Contract with an Angel

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “They can do it even after the injunction if they’re shrewd enough in the way they do it. We’ll drag them into court and seek a contempt citation. Their lawyers will make a lot of money.”

  “And you guys won’t bill us because you’re such nice guys?”

  “You got it!” Neil Higgins said with a laugh. “Next thing you know there’ll be editorials in the Wall Street Journal calling on us to compromise.”

  “To hell with the Journal.”

  “Also, we’ve given Walsh the ultimatum about the pension suit. He tells us that all but one or two of his clients will come around in a day or two. He says that if the others don’t take his advice, he’ll advise them to get another attorney.”

  “Who will bleed them to death.”

  “Right.”

  “If that happens, can we ask for a summary judgment?”

  “If it’s the one I think it is, I’m sure we can. The Human Resources people have a huge file on him.”

  “Good, we’ll do that if we have to.”

  After Neenan hung up, he thought about the potential lone holdout: he had used his position in the firm to live the good life in Los Angeles—booze, women, gambling over in Vegas. Talked big but hardly did any work from one end of the week to the other. A jerk. Yet he had a family … and who am I to judge anyone else?

  Well, if the man wouldn’t take the compromise, there wasn’t much choice, was there?

  The world was unpleasantly gray.

  He put the screenplay in his out basket and glanced at his watch. Anna Maria was in Pilsen this afternoon. Peter would bring her to the apartment and then pick up the two of them for the ride up to Wrigleyville and dinner and then take them home to Lake Forest. It was almost four. They would leave for supper at six-thirty.

  It would be a shame to waste those two hours.

  “You’re supposed to be working,” she said when he ambled into the apartment fifteen minutes later. “I have to finish reading this script.”

  She was wearing a gray skirt and a blouse, her uniform in Pilsen, and looked very much like a young and attractive mother superior, her face innocent of makeup, her hair tied in a severe knot.

  Something clicked in the back of his head about a script. But then it clicked off.

  “I don’t have to work anymore,” he said. “I appointed Vincent president of the firm this afternoon and told him that I was leaving it to him in my will.”

  “I know all about it.” She continued to work on the script, jotting neat little notes in the margin.

  “Meg called you?”

  “Of course. You made them both very happy.” She looked up from the script and smiled at him.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t fill you in on all the details.”

  “Oh, Raymond, you don’t have to fill me in on the details. I knew in general what you were going to do. That’s enough. I’m not the kind of person who sulks because you don’t tell me everything, am I?”

  “No,” he said, towering over her. “Still I should keep you informed.”

  “Well, I knew what was happening and I’m delighted that you did it so quickly and so sweetly. We’ll have a grand celebration tonight.”

  The choristers, perhaps somewhere over Lake Michigan, were suddenly singing a variant of “Gaudeamus Igitur.”

  She looked back at the script, avoiding his eyes.

  “We’ll see the president of Loyola tomorrow just before lunch.”

  “Fine.”

  If he had only a few weeks of life left, he should enjoy every moment of pleasure that was possible. Why waste this moment?

  He took the script out of her hand and lifted her to her feet.

  “I have work to do,” she protested. “Can’t we wait till tonight?”

  “No,” he said, consuming her with an insanely passionate kiss.

  “Raymond!” she gasped.

  He kissed her again.

  She melted into his arms. “Each time … each time you take me,” she sighed, “I become more completely yours. It is as if I have no mind or will of my own anymore, no reality distinct from you. I just want to please you, satisfy you, make you happy. Always and forever. Nothing else matters.”

  “Always and forever,” he echoed her words, knowing that at most that meant another month or two.

  Then neither of them could say anything at all. For a time Neenan did not think about death.

