“What on earth are you accusing me of? You’re not making any sense to me at all. Scarves, money, credit cards—”
“I think you know what I’m talking about, Fiona.”
“I thought you’d come here on a friendly visit. When you rang me up, I thought—”
“Well, now you know.”
“I think you must be quite mad.”
“Yes, Fiona, I think I am.”
“Then I don’t wish to talk to a crazy woman. I think I shall have to ask you to leave. I think I would like to terminate this conversation, under the circumstances. I have important matters to attend to.”
“But I haven’t finished what I have to say to you, Fiona. How much did you steal from that London dress shop?”
“Honestly, this is just too crazy-making.” Fiona started to rise. “Really, I just don’t—”
Alex lifted Mel’s pistol from her purse. “Please don’t move,” she said, and pointed the pistol at her. Fiona let out a little scream, and sank back into the sofa. “That’s not loaded!” she said.
“Yes, as a matter of fact it is.”
“What are you going to do?” she whimpered.
“What I wish I could have done that night when you came prowling around Mel’s house in Sagaponack. What I wish I’d done then. Shot the prowler.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Of course you do.”
“What do you want? Is it your five hundred dollars? I’ll give it to you.”
“That white sofa.” Alex pointed. “Is that where you fucked my son the first time?”
“Please,” she said. “I shouldn’t have let him seduce me—I knew that. But he was so insistent—violent, almost! I was terrified he was going to rape me! He was crazed on drugs! I thought it was better to submit to him than—”
Alex flipped the safety catch open with a little snap.
“Oh, please,” Fiona sobbed, cowering against the sofa. Tears streamed down her face. “I tried to help him. I thought I could help him with his addiction. You ought to know that Joel is hopelessly addicted to cocaine, and I thought perhaps—”
Alex leveled the pistol at her.
“Please … please don’t … let me explain … I can explain everything …”
Alex studied the younger woman’s face for a moment. Then she said, “Do you know something? I really was going to kill you. I really was. I drove all the way to Sagaponack to get this gun. But now I wonder if killing is too good for you.”
“Please, I only wanted—”
“Wanting to destroy my career and get my job was one thing. But trying to destroy my son was another …”
Fiona’s telephone rang, and she started to reach for it.
“Don’t answer that,” Alex said. “Let it ring.”
The phone rang six or seven more times, then stopped.
“But now I wonder if you’re even worth killing,” she said. “I don’t think you’re even worth that. I think Herb Rothman is punishment enough for you. You and he deserve each other.”
“Please … oh, please,” the other woman said.
“But I warn you, if you ever come near my son again—”
“Please … I gave him his walking papers … I told him—”
“If you ever come near my son again—I warn you—I will kill you.”
Now someone was knocking loudly on Fiona’s door.
“Stay where you are. Don’t answer that.”
The knocking continued, and presently a man’s voice called out. “Fiona—Alex—please open up. It’s Mel.”
“All right. Let him in,” Alex said.
Fiona rushed to the door, and threw her arms around Mel. “Oh, thank God you’ve come, my darling,” she sobbed. “She was going to kill me!”
He pushed her aside and walked straight to Alex, and picked up the pistol that now lay in her lap. “When Lenny told me about Joel’s diaries, I knew immediately what you’d gone to get in Sagaponack,” he said. “Thank God I got here before you did something crazy. Come on, let’s get out of here.” He took her by the elbow.
“Wait till I tell Herbert about this!” Fiona shouted. “She tried to kill me! Never mind about loyalty clauses and contracts! This was attempted murder! She could go to prison for this! Just wait till I tell Herbert!”
“I don’t think Herb Rothman’s going to be much use to you right now,” Mel said. “He’s in the intensive care unit at Roosevelt Hospital, on the critical list. He’s had a massive stroke.” He dropped the pistol in his jacket pocket. “Let’s go,” he said, and started to steer Alex by the elbow toward the door.
“But the bloody bitch tried to kill me!” Fiona screamed.
Alex stared at her. “Do you know something?” she said evenly. “I think I already have.”
