Philanthropist

by Larry Hill

  “But I don’t understand. I did all this training and bought new clothes, and…”

  “Sorry, Ernesto. Call me sometime next week and we’ll see if we can find something else for you.” Spencer hung up the phone.

  The explanation offered Contreras was not the way it happened. Bowman and Clark had insisted on a partnership meeting. All was not well in the firm with the loss of so much tech. They had plenty of cash but venture capitalists don’t make their money by letting principle sit in the bank or in publically traded equities.

  “Mark, we don’t understand why you are handling Kobe the way you are,” said Clark, using the codename for the Uruguayan venture. “We can’t figure out why you are sending this rookie Mexican guy down there. Yeah, this is no Google-to-be, but it can be a real winner for us, at least according to the charts that you showed us.”

  “Contreras is a good man. He trained up real good. He knows his stuff now and it doesn’t hurt that Spanish is his first language.” Spencer was on defense.

  “Don’t forget, Mark, I speak Spanish pretty well – Peace Corps in Honduras, remember?” responded Bowman. “I’d love to go down there myself – I’ve never been in that part of South America. I know it’s your file – you came up with the idea, but I also know that you don’t want to leave the City.”

  “We’ve spent a lot of money on Contreras.”

  “What do they say about good money after bad?”

  “Come on guys, gimme a break. This guy is OK. It’s just a first meeting. He isn’t going to screw it up.”

  “Sorry, Mark,” said Clark. “The two of us have real reservations about this and we either want you or one of us to go.” As only full partners vote, the electorate numbered 3 and 2 voted no on Ernesto.

  “Jesus. He’s going tonight. How are we going to handle this one?”

  “I’m sure you can work that one out, friend. You got Mr. Contreras on board. Now, get him off that flight.”

  “OK. It isn’t going to be pretty, but I’ll call him. Then, I’ll have to call Uruguay and let them know that we won’t have our man in town tomorrow after all.”

  “So, are you going to go in his place?” asked Bowman

  “I can’t. You know that. I can’t leave Meagan with the nanny yet. Neither Bowman nor Clark had the slightest idea that the nanny was Ernesto’s sister.

  “I take it that means that you want me to go?” asked Bowman.

  “If you can, yes.”

  “You owe me one, Mr. Senior Partner. I can’t get ready tonight but I’ll shoot for the end of the week.”

  Ernesto was devastated. He had counted on his life changing very much for the better. He was not going to have to survive on taking orders for meat and creamed spinach plus the contributions of Jennifer Klein and assorted other females. High finance beckoned. He had envisioned the door on the 14th floor of the Transamerica Pyramid announcing the firm of Spencer, Bowman, Clark, and Contreras. That vision had instantly blurred. Spencer hadn’t even said what was to happen next. Was he fired? Had he had a job in the first place? During training, he had received generous but not overwhelming checks. The big paydays were to have started tomorrow. He wouldn’t let anybody know – no call to Jennifer, no call to Carmen. His fellow servers at Beef were only to know that the Uruguayan adventure had been postponed. Embarrassed. Devastated. Surely he was offered a complete explanation. He wasn’t going to call Spencer. Spencer had to call him.

  The mega-million dollar case that brought Jason to the Bay Area, an intellectual property matter involving big names in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, China, and Israel, was heating up, but heating up of the case meant cooling down for Jason Klein. His tasks, while important, did not involve his speaking to judges and juries in courtrooms. He deposed the big names, and read, then summarized documents. He’d occasionally have to be at the trial to whisper in the ear of the litigators. His reasons for staying in San Francisco were diminishing with his role in the legal matter. Emily showed no signs of welcoming him back in the family home. He had talked to his kids every day, when they were not at lessons or in the middle of practice, but his wife would say no more to him than hello when she answered his calls. If he asked a child to get his mother on the phone, he’d be told that she was busy. Neither child said anything about missing their father. He longed for, but never heard the plea, “Come home, Daddy.” After Emily and the kids returned from their visit to the Parks, he’d go to LA on weekends and have a few hours with the kids, taking them to the beach, the movies, or the zoo, receiving no thanks for his efforts or expressions of sadness that he’d not be in their lives for the next several days. He was losing his family.

