“That’s correct.”
“Can I ask who her heirs are?”
“You can ask, but I can’t say.’’ I added, however, “She has three children.”
Lester nodded. “I know one of them. Mary. She’s married to Phil Crowley. They’re in Old Westbury.”
“That’s right.”
“I never knew the Lauderbachs had so much money.”
“Neither did the Lauderbachs.”
“Well, I mean, they always lived well. They used to own The Beeches, didn’t they?’’ He looked at Mrs. Lauderbach’s address on a document. “But they’ve moved to a house in Oyster Bay village.”
“Yes.”
“They sold The Beeches to an Iranian Jew, didn’t they?”
“I didn’t handle that. But yes, they did. They got a fair price, and the new owners are maintaining the property quite well.”
“Hey, I don’t care if they’re Iranian Jews.’’ Lester smiled. “Better than a Mafia don.”
Better than twenty Lester Remsens. The Lauderbachs, incidentally, had used a large law firm with no connections to the gentry for the property closing on The Beeches. This is sometimes done when the old homestead is being sold to people with funny last names. I suppose I see the point, which is that local attorneys might not want to be involved in a property transaction that other clients and neighbors disapprove of. Well, that was true in the Lauderbachs’ day, but recently the Gold Coast reminds me of a nation that is about to fall, and no one is pretending any longer that everything is all right; instead, everyone is grabbing whatever he can and fleeing for the airport. I don’t know if I would have handled the closing if asked. It was probably worth ten thousand dollars for a day’s work, and I personally have nothing against Iranian Jews or any other foreigners. But some of my clients and neighbors do.
Lester asked, “You don’t think Mr. Lauderbach knew he had ten million in stocks?”
“I don’t know if he did, Lester. I didn’t know or I’d have advised him to open an account with you.’’ I added, “There were plenty of other assets. It didn’t matter. You can spend only so much in a lifetime. Ernest Lauderbach ran out of time before he ran out of money.”
“But the dividends should have been reinvested. They just sat there not collecting a dime. That’s like giving Chase Manhattan and American Express interest-free loans.”
Money that lies fallow upsets Lester. His children never had piggy banks. They had money market accounts.
Lester perused Ernest Lauderbach’s will. “Neither Mary nor the other two children, Randolf and Herman, inherited under this will?”
“No, they didn’t.’’ It was Lester’s right to examine the will to establish Mrs. Lauderbach’s ownership to all the property. My father had drawn up the sixth and last edition of Ernest Lauderbach’s last will and testament about ten years before, but the stock and bond assets were only identified as “securities and other money instruments that I may hold at the time of my death.’’ Clearly, no one, including the Lauderbachs’ three children, knew precisely what was in the vault in the basement of the Oyster Bay house. I was fairly certain they still didn’t know, or I’d have heard from all three of them and/or their attorneys by now.
Lester inquired, “Where are Herman and Randolf?”
“Herman is retired in Virginia, and Randolf is a businessman in Chicago. Why?”
“I’d like to handle their stock assets when they inherit. That’s why.”
Lester and I both knew that this conversation actually had to do with the possibility of making sure that Randolf, Herman, and Mary did not inherit these stock assets. But I said, “I’ll recommend you to them if I’m satisfied with how this account is handled.”
“Thanks. I suppose they know about this?’’ He patted a pile of stock certificates.
I ignored the question and its implications and said politely but firmly, “Lester, regarding your handling of this account, do not play the market for Mrs. Lauderbach. Those are two perfectly good stocks. Just leave them in place and see that she gets her past and future dividend checks. If she needs money for estate taxes, I’ll advise you, and we’ll sell off some shares for Uncle Sam.”
“John, you know I wouldn’t churn this account for the commissions.”