They sat at the table in the wrought-iron gazebo on her terrace with their drinks. The moon had just risen in the east. “They did a CAT scan on him this afternoon,” Mel said. “They’re talking major brain damage.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “It’s over. I ought to feel emotionally exhausted, shouldn’t I? I ought to feel sorry for Herb, shouldn’t I? I ought to feel drained. Why don’t I? Why don’t I feel any of those things? Why do I suddenly just feel so terribly excited, Mel? Can you explain it?”
“Because it isn’t over. It’s just beginning.”
“That’s right! And all at once there’s so much to do! I’ve got to get Joel back, for one thing—but on a whole new basis. Not as the hovering little mother anymore, but as my friend, a friend who trusts me as an adult—a whole new relationship! That isn’t going to be easy. That’s going to be work, but I’ve got to do it, and I can’t wait to start. And then—and then—”
“And before you know it, you’re going to have a new husband to take care of.” He touched his glass to hers.
“Yes! That, too! That’s going to be work, too, and I can’t wait to get to that, either!”
He smiled. “Neither can I,” he said.
“And I’ve got a magazine to run, my very own magazine! At last! Deadlines to meet, assignments to give out—more work! But suddenly I can’t wait till it’s tomorrow, and I can start on all of it.”
All at once he jumped to his feet. “Look,” he said, and pointed.
“What is it?” she said, rising beside him, her eyes following his pointing finger, mystified by the pale arc of light that was now stretched across the night sky.
“It’s a moonbow,” he said. “It’s a lunar rainbow. They’re very rare. Atmospheric conditions have to be just right.”
“But it has no colors.”
“Moonlight is only a reflection of the sun’s light,” he said. “So moonlight can’t refract the colors of the spectrum. Lunar rainbows are always white.”
She laughed softly. “Where do you get your bits and pieces of arcane information, Mel? Lunar rainbows, tidal bores …”
“They generally last only a few seconds. Damn, I wish I had a TV crew here.”
“I don’t,” she said. “I like to think we’re the only two people in New York who’ve seen it. I hope we’re the only two people in the world who’ve seen it! I think it’s just for us. I think it means good luck.” She took his hand. “Let’s make a wish,” she said.
He lifted his glass in a toast to the moonbow, even as it began to fade.
“What did you wish?” she asked him.
“Just a wish for a little girl from Paradise, who can’t wait till it’s tomorrow.”
“Dots-a me,” she said, with a laugh. “Dots-a me.”
Epilogue
From the New York Times:
IRS DROPS
ROTHMAN SUIT
Courtroom Drama
Unfolds
By Irving Eichbaum
The Internal Revenue Service today withdrew all claims against Rothman Communications, Inc., the publishing-broadcasting giant, and its chief executive officer, Herbert Oscar “Ho” Rothman. The government had
sought some $900,000,000 in back taxes from the company. With penalties and interest, if the government had been able to make its case, the total amount owed could have reached the billion-dollar mark, which would have been a record in such cases.
Essentially, the government had claimed that the senior Mr. Rothman, 94, had always run his company as a one-man operation, reserving all decisions for himself, and that therefore the entire earnings of the corporation should have been taxed as Mr. Rothman’s personal income. Rothman attorneys had countered that, on the contrary, the private company had always been run on a consensus developed among Rothman family members and other shareholders, with each shareholder voting his or her own interests.
Histrionic Outburst
As tensions built at the trial in the Federal Courthouse on Foley Square, witness after witness appeared to testify in Mr. Rothman’s defense, declaring that Mr. Rothman’s stewardship of the company had for years been only honorary, and that no real decisions had been made by Mr. Rothman since the mid-1970s. A series of physicians and private-duty nurses who have attended the ailing nonagenarian tycoon over the years testified that Mr. Rothman was neither physically nor mentally able to exercise the kind of power and control the government claimed he wielded. In a dramatic moment in the proceedings today, an attorney from the firm of Waxman, Holloway, Goldsmith & McCarthy, who represent Mr. Rothman, arose and in a ringing voice announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Mr. H. O. Rothman!” The aged patriarch founder of the company was then wheeled down the center aisle of the courtroom in a hospital gurney, accompanied by two male nurses, two female nurses, and two attending physicians, one of whom wore a stethoscope and kept his fingers firmly pressed on Mr. Rothman’s wrist to check his pulse rate. Tubes from various life-support systems were attached to Mr. Rothman’s body.
