At the end of the interview, Izzo didn’t see a bored face in the room. They looked impressed. And hungry. But he hadn’t finished. In exchange for a regular salary, he offhandedly volunteered to accept a small percentage of the profits, somewhere in the neighborhood of ten percent. He saw bright eyes and suppressed smiles. These men, like many of the longtime hilltop residents, had inherited their fortunes, but, more importantly, had mastered the art of keeping it. Money flowed all around them, but it rarely flowed where they didn’t want it. In its very best year since the formation of the country club in 1928, the dining room had never made a profit of more than $87,000. And the year when it made that much, it had pulled double duty for six weeks when the café got remodeled. Izzo heard the clatter of cerebral calculators as they figured that even if he somehow duplicated the profit of that one unusual year, they would still end up paying him $6,300 less than the salary they had intended to offer.
They hired him on the spot, shook hands all around, and looked quite pleased.
Three years later his paycheck had become a burr in their backsides. When they asked to restructure the agreement, he refused. And from there it got steadily worse, or better, depending on how you looked at it, as the dining room, which informally came to be called Izzo’s, raked in ever increasing profits and Izzo continued to cash ever larger pay checks.
In front of his upstairs office, next to the railing that overlooked the dining room below, Izzo had set up a small round café table and chairs where he did paperwork and held informal court with vendors and employees. He’d seen too many lousy managers hide in their offices all day ordering cucumbers and scribbling out weekly schedules instead of pitching in when they were needed. During the rush he made a point of being down with the troops, and at other times he still liked to keep an eye on things, so he’d set up this table which gave him an easy view of everything below.
This is also where he took a short dinner break around nine o’clock each night, as happened to be the case one Saturday in February of 1972. It had been a good night. He’d told the waiters to push the pheasant—which he’d gotten for a song—and at the time he went up for dinner, thirty or forty of them sat under glass, bathing peacefully in brandy sauce. Everything seemed to be purring right along. Maybe not exactly purring, though. The dining room sometimes got a little louder than that. Since many of the members knew each other, conversations occasionally broke out between tables, especially amongst the younger, less mannered guests. On this particular February night, as he took a last bite of gnocchi with pesto and listened to the muffled jabber down below, something strange happened: silence enveloped the entire dining room. He looked over the rail and saw two waiters, stopped in their tracks, staring at each other, apparently confused by the unusual phenomenon. He stood up and moved against the rail. He saw a busboy self-consciously looking over his shoulder as he cleaned a table. He saw his customers—who’d just been eating, drinking, and talking—now staring with cold, stony faces at a lady who’d just been seated at a table in the middle of the room. Except for the eyes, she looked remarkably like Judith Newfield, who had recently passed away. Maybe that’s why everyone stared. Or maybe she was a movie star. With a beautiful face—for someone in their late forties or early fifties—and an elegant black gown with long chiffon sleeves and a double row of rhinestones around the collar, she certainly looked the part.
“What did you say?” said a loud voice from a table for two on the patio side of the room. The voice belonged to old Mr. Grant. His wife leaned across the table and whispered loudly to him, but he had bad hearing.
“Who?” he yelled. She whispered some more. Then, with bulging eyes, he looked over his shoulder at the beautiful woman. Either he knew the lady or knew something about her because the sight of her caused him to sit up rigidly, like he’d seen a ghost. Then he raised his long, creaky body from the chair, threw his napkin onto the table, and teetered determinedly out of the restaurant, grumbling loudly the whole way. His wife grabbed her purse and followed. The other customers watched this little spectacle to its conclusion. Then their eyes locked back on to the mystery lady in black.
Not five seconds after old man Grant’s exit, a middle-aged man with a bald head at a table for six also stood up, followed by two other men at the same table, and then by all their wives. They made their exit, heads held high, except for one of the wives who stared at the lady in black.
It was spreading, whatever it was.