Lester, to be fair, is an ethical broker, or I wouldn’t deal with him. But he’s in an occupation whose temptations would give Jesus Christ anxiety attacks. Such was the case now, with ten million sitting on the mahogany table in front of him. I could almost see that little devil on his left shoulder, and the angel on his right, both chattering in his ears. I didn’t want to interrupt, but I said, “It doesn’t matter, you know, who knows about this money, who needs it, who deserves it, or that Agnes Lauderbach doesn’t give a rat’s ass about it.”
He shrugged and sort of changed the subject. “I wonder why the Lauderbachs didn’t hold on to The Beeches if they knew they had this kind of money.”
I replied, “Not everyone wants a fifty-room house and two hundred acres, Lester. It’s a waste of money even if you’ve got money. How many bathrooms do you need?”
Lester chuckled, then asked, “Would you buy Stanhope Hall if you had ten million dollars?”
“You mean five million, partner.”
Lester smiled sheepishly and glanced at me to see if I was baiting him, then lowered his eyes, which swept across the paper-strewn table and rested on the piles of stock certificates. He asked, “Or would you buy that sixty footer and sail off into the sunset?”
I was sorry I had confided in Lester. I didn’t reply.
“Or think about getting Susan out of the guesthouse and back into the great house.’’ There was a silence in the room, during which Lester was thinking of what he’d do with five million dollars, and I guess I was thinking of what I’d do with ten, since I had no intention of compounding a crime with the sin of sharing any of it with Lester Remsen.
It occurred to me that Lester is the type of person who is honest out of fright, but he likes to flirt with dishonesty to see how it feels to have balls, if you’ll pardon the expression. And he likes to see how other people react to his enticements.
Lester spoke in a way that suggested he was speaking apropos of nothing. “It’s very easy, John, now that I see the paperwork and the actual certificates. And it’s a big enough sum to make it worthwhile. And I don’t think we even have to leave the country afterwards, if it’s handled right. When the old lady dies, you’ll have seen to it that nothing appears in her will regarding this.”
Lester went on in this vein, never using bad words such as federal tax evasion, steal, forge, or fraud. I listened, more out of curiosity than a need to be educated in crime by Lester.
I don’t know why I am honest. I suppose it is partially a result of my parents, who were paragons of virtue if nothing else. And when I was growing up in the fifties, the message from the pulpit and in Sunday school and my private school had less to do with the world’s ills and injustices, and more to do with how to behave correctly toward others. It was the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, and believe it or not, young men and women were supposed to have personal mottos to live by. Mine was, “I will strive each day to give more than I receive.’’ I don’t know where I got that, but it’s a good way to go broke. But I must have lived by it once, maybe until I was eighteen. Maybe longer.
Yet millions of men and women of my generation were raised the same way, and some of them are thieves, and some much worse. So why am I honest? What is keeping me from ten million dollars and from the nearly naked ladies on Ipanema beach? That’s what Lester wanted to know. That’s what I wanted to know.
I looked at the pile of stock certificates, and Lester interrupted his dissertation on how to safely steal ten million to inform me, “No one cares anymore, John. The rules are out the window. That’s not my fault or yours. It just is. I’m tired of being a sucker, of fighting by Marquis of Queensbury rules while I’m getting kicked in the groin, and the referee is bei
ng paid to look the other way.”
I made no reply.
Until very recently, one of the reasons for my honesty was my contentment with my life, the whole social matrix into which I fit and functioned. But when you decide you won’t miss home, what keeps you from stealing the family car to get away? I looked at Lester, who held eye contact for a change. I said, “As you once observed, money doesn’t tempt me,’’ which was the truth.
“Why doesn’t money tempt you?”
I looked at Lester. “I don’t know.”
“Money is neutral, John. It has no inherent good or evil. Think of it as Indian wampum. Seashells. It’s up to you what you do with it.”
“And how you get it.”
Lester shrugged.
I said, “Maybe in this case, I think that taking money from a batty old lady is no challenge and beneath my dignity and my professional ability to steal from sharp people. Find something dangerous and we’ll talk again.’’ I added, “I’ll have the stocks delivered to your Manhattan office tomorrow by bonded courier.”