  Concurrently, Jennifer was losing her lover. She learned that he was still in town, by the subterfuge of calling his workplace and asking if he was working that night. He had not gone to Uruguay. But he had not called her and he did not respond to the several calls she made to his cell phone. He had no land line at home. She’d let the mobile ring a dozen times. She had been told, in no uncertain terms, not to interrupt him at work. How could he do this to her? They’d been as close as two people could get, or at least as close as she could get with anybody, for fifteen years and now, nothing. He’d created life inside of her womb. He’d been there when she thought her husband had killed himself. Now, nothing.

  Jennifer Klein was in love with two men. Jennifer loved Fred. She very much loved Fred, a man who no longer could express his love for her, in words or deeds. He could lie with her in bed, even respond to her request for a pre-sleep kiss. But he could go no further. To her question as to whether he loved her, he’d unhesitatingly say yes, but he would not offer the same sentiment unsolicited. His request for Viagra when he left the hospital masked a total lack of interest in physical love. She would not ask him, assuming that he didn’t have the cognitive skills to give a logical answer. She feared that aggressiveness on her part might lead to physical and chemical responses in her partner that would jeopardize his heart, undoing the effectiveness of the pacemaker. She could kill him. She fought with the image of a dead old man next to her, a victim of her lust. She regretted that she had been too embarrassed to bring up intercourse during his many medical appointments. Maybe she should call Dr. Jameson. After all, Jameson was her doctor too. No, we’ll wait ’til the next visit. Jennifer was buoyed by his slow but sure improvement over the months since his discharge. Surely, he would once again become a husband in the deepest sense of the word.

  Why did Jennifer love Fred? It was a question she asked herself, but more often, the question was asked by others. No one, except her sister who asked it before Fred and she tied the knot eight years ago (“I don’t know, I just do.”), ever asked it directly of Jennifer. After all, he was an old man and she was not an old woman. He was rich, but so was she. He was richer than she, but there was nothing she could not have or do for lack of resources. Her first husband, when he moved out to be with the golf pro, left her very well heeled. Fred was pleasant, funny, interested in interesting things, and reasonably sexy. She didn’t need great sex - that she got with Ernesto and she saw no reason that she’d have to give that up. While the ex embarrassed her when they went out, she was proud to be seen with Fred. She basked in the glow of being a famous philanthropist’s wife. She was thrilled any time she went to a fancy dress ball or dedication of a new hospital or building, knowing that Mr. and Mrs. Klein were going to be a center of attention. She secretly kept a scrap book of articles dealing with their efforts to improve the community. She felt important and had Fred Klein to thank for it. The felony, which she had believed would lead to his imprisonment, and the heart and brain calamities, which she now assumed would keep him out of prison, were no reason to stop loving him. She would continue to be very proud of the title, Mrs. Frederick Klein.

  Jennifer loved Ernesto. She had loved him for longer than she had known her husband. Ernesto was easy. He made no demands on her, other than for love at its most biological. That was a demand that had no downsid
e. She demanded it of him and he demanded it back. It didn’t have to be a demand frequently fulfilled. A couple times a month was the average for the decade prior to the Event. Only once since and that produced an embryo, but that was OK, until now. Plus, Ernesto was her buddy. She had few women friends – none with whom she could share the deep stuff.

  But now, nothing. She was losing her best friend. She was losing her helper, the man who was there in the middle of the night when her husband was missing, feared dead. She was losing the only person with whom she could belly laugh. She was losing her fuck-buddy.