Across the room from the party of six, Mrs. Winters, who liked her foie gras with sour dough, stood boldly, while her little husband held his head low and tried to shovel in a few last bites of pheasant. She slid the chair back with her powerful legs and marched from the room. Mr. Winters grabbed her fur stole and purse and dutifully trotted after her.
And then the dam broke and the tables emptied. Like a snaking flow of water, a river of tuxedos and evening gowns flowed from the room. Some sneered as they passed the lady while others turned up their noses. No one said a word. And no one signed their bill either. Frank Izzo didn’t make a dime that night.
The unthinkable had happened in Prospect Park: Dorthea Railer had joined the country club and her sponsor sheet had been signed by none other than Veronica Newfield. Initially three of the seven board members had threatened to resign over the issue, but in the end everyone came to the inescapable conclusion that while Veronica, who’d just turned eighteen, might’ve been young and misguided, she was also now the sole owner of Castaneda Corporation. Judith Newfield had died. The queen was dead. Long live the queen. They had no choice but to honor Veronica’s request.
~~~
Later that night, as Ernest worked the midnight to eight shift behind the hotel lobby counter, he heard the faint chime from Dorthea’s private elevator. He snatched the toy soldiers off the counter and put them back into his pocket. A few seconds later he heard footsteps. He stood up and slid the tall chair toward the back wall. Dorthea didn’t like to see lobby workers sitting, even at three in the morning. She walked briskly and soon emerged from the long hallway that led from her elevator. She looked different. She had a new hairstyle and a new dress. He didn’t like it. Everything she did had a scheme behind it, and she had ten schemes a week. His hands felt cold. He put them into his baggy suit pants pockets.
Ernest didn’t like people. That’s why he worked the midnight shift. He didn’t like talking to them or looking at them. Especially looking at them. Direct eye contact with human beings made him squirm and only happened when he got caught off guard. So he went through life looking out the corners of his eyes. When Dorthea got close, he pretended to look at the painting on the far side of the lobby but actually watched as she opened the office door to his right. Maybe she just wanted to look at the books, he told himself. But then he heard the swinging door behind him, which led from the office to where he stood at the lobby counter. And he smelled perfume.
“Hello Ernest.”
She stood next to him.
“Yes Dorthea.”
“How old are you, Ernest?”
“Eighteen.”
“Eighteen,” she repeated, “and mature, too. You know, Ernest, many young men your age settle down.”
She had a scheme. He didn’t say a word.
“They get married and have kids.”
“Why are you telling me these things?”
“Just small talk. That’s all. But I do need you to do something for me the next time Veronica visits.”
He said “no” to Dorthea all the time in his dreams. And in his car. And at the lobby counter at two A.M. He just never said it to her face. “What?” he asked.
“I need you to show Veronica some special attention.”
Pupils firmly wedged into the corners of his eyes, Ernest carefully studied Dorthea’s face. “What exactly do you mean?”
“Well, how should I put it?” she said, as she patted her new hairdo. “The kind of attention a boy pays a girl when he likes her. Do you know how to do that
, Ernest?”
“No. I don’t. Besides, Veronica and I hate each other.”
“That doesn’t matter. I say nice things to people I hate all the time. All you have to do is smile at her, tell her she looks good, and then ask her out on a date. That’s it.”
“On a date! Are you crazy? I wouldn’t do that in a million years!” The words poured out before he had a chance to stop them, a major error on his part. Now he fully expected to pay the price. But she still looked calm. The claws hadn’t come out. She stepped closer and stared intently at his face. He stood rigidly still, not sure what she might be looking at, though he knew he wasn’t much to look at in general—she told him so all the time. He looked like a tall bag of bones with dark circles under his eyes, hollow cheeks, a little girl’s nose, and pasty skin. Never fond of anything plain, even insults, she once said he looked like he came from the bottom rung of a bad refugee camp.
“You’re right. A date might be a little much at first. Maybe we should just take one thing at a time. Let’s just say you smile at her and tell her she looks pretty. You can do that, can’t you?”
