Carriage Trade

by Stephen Birmingham

  “I’m twenty-four, Aunt Simma.”

  “Twenty-four. Just think of that. It’s been many more years than that since I last saw your father. That was more like forty years ago. Well, I must say you’re just as pretty as you are in photographs—prettier, even.”

  “Thank you. You have a lovely apartment, Aunt Simma.”

  “Yes, we like it. It’s right on the golf course, which my husband likes. And the Intracoastal is just two blocks away, where he likes to fish off the bridge.”

  There is a little silence, and then Miranda says, “Peter Turner let me listen to the tape of the interview he did with you. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Oh,” she says. “That means you know my shameful secret, that I’m illegitimate. Well, I guess that’s all right. You’re family, after all.”

  “I don’t think illegitimacy is all that shameful,” Miranda says. “I think it’s rather romantic. In England you’d be called a love-child. Your mother’s love-child.”

  “Love-child? Well, perhaps. But I only wish my mother had picked someone more attractive to have this love-child with.”

  “Looks are only skin deep, remember. He may have had other qualities—”

  “What they were, I can’t imagine! After I found out what I did, I couldn’t bear the sight of him. I had to switch to another dentist. It was that hard for me to accept.”

  “Actually, your tapes told me something much more important than Grandmother’s involvement with Dr. Weiss. That’s one reason I decided I needed to talk to you.”

  “Oh?” Simma Belsky says.

  “You see, since my father died, there are a number of aspects of my father’s life and business that I’ve been looking into, and Peter Turner has been very helpful. I’ve learned all sorts of things I didn’t know before, family secrets that had been kept hidden from me. For instance, I didn’t know my father’s original name was Tarcher. And I never knew he’d been to prison.”

  “Did that come as a terrible shock?”

  “A bit of a one, yes. But I had to admire the way he’d been able to bury his past.”

  “The State of New York helped him to do that,” Simma says.

  “I don’t think so, Aunt Simma,” she says. “Peter and I have done some checking, and there never was any prisoner rehabilitation program in New York State in the late nineteen-fifties such as Mr. Minskoff described to you and your mother. That was all a lie.”

  “Really?”

  “Moses Minskoff never worked for the State of New York in any capacity. He was not my father’s parole officer. Moses Minskoff was a small-time crook who knew my father when they were both inmates at Hillsdale. In fact, when Moses Minskoff first came to see you and your mother, he was on parole himself. I brought along a copy of Moses Minskoff’s criminal record at the time he was sentenced to Hillsdale. I thought you might like to take a look at it.” She reaches in her purse, withdraws a sheaf of papers, and hands them to Simma.

  “My God,” Simma says, reading through them. “Fraud … petty larceny … extortion! I should have listened to my husband. He said we shouldn’t trust him,”

  “I’m afraid he was right. Moses Minskoff is a con artist. He came to you and your mother, posing as a parole officer, in order to extort money to help my father start his store. With your mother, he preyed on her maternal feelings. With you, he resorted to a rather primitive form of blackmail.”

  “My God!”

  “Moses Minskoff has been a fixture in my father’s business life for as long as I can remember. He was always on the periphery of things, but he was always there. Daddy used to call him Mr. Fixit. When things needed fixing, Mr. Fixit fixed them. If money was needed, Mr. Fixit found it—somewhere. It begins to look as though, in the early days at least, Moses Minskoff was using Tarkington’s to launder money that may well have come from criminal sources. How long that went on, we still don’t know. But certainly, in the beginning, Daddy needed money, and Moses Minskoff provided it, and Daddy didn’t ask any questions. You see, it’s important to remember that, where Tarkington’s was concerned, my father was the idea man. He was also a super salesman; it was he who created the store’s reputation for fine merchandise and superb service. Moses Minskoff hardly ever came into the store, but he was always there in the background, making deals. When Daddy began to suspect that some of the deals weren’t on the up and up, and started asking questions, it was too late. Moses Minskoff had his claws too deeply into him for Daddy to escape.”

