“Financial restructuring! My God, Miranda, that’s what banana republics are always doing. That’s what they’re doing with the Texas S&L’s. Financial restructuring is just a polite term for bankruptcy.”
“Bankruptcy! Don’t say that awful word, Peter!”
“Well, things don’t look that great, do they?”
She nods and studies the backs of her hands, now ringless. “No,” she admits. “And I haven’t even mentioned the employees’ retirement pension fund.”
“Tell me about that,” he says.
“As of the first of June, there was about three and a half million dollars in the pension fund account. But then there was another of these little cash-flow problems, as Tommy calls them. Some vendors were demanding to be paid and were refusing to make fall shipments until they were. And so it was decided—and Tommy insists that all these decisions were made jointly, between him and Daddy—that the pension fund should be subsumed—Tommy’s word—temporarily into the store’s general operating account. No one expected anybody to be retiring soon, least of all Pauline O’Malley, our oldest employee, who everybody assumed would be staying with the store forever, so I suppose it seemed like a practical move at the time. But now Pauline’s very upset. Her brother-in-law, who’s a C.P.A., wants her to hire a lawyer.”
“And what does our friend Tommy Bonham propose to do about that?” he asks her.
She sighs, discouragedly. “He says we just may have to do some more leveraging,” she says. “But I’ve saved my biggest shocker for the last. The two illfated suburban stores. I found out that the contract to build the Morristown store was given to something called the Peterloon Construction Company of Paramus, New Jersey. I thought: Peterloon—that’s a strange name. I decided to find out what I could about them. Well, I didn’t find out much, except that Peterloon Construction declared bankruptcy in nineteen eighty-nine. But I did find out that the C.E.O. of Peterloon was a man named Saturnino Salas. I also discovered that the land on which the store was built was leased from an outfit called Wellington Partners. Wellington Partners is still in business, and guess who owns Wellington Partners? Saturnino Salas.”
“Same guy!”
“Apparently. And how many people do you know named Saturnino Salas?”
“Nobody.”
“Saturnino Salas is the name of Tommy Bonham’s Filipino houseboy, Nino. Funny coincidence?”
“My God, you mean he’s the brains behind—”
“Hardly. The boy can barely speak English, much less work out a deal like this one. The land lease was for ten years. Our company is still paying rent to Wellington Partners—to the tune of a million dollars a year.”
“Dummy corporations.…”
“Exactly. And now we can see why Tommy was so eager to open those suburban outlets.”
“And it didn’t matter to him whether they succeeded or not. Either way, he’d collect his money on the lease.”
“That’s right,” she says. “And this only involves the New Jersey store. What do you suppose we’ll find when we look into what happened in White Plains?”
“Probably the same damned thing!”
“That’s what I’m assuming,” she says.
“Damn it, Miranda, you’ve got enough evidence already to send this guy to jail!”
“I thought of that,” she says. “But is that what we want at this point? The publicity alone could kill us.”
“Okay, so let’s talk about assets for a minute. What are the store’s tangible assets?”
“Well, we do own the Fifth Avenue building. It’s prime business property, on one of the most desirable street corners in Manhattan. Unfortunately, we seem to have taken out another million-and-a-half-dollar mortgage in January.”
“Oh, me, oh my.” He shakes his head.
“Oh, and I almost forgot one other minor mystery, the E.K. bonus. With Tommy’s accounts and Daddy’s accounts and the store’s accounts all mixed up in here, I began to notice deposit tickets—to Tommy’s account—with monthly items marked E.K bonus, always for five hundred dollars and always in cash. Tommy got really testy when I asked him what that was all about. At first he said it was a private arrangement he had with my father and he couldn’t discuss it. When I pressed him, he said that E.K. stood for Extra Kindness. He said that whenever a Tarkington’s employee demonstrated a little extra kindness to a customer, he or she was rewarded with an E.K. bonus at the end of the month, always in cash, prorated according to salary. He said it was a little system my father had worked out to improve employee relations and keep the unions from trying to move in on us. I must say I didn’t find any evidence of any other employees getting E.K. bonuses, but Tommy seems to have gotten his every month for years—from the summer of 1970, not long after he joined the store, through the end of 1986. I know five hundred dollars a month isn’t much, but over more than fifteen years it adds up to quite a bit. I never got any E.K. bonus, but then of course I never worked directly with the customers.”