Lester looked both disappointed and relieved. He gathered the paperwork into his briefcase and stood. “Well . . . what would life be like if we couldn’t dream?”
“Dream good dreams.”
“I did. You should dream a little.”
“Don’t be a schmuck, Lester.”
He seemed a little put off, so I guess I used the word right. Lester said coolly, “Don’t forget I need Mrs. Lauderbach’s signature cards.”
“I’ll see her tomorrow, on her way to her lunch date.”
Lester extended his hand and we shook. He said, “Thanks for giving me this account. I owe you dinner.”
“Dinner would be fine.”
Lester left with a parting glance at the ten million dollars lying on the table.
I carried the stock certificates downstairs and put them in my vault.
• • •
The remainder of the week, which was Holy Week before Easter, passed in predictable fashion. On Thursday evening, Maundy Thursday, we went to St. Mark’s with the Allards, who were well again. The Reverend Mr. Hunnings washed the feet of a dozen men and women of the congregation. This ceremony, if you don’t know, is in imitation of Christ’s washing the feet of his disciples and is supposed to symbolize the humility of the great toward the small. I didn’t need my feet washed, but apparently Ethel did, so up she went to the altar with a bunch of other people who I guess had volunteered for this ahead of time because none of the women had panty hose on and none of the men wore silly socks. Now, I don’t mean to make fun of my own religion, but I find this ceremony bizarre in the extreme. In fact, it’s rarely performed, but Hunnings seems to enjoy it, and I wonder about him. One Maundy Thursday, when I get enough nerve, I’m going to volunteer to have my feet washed by the Reverend Mr. Hunnings, and when I take my socks off, on each toenail will be painted a happy face.
Anyway, after services, we had George, and Ethel of the clean feet, to our house for what Susan referred to as the Last Supper, being the last meal she intended to cook until Monday.
Friday was Good Friday, and in recent years I’ve noticed that around here at least, people have adopted the European custom of not working on this solemn day. Even the Stock Exchange was closed, and so, of course, Perkins, Perkins, Sutter and Reynolds, whose Wall Street office is in lockstep with the Exchange, was shut down. Whether this new holiday is a result of the religious reawakening in our country or a desire for a three-day weekend, I don’t know, and no one is saying. But in any event, I had earlier in the week declared the Locust Valley office closed for Good Friday and then surprised the staff and annoyed the Wall Street partners by announcing that the Locust Valley office would also observe Easter Monday as the Europeans do. I’m trying to start a trend.
Susan and I, along with Ethel and George, went to St. Mark’s for the three-o’clock service, which marks the traditional time when the sky darkened and the earth shook and Christ died on the cross. I remember a Good Friday when I was a small boy, walking up the steps of St. Mark’s on a bright, sunny day that did suddenly turn dark with thunderclouds. I recall staring up at the sky in awe, waiting, I guess, for the earth to shake. A few adults smiled at me, then my mother came out of the church and led me inside. But this day was sunny, with no dramatic meteorological or geological phenomena, and had anything of the sort occurred, it would have been explained on the six-o’clock weather report.
St. Mark’s was filled with well-dressed people, and the Reverend Mr. Hunnings, looking resplendent in his Holy Week crimson robes, stuck to business, which was the death of Jesus Christ. There were no social messages in the sermon, for which I thanked God. Hunnings, incidentally, also gives us a guilt break on Easter Sunday and usually at Christmas, except then he goes on a bit about materialism and commercialism.
After the austere service, Susan and I dropped off the Allards, parked the Jag, and took a long walk around the estate, enjoying the weather and the new blooms. I can picture how this place must have looked in its heyday—gardeners and nurserymen bustling around, planting, trimming, cultivating, raking. But now it looks forlorn: too much deadwood and layers of leaves from twenty autumns past. It’s not quite returned to nature, but the grounds and gardens, like much around here—including my life—are in that transitional stage between order and chaos.
