The Best Revenge

by Sol Stein

  At the wedding, my father met his father. “In the old country,” my father said to me, “we would have met earlier. He eats with his fingers.”

  On the airplane to St. Thomas, where we spent our honeymoon, Nick said, “My old man joked to me about your old man’s pointy-toed shoes.” We laughed a lot over the imperfect world of our elders.

  You might say that in due course we realized my father’s dream. Nick and I had a boy and a girl, blond and not at all Italian-looking, and by the time Nick made his first million and won the respect of both fathers, he made love to me only once a month or so, perfunctorily, or in the middle of the night in response to some physical urge, you couldn’t call it lovemaking, and I realized what every wife realizes when her husband comes home very late with half-baked excuses ready to sleep. When I finally was able to talk to him about the other women, to ask what had happened with us, he said that if I didn’t like the way things were I could take a lover as long as the man didn’t come to the house or meet the children.

  6

  Nick

  It was time for me to say the thing that always cleared the air. “Mr. Riller, I’m listening to you to find out if I can make money on this deal.”

  Riller coughed into his fist. “Mr. Manucci,” he said, “most of my investors make money most of the time.”

  “Not on this turkey. You said you raised only twenty-two percent. Somebody knows something.”

  “In my judgment, it’s the best play I’ve come across in more than ten years.”

  “Maybe something’s happened to your judgment, Mr. Riller. My rule is I get mine, win or lose.”

  Hochman the lawyer decided it was time to earn a living. He said, “What is your proposal, Mr. Manucci?”

  “Okay,” I said. “You gentlemen comfortable? Here’s the way I see this.”

  Riller crossed his legs, trying to look relaxed, but he looked to me like a smoker who just gave up smoking.

  “According to this memo—this is your memo, Mr. Hochman, isn’t it?”

  “The facts in it are mine,” said Riller.

  “I don’t really care whose, this is what you’re selling me, right? This budget for the production is five fifty out of which you’ve raised one hundred twenty-one thousand, leaving me to supply the missing seventy-eight percent, or four hundred and thirty thousand or so.”

  “Correct,” Hochman said. “Actually it comes to four hundred twenty-nine thousand dollars exactly.”

  “Wrong. I think Mr. Riller’s budget is too low. It should be six fifty.” I was enjoying this.

  I could hear Riller breathing ten feet away. He said, “I can’t renegotiate with those who’ve already invested on the basis of a five fifty budget.”

  “You won’t need to,” I said.

  “Besides,” Riller added, “I plan budgets carefully. We don’t need the extra hundred.”

  “Ah,” I said. “The production doesn’t need it, but I do. What happens is I lend the production five hundred and twenty-nine thousand and at closing you give me a hundred back in cash. That’s my management fee.”

  “Management fee?”

  “I’m managing to get your show on the road, ain’t I? On the five twenty-nine, I’m not charging street vigorish, which is six for five. I’m charging—”

  Hochman butted in. “What’s six for five?”

  “Twenty percent a week,” I said.

  “That’s illegal,” said Hochman.

  “Sure it’s illegal. I said I’m not charging that. You need Q-tips for your ears? I’m charging on a per annum basis, prime plus six, just like a factoring division of whatever bank you do business with, very fair.”

  “I can’t pay interest out of the budget,” Riller said.

  “Oh, I know that. It’ll have to come out of your share of the general partnership, which will be forty-nine percent because the other fifty-one percent is my payoff if the play works.”

  I could see Hochman straining to keep from going into his briefcase for his calculator. Riller leaned back like a real gentleman and did it in his head.

  Riller’s face got formal. “Mr. Manucci,” he said, “let me be sure I understand. As a limited partner, you get what you’d normally get, seventy-eight percent of fifty percent, the rest going to the other investors. But in addition, you would be getting fifty-one percent of my half plus a payback of the whole five twenty-nine, including the hundred thousand I paid as a management fee? Even if the play is a smash, what’s left might not be worth the candle.”

  Carefully, like tightening my finger on a trigger but not pulling it, I said, “I didn’t realize you were ready to ditch the play.”

  Riller clasped his hands together like a kid making a London bridge. Maybe his left hand and right hand were teaming up to hold each other from doing something they shouldn’t do.

  “Mr. Manucci,” he finally said.

  I said, “Yes,” to help him along.

  “I can’t abandon the production because I can’t return the money already invested. It’s been spent. And I’ve committed to expenses well beyond that.”

  “How well?”

  “At least two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Which you don’t have?”

  He nodded, so I said to his Mr. Hochman, “When Mr. Riller spent the investors’ dough before the partnership was officially complete, that wasn’t exactly legal, was it, Mr. Hochman?”

  What could either of them say? I moved forward in my chair so my face could be closer to Riller’s face and I talked real low as if what I was saying was a secret. “Mr. Hochman will tell you that using escrow funds is a criminal offense, the kind you go to jail for. If you don’t raise the balance, the Manhattan district attorney, considering how famous you are, he’d get a reelection headline taking you to the grand jury, wouldn’t he? More coffee?”