Mr. Rothman was then asked just one question, which had to be repeated several times before the witness appeared to understand that he was being questioned. “Mr. Rothman, will you please tell this court how you run your business?” asked Jerome Waxman, 43, Mr. Rothman’s chief defense lawyer. When finally the defendant’s lips began to move in response to the question, a microphone had to be placed at his mouth in order for the court to hear the response. The only intelligible words from Mr. Rothman were, “The Titanic is going to sink.” This was an apparent reference to an early journalistic coup of the defendant’s when, early in 1912, Rothman’s fledgling newspaper, the Newark Explorer, suggested that the S.S. Titanic was not as seaworthy as its builders claimed, and “predicted” the famous maritime disaster. This coup launched the communications magnate’s career, and became the cornerstone of his growing empire.
With the utterance of that last remark, Mr. Waxman turned dramatically to the members of the government’s prosecution team, who were already looking unhappy, and declared, “And this, gentlemen, is the man you claim has single-handed control of Rothman Communications!”
This last provoked a histrionic outburst from Mrs. Anna Lily Rothman, 85, H. O. Rothman’s wife, who was among the courtroom spectators. Pointing to the prosecution lawyers, Mrs. Rothman cried out, “You’ve done this to him! Does he deserve this at the end of a long and productive life? This case has almost killed my husband! It would serve you right if he died right here in this courtroom—murdered by the IRS!” Mrs. Rothman made various other slurring references to the “Infernal” Revenue Service before she was silenced by the judge and by nurses who rushed to her side to calm her.
More Surprises
Following Mrs. Rothman’s outburst, Mr. Waxman then proceeded to introduce new evidence. In response to a hand signal, court wardens wheeled in a dozen portable file cabinets on dollies. These proved to contain hundreds of stock certificates, many of them dating from the first third of the century, indicating how shares of the family-owned company have been distributed over the years. This provided an intriguing glimpse of how ownership in a normally very secretive company has been divided over the nearly eight decades since its foundation.
The largest individual stockholder is indeed H. O. Rothman, but other family members also control large blocks of stock. These include Mr. and Mrs. Herbert J. Rothman, and Mr. and Mrs. Arthur R. Rothman, respectively H. O. Rothman’s two sons and daughters-in-law. Another large stockholder turns out to be Mrs. Alexandra Rothman, the widow of the H. J. Rothmans’ son, Steven, and the current editor-in-chief of Mode, the Rothmans’ fashion publication. Still another large block of stock is controlled by the Steven Rothman Trust, whose beneficiary is Joel Rothman, Mrs. Alexandra Rothman’s son, and a great-grandson of the founder, with his mother as sole trustee and fiduciary officer until her son reaches age 25. An eighth important stockholder, to no one’s surprise, turned out to be Mrs. Anna Lily Rothman, who still serves as the company’s treasurer. Two other Rothman grandchildren own small amounts of shares.
But the most surprising revelation in the courtroom today was that a large and important block of Rothman Communications is owned by Leonard J. Liebling, the only nonfamily shareholder. Mr. Liebling, who is thought to be in his seventies, has been a longtime Rothman employee and family intimate.
Rudderless Arm
Meanwhile, though H. O. Rothman will retain the honorific title of founding chairman for his lifetime, the operational heads of the company and its various divisions remained somewhat problematic and up in the air. Arthur Rothman continues to head the Broadcast Division and, until recently, Herbert Rothman headed the Publishing Division. Herbert then, in light of his father’s incapacitation, briefly assumed the title of president and chief executive officer of the company, leaving the publishing arm rudderless. But Herbert J. Rothman, 67, has recently become incapacitated as well. A massive stroke left his right side completely paralyzed, and left him without the power of speech. The degree of mental damage he may have suffered has not as yet been fully assessed. He was in the courtroom today, in his wheelchair, and appeared angered at the proceedings. Periodically, he tried to scribble messages to the Rothman attorneys with his left hand which, the Times learned, were unintelligible.