This time Ernest chose his words more carefully. “Veronica won’t like it if I do that. She hates me even more than I hate her…and she’ll know I’m lying…and that will make her even madder….”
“That’s alright. As long as you do as you’re told. I’ll take care of those other things.”
“But what if I can’t?”
“Can’t what? Smile at her? Say nice things?”
“None of it,” said Ernest, with his head down.
“Ernest. Important events are happening. Events that have taken me a lifetime to create. I’m counting on your help and it’s not too much to ask. Just remember how I rescued you, once upon a time, and you’ll know it’s not too much. Now I don’t want to hear anything else about it.”
“I always do everything you ask. Most the time I don’t even bother to complain. And I’m not saying I won’t do it…but…maybe I’m saying I can’t do it….”
“Now listen to me Ernest, and listen good. I don’t care about the strange way you look at people, or the toys you carry in your pocket, or the way you dress in black and white like a waiter. But when you start stepping on my plans, that’s when I start to care. You’re going to talk to Veronica and you’re going to say the things I tell you to say, even if you have to pretend you’re talking to one of your tin soldiers. Do you understand me?”
He said nothing.
“Do you know that I’m about to turn you in to the most powerful young man in the county, maybe even in the entire state? Do you care about that?”
“No.” And with that single word, Ernest, the one who always tried to please, had crossed over onto the bad side of the line like never before. She tolerated his strange ways, mostly because she didn’t have a choice, but she never tolerated his lack of ambition. And even though they both knew he didn’t have any, especially her kind, he’d never come out and said it to her face like that. She stared at him. He felt exposed. Vulnerable. Abandoned. When she finally spoke again, the words came out quietly and slowly.
“I can’t do anything about that. I can’t make you grow a spine, Ernest. All I can do is give you fair warning. And if you don’t listen to that warning, I’ll run you over like you was no more than vermin on the highway. And you know it don’t you, Ernest?”
“Yes. I do. I’m sorry, Dorthea…I’m sorry….”
~~~
If the good people had any lingering doubt about how far Dorthea Railer had gotten her claws into Veronica Newfield, it completely vanished when large envelopes started showing up in the best Prospect Park mailboxes. Gray in color, like a raincloud, with embossed red foil trim, the envelopes looked stylish and intriguing. They also elicited remarkably similar responses from all who received them. Sophisticated wives and urbane husbands, all schooled in grace and reserve, opened the envelopes with interest, and then cussed like bar girls and back ally thugs. They’d been invited to a winter ball at Sunny Slope Manor, compliments of Dorthea Railer. Specifically, the invitation came from “Dorthea Railer on behalf of Veronica Newfield.”
Judith Newfield hadn’t been dead three weeks and Dorthea had the gall to pull this kind of stunt. RSVP? Hardly. Not even a regretful decline. Gauche climbers got regretful declines; common criminals like Dorthea got nothing. Maybe she might darken the manor’s doorway, maybe things had really gotten that bad for young Veronica, but they had no intention of being there to witness it. No, the indignant invitees didn’t send back the reply cards. They did other things to them. They shredded them and crumpled them and tore them asunder with religious fervor. They threw them to the ground, to the bottom of the birdcage, and out with the garbage.
And then, with their spleens only half emptied, they talked of their profound hatred for Dorthea Railer. Wife to husband, husband to daughter, sister to brother, everyone talked. And then they got on the phone with friends and neighbors and talked of their hatred some more.
Somewhere along the way, though, some small voice, perhaps belonging to a less volatile family member, or a wise old-timer, or an astute financier, interrupted the fiery proceedings and mentioned the Castaneda Corporation. Annoyed glances and impatient sighs greeted this contribution, but, as sure as one plus one equals two, other easy calculations got made, and the results quickly sucked the hot air from the blossoming lynch mobs. Castaneda Corporation, the Newfield company that owned twenty-seven thousand acres left from the Spanish land grant, was the dominant economic force in the county. In some way virtually everyone’s life depended on, or at least got influenced by Castaneda. Yes, Dorthea Railer hosting a ball at Sunny Slope Manor looked like a flea pocked hen sitting on a stolen egg, but who’s to say she didn’t have her sights set on an even bigger prize. Maybe she already had it in her grasp.