He frowns. “Look,” he says quickly, “why don’t you let me go through all these figures and papers you’ve got here and see if I can find a bottom line to all of this.”
“Oh, that would be a big help, Peter,” she says. “Maybe you can uncover some assets I couldn’t find. And while you’re doing that, I’ll fix us a pot of coffee. No, wait. I’ve got an even better idea. Why don’t I fix some dinner for us? Can you stay for dinner?”
“Hey, I’d love that!”
“Good. I make a mean lasagna.”
“I don’t want you cooking for me, Miranda. Why don’t we just send out for pizza or Chinese, like the yuppies we are?”
“I’d rather cook,” she says. “My head’s so full of figures. I need to do something that will really drain my brain. For me, that’s lasagna.” She stands up. “If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen.”
And Peter tackles the big box of records, out of which, he quickly sees, Miranda has already managed to create some sense of order and design.
Cats, when they are in doubt about what to do next, wash themselves. Women like Miranda Tarkington, when they are in doubt, cook. In her kitchen, she lines up her ingredients from her refrigerator and pantry shelves in the order in which they will be needed: Ground beef, olive oil, tomato sauce, pasta sheets, ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan. She is a very orderly cook. As soon as she finishes using a utensil or a pot, she washes it and puts it away. There is never any mess when Miranda cooks. Orderliness makes the act of cooking seem that much more brainless, comforting, relaxing. System is the opposite of despair. A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.
It is very land of Peter, she thinks, to offer to make some sense out of a boxful of loose papers, numbers and cryptic notations on file cards of different sizes and colors, and all the rest of it, the sorry detritus of her father’s dream. But then Peter seems to her a very kind man, a very nice man. If you were looking for a nicer, kinder man than Peter Turner, that nicer, kinder man would be hard to find. She likes that healthy, curly, dark head of hair of his, and the fine brain beneath it. Yes, you are a fine fellow, suh!
She shapes the meat into balls the size of marbles, ready to brown them in the heated olive oil. Her pasta water has come to a boil.
Ten minutes later her baking dish is ready, its bottom covered lightly with tomato sauce. Now it is time for the layering to begin—first the pasta, then the cheeses, then more sauce, then the tiny meat balls, then another layer of lasagna—and I am doing all this for this fine, kind man whose name is Peter … a layer of pasta, then a layer of Peter, then …
She stands, a potholder in her hand, ready to place the completed masterpiece of Peter pasta into her preheated Thermidor when she realizes he is standing at the kitchen door and watching her. His expression is difficult to read.
“Could you come into the living room for a minute?” he says.
She puts the dish on the countertop and follows him wordlessly into the next room, the potholder still in her hand.
> “I’ve done some figuring,” he says. “It’s worse than we thought. It looks as though the store is in the hole for at least twenty-seven million dollars—if this one box is really all there is.”
She sits down hard on the white sofa. “In the hole …”
“In the red.”
“Twenty-seven million …”
“At least.”
“Well,” she says with a little shudder. “That’s that.”
“I’m afraid so, Miranda.”
“Tell me something,” she says. “How much of this do you suppose my father knew about?”
“That’s hard to say, isn’t it? But toward the end I imagine he knew quite a bit, if not everything. But by then he was trapped. He was in a corner. He was between a rock and a hard place, with no place to move. He was trapped by those two.”
“Two?”
“Tommy Bonham and Moses Minskoff.”
She gestures vaguely toward the cardboard carton. “I didn’t see Moses Minskoff’s name on any of those papers.”
“Neither did I. I didn’t expect to. Moses Minskoff kept a very low profile in his dealings with your father.”