And so the questions remain as to who will take overall operating charge of the corporation, as well as who will take over the publishing arm. There has been speculation that Leonard Liebling may be handed one or another of these posts, but Mr. Liebling brushed aside such speculation without comment.
Other Shifts Deferred
Other proposed shifts and staff realignments in the company have been deferred, at least for the time being. Earlier this year, for instance, Herbert Rothman announced that his daughter-in-law, Alexandra Rothman, would thenceforth share her editor-in-chiefship of Mode with Miss Fiona Fenton, an English fashion expert. Mrs. Rothman was said to have been unhappy with this arrangement, and this plan has apparently been abandoned. Efforts of the Times to reach Miss Fenton for comment were unsuccessful, since her telephone is reported disconnected, with no forwarding number.
Meanwhile, faced with such overwhelming evidence in the defense’s favor, and even as the file boxes of stock certificates were being marked for exhibit, the government attorneys for the IRS approached the bench and announced that they were dropping their action against the Rothmans. This drew a tart and caustic comment from the presiding judge, Hon. Walter Liebmann, 57. “The next time the IRS decides to bring a case of this magnitude to court,” Judge Liebmann said, “it should try to have sufficient evidence to support its allegations. This case has already cost American taxpayers in excess of $200,000.” Judge Liebmann’s comment drew cheers and applause from the Rothman side of the courtroom.
Mel Jorgenson and Alex Rothman were married in a quiet ceremony not long after the trial. Joel Rothman served as his new stepfather’s best man.
Alex has moved out of the apartment at 10 Gracie Square, and she and Mel now live in Mel’s house on Beekman Place, with Cronkite, of course, and the Bouché portrait moved with her. Having discovered that she owned the apartment, or at least a substantial share of the corporation whic
h held the title, she put the apartment up for sale. The asking price is $2.9 million, but in today’s soft real estate market there have been few nibbles. Alex is in no hurry, however, now that her career future and her financial future are both secure.
Joel is now a freshman at Harvard where, from all reports, he is doing very well. But he has also fallen head over heels in love again, this time with the famous young model from Kansas City named Melissa Cogswell, who became an overnight sensation when the photograph of her was published with honey bees swarming in her long blonde hair. Melissa seems like a perfectly nice girl to me, if a bit empty-headed, and it is hard to know whether this romance will lead to anything at this point. Joel has had her up to Cambridge for several weekends. I suppose it is in the nature of eighteen-year-olds to fall head over heels in love several times a year. As for me, I choose not to remember what it was like to be eighteen years old.
Otto, Joel’s former bodyguard, now drives a truck for United Parcel. He considers it a very important job because he gets to wear a beeper.
As I say, the bee-swarming photograph became a sensation when it was published. Wisely, I think, Alex chose not to put it on Mode’s cover where, she reasoned, it might too quickly become overexposed. Instead, she dropped the photograph almost casually in the middle of a sixteen-page spread on picnic fashions. For weeks after it appeared, it seemed, people could talk of nothing else but that photograph—at least in the circles I move in.
Helmut posed her in a one-piece swimsuit, sitting on a fallen log. There was a suggestion of mists, and forest sunlight, and water, in the background. Melisssa sat, with her head thrown back, her long hair streaming down, and the swarming bees seemed to form a moving, gauzy glow around her, almost like a halo. But it was the expression on her face that was so extraordinary, a kind of flushed rapture that suggested sexual arousal. It was an enormously erotic photograph, for some reason, and someone quipped that it was the first time anyone had photographed a woman having an orgasm. The actual cause of the expression was no doubt sheer terror, and only a few people knew that it had taken five full days of posing, with the apiarist applying various chemicals to Melissa’s hair, before the bees in the overcrowded hive decided to cooperate, and Helmut had exactly seventeen minutes to get his shot.
The Rothman Scandal Page 59