  But surely he’d be back. He didn’t go to Uruguay. She had no idea why he didn’t go, but she never knew why he was going to go in the first place. He’s obviously upset by what happened to stop him from going, but he’ll get over it. He’s such an easy going guy. And he loves her, doesn’t he? Yes, there are other women in his life, but none that matter, at least he says that none matter. He’d never lie to her, or would he? Isn’t his not calling to say that he didn’t go a lie? Isn’t his not answering her calls a lie? Surely, he’ll return to her. Maybe.

  Irving Greenberg had not been in touch with his client, Klein, in weeks. There had been no reason to call or have him visit the office as neither Judge Gasparini nor the DA had made any contact. The newspapers had been void of relevant information and no one from the Klein contingent had spoken up. Greenberg saw no reason to push the matter. The longer it went, the less the emotional need for revenge, at least in the community at large. Should the case go to trial, it would be heard in San Francisco. A call for it to be moved to another venue where the facts were not as widely known would, with little doubt, be rejected on the basis of cost savings. Therefore, the longer the time between the alleged crime and the trial, the better the odds on a good verdict.

  The lull was not to last. Greenberg received an email from the Judge’s clerk asking him to set up an appointment with a court designated psychiatrist. It was time to determine whether the alleged perpetrator was fit to stand trial.

  Roger Stern, MD, PhD, was a product of University of California campuses in Berkeley and San Francisco. His doctoral thesis in Neurosciences at Berkeley concerned the criminal mind and the effect of prescription drugs on it. As a forensic psychiatrist, he had become a good, and therefore wealthy, friend of the court, regularly called to testify by plaintiffs or defendants and by judges to render unbiased opinions.

  Jason and Jennifer entered the TV room together, dressed to go out. Fred was watching Oprah. “Dad, it’s time to go to the doctor. You are going to be seeing a new one – his name is Dr. Stern. He’s a psychiatrist.”

  “I am not crazy! I’m just fine. I’m not depressed and I sure as hell am not hearing voices. I don’t need to see a shrink.

  “Nobody thinks you are crazy, honey,” said Jennifer.

  “So, why am I seeing this guy?”

  “The Judge has insisted. They want to know if you are OK to go to trial.”

  “Ah ha. I guess that I better sound like I’m crazy.”

  “I wish it were that easy, Dad. Psychiatrists are pretty good seeing through that. Just be yourself. If you can remember something, say so, but don’t be afraid to say that you don’t remember.”

  On entering the office of Dr. Stern, father, stepmother and son encountered only one other person in the waiting room, Mr. Greenberg.

  “Hello, Fred,” he said sprightly.

  “Hello, Steve.

  “It’s Irv Greenberg. Not Steve.”

  “Oh, sorry Irv. I had a friend named…”

  “Yes, you told me that before. You do know who I am, don’t you?”

  “You’re a lawyer aren’t you? But I thought Artie Schofield was my lawyer?”

  “He is, but I’m helping you in your criminal case. Do you know why you are here today?”

  “To show the doctor that I’m not crazy anymore and that I can go to court so that they can throw me in jail?”

  “Not exactly. You are here so that Dr. Stern can interview you to see how your mind is working. It wasn’t working so well after your surgery and we all know that it’s working better now. But it’s up to the doctor to recommend to the judge whether or not you are able to understand well enough to help in your own defense.”

  “I don’t know. Am I?”

  “I don’t have an opinion. Maybe yes, maybe no. But I don’t make the call. Obviously, I’d like to put a trial off as long as possible. The longer we wait, the better your chances are. Judge Gasparini will make the final call, but he’ll base it on the opinion of this doctor. Just be yourself, Fred.” Klein was called into the doctor’s office. Greenberg, Jason and Jennifer remained in the waiting room.

  Fred expected to be asked to lie down on a couch. He liked the idea, but when the nurse took him in, she led him to a chair, albeit a comfortable one, across the large desk from the pony-tailed and single ear-ringed Doctor Stern. In conflict with the jewelry and hair style, he was dressed in a gray suit of distinction, a professionally pressed white shirt and green, orange, and black striped bow tie. He offered, and Fred accepted his hand in greeting.

  “Welcome, Mr. Klein, I am Doctor Stern.”