“The two of them.”
“Not that they were working as a team. Just the opposite, in fact. Each of those two men was out to get whatever he could from your father, each on his own, each guy out for himself. Minskoff started years ago. Bonham started later, but they were both bleeding your father, each in his own way. You see, what seems to have happened is that about four or five years ago your father began turning full control of the store’s finances over to Bonham. He let himself look the other way while Bonham handled things. That’s when the shenanigans started with the R.C.C., and the banks, and the phony sales to South American ladies. Then, six or eight months ago, something—it may have been something Smitty told him—made your father suspicious, and he started looking into things. But by the time he found out what was going on, it was too late. He was trapped. The debt was too big. When he died, I imagine he was looking for some way out—some honorable way out.”
“Tell me something else,” she says. “Do you think that all the trouble he was in, and that the store was in, would have caused him to—to take his own life?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Smitty thinks so.”
She nods.
“No wonder Tommy Bonham wants to marry you.”
Dully: “Why?”
“Until he died, your father was in his pocket. Now Tommy wants you in his pocket.”
She nods again. “Partners.” Then she says, “I think I need a drink.”
“Lillet?”
“Something stronger. A real drink. Whiskey.”
“Where?”
She points to the liquor cabinet.
He goes to the cabinet, where he finds whiskey, glasses, an ice bucket. He fixes strong, dark drinks for them both. Then he returns and hands her drink to her. She takes a quick sip and makes a small, wry face. “My mother used to say that the first sip of Scotch always tasted to her like dirty socks,” she says. Then she says, “Well, that’s it. I quit.”
“Quit?”
“Yes, quit. I’m out of this. I’m not going to fight this takeover any longer.”
He sits beside her on the sofa. “You can’t quit now, Miranda!”
“I can’t drag my mother into this mess. I can’t drag Aunt Simma into this. And my grandmother, who’s ninety-six! Let Continental Stores inherit this whole can of worms.”
“There are things you can do, Miranda, legal things.”
“And destroy Tarkington’s reputation? No, thanks.”
“Don’t quit now,” he says. “You’ve gone too far to quit now.”
“There’s no point in going any farther.”
“There is! Now you know what you’re dealing with. The cards are all on the table now. You can’t quit now.”
“The card game’s over, Peter.”
“Please don’t quit now—for my sake.”
“Your sake?”
“I don’t want you to be a quitter. Damn it, I’m not going to let you quit. I want to help you.”
She looks up at him. She is still clutching the potholder in one hand. “But you’ve got a book to write.”
“To hell with that. This is more important.”
“To you?”
“Did you really remember me from Yale?” he says. “In a red shirt?”
“Certainly.”
“I’m in love with you, Miranda.”
She is still looking at him. “Funny,” she says quietly. “You’re the second man this week who’s said that to me.”
“And one of them’s a crook.”
She begins to laugh, and her laughter makes him start to laugh, and all at once they are both laughing, laughing like children, giggling uncontrollably in each other’s arms.
In his office on West 23rd Street, Smyrna is saying to her boss, “Listen, Moe. It seems like you’re either flying to Buenos Aires or to Nassau in the Bahamas, one of those two places, on Friday night. Not that it matters to me which one. But would it be out of place for me to ask when you’re planning to come back from whichever place it is? Or is that one of those secrets which a secretary isn’t supposed to know?”
“Ah, Smyrna,” he says. “I neglected to tell you that this office will be closing on Friday, and I shall not be needing your good services after that date.”
“What?” she shrieks. “You mean you’re firing me?”
“I believe ‘terminated’ is the word they’re using at this point in time.”
“What about severance pay? What about that?”
“Smyrna, ours has been a wonderful relationship. Let’s not end it on an unpleasant note.”
“You mean you’re firing me without severance pay?”
“I didn’t say that, did I? Let me take you to lunch at Harold’s across the street around twelve-thirty, and we can discuss these various matters. Right now, I have some important calls to make.”