  Riller said, “No coffee.”

  Hochman said, “No coffee.”

  This was my play, not his. I leaned over toward Riller. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable about any decision you make. It’s got to be an absolutely free decision on your part.”

  He looked over at Hochman.

  I said, “It’s still your choice. You can walk out of here, we’ll shake hands, remain friends, no harm done.”

  When I’m at this stage of a negotiation I think someday this guy whose nuts I’m squeezing is going to want revenge. But the only casualty rate in my business is from competitors, not from the public. The public learns to eat and swallow real good.

  “Mr. Manucci,” Riller said, “I’ll put my cards on the table.”

  Listen to that Hebe, cards on the table! He’s got his guts on the table.

  “Please do,” I said.

  “It must be clear by now,” Riller said, “that I must have the money and I haven’t been able to get it elsewhere. I need the four twenty-nine.”

  “Five twenty-nine,” I reminded him. “You haven’t put anything on the table that wasn’t there. I knew your situation like a road map before you walked in. I don’t waste time on cold calls.”

  For a second, when Riller grabbed the side of the coffee table, I thought he was going to upend it. My mistake. He controlled himself real good, so in a sweet voice I said, “I can understand how you feel. A man with your reputation wouldn’t back out of this production even if he could.”

  Riller actually cracked a smile. It was like we were both looking at the truth and saying yeah, that’s the way it is.

  “Getting angry,” I said, “doesn’t do anybody any good.”

  He said, “I’m not angry.”

  “Good,” I said, “because I’m going to need a little security to make sure I get my principal back. I know you’re famous. Famous isn’t collateral. Don’t worry, I’m not asking to hold your wife on my farm upstate.”

  I laughed, waiting for him to laugh a little too.

  I said, “Mr. Hochman, I assume Mr. Riller has used all of his cash assets?”

  Riller took the ball. “Y
es.”

  “Any equity in your house?”

  “Maybe four hundred thousand.”

  “I’ll take a second on that.”

  “Second?”

  “Mortgage.”

  Riller said, “That’s out of the question!”

  “The way I figure it, your house is already in jeopardy. What about your stocks?”

  “I’ve borrowed against them already.”

  “Municipals? A man who’s made what you’ve made over the years must have municipals.”

  “I can’t be left totally without resources if the production doesn’t work.”

  “I’m lending you money, not giving it to you, and I got to be sure to get it back.”

  “The only municipal I’ve got is for sixty thousand and it doesn’t mature for four years.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll just take an assignment of it. I know it’s your rainy-day money, Mr. Riller. This is your rainy day.”

  I know Riller had his hands on his knees to keep the shake from showing. I looked at his hands so he would know I knew he was nervous.

  “Don’t you worry about resources,” I said. “If the production works, maybe you won’t be rich, but you’ll be out of trouble. Tell you what. I’ll hire you as general manager for my next production, how’s that? We have a deal. It’s nice to do business with you, Ben. Call me Nick from now on.” I stood up so we could shake hands on it.

  Riller stood up, too, but the color in his face was high red.

  His lawyer says to him, “What’s up, Ben?”

  Riller says, “Mr. Manucci, you’ve had a lot of experience in business.”

  “You bet.”

  “Then you must have learned that a deal is good only if it’s good for both sides.”

  “Oh, sure, I agree with you,” I say. “This deal gets you off the hook with your play and puts me on the hook for a lot of dough. We’re even steven.”

  “Like hell we are. You aren’t risking a penny. If the play doesn’t work, you’ve got everything I own as security. That isn’t business.”

  “It’s the price of money.”

  “It’s extortion.”

  I turned to his mouthpiece and said, “Mr. Hochman, I get an earache from a word like extortion. You are guests in my office. If Mr. Riller is uncomfortable with the terms, take him and his play shit somewhere else.”

  “Now just a minute,” Hochman says. “I’m sure we can—”

  Riller’s hand on his arm stopped him. “Enough.”

  This king of Broadway, this low-grade nothing, wasting my time. Who the hell does he think he is? “Fuck you, Riller. Go and don’t come back. And take your goddamn lawyer with you.”

  BOOK II

  7

  Louie Riller

  They all say the only person Ben listens to is his father. He hears me, but does he listen? He didn’t listen when I was alive, why should now be different? These days, who listens to a father anyhow?

  When Ben needs seed money for a production he finds a rich man with temporary insanity. He hurries home to tell Jane he’s found a savior. What he’s found is a stalking horse to bring other investors in. He forgets that when he was a pisher of twelve I took him over to the mirror in the bathroom and said, “Ben, look, there is your savior. Are you listening to me?”

  “Pop,” he said, “lend me your razor.”

  A twelve-year-old boy doesn’t listen. You’re driving, you see a stop sign, you stop. Life is full of signs that Ben ignores. Except once.

  When Ben was sixteen, I came into his room and saw him with a whole bunch of pages.

  “That’s a long letter you’re writing,” I said.

  “It’s not a letter, Pop.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “It’s, uh, a play,” he said.

  “Like on Broadway?”

  “Just one act, Pop.”