  “It begins to sound as though this man should be thrown back into jail, Miranda!”

  “Peter and I certainly think so. But we don’t have enough hard evidence yet. Once we do, I’m going to have to decide whether or not to take what I know to the Attorney General’s office. There’s a danger; that land of publicity could permanently damage the store’s reputation, and we don’t want that.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I think Daddy was genuinely frightened of what his silent business partner could do to the store. Minskoff had the power to expose Daddy’s past. He could blackmail Daddy, just the way he blackmailed you. Or maybe Daddy discovered that, without even being aware of it, he himself had become so deeply involved in Minskoff’s shady deals that there was no way he could extricate himself. Minskoff clung to him like a leech. Right up until the day he died, my father was trying to pry himself loose, and at the end he may have thought he’d found a way.”

  That way, she thinks, may have been a plan to run off to Bermuda with Smitty and leave the whole mess behind him. He had changed his identity once before. Perhaps he was planning to do it again. But she doesn’t tell Simma Belsky this. “But then—” she begins. “But then he was found floating dead in his swimming pool.”

  Simma stares at her. “Miranda, do you mean to say you think your father was murdered?”

  “We don’t know. It begins to look more and more like that, Aunt Simma, and Moe Minskoff certainly had a motive. But until we find out more, all we can do is speculate. One big reason I came down here is to warn you about him.”

  “If Minskoff is as dangerous as you say he is, Miranda, isn’t what you’re doing a little dangerous too? Aren’t you a little frightened that something could happen to you?”

  She laughs. “Not yet,” she says. “But if we’re able to get the goods on him—that’s when I’ll decide whether to be frightened or not.”

  “What you’re doing worries me, Miranda.”

  “Well, I also came down here to ask your help,” she says. “As you know, Continental Stores is making a takeover bid for Tarkington’s, and Moe Minskoff, of all people, is acting as their agent. Various stockholders have already been approached with a two-tiered offer for their shares. It’s a very tempting offer, but I’m here to ask that you not accept it, Aunt Simma. To begin with, Tommy Bonham—who was Daddy’s vice president and general manager—and I don’t want to lose the store. We want to run it ourselves, so we’re fighting this takeover. Continental is offering a ridiculously high price per share, so we’re certain that if they succeed in this they’ll simply sell off our real estate and inventory and close the store. Or they’ll turn it into something very different from what it is, and either way that will be the end of my father’s dream. My mother and I each own about twenty percent of the shares, but that doesn’t give us a majority, and even my mother may decide to jump ship. If she doesn’t, yours could be the swing vote, Aunt Simma. And in any case we need every vote we can get to stop Continental.”

  “I see,” Simma says. “Of course I’ll have to discuss all this with Leo.”

  “Of course. I want you to. I want you to discuss it with him very carefully. But remember—any deal that involves Moe Minskoff is a deal that stinks. How he got involved with a chain the size of Continental is a mystery, but believe me, Moe Minskoff means nothing but trouble, and that makes us doubly determined to save the store. And it’s such a beautiful store, Aunt Simma. Have you ever been there?”

  “Never. I was sur
e my brother never wanted to lay eyes on me again.”

  “I don’t think that’s true, Aunt Simma,” she says. “I think he loved you and your mother very much. But I think he was so embarrassed by—so ashamed of—the tactics Moe Minskoff used to get the two of you to invest that he couldn’t bear to face either of you after he found out. Posing as his parole officer, for God’s sake! I honestly don’t think Daddy had any idea of the kind of dirty tricks Moe was using to get you to invest until it was all over.”

  “Well, perhaps,” Simma says, but she does not look convinced.

  “I’m sure that’s how he felt. Simma, I knew my father longer than you did. There were lots of things about him that I didn’t exactly approve of, but I don’t think he’d knowingly betray his own mother and his sister.”

  “If he felt so guilty about the way he’d treated Mama and me, why didn’t he leave us the money he owed us in his will? He knew we were still in the land of the living. Why couldn’t he have at least done that?”

