The Wrong Kind of Money

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  “None whatsoever. She’d give anything to know.”

  Bathy laughs. “My dear, I’m afraid my big sister has misled you. She knows perfectly well why. I told her all about the incident on the afternoon of the day it happened. We haven’t discussed it since, of course. There’s been no need to. But she knows perfectly well why Noah feels the way he does about me.”

  “But—then why does she keep insisting that Noah tell her what’s troubling him?”

  “My dear, that’s just Hannah’s way. She insists that everyone she deals with lay his cards flat out on the table, face up. Even when she knows the answer, she wants to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Remember, I’ve known her a lot longer than you have. My big sister knows everything. But she’s the kind of woman who’ll demand an explanation even when she already knows perfectly well what the explanation is. She’s the kind of woman who’ll buzz for her secretary to ask what time it is even when there’s a big clock facing her on the opposite wall.”

  “How very interesting,” Carol says.

  “That’s Hannah for you. She knew all about Jules and my affair from the very beginning. She even encouraged it. In fact, I sometimes think she actually helped initiate it, putting us together all the time. She was certainly all for it.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, absolutely. Hannah and I had a deal.”

  “A deal …”

  “And yet—and yet I really loved old Jules,” she says. “That was something I couldn’t deal with. Can anyone deal with love?”

  “She’s told Noah that she won’t turn over his stock to him unless he agrees to take you back into the company.”

  Bathy laughs again and slaps her knee with her gloved hand. “Oh, dear,” she says. “Oh, dear, dear me! Is she still on that tired old subject? She knows better than that. I wouldn’t go back to work for that company if everybody in the family got down on their hands and knees and begged me!”

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “Never!”

  “But Hannah says—”

  “It’s just not the same company it was when I worked for it—when Jules was still alive. It was fun then. There was a wonderful raffishness about the liquor business in those days. We flew by the seat of our pants. We were always looking over our shoulder to see if the sheriff was coming around the corner. It was almost as though what we were doing was still against the law, and some of it probably was. We never knew when the government might decide to crack down on us with more rules and regulations. That made it exciting. But today Ingraham is just another giant corporation. The fun’s gone out of it.”

  “But Hannah keeps insisting that Noah has to bring you back.”

  “Well, that’s Hannah for you. She knows I won’t come back. But she’s got the idea that I need more money. I may not be as rich as the Lieblings, but I’ve got all the money I need, and all the money I want. I had a wonderful career in the company, but I’m happy to be retired.”

  “I find this all very interesting,” Carol says. “Because if you refuse to come back to Ingraham, that could mean that Noah will never get his stock.”

  “So it’s a Mexican standoff, is it? Well, that’s just like Hannah, too—this kind of arm wrestling. To see who’ll give in first. She’s good at that. Of course, you know the real reason she wants me back, don’t you?”

  “No, I’m afraid I really don’t.”

  “When she steps down, she wants someone she can trust to be there to keep an eye on Noah—to make sure he doesn’t jump ship.”

  “Jump ship? Why would he do that?”

  “It’s something he used to talk about. Not threaten, exactly, but he used to talk about it. Hasn’t he ever mentioned Aesop to you?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact he did—just the other night. Something about an alternative plan.”

  “So, you see? That’s what worries Hannah—that once he gets his shares of stock, he’ll go off and establish the Aesop thing.”

  “But what exactly is the Aesop thing?”

  “Then, you don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’d better get Noah to explain that to you. It’s a little complicated and visionary and—to me, at least—a little bit pie-in-the-sky. But I told Hannah that if she wants me to go back to work at the mill just to make sure Noah stays on the straight and narrow, she’s got the wrong woman. But I suggested that you might be useful to her in that capacity.”

  “I see,” Carol says thoughtfully. “I wonder if that’s why she wanted to have lunch with me today.”

  “Could be,” Bathy says. “When Hannah asks someone to lunch, you can be sure she’s got something on her mind.”

