

  The old gentleman sat with me on a sofa in his office, leaning onto his carved walnut, brass-headed cane. He nodded, as if to say, “Okay,” but it was obvious that he wasn’t okay at all. His lean, aristocratic-looking face was nearly as pale as the white between the navy blue stripes of his beautiful shirt, which he wore with a navy blue silk tie and a dark blue suit with the thinnest, most elegant of red pinstripes. The nattiness of Jack’s attire contrasted painfully with the inelegant beads of sweat I saw on his upper lip and forehead. The problem was arthritis: His proud posture was curling in upon itself with the pain and crippling of rheumatoid arthritis. For the last year, I had watched in dismay at board meetings as Jack grew more quiet and participated less in our debates, which had once been enlivened by his quick wit and steadied by his innate good sense. Jack Fenton was my compassionate capitalist on the board, but lately, as he withdrew increasingly into himself, I had counted on him less frequently for the supporting voice or the deciding vote that came down on my side of an issue. He’d been a dear family friend and financial advisor for many years, as well, and now seated so near to him, I was having a hard time remembering my anger. Of all of “my” old men, I had expected Jack to age the most gracefully, because that was how he had moved through his life. But he’d fooled me, damn him. I missed Jack Fenton, banker and wit, and he wasn’t even dead yet.

  “I’m more concerned with how you feel, Jenny,” he said, in a voice that sounded like any old man’s, and not at all like his resonant, familiar one.

  I had closed his door behind me after I gained admittance to his office, leaving Geof out in the lobby again, but this time he was using the time to place a few phone calls to a couple of pals at the police department.

  I recalled that I was looking at a man who thought I had tried to kill myself.

  “You’ve quite upset us,” he continued in the quavery voice that lacked its previous cynical edge and authority. “Miss Grant is simply heart-stricken, as you may well imagine. Roy Leland is furious at Pete for refusing to grant your leave of absence. And I do believe you have aged Edwin Ottilini and me a good ten years that neither of us can afford to give up.” He took a breath, and shifted his weight, as if it hurt him. “But I must tell you, and this may surprise you, Jenny, that of all of the trustees, Pete Falwell is taking this especially hard. I do know, Jenny, and I know this direct from Pete, himself, that you quit when he claimed that he wouldn’t release you from your contract. You must know it was only a bluff. He never dreamed you would call his hand. Pete realizes, belatedly, how stubborn and wrongheaded of him it was, and he feels a painful and acute personal responsibility for what you have done.” It seemed to me that Jack laid a rather heavy emphasis on those last three words. “If you really want to know how I feel, Jennifer Lynn Cain, I will tell you the truth.” I was shocked to see tears come to Jack’s blue eyes, and I reached out impulsively to place my hands on top of his. “I feel quite shattered by this suicide attempt of yours. Quite shattered.”

  He sagged on his cane, looking ill and precariously balanced, even seated. I quickly moved closer to him, put one of my arms around him, and took both of his hands in my other hand. It was an act of intimacy I never would have attempted before this, so great was his natural dignity. But age and attempted murder had bridged our emotional reserves, so that I felt compelled to embrace this old man who appeared to care so much about my well-being. I was suddenly furious at the person who had tried to kill me and who, in so doing, had also caused pain to people I
loved. And yes, I discovered at that instant, I did love them, and they were still innocent of any damage to my family until proven otherwise.

  “Will you help me, Jack?”

  He blinked away the wetness in his eyes. “Of course. Tell me how.”

  “You can tell me the truth, old friend.”

  He looked genuinely puzzled. “When have I ever not?”

  “Never,” I assured him, hoping it was true. I shifted away from him again, so that he could regain his dignity and I could see his face. “But this time, it’s about the failure of my father’s business. I want to ask you some uncomfortable questions, and what I hope is that you’re going to feel so sorry for me that you’ll give me the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

  He must have noted a glint of humor in my eyes, because he cocked a white eyebrow at me, and he leaned forward on his cane, clearly intrigued by the turn of our conversation. He said, “The straight scoop, as my grandchildren would say?”

  “That’s right, the straight scoop.”

  “Fire away, Jenny.”

  “All right.” I took a breath, and ran my fingers along a seam in my mother’s slacks before I looked up at him again. “Who provided the financing for the improvements that my dad made at the plant before it folded?”

  “We did,” Jack said promptly. “First City.”

  “Who was going to provide it for the new addition?”

  “Several lending entities.”

  “Who was the major one?”