  Miranda bites her lip. “It was a very bitter will,” she says. “He was in a very bitter frame of mind when he wrote that will. But I do know that when he died he was in the process of preparing a new will. He was planning to add some additional bequests. I don’t know what they were, because he died before the new will could be executed. I wish I could say that you and your mother were going to be remembered in it, but I can’t.”

  Now it is Simma’s tone that is bitter. “Mama and I each turned over nearly half of our inheritance to him,” she says. “Nearly half! A hundred and fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money in nineteen fifty-six. To me, it still is. Mama kept calling him and writing him about why there were never any dividends. We’d been promised nine percent. But he never answered her letters or returned her calls.”

  “Again, out of shame. Nine percent was Moe Minskoff’s promise, and of course it was an impossible one—another reason why my father couldn’t bear to face either of you. He’d already let his family down once. Now, thanks to Moe, he was being forced to do it again. I don’t think my father was essentially a dishonest man. But his hands were always tied—by Moe.”

  Simma shakes her head. “No,” she says. “I know a little about psychology. I’ve been in analysis for thirty years. I know a little about how the human mind works. I think that once he got our money, and got us to sign those papers, it was just easier to forget all about us. He knew we couldn’t sue him. So he said to himself, Forget about those two. To hell with them. I got what I needed from them. What more do I need those two for?”

  Miranda sighs. “You may be right,” she says. “Perhaps he let half of his mind forget you. But I’m sure with the other half he was always remembering what had been done to you—with guilt. Perhaps that’s why he was so bitter. But neither of us knows his innermost thoughts for sure, do we? And now he’s dead. But I’m not. I’m alive, and I want to make it up to you. That’s why, the minute I found out about you, I wanted to see you.”

  “How are you going to make it up to us, Miranda?”

  “Look. Let me tell you the truth. I don’t know. If I had the money, I’d pay it all back to you with interest. But I don’t. You and I are in the same boat, Aunt Simma. All we have is stock in the company and a ridiculously high offer to purchase it. For me, the stakes are higher since I own more shares. Nobody knows yet what else my father may have left in tangible assets besides his stock. He was supposed to have a valuable art collection, but his paintings turned out to be fakes.

  “All I have right now is a belief in Tarkington’s. It was my father’s dream, and it’s become my dream. I’m fighting to save that dream. If Continental buys us, that will be the end of everything, because Continental isn’t much more than a glorified J C Penney.

  “How do you put a price on a dream? There just isn’t any way. You mentioned dividends. Tarkington’s has never paid a dividend. Not even my father ever received a dividend on the shares he owned. All he ever received was salary. I wish I could promise you that, if Tommy Bonham and I succeed in fighting off this takeover Moe is engineering, we’re immediately going to start paying dividends. But I can’t. All I can promise you is that we intend to put the store on a sounder fiscal basis, so that, with any success at all, all of us can start receiving dividends in future. But that’s not a promise, Aunt Simma. All it is is asking you to have faith in me, a woman you’ve just met.”

  “But this offer from Continental is for sixty dollars a share—eighty percent of it in cash!”

  Miranda leans forward in her chair. “That offer is much too high,” she says. “It makes no sense. It has to be phony. If Moe Minskoff is behind it, it’s a trick. Once we agree to sell, that offer is going to change, and all any of us will end up with is a lot of Continental’s junk bonds. The only person who will profit from this will be Moses Minskoff. It’s also a very cruel offer. A number of our employees own stock. This offer is intended to divide their loyalties. On the one hand, they’d like to see Tarkington’s kept the way it is. On the other hand, the idea of selling out for a lot of money is very tempting. Right now, they’re feeling torn. But that’s one of the strategies of a hostile takeover—to divide and conquer. One final plea to you, Aunt Simma. It was Moses Minskoff who divided this family. Please don’t go along with another scheme of his that will divide us even more. We’re more than a store, we’re a family.”

  She considers this. “Well, let me talk to my husband,” she says at last.