  “I know that. Your name is on your office door.

  “Yes, so it is. Let me tell you a little about what we are doing here today. Usually, my job is to determine whether a patient was sane when he or she allegedly committed a crime. Tell me if you don’t understand something I say.”

  “I understand. Don’t worry about that. I’m in MENSA.”

  “Aha. Sometimes we doctors say things that even the smartest people don’t understand. Just tell me if that happens.”

  “OK.”

  “Nobody questions whether your mental health was normal when the episode happened.”

  “What episode?”

  “I understand that you were involved in a traffic accident in which a woman died.”

  “Oh, yeah. They told me about that, but I can’t remember a thing about it.”

  “Our purpose is to determine whether you are mentally competent now, not then, to stand trial.”

  “Go for it, Doc.”

  From his desk drawer, Stern pulled out a foolscap pad and a Mont Blanc pen. “Shall I call you Fred or Mr. Klein?”

  “I don’t care. Just don’t call me Freddy. I hate it when people call me Freddy, even my wife.”

  “Fred it is. I am going to administer what is called a Mini-Mental Status examination to you. There will be a number of questions, some of which may seem terribly simple. To start, Fred, I am going to name three items for you to remember and later on I’ll ask you what they are. A book, a fish and a tree. Please repeat those things.”

  “Book, fish, tree.”

  “Good.” He wrote a note on his pad. “Do you know what day it is.”

  “Uh, Wednesday?”

  “No, it’s Thursday. Close. What is the date?”

  “Come on Doc. I’m retired. Some day you will be too. All the days feel the same. I don’t know, the 15th?”

  “It’s the 3rd. And the month?”

  “February?”

  “Right. Year?” Fred scored on that one. He could not identify the season; many San Franciscans get that wrong.

  “Now, who is the President?” Fred nailed it. “Who was the last President?” Again right on, with a snide comment on the politics of modern day Republicans.

  Fred was able to say that he was in a doctor’s office in San Francisco, California. He couldn’t specify the county’s name. Again, most San Franciscans don’t understand that their city and county are one and the same, unless of course they had run for the job of County Supervisor.

  “Now, Fred, a little math. Start with 100. Now subtract 7 from that and keep subtracting from the answer.”

  “Uh, 93?”

  “Well done. Seven from that?”

  “From what?”

  “93.”

  “I don’t know. Arithmetic was never my strong point.”

  “
OK, got it. Now I want you to spell backwards the word WORLD.”

  “D. O. R. W. L.”

  “OK, Fred. Now, can you tell me what those three things are that I asked you to remember?” It had been about ten minutes since the list was given.

  “Uh…book?”

  “That’s right. What else?”

  “A pen?”

  “No, pen is not one of them. Can you remember the other two?”

  “A car? I remember that they were easy things. Yeah, a car.”

  “No, not a car. They were a fish and a tree.”

  “Oh, yeah. Now I remember. Book, fish and tree.”

  “We’ll ask you those again. Try to remember.”

  “What’s this?” Stern pointed to his watch and then a pencil. Fred was two for two.

  “Repeat after me, No ifs, ands or buts.” Fred repeated the aphorism flawlessly.

  The doctor handed Klein a piece of paper that said, “Take the paper in your hand, fold it in half and put it on the floor.” He folded the paper once and laid it on the desk.

  Stern held up a card reading, “Close your eyes.” Fred closed them after reading the order aloud.

  When asked to write a sentence, Fred, his penmanship barely legible wrote, “I am an old man.”

  He was handed another card with a picture of two intersecting pentagons and asked to copy it. He drew two rectangles that did not intersect.

  “Now let’s talk about you and your family.” Stern asked him questions about his parents, his education and occupation, his wives, his children and grandchildren. Klein did well, getting all the names and most of the dates. He teared up when asked about his first wife and the reason they were no longer together. He saw fit to tell the doctor how much money he made in the sale of the TV station and the expertise with which he embellished his net worth buying low and selling high.