JR (41 page)

—But under the circumstances Mrs Joubert, I think your brother is prob…

—Does Daddy ever visit him? she pulled off her glasses looking up, — ever?

—Well I… he cleared his throat, reached for the papers —Are you able to visit him often?

She got her handkerchief again, but simply held it tight in her hand.

—Once I, I went once and they had a concert he was learning to play the, played the cymbals I just couldn't ever go again…

—But, but perhaps your father finds it just as pain…

—Freddie's his son! she used the handkerchief and then, stilled, her eyes over its lavender edge looked even larger —sends his, he sends his best wishes he knows I'm sitting a foot away but he couldn't…

—Mrs Joubert he had an important meeting and just took a moment to call with something quite urgent regarding the situation in Gan…

—A moment yes he couldn't take a moment to speak to me to, even to ask how I am there's always a meeting an important meeting he hides in meetings even that day, the day I brought the children in I was in his office to, waiting to sign something like I always am he was standing beside me there molding his nose like he always does looking down at me and he said, he said you look tired Amy he looked so concerned so, so concerned I thought he wanted to talk to me to tell me something to say something he, and then he turned with all that concern he turned to you and asked about his last option…

—I, I understand yes but I think you should consid…

—I'm sorry, is this all you want me to sign?

—Yes and, oh the changes yes if you'll just initial the changes, they're marked in the margins Mrs Joubert it's not my, I just mean to say your father has been under a good deal of pressure recently I don't think you should take that to mean he's not extremely concerned about you, when you mentioned earlier the trusts your mother had set up for yourself and your brother, your income…

—Oh honestly… she initialed, initialed, —how can you call it my income it's…

—No but you see I understand your impatience but I think in expressing his concern under the provision that the income may be reinvested by the guardian until…

—By Daddy yes till he thinks I've stopped drifting? till I stop wasting my, stop teaching school out in the woods somewhere just to have something to do, something alive to do even if it's, even if I hardly know what I'm teaching them just following the lesson guide but it's something it's, something…

—I didn't mean…

—And don't say the trusts Mama had set up for me and Freddie no, no Daddy and your father and Uncle John set them up and old Judge

Ude in the Surrogate Court where Uncle John put him they set them up, it was Mama's money and they set them up with all these provisions and she signed the papers just like I'm signing these without even knowing what she, why they…

—Please no wait a moment, no I should make it clear of course I have no way of knowing the conditions surrounding these trusts of your mother's Mrs Joubert but, but in signing these papers in your capacity with these foundations the implication that you're being taken advantage of beyond…

—A convenience…

—Well in a, perhaps in a manner of spea…

—A convenience yes, it saves Uncle John the trouble of finding trustees on the subway.

—Yes well, perhaps yes but certainly you do understand his wish to secure his financial position? You see in eight of ten previous years, his taxes plus charitable contributions had taken ninety percent of his net income enabling him to make a charity gift of some nineteen million dollars to …

—Oh honestly, charity just the word…

—Yes well I use it in its tax law connotation and of course since his bank holds the pension fund of the hospital where he's a trustee, and his position as a director of this leading nonprofit health insurance program assures the hospital against nonpayment of …

—The idea of him ever giving away nineteen cents nineteen, nineteen peanuts nineteen anything if he had them he'd…

—No you see Mrs Joubert the point is that this particular nineteen million represented the market value of the securities constituting his gift he'd originally paid something like, something under half a million as an original investor and this approach merely enables him to avoid the substantial capital gains tax he would have been liable for if he'd sold them, and made his income for the following very prosperous year entirely tax free, you see the high personal tax rate, in setting up these foundations in view of the high personal tax rate he was subject to on the dividends from these securities it was decided that since a dividend in the form of stock was not considered income, he might authorize and receive a new issue of preferred at one hundred dollars par redeemable by the company at one hundred two which of course would not affect his control of, Mrs Joubert? you, you did want to know…

—Preferred stock doesn't vote, yes. We had it in class, preferred stock doesn't…

—Yes in this case however it appeared advisable for tax purp…

—Doesn't sing doesn't dance doesn't smoke or drink or run around with women, doesn't even…

—Pardon?