  I moved closer so I could see the pages on the desk.

  “In poetry?” I asked.

  “In verse.”

  “I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”

  “It’s okay, Pop,” he said. “I was just about finished for tonight.”

  At the door I stopped to look back at him. My voice came out hoarse. “I’m so proud,” I said.

  *

  I let too much time go by before I asked him, “How’s the play coming?”

  “It’s coming,” he lied.

  “Who have you shown it to?”

  “Ezra.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said, ‘It ain’t Shakespeare.’”

  “Not everything has to be Shakespeare. Did he say it was good?”

  Ben turned to face me. “He said you can always show it to Louie, he’ll think it’s good.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “Show it to me.”

  “Because Ezra thinks he’s a born critic. I told him to tell me the faults and I’ll rewrite it. You know what he said, Pop? He said, ‘You’ve got the mind of a salesman, Benny boy. Why don’t you write something commercial?’”

  “Boys are mean.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You should have been deaf better than to listen. Ezra has too much influence over you.”

  “You always say he’s terrific this, terrific that.”

  “Doesn’t matter. For you he shouldn’t be a stop sign.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Pop.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  To my dying day Ben never showed me what he wrote. Instead he became a producer of other people’s plays.

  *

  One Saturday night, before going out on a date, Ben said, “Pop, how about you and me going for a walk tomorrow morning?”

  “Sure,” I said as he’s running out the door. “What time by you is morning?”

  “How about noon?” he shouts.

  *

  God knows what time he got home. At noon I peeked into Ben’s room. He didn’t look like someone ready to wake up.

  “Hello!” I said.

  I waited. Ben forced one eye half open. “Is it morning?”

  “How about afternoon?” I said. “A pessimist shortens his life by sleeping late because he doesn’t expect life to be much good.”

  His half-open eye looked around for the alarm clock. He yawned like a young hippopotamus, untangled himself from the top sheet, stood swaying, said, “Okay,” and like a blind man staggered past me to the bathroom. I could hear the firefighter’s stream, the flush, and then the shower full force.

  When he came into the kitchen, both eyes open, I was still digesting my newspaper. “I give the war one more year,” I said.

  “Yes, General.”

  The bagel, cut in half two hours ago, now went half on my plate, half on his. I shoved over the cream cheese and poured some of my cocoa into his cup. Ten minutes later we headed for Van Cortlandt Park.

  They say I walk fast for a short man. The truth is I have never been able to make myself walk slow.

  I put my arm through Ben’s. “I think you should stop growing,” I said with a laugh. “You’re ten inches taller than me.”

  “I think I’ve stopped, Pop.”

  “Thank you.” I could see he was embarrassed having my arm through his, so I took it away. I said, “I want to congratulate you for not persecuting your fingernails anymore. You have nice hands now.”

  “Mom says they’re like yours.”

  I could feel color in my face.

  “You know,” I said, “when I hear other parents, you think their kids are enemies. You think maybe we’re different?”

  No reaction.

  “I’ll bet one thing,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Hitler’s father never went for a walk in the park with his son.”

  I’m not sure Ben heard me. He was fumbling in his pocket. Out came a foil-wrapped package smaller than a box of cough drops. Ben put out his hand with the package on it as if he hoped t
hat I would take it instead of his actually handing it to me, as if that would be less embarrassing.

  “What is that?” I said.

  “Happy birthday,” he said.

  “Is that what it is?”

  We sat on a park bench for the ritual of package opening.

  “You shouldn’t have done it,” I said.

  “How do you know what I shouldn’t before you know what it is?” Ben said.

  “Only jewelry comes in a box like that. You shouldn’t bring jewelry to a jeweler.”

  “It isn’t that kind.”

  Inside the snap-top box were round cuff links with black onyx insets.

  “They’re not real gold,” Ben said quickly, “just gold filled.”

  “I’ll use them as paperweights. For small pieces of paper.” Ben didn’t laugh. I said, “I don’t have any shirts with French cuffs.”

  Ben’s cheeks flushed. “Mom’s getting you a going-out shirt.”

  “Your face is red. Are you feeling okay?”

  “I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

  “I won’t tell.”

  How could Ben know that I didn’t want shirts with French cuffs because that was what the professor in Chicago always wore, the one who was after Zipporah.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I appreciate the present.” I slid the box into my pocket.

  “I thought maybe we’d go bowling this afternoon,” Ben said.

  “Your mother thinks bowling is for blue-collar types.”

  “Tell her we’re going to play golf.”

  I smiled. “I tried bowling once in Chicago and kept getting the ball into the gutter. Besides, Aldo Manucci is expecting me.”

  How was I to know that even then Manucci was for Ben the worst word in the world? Did he invite me to go bowling so that I wouldn’t think of going to Manucci’s on my birthday?

  “Hey, Pop,” he said, “no business on your birthday, okay?”

  “I go to pay my respect, not for business.”

  “Respect?”

  “Respect.”

  “He’s a shylock, Pop.”

  My brain couldn’t keep my mouth from talking. “Don’t you call him that. Not in front of me. Never.”