  22

  The champagne at the younger Neenans’ house was, needless to say, from the Seraphic Vineyards. As was the chardonnay and the new Beaujolais. Even the Irish cream displayed the three pairs of wings that were the seraphic logo. Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, Neenan was the only one of the four humans around the table who noticed the label. He kept his mouth shut. He also did not mention that the music, playing on the elaborate stereo system and filling the old house a block off Irving Park Road, was something more elaborate than the polyphony of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.

  The Palestrina Mass was playing because Neenan had brought a collection of such music for the woman of the house because he had remembered her love of classic polyphony. He remembered because Gaby had materialized in the bedroom of the apartment, while Anna Maria was still sleeping, with the discs and a strong warning that Neenan not forget to bring the present to his daughter-in-law.

  “You’re the new, considerate, sensitive Ray Neenan tonight,” Gaby had said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he had sighed as he tried to wake up.

  “She looks happy,” the seraph had said, glancing at Neenan’s naked wife, sound asleep with her head on his chest.

  “I try.”

  “Keep trying,” Gaby said briskly, then vanished.

  There was much to celebrate at the party—Vinny’s new role in National Entertainment, the promised advent of a second child to the younger Neenans, the decision to go ahead with the script of Light in the Tunnel, the good news of Jenny’s possible reconciliation with her father.

  “I didn’t look for her in Los Angeles,” Vinny said. “I thought I might give her a ring if we had time. Then she shows up for dinner with Jerry Carter, whom, it turns out, she’s dating. I didn’t even recognize her as the daughter in Rebirth because she’s a blonde in the film. Jerry didn’t know she was my sister because she’s Jenny O’Connell professionally. She didn’t know that they would meet the boss’s son at dinner.”

  “Didn’t even recognize his own sister in the film,” Megan continued, “although she almost stole it—and did steal the director, though from no one in particular.”

  Meg was the sort of Irish Catholic young woman whom Neenan would have dated when he was at St. George’s High School had he been able to work up the nerve to invite her out. She was tall, willowy, with black hair, dancing blue eyes, freckled face, and enormous energy and enthusiasm—and a quick tongue to go with the energy and enthusiasm. She might occasionally be in error but never in doubt.

  “I stress that she’s dating Carter, not sleeping with him,” Vinny continued. “He’s hopelessly in love with her, even accompanies her to Blessed Sacrament Church on Sunday mornings.”

  “We argued with her that she ought to give you a second chance,” Megan, an assistant state’s attorney, took up the narrative. “I think she’s willing to do it, Ray, especially now that she’s made it professionally without being known as your daughter. She has to work through her relationship with Donna, however. And that won’t be easy.”

  “I’m glad she’s in touch with you, Annie,” Vinny said. “Did she talk to you again today?”

  Neenan’s wife and daughter-in-law must have been in communication during the day about Jenny. Women were conspiring all around him.

  “She called me at the apartment just after I got back from Pilsen. I think she’ll come around sometime, but she still feels an enormous loyalty to her mother. She hates Donna but loves her and can’t break away from Donna’s version of things. At least she doesn’t hate me. In fact, she’s kind of curious about her stepmother, a
s she doesn’t call me.”

  “Are you going to ask Carter to direct Light in the Tunnel, Ray?” Meg asked. “He would give her a big role, maybe the lead.”

  “We have a number of possibilities for him.” Neenan evaded the question since he had Carter in mind to direct Starbridge, but he did not want to say anything about that prospect until a decision had been made. “We certainly don’t intend to let him sleep away. I’ll be eager to see Jenny in Rebirth.”

  “I’m not sure you’ll like to see your daughter in a torrid love scene,” Vinny told him.

  “I’ll probably be furious,” Neenan said, laughing.

  “Do I hear a noise from herself?” Megan raised her finger.

  Astonishingly, the choir paused in its singing so they could listen for sounds from two-year-old Rae Neenan.

  Nothing.

  The angel brats began singing again.

  “She is not only lovely,” Anna Maria observed, “she’s a sweetheart at bedtime.”

  “She gets her good manners and her even disposition from her father,” Megan observed, “not from me and I don’t think from her paternal grandfather either.”