—Oh nothing Mister Beaton it's all so, just so absurd so, lifeless, I can't…

—Please I, Mrs Joubert I didn't mean to make an emotional issue of it, the …

—Well it is! It is an emotional issue it simply is! because, because there aren't any, there aren't any emotions it's all just reinvested dividends and tax avoidance that's what all of it is, avoidance the way it's always been it always will be there's no earthly reason it should change is there? that it ever could change?

—Only, well, in this particular case as I was going to say it appeared advisable for tax purposes that this preferred issue paying six percent semiannually would have no voting rights unless four consecutive dividends were missed and of course in that case, the trustees would vote the stock, install new directors if they wished to and assume control of the extensive assets which…

—I think that's your phone again, if this is all you want me to …

—I'm sorry yes, hello? Beaton… yes, yes just hold on a moment Dick, you did initial the second set Mrs Joubert?

—Oh dear … she opened her bag again digging for glasses, coming up with the wrong pair —I'm already…

—I'm sorry I thought you'd, these right here yes. Dick … ? I did yes but I think this Endo divestiture has priority, he's getting quite impatient about the Diamond tender and of course nothing can be … for you specifically to handle it as soon as you're finished there yes, Frank Black's doing most of the spadework and as soon as you… Yes originally yes, but they informed us the substantial tax write-off we proposed could be jeopardized by a suit with an original stockholder over sequestering the patents, that would probably drag the goodwill write-off down with it and the most sensible thing seems to be straight divestiture in connection with the Diamond tender once this decree has been … I know it yes but the sooner you can clear it up and get to Washington the better, we … you did yes she's right here … I will yes, goodbye … I will, yes. That was Mister Cutler, he sends…

—Sends me kindest regards… she initialed, turned a page.

—He's in Rome yes he, I'm terribly sorry Mrs Joubert did you want to speak with him? I didn't even…

—What on earth about… she initialed, initialed.

—Well I, I don't know of course I, he did ask me to tell you he hoped to be back in time to take you to the horse show and I think if your father is …

—Mister Beaton that's what we've been talking about! he, Daddy still wants it all to be like it was when I rode at the Garden myself with that ghastly Ude girl, when her brother came down with Dick Cutler from Choate and, if he could see if Daddy could just see the only men I've met I can imagine getting into, into anything with them he'd die, one's probably Freddie's age he drinks and plays the horses his face is like the, he laughs and his face is just torment and, and his hands and the other's a boy, a composer and he's just a boy just all, all radiant desolation and he's dear…

—Then I think you realize the…

—And they wouldn't mind the money either of them honestly, I'd almost marry them both just for that…

—Exactly yes I think you can understand your father's, that as guardian under your mother's will you realize he has certain obligations to what would have been your mother's wishes to see that the trust doesn't become an attraction to, leading to another unfortunate marriage and so naturally he …

—Asks Dick Cutler to take me to the horse show … she'd folded her glasses again —that would be like, like marrying your issue of six percent preferreds… she opened her bag to thrust them back in, — Avoidance payable semìannually … she snapped it closed. —I'm sorry Mister Beaton I, I shouldn't talk to you like this but there's simply been no one else… her hand fell empty, only half closed on the desk between them to close suddenly seized there in one even whiter — what…

—You, you must understand that I, that your father that, that for anything to happen to you would be, because you're such a a stunning woman a stunning young woman I I, I …

Her hand turned that sharply on the tremor enclosing it —please there's, Mister Beaton there's nothing you can…

—No no I, all I can do honestly … he stared there where his hand lay hidden, and then it fled hers for the phone —hello Bea, Beaton … he cleared his throat. —It's Senator Broos I'd better, hello… ? Yes sir yes I

… he called a few minutes ago yes sir if you could hold on for one moment I … he no sir his daughter is here she…

—No please Mister Beaton go ahead, there's nothing else is there?

—Yes wait no there's a form, there yes if you'd just sign it and, yes just one moment sir where it says age last birthday it's just a formality, you can write over twenty-one if you, sir … ?