  “Yes. It was thanks to your husband that you got a twelve percent position. Your mother, for the same investment, got only three percent—another Minskoff trick. By the way, I suppose you have your mother’s power of attorney and can vote her shares for her?”

  “Power of attorney? She’d never give me that. And don’t be so sure she’ll vote her shares the way I tell her to.”

  “But I’d heard she was senile,” Miranda says.

  “Senile! I wish she were. It would be a lot easier on me if she were. She’s quite alert, thank you very much. She tries to run that nursing home she’s in. She goes around to all the residents’ rooms at night, seeing to it that they’re all properly tucked into bed. She pesters the kitchen staff, either complaining about the food or offering new recipes for them to try. She tries to plan the menus. And her bridge club! She plays bridge for ten cents a point, which none of the other residents can afford, so she has this big stack of IOU’s. Once a month, she goes from door to door, trying to collect. Oh, she’s a caution, Miranda. Would you like to meet her? After all, she’s your grandmother.”

  Miranda jumps to her feet. “I’d love that!” she cries.

  “Well, let’s go right now,” Simma says. “It’s not a long drive up to West Palm. We can take my car. It’s right outside.” And she also rises.

  “Tell me something,” Miranda says. “What do her other grandchildren call her?”

  “They all call her Granny Rose.” They move together toward the front door.

  “And tell me something else,” Miranda says as they descend the front steps of the condominium toward the parking lot. “Did Granny Rose or any other Tarchers ever live on West End Avenue?”

  “In Manhattan? No. Leo and I lived in Kew Gardens. That’s really Queens, of course, but Kew Gardens sounds a little better. And Mama lived in the Bronx. We couldn’t budge her off the Grand Concourse, even when the neighborhood became completely black, until we moved her down here. And that’s all of us there were, for Tarchers.”

  The old woman runs her fingers gently across Miranda’s face. “So you’re Solly’s daughter,” she says. “Yes, I can see Solly in your face. It’s in the eyes. But I forget—are you the child of the first one, or the second?”

  “The second, Granny Rose.”

  “Both shiksas, weren’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I guess I can’t complain,” she says, “though I didn’t think much of the first one. She seemed land of la-di-da to me. The second one I never met. Well, what do y
ou want? Solly’s daughter wouldn’t come all this way to see me if she didn’t want something. What is it? Money, I suppose. How much this time?”

  Miranda squeezes her grandmother’s hand, which seems to her surprisingly firm and strong. “I’d like it very much if you’d like me, Granny Rose,” she says. “I’d like it even more if you could love me.”

  “Sixty dollars a share!” Leo is saying. “And eighty percent of that in cash, and the rest in Continental bonds! Why didn’t you show me this letter before, Simma?”

  “Si’s daughter was here. Miranda. She’s an executive with the store. She doesn’t like the sound of this deal. She says don’t sell.”

  “You’ve got only ten business days to act on this. And you’ve already let five of those days go by! My God, Simma, you’ve got to get an answer off right away!”

  “I don’t think I’m going to sell, Leo,” she says.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he cries. “In cash alone, they’re offering you almost a million dollars for the shares you own!”

  “I think Miranda’s right. The deal doesn’t sound right. We smell a rat. Moses Minskoff is his name.”

  “Are you crazy? Continental stores is offering you almost a million dollars in cash, and you’re turning it down? I’m not going to let you do this, Simma. Give me that letter.”

  “No,” she says evenly. “This is a letter to me. This is my stock they’re offering to buy, not yours.”

  “Well, I’m the head of this household, and I’m taking charge, since you’re obviously not capable of thinking rationally!”

  “You may be head of this household, but you’re not telling me what I can or can’t do with something that’s mine,” she says.

  “You’re crazy, Simma! I am telling you what to do!”

  “And I’m telling you I won’t do it. Rita says I should be more assertive. She says I shouldn’t let you boss me around the way I do.”

  “Who got you to hold out for twelve percent of the shares—me!”