Edward and Carolyn were not coming home for Easter this year, having made travel plans with friends, and I suppose Susan and I, like many couples who have discovered their children are gone, were reflecting on a time when the kids were kids and holidays were family affairs.
As we walked up the drive toward Stanhope Hall, Susan said, “Do you remember when we opened up the big house and had that Easter egg hunt?”
I smiled. “We hid a hundred eggs for twenty kids, and only eighty eggs were found. There are still twenty eggs rotting in there somewhere.”
Susan laughed. “And we lost a kid, too. Jamie Lerner. He was screaming from the north wing for half an hour before we found him.”
“Did we find him? I thought he was still in there, living on Easter eggs.”
We walked past the great house, hand in hand, onto the back lawn, and sat in the old gazebo. Neither of us spoke for a while, then Susan said, “Where do the years go?”
I shrugged.
“Is anything wrong?’’ she asked.
This question is fraught with all types of danger when a spouse asks it. I replied, “No,’’ which in husband talk means yes.
“Another woman?”
“No,’’ which in the right tone of voice means no, no, no.
“Then what?”
“I don’t know.”
She remarked, “You’ve been very distant.”
Susan is sometimes so distant I have to dial an area code to get through to her. But people like that don’t appreciate it when it’s reversed. I replied with a stock husband phrase: “It’s nothing to do with you.”
Some wives would be relieved to hear that, even if it weren’t true, but Susan didn’t seem about to break into a grin and throw her arms around me. Instead, she said, “Judy Remsen tells me that you told Lester you wanted to sail around the world.”
If Lester were there, I would have punched him in the nose. I said sarcastically, “Is that what Judy Remsen told you that I told Lester?”
“Yes. Do you want to sail around the world?”
“It sounded like a good idea at the time. I was drunk.’’ Which sounded lame, so in the spirit of truth, I added, “But I have considered it.”
“Am I included in those plans?”
Susan sometimes surprises me with little flashes of insecurity. If I were a more manipulative man, I would promote this insecurity as a means of keeping her attention, if not her affection. I know she does it to me. I asked, “Would you consider living in our East Hampton house?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I like it here.”
“You like East Hampton,’’ I pointed out.
“It’s a nice place to spend part of the summer.”
“Why don’t we sail around the world?”
“Why don’t you sail around the world?”
“Good question.’’ Bitchy, but good. Time to promote insecurity. “I may do that.”
Susan stood. “Better yet, John, why don’t you ask yourself what you’re running from?”
“Don’t get analytical on me, Susan.”
“Then let me tell you what’s bothering you. Your children aren’t home for Easter, your wife is a bitch, your friends are idiots, your job is boring, you dislike my father, you hate Stanhope Hall, the Allards are getting on your nerves, you’re not rich enough to control events and not poor enough to stop trying. Should I go on?”
“Sure.”
“You’re alienated from your parents or vice versa, you’ve had one too many dinners at the club, attractive young women don’t take your flirting seriously anymore, life is without challenge, maybe without meaning, and possibly without hope. And nothing is certain but death and taxes. Well, welcome to American upper-middle-class middle age, John Sutter.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, and lest I forget, a Mafia don has just moved in next door.”
“That might be the only bright spot in the picture.”
“It might well be.”
Susan and I looked at each other, but neither of us explained what we meant by that last exchange. I stood. “I feel better now.”
“Good. You just needed a mental enema.”
I smiled. Actually, I did feel better, maybe because I was happy to discover that Susan and I were still in touch.
Susan threw her arm around my shoulders, which I find very tomboyish, yet somehow more intimate than an embrace. She said, “I wish it were another woman. I could take care of that damned quickly.”
I smiled. “Some attractive young women take me seriously.”
“Oh, I’m sure of that.”
“Right.”
We left the gazebo and walked on a path that led into a treed hollow that lay south of the mansion. I said, “You’re not always a bitch. And I don’t dislike your father. I hate his guts.”
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