  “Interesting,” Carol says again. “Because if I can be useful to her, then she can be useful to me. A tit for a tat.”

  Bathy laughs heartily. “That was one of Jules’s favorite expressions. A tit for a tat. I haven’t heard anyone say that in years!”

  “You know, I’m really awfully glad we had this meeting, Bathy,” Carol says. “You’ve made a lot of things clear to me that weren’t clear before. And you’ve given me several good ideas.”

  “Good. I’m glad. And do you know something? I really think we could be friends, don’t you?” She extends her hand, and Carol takes it.

  “I think so, too,” she says.

  “I mean we might as well be, since we may both be about to die of starvation in a stalled elevator.”

  “Or of suffocation. Have you noticed the air in here getting to seem a little—close?”

  Bathy touches her forehead. “Well, now that you mention it—yes.”

  “But we mustn’t panic.”

  “No. But we might try prayer—”

  And with that word, as though a deus ex machina has been summoned, the elevator rattles to life. There is a downward lurch, followed by an upward jolt, and both women clutch the seats of their little corner benches and eye each other with alarm. Then the elevator continues smoothly upward.

  “Well!”

  “Well!”

  Carol gets off first, at Hannah’s floor. “Good-bye, Bathy,” she says. “Let’s get together again.”

  “I’d like that,” Bathy says. “Good luck with Hannah,” and she gives her a little wave before the doors close, and she continues on to the floor above.

  And now Carol sits in Hannah’s dining room with its walls covered in pale blue watered silk. “I’m a little worried about Noah,” Hannah is saying. “Our meeting at your house the other night did not go well. He even used vulgar language with me, which isn’t like him. Do you think launching this new label has been putting too much of a strain on him?”

  “Let’s not talk about Noah for a minute, Nana,” Carol says. “Let’s talk about the Van Degans and their museum gift.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I was going over the figures for Van Degan Glass at the office just this morning. My spies got them for me. Carol, that company really is in terrible shape.”

  “Good,” she says.

  “Good? Why?”

  “It’s good for our side, Nana. It gives us more bargaining power.”

  “Even if we gave them the contract to manufacture bottles for all our labels, I don’t know if that would get them out of the hole they’re in.”

  “Could we do that, Nana?”

  “Could we do what?”

  “Offer them a contract to manufacture for all our labels?”

  “Well, I suppose we could, but—” She glances nervously at the portrait of Jules Liebling at the end of the room. “Goodness, I hope he isn’t listening to us talk like this. He’d be spinning in his grave. Except he isn’t in any grave. He’s in that yellow jar on the sideboard over there.”

  “Here’s what I’m thinking, Nana,” she says. “You liked the idea of my becoming a trustee of the Met, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. It would be wonderful. If you really think you could pull it off.”

  “Let me tell you how it could be don
e, Nana,” Carol says, and Hannah puts down her salad fork, listening.

  “Let’s suppose,” Carol begins, “that we were to tell Van Degan Glass that we’re considering offering them a contract to manufacture bottles for all Ingraham products. That would be a nice little piece of new business for Van Degan, wouldn’t it?”

  “Absolutely. We’re the biggest distillers in the country.”

  “In the millions?”

  “In the millions.”

  “The high millions?”

  “I should think so, yes.”

  “Right now the Van Degans are willing to turn over roughly half of their collection to the museum, with a few little bells and whistles attached to the gift which their lawyers have tacked on for their clients’ tax benefits. But if we were to offer them a contract like that, I think I could persuade the Van Degans to donate even more—perhaps seventy-five percent of it, even ninety percent. Don’t you?”

  “I see your line of thinking,” Hannah says. “No collection, no contract.”

  “That’s right. Squeaky wheels get oiled. And from what you tell me, the wheels at Mr. Van Degan’s company are particularly squeaky right at the moment.”

  “Indeed they are.”