At the Petersen mansion, for instance, Nils Petersen sat quietly in his easy chair as his son and daughter-in-law spewed diatribe all over Dorthea’s invitation. Petersen Quarry, the biggest supplier of sand and gravel in the west, got its start by buying and quarrying a small strip of the wash land that ran between Santa Marcela and Prospect Park; they got rich, though, by quarrying, on very favorable terms, the surrounding wash land that belonged to Castaneda. The Newfields and Petersens had been united in this enterprise for seventy-five years and the two families went back even further than that. But now the lease had come up for renewal and with Bill and Judith out of the picture, Nils Petersen didn’t know for sure who ran Castaneda. As much as he disliked Dorthea Railer, he didn’t plan on putting his business in danger because of it. He’d be going to the ball, as would his son and daughter-in-law. They just didn’t know it yet.
The Danmore fortune dated back even further than the Petersen’s, to the early days of Santa Marcela, when Jonah Danmore eschewed the countryside and paid Newfield’s high prices for city property. Year after year he bought it up, eventually becoming the second largest land owner in Santa Marcela. The modern Danmores, Tom and Jim, twins, and always referred to as the Danmore brothers, guided the family fortune as well as any of their ancestors had. They built Santa Marcela Mall, the only indoor mall in the county, but, lest they forgot their place, Newfield kept them in check by allowing them to own only one of the three parking lots adjacent to the mall. Castaneda owned the other two. The Danmore brothers also decided to attend the ball, dressed to the nines, and wearing warm smiles.
One by one, in like manner, minds got changed and reply cards got reprieved and retrieved, wiped off and taped up, filled out and sent off. In a few cases, where an acceptable degree of re-construction couldn’t be achieved, an apologetic note got sent instead, graciously accepting the invitation. Self-preservation trumped propriety, and most families decided to attend. But not all. Grumpy old Mr. Grant, for one, wouldn’t be caught dead in Dorthea Railer’s presence and said so with his usual flair; across the top of his returned reply card, in bold red ink, he wrote: Go to hell!
Chapter 22
Mack felt useless. Bad things kept happening to Sarah, and he didn’t have a clue how to help. First her mother had died, then, out of the blue, her aunt, and now she had the full weight of Sunny Slope Manor on her shoulders. Veronica, the rightful heir, had locked herself in her room and refused to help with the funeral or with the army of lawyers and accountants that descended afterward. Other than putting her signature on any piece of paper that might speed up her inheritance, she did nothing. As for Sarah’s worthless fiancé, he went skiing in Utah. Mack had seen pain and worry camped out on Sarah’s face at other times—with her family it came with the territory—but never like this. And what had he done about it? Not much. He’d watched, listened, anticipated, and fetched. He’d become a gawking errand boy.
One afternoon a few weeks after her aunt’s funeral, Sarah led a quarter horse named Barney up to the tack house and tied him off to the rail. Mack saw the red-eyed anguish and wondered if it had been caused by old worries or new. Because of his mild disposition, she usually rode “Bombproof Barney” on trail and with a western saddle. He quickly grabbed the saddle pad from inside the tack house and handed it to her. She smiled weakly. He grabbed the big western saddle and threw it onto Barney’s back. And then he hovered. And cleared his throat. And tried to look inviting like a fluffy pillow. She looked at him a few times, and looked like she wanted to talk, and maybe cry, too. And then she got on the horse and rode off.
Disgusted with himself, Mack threw a saddle and saddle pad over the tie-down rail. Maybe if he stopped trying to look like a fluffy pillow and started talking like a human being, he might actually end up being some help.
Tea Cups & Tiger Claws Page 23