“I’m not going to lunch at that greasy spoon!” she says, and flounces out of his office, slamming the door hard behind her. “Cheapskate!” she yells through the door.
In the anteroom, one of her phones is ringing. “Development Corporation, Limited,” she says, her tone still angry. “Whom is calling? … No, I’m afraid Mr. Minskoff is in conference right now.… No, I do not know when would be a good time to reach him.” Then she says, “Listen, I don’t know who the hell you guys are, but I’ll tell you this much. This office is going to be closed after Friday, so you can lay off with these calls.… No, I know nothing of the bum’s future plans.” Then she says, almost sweetly, “Why don’t you try Mrs. Minskoff? I believe you have her private number.”
Farther uptown, it is Honeychile Minskoff’s telephone that is ringing. She answers it and then gasps when she hears the voice on the other end of the line. “You can stop trying to frighten me!” she cries. “I don’t care whether you’re Julius or a friend of Harry the Heeb’s or Don from Cleveland or Joe Blow from Kokomo! You can just stop trying to frighten me, ’cause my husband and I’ll be leaving the country—permanently—Friday night! So there!” And she slams the receiver down into its cradle.
THE SCENE: The interior of Moses Minskoff’s inner office.
THE TIME: Ten o’clock Friday morning. Moses Minskoff is talking on the telephone.
MINSKOFF: Yes, Mrs. Van Degan, I received your check in this morning’s mail. Thank you very much. You have made a very wise investment, Mrs. Van Degan, very wise indeed. Your late husband would be very proud of you, I’m sure. He was a fine man, Truxton Van Degan, a fine man of high caliber, with whom it was always a great pleasure to do business. (pause) Yes, Mrs. Van Degan, I will be sending you the promissory notes you purchased by Federal Express today, and you should have them in your good hands by tomorrow morning. I just have to get the necessary documents out of my safe. (He eyes the safe.) By the way, Mrs. Van Degan, could I trouble you to give me your Federal Exp
ress account number, since I seem to have momentarily misplaced mine? … Mrs. Van Degan? Hello? Mrs. Van Degan, are you there? Hello?
He begins jiggling the buttons of the receiver up and down, then furiously pushes buttons for other lines.
MINSKOFF (yelling): Smyrna! What the hell is going on here?
The lights come up in Smyrna’s outer office. She is at her desk.
SMYRNA (crossly): All right, all right. Hold your water. She rises, with her pad, and enters his office.
MINSKOFF: All our phone lines just suddenly went dead. We paid the phone bill, didn’t we?
SMYRNA (sarcastically): So far as I know, Moe.
MINSKOFF: Run down to the corner to the pay phone and call Repair Service. Damn it, we pay for business service so we oughta get it.
Smyrna returns to her office and reaches for her coat and bag. The lights in both offices fade.
Cut to: Outside Moe Minskoff’s building. It is a gray fall day. A sheet of newspaper blows in the wind. From right, a brightly painted panel truck appears and parks in front of Moe’s building, next to a sign that reads, NO PARKING ANY TIME TOWAWAY ZONE. On the side of the panel truck is the legend “SIR PRIZE PARTIES, INC. Weddings. Banquets. Bar Mitzvahs. Corporate Meetings. Theme Parties. Special Events. Picnics. Conventions. Birthday Parties For All Ages. Hablamos Español.” The panels of the truck are painted with colored balloons and grinning clown faces. Bunched Mylar balloons float from the truck’s rooftop.
Inside the truck sit two clowns in whiteface with rouged cheeks and lips. One has an apple for a nose, the other a carrot. Both wear jesters’ caps with bells.
Another vehicle appears, a dark blue Chevrolet Caprice, and pulls in just behind the party truck. Its driver wears a dark fedora and a black trenchcoat.
The two in clown costume wait in their truck, the ignition turned off. The driver of the Caprice waits in his car, slouched in his seat, his coat collar turned up, his hat brim turned down, his motor running.
Carriage Trade Page 47