  “And, as a nonnegotiable condition to their gift, I will have Mr. Van Degan insist—”

  “That you be placed on the Met’s board.”

  “That’s right. No trusteeship for me, no collection for the Met. A tit for a tat.”

  “Will the Van Degans buy this?”

  “I don’t see why they wouldn’t. It makes no difference to them whether I go on the board or not. And they’ll get wonderful publicity from it—the great philanthropists and all that. They’ll get a big hunk of new business from us. And they’ll get a big tax deduction, which, if their lawyers are smart enough, they can probably spread out across several years. And for us—”

  “A Liebling on the Met’s board!”

  “It’s a deal from which everyone will profit.”

  “What about the museum? Will they accept that condition?”

  “We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we? But considering the importance of the gift, I rather think they will.”

  Hannah studies her daughter-in-law appraisingly across the table, her eyelids half closed. “You know,” she says at last, “I’m seeing a side of you today, Carol, that I’ve never seen before. It’s a side I never knew existed. You really like to hondel, don’t you.”

  Carol smiles. “I’ve enjoyed planning this one,” she says. “And I’ve even carried my thoughts a little further. If Ingraham can get its toe as firmly into Van Degan’s door as this deal would do, is there any reason why, at some point, we wouldn’t be in a nice position to take over Van Degan Glass?”

  “That was something my husband often talked about—owning his own glassworks. Not having to rely on outside suppliers and gambling on price fluctuations in the marketplace.”

  “It would seem to make good business sense, Nana.”

  Now it is Hannah who is smiling. “That would show those Van Degans, wouldn’t it?” she says. “If we took over their company. Moving out the day we moved in!”

  “Well, yes,” Carol says. “I did think of that, too.”

  “And so,” Hannah says, “what’s the next step? Are you prepared to follow through on all this?”

  “Absolutely,” Carol says. “All I need is your approval.”

  “I think it’s better if you handle the Van Degans. You know them. I’ve never met them. If I called them, they’d think I was trying to pull some sort of fast one. They know I hate ’em. In fact, don’t mention my name at all. Tell them this is Noah’s idea.”

  “All I need is a green light from you, Nana.”

  Hannah nods. “You just got it,” she says.

  Carol pushes aside her plate, realizing that in her excitement she has hardly touched her cheese soufflé. “If you’d like, I can telephone Truck Van Degan at his office right now,” she says.

  “Go for it!” Hannah says.

  Carol jumps from the table and walks quickly out through the hall to the telephone room, leaving Hannah alone at the table, toying absently with her food.

  Carol is not gone long. “Well, the ball is now in play,” she says a little breathlessly. “I talked to Mr. Van Degan. He said, ‘I understand the terms of your proposal completely.’ He’s going to call the chairman of the Acquisitions Committee.”

  “And that person is—?”

  “A man named Corydon McCurdy. A man who, for personal reasons, I’d very much like to see put in his place.”

  “We bought this apartment from some people named McCurdy.”

  “Yes, I know. This is their son.”

  “Snobs. Like the Van Degans.”

  “I think I know how to handle him. I’ve got a few cards up my sleeve that I haven’t told you about.”

  A footman appears at the door. “Pêche flambée au Cognac,” he announces.

  “Skip it,” Hannah says with a wave of her hand. “We don’t want dessert. So,” she says as the footman departs, “what happens next?”

  “Next?” Carol says. “Well, having just set in motion what I’m trying to do for you and your company, I’m going to ask you to do something for me, Nana.”

  “Oh?” she says suspiciously. “What’s that?”

  “Give Noah his stock. Turn over the company to him, and without insisting that Bathy has to be part of the deal. Bathy doesn’t want to go back to work for Ingraham anyway.”

  “Perhaps not. But there might be ways I’d have of forcing her to.”

  “Somehow,” Carol says, “Bathy doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who can be forced to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

  “You’ve talked to Bathy?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Well, I still have a little problem with Noah. I told you he used vulgar language—”

  “Your problem with Noah is that you’ve waited too long to give him the top job. I can promise you something else, Nana, if you give it to him now.”