  Everyone laughed, the seraphic wine having taken effect.

  Rae had spent most of her lap time with Anna Maria instead of her grandfather. Neenan, whose emotions were bittersweet at this family festival, was moved by the longing in his wife’s eyes as she held the pretty little tyke. We should have done something years ago about having children, he thought. Now it’s too late.

  “If you really are stepping back from the firm,” Meg informed him, “it’s time you take your wife to London and Paris and Dublin.”

  “I agree,” Vinny chimed in.

  “It should be Palermo first,” Neenan suggested.

  “London will be just fine,” Anna Maria announced. “A weekend before Christmas.”

  More giddy laughter.

  “Long weekend,” Neenan agreed. “As soon as we get this business with WorldCorp lined up.”

  “Did you see the closing numbers on our stock today, Dad?”

  “I didn’t have a chance this afternoon.”

  Anna Maria blushed. Meg noticed. Naturally. She noticed everything.

  “Our common stock is up another eight points. It’s doubled since rumors of a WorldCorp takeover surfaced. You are twice as rich as you were two weeks ago.”

  “Who’s buying it?” Meg asked.

  “WorldCorp is trying to create a momentum,” Vinny explained. “So they’re bidding it up. Speculators are riding along in the expectation that there eventually will be a sale or a stock trade or something like that. They also might think that there’ll be pressure, even a suit, from some of the speculators to force a sale. They won’t win, but it would cause more trouble.”

  “Vinny, Anna Maria and I will be seeing the Loyola president tomorrow morning about our Allegro chairs. Would you see that we get out a press release in which we say that we are confident of the profitability of our company and that speculators must weigh that profitability against the current price of the stock and make their own decisions. Add that we are not and will not be for sale to WorldCorp or anyone else.”

  “Wow! Sure will, Dad! That’s tough talk.”

  “Are you overvalued?” Megan asked.

  “We were probably undervalued by maybe ten percent,” Vinny replied to his wife. “That’s because we are a closely held corporation. Now I think we’re overvalued. Dad’s statement will be an appropriate warning, especially to the retirement fund managers who are taking a big chance with their clients’ money.”

  “Ray, Annie”—Megan raised her glass of the Seraphic Irish cream—“I’d like to propose a toast to the two of you. When I married this guy I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about his family because he really didn’t have one. Now I find that he does and that it’s a wonderful family. So I drink to your long lives and good health.”

  “Slainte!” her husband echoed the toast.

  They wept like sentimental Irishmen who had consumed a lot of wonderful wine. Well, like three sentimental Irishmen and one sentimental Sicilian woman.

  Neenan had his own special reasons for weeping. This tight and loving family of his would soon be struck down. At least he had created some relationships that would last after he was gone.

  He raised his own glass of Seraphic cream in a toast that he would never have expected to cross his lips. “To my family,” he said hoarsely.

  Gaby and Michael materialized briefly behind Anna Maria’s back to join in the toast.

  “Cheers!” his wife and son and daughter-in-law said in unison.

  “Cheers,” the two smiling seraphs joined in.

  Later that night with his naked wife again resting her head on his chest as she slept, he tried to puzzle out everything that had happened to him in the last ten days. It made little sense, but it had been wonderful. What a shame it would not last, he thought sadly.

  In life, he reminded himself, nothing ever lasts.

  The next day in the office of the president of Loyola, overlooking the Water Tower, he was trying, more than anything else, to leave a memorial of his love for his wife—who sat demurely on a chair across from the president, like a pious novice.

  “My wife, Anna Maria Allegro, was a student here, Father,” he said to the young and charming Jesuit, “not too many years ago. She seems to have received a superb education at Loyola.”

  “We keep track of our alumni, Mr. Neenan,” the priest said. “We know that she has extraordinary good taste in popular entertainment, perhaps the best in America. I’m not sure how much contribution we really made to that taste, but we’re happy to claim some share of the credit.”