—Right here? Twenty-seven, it's still just a formality and thank you Mister Beaton…

—Sir … ? Yes no sir no I believe it's cleared up, General Blaufinger's statement in the foreign press urging intervention was apparently made on the assumption that we would support the secessionists but when it was made clear to him that Washington sediment sed, sentiment favored the joint resolution backing the Nowunda regime the General immed… not a no sir not a retraction no a clarifying statement simply saying that the press had distorted his pos … his position yes sir exac… yes exactly sir your position on Chile regarding Kennecott during the … yes sir sir? If you could excuse me one moment Mrs Joubert? Thank you for coming in, please call me if there are any sir … ? Yes sir she's… yes sir Mrs Joubert? Senator Broos sends his … on which matter sir … ? No sir I'm drafting the legislation on the banking bill now for him to … Oh I see yes sir no I don't think you need to be concerned, it's the state senate he's running for sir, not your… just the state yes sir I'm certain he … I've never met him no sir but… no sir it's

c, c, i an Italian name not, not peachy no sir …

The door closed behind her, freeing one hand from the other she turned —oh… !

—I think we're all set and, oh Miss Bulcke we're going to camp out in the chief's office here so Mrs Joubert can run through these proofs, we

…

—But Mister Davidoff I …

—No trouble oh and Miss Bulcke tell Carol to put my calls through here, tell her to screen them I'm waiting for one from Washington and the, call Florence and tell her to tell Mister Eigen I want him on this speech draft for General Box ask him where the captions are for this Annual Report feature that we, sorry… ! he'd made an abrupt end to a glide from a lost dance step. —One of us has an electric personality lady, he steered her —right in here, we can lay them all out. Static electricity, it piles up in the carpet you touch a doorknob and, you want to sit right here? he came on rounding the clear expanse of the desk still settling the acrylic sheen on his shoulders, put down the pictures and shot his cuffs to display gold simile coins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. —You can sit down right there if you …

—But I am in a hurry Mister Davidoff, I …

—Right, this will save you a trip to my office.

—But, there must be a hundred of them.

—Two eighty-six, I know how important this project is to you that's why we want you to make the picture selection yourself, now I thought we'd lead off with that one on top there, one second … He stabbed

the button-studded console and picked up the phone as he sat, his feet parting from the floor. —Pretty classy looking guy, am I right? Your Dad really, oh Miss Bulcke get the Waldorf, tell them the General won't be back till the twentieth and I'll be using his suite … he came forward hanging up the phone, feet treading air. —Your dad really comes

across doesn't he, a real statesman of ind…

—This looks like a picture of a, a nun cutting up a frog.

—What? What's that. There's no caption on it? I gave this top priority … he stabbed at the console, —make it clear we're backing your educational effort with these youngsters getting a foot in the

door of this whole field of visual literacy and they send up pictures with no captions as though Eigen? Hello? Where's Mister Eigen … At lunch? now? What man from Thailand … no just tell him to call me, is somebody typing the captions for this Annual Report story… ? can't find what… ? No, just tell Mister Eigen to call me.

—All your pictures look very nice Mister Davidoff, I'm sure you can select…

—Now this one here, we have to have Crawley of course but we're angling your story more along the lines of the share itself, corporate responsibility to this one, must have been when Crawley was picking up the coins one second, I'm expecting a call from Washington, Senator Broos hello … ? No tell him I'll call him back now there, that one's not

bad, not bad of Crawley but it looks like that pig is climbing in the window over his shoulder wait, here's my call now, hello? Senator?

Mol-lenhoff? What does Mollenhoff want? … No that was his memo to me not my memo to him… what? Wait a minute… He was pushing buttons as though playing an instrument —who? No this isn't the maintenance department… Hello? Where's that call I had in to Senator Broos? Miss Bulcke? Who's this? Eigen? What's this about somebody from Thailand… Taiwan? No, that's a Chinese medical relief group he was supposed to come over for the fifty cent tour before lunch, did you check his hotel?… No a donation, just take him out to lunch and tie, one, on, I said tie… never mind, look. This Box speech for Gandia