  “What’s that? What can you promise me?”

  “I can promise you that if you give him the job, you’ll never hear another word about Aesop.”

  “Oh? Is he still talking about that?”

  “Very much so. More than ever before. You see, Nana, Noah’s Aesop idea is an idea that was born out of frustration. Frustration has nourished the idea in his mind. And his frustration is frustration with you, Nana. He feels he’s just spinning his wheels with the company now. He feels as though he’s treading water, getting nowhere. And as each day goes by, he gets more and more frustrated. And the more frustrated he gets, the more he thinks about some sort of escape hatch—like Aesop. But if you give him the job, Nana, I can promise you he’ll never give another serious thought to Aesop.”

  “You can promise me that?”

  “Yes, I can. Another tit for another tat.”

  “He’s told you that?”

  “He’s as much as told me,” she says quickly.

  “As much as told you isn’t quite the same as told,” she says. “But it’s always been such a totally impractical idea—Aesop.”

  “Yes, and in his heart of hearts I know he knows that. And yet, as things stand now—”

  “Well, let me think about this,” Hannah says.

  “Don’t think about it too long, Nana. If you think about it too long, I can promise you something else—something neither of us wants at all. You’ll see him walk out of his office at the Ingraham Building and never come back. He’ll devote the rest of his life to the Aesop project, and there won’t be anything you or I can do about it. You know how stubborn Noah is. I’m warning you, Nana—things have reached that crucial a stage. He’s about to explode with frustration, and when that happens any usefulness he might have for you or the company, now or in the future, will come to a screeching halt. It will end with a loud and resounding bang. You say he used vulgar language? That’s just the begin
ning, the tip of the iceberg!”

  “Goodness, you almost make it sound as though he might—well, never mind.”

  “I’m saying there’s no telling what he might do. Remember—you may be his mother, but I’m his wife. I hear the voice on the pillow at night. I watch him tossing and turning in the next bed, fighting to get some sleep—”

  Hannah shivers. “Well, I told you I’d think about it. I promise you I’ll think hard. That’s all I’ll promise you for now.”

  “Thank you, Nana.”

  “Meanwhile, you haven’t said boo about the party for Anne and the Van Degan girl. Just where does that stand?”

  Carol shrugs. “That’s neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned,” she says. “You disapproved of the idea. I was never really in favor of it. Noah and I haven’t discussed it, and I’m not even sure Mr. Van Degan knows about it. Georgette implied that he didn’t. I’m tabling any party plans for the time being. Don’t forget, we’re calling the shots with the Van Degans now.”

  “Yes, but if my Little Bird really wants this party so badly, then perhaps—”

  “But I really think what we’ve just been talking about is more important than any coming-out party. Don’t you agree? More important to you as well as to me?”

  “Yes. Yes, I agree.”

  Carol glances at her watch. “I’ve really got to run,” she says. “I’ve got to drive up to Connecticut and see my mother. They’re having some sort of problem with her there.”

  “Just one more thing,” Hannah says. “That Mr. Luckman has been calling me at my office.”

  “Oh? What’s he want?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve refused to take his calls. I didn’t like that young man. I didn’t like all that talk about money and scandal at your dinner table. Talk about controlling people. He may have written a book about education, but he didn’t seem to know much about the subject. He’d never heard of my father, the famous Dr. Marcus Sachs. That young man spells trouble, if you ask me.”

  “You think so, Nana?”

  “It’s a feeling in my bones. I’m not going to talk to him, and I suggest that you not talk to him, either. We don’t need any more trouble in this family. Lord knows, we’ve had enough trouble. But remember, if there’s trouble, what my father used to say. He’d say, ‘If there’s trouble, rise above it. Let it wash around your ankles. Stand tall, young woman. Stand tall.’ That’s what he used to say to Settie and me.”