  Anna Maria blushed modestly. “A lot, Father,” she said in her shy voice.

  “We’re both grateful,” Neenan continued, savoring every moment of the conversation, in both the professional and personal sense. “We’d like to express our gratitude in a concrete form.”

  He opened his briefcase and removed the deed of gift.

  “I hope my eyes are not glittering too brightly,” the president said with an easy smile.

  “I have a deed of gift here which my lawyers over at Lerner and Locke have put together. You will want to have your lawyers look over it.”

  “Loyola is very grateful, Mr. Neenan, Ms. Neenan.”

  “It is for the Anna Maria Allegro chairs of humanistic studies.”

  “Chairs?” the president gasped.

  “I hope that five won’t be too many?”

  “Five?”

  “Five. Six million dollars or so.”

  The president nodded. “I’m sure my eyes are glittering eagerly now, Mr. Neenan. I think we can absorb the money without any trouble.” He laughed again. “Without any trouble at all! Thank you! As long as this university exists, you and your wife will be remembered with affection and gratitude. I’ll be telling the story of my astonishment for the rest of my life.”

  “It’s my wife who should be remembered, Father. She’s the alum. Incidentally, my lawyers suggested that the first ones to occupy the chairs should be chosen at the discretion of the president, so that the appointments will not be mired in faculty politics.”

  “A very wise suggestion. We will find the most distinguished men and women to fill the chairs.”

  “I hope,” Anna Maria said timidly, “that you’ll have one teacher who specializes in popular culture.”

  “I was thinking the same thing myself, Ms. Allegro. Students will flock to such classes.”

  “You certainly made that man’s day,” Anna Maria said as they left Loyola and walked across Water Tower Park. “Let’s go back and buy me a Loyola jacket. Or two.”

  They heard trumpet music in the background, a couple of spectacular fanfares.

  “A band is practicing somewhere,” she said. “Funny, they didn’t used to have a band down here.”

  “Yeah, it is kind of odd.”

  They entered the bookstore acr
oss the street from the park. As Anna Maria found a winter jacket and two sweatshirts, he thought about his own future. He would be dead before the chairs were filled, perhaps even before the gift was announced.

  What difference did that make?

  Perhaps it was better that he die now. Anna Maria would be a widow eventually anyway. With him dead, she would be able to remarry someone more her own age. That morose self-pity made him feel better.

  He felt no delight in his generosity and no grief in having spent so much money in a few moments. His own sensation was a dull ache at the time that was so quickly running out.

  23

  Before Friday night it had been a good week. Tim Walsh had accepted settlements for all but one of his clients. The pension case, for which Neenan now had deep regrets, was virtually over. The directors of NE had unanimously approved the appointment of Vincent Neenan as president and chief operating officer. Neenan and his son enjoyed ten minutes of friendly conversation before Norm and Joe joined them. Neenan felt that the new partnership between Vinny and himself was working far better than he might have expected. Plans for the production of Light in the Tunnel were going ahead rapidly; ABC and CBS were both bidding for it. Jerry Carter was tentatively scheduled to direct Starbridge, which Vinny was reading with delight. WorldCorp had filed a motion in the federal court for the Northern District of Illinois seeking to vacate the state court’s temporary injunction—a strategy that NE’s lawyers thought was foolish, though, as they quickly added, you couldn’t tell what some federal judges would do these days.

  Neenan had also watched the penultimate version of Rebirth. It was a brilliant film, far better than he had expected. Jenny was wonderful as the daughter who hated her criminal father and became sexually involved with a younger criminal to punish her father. The love scene was not exactly torrid. Neenan, however, had pushed the fast-forward button.

  Jenny was a superb actress nonetheless. He was both proud of her and shocked at her behavior. He’d better accustom himself to such mixed emotions.

  No, that wouldn’t be necessary. He would certainly never see another film with her in it.