Rich Friends (15 page)

I have a right to happiness.

You do? Even if it brings the reverse on others?

Alix gave a groan. Beverly hurried to the bed, stooping anxiously over her daughter until the breathing eased. Her weary amber eyes were desolate.

They were married in Rabbi Jacobson's office with their immediate families present. The wedding dinner at the Garden Room of the Bel Air Hotel, paid for and planned by Dan, was noisy, lavish, including every age from Dan's ninety-three-year-old, balding Aunt Channa (he supported her), out-of-town relations, in-town friends, and guests of their four children.

Beverly hadn't seen Caroline and Gene Matheny in a couple of years, but whom do you invite to your wedding if not your (once) best friend?

“Dan?” Beverly kept her arm around Dan's waist. “Remember Gene?”

“Matheny,” Gene prompted. “We met at—”

“That damn Christmas party. Don't remind me. Is it Professor Matheny now?”

Gene accepted a cheese puff from a waiter. “As a matter of fact, no.”

“People change,” Caroline said somewhat haughtily. She and Em often speculated how Beverly could ditch a gorgeous man like Philip for one so brash. She waved away the hors d'oeuvres. She had dieted down to rosy cheeks and handsome bones. Her scarlet chiffon was size 8, a Dior, and on her finger glittered the twelve-carat mine-cut diamond she'd inherited from her grandmother.

“I've been with Van Vliet's almost twelve years,” Gene said. “I'm treasurer.”

“Some shrink.” Dan grinned at Caroline, then turned back to Gene. “Some grow.”

Gene couldn't help laughing. He'd lost some hair and gained glasses. “It's phenomenal how my in-laws recognize true talent.”

“You've given
blood
!” Caroline cried.

“Dan, take care of our friend,” Gene said, leaning forward, kissing the bride, who gave him her champagne-scented mouth without relinquishing her hold on her husband.

When, two weeks later, Dan received the call from Gene, he wasn't surprised.

“I'd like to know a bit about tax shelters,” Gene said. The last two words stumbled over themselves. Dan made an educated guess that Gene, having contracted an early marriage with the socialist ideal, was battling his compunctions: taxation should equalize. Infidelity would not come easily. Dan bit on his cigar, thinking. Gene would be more at ease—more likely to invest in the Orange County acreage—without wives who knew him when. Dan said, “How about breakfast sometime next week?”

It took four breakfasts for Gene to commit himself, but when he did, he took a larger hunk than Dan had guessed he would. By then the two were friends. Gene's affection was heightened by Dan's open Jewishness, Dan's warmth came despite Gene's (lapsed) Episcopalianism.

One unseasonably overcast morning at the end of July, Gene opened the door of Victory Enterprises. Behind the reception desk sat an excellently made-up divorcée in her late twenties: her hair puffed into a vanilla scoop, she looked like the belle of a singles apartment building.

“Hi there, Mr. Matheny.” She smiled.

Gene returned the smile. “Hello, Georgia.”

He coveted Dan Grossblatt's secretary, but without the edge of lust—Gene, having a good deal of the ascetic in him, did not permit himself to conjecture on any other than the good-natured delights offered by Caroline. Two years earlier, however, he had been promoted from a district manager to treasurer, removing to a carpeted suite in Van Vliet's home office. Standing in the doorway, his chest had swollen with pride. Pinch me, he'd thought, and I'll wake up. At the same time Gene had been baffled by a question: Why was a self-proclaimed one-of-the-little-people so bedazzled by his entry into the upper echelon of management? To shrive himself, he hired as his secretary an efficient, elderly Mexican. Ernestina Saenz's left eyelid drooped, and an almost visible racial chip rested on one squashy shoulder. Gene came to accept his offices as a place to work. He never considered firing his secretary—however antagonistic she might be. This oblation to his early god benefited him. Caroline's uncles, Hend and Richard, would shake their heads, one or the other saying, “You've got to hand it to Gene. He's the only practicing liberal around. Listen, why not let him deal with those labor bastards? One look at this Saenz woman should end any squawks with Fair Employment.” Gene's role was considerably larger and more influential than that of any preceding treasurer.

Georgia touched a pale frond of bangs. Her smile had turned questioning.

“Mr. Grossblatt has some papers for me to sign,” Gene said. “Should I go in?”

“He's in conference. If you'll wait one second, I'll—”

Dan's office door burst open. There Dan stood, one arm around the gray-seersucker shoulder of a fat little man. Dan blazed with unsuppressed excitement. His broad features mobile, his eyes glittering, he introduced Raymond Earle.

Raymond Earle took Gene's extended hand. “Mr. Matheny. Are you connected with Victory Enterprises?”

“Only as an investor,” Gene replied.

Raymond Earle smiled into the distance. Gene shivered. The air conditioner, he decided, was too low.

Raymond Earle said, “Mr. Grossblatt—”

“Dan.”

“Dan. Mother's expecting you tomorrow. At nine.”

“Don't worry. I'll be there with the papers.”

They exchanged farewells. In his office, Dan gestured for Gene to sit, but he himself kept pacing. Dan always had surplus vitality. Today he seemed buoyed by helium. No. Gene remembered his writing days. Be specific. Dan is buoyed by laughing gas. Dan was smiling at the skeleton high-rise going up across Wilshire, rapping his knuckles on the window in time to the hollow clang of a steelworker. Dan, having a kind of interior exultation.

“Who was that?” Gene inquired finally.

“I introduced you. Raymond Earle.”

“I don't like him.”

“A red-hot liberal prejudging?”

“Once in a while, Dan, the flesh is weak.”

“He won't look you in the eye.”

“He's strange. Creepy.”

“It's the eyes, that's all.”

“I suppose,” Gene said uncertainly.

“His mother's selling me her acreage in the Valley. Prime stuff, right off the freeway.” Dan bounced to teak shelves, filled with awards and trophies, straightening a large silver bowl engraved that Dan Grossblatt was friend to the Big Brothers. “He talked her into it.”

“How?”

Dan shrugged. “Probably gave her some line he needed the cash to save his life. She's a health nut.”

“That's pretty low.”

Red exploded on Dan's cheeks. “Listen, I should ask what he told her? I should interfere? The fat little turd wants her to sell. And I'm the only buyer she'll deal with.”

After a minute, Gene-the-treasurer asked, “Did you get it at a good price?”

“Half what it's worth!” Dan replied pugnaciously, then he melted. “Gene, get your ass out of that sling. Take a look.” He was unrolling plans, using heavy ashtrays and paperweights to keep blue drawings flat. The two men stood over the desk, Dan's forefinger moving a vigorous guided tour. “This is tentative. One thing's for sure, though. Everything under one roof. Like the idea?”

“You've hooked me. When can I put in?”

“No investors.”

“Dan, don't play me. I'm sold.”

“I'm not giving you a line.”

“But this is big. Can you handle it?”

“Who could?” Dan rolled up plans, snapping elastic around them. “I'm going into hock. Way over my head.” He handed Gene the Orange County agreement in triplicate. “Here,” he said.

Gene sat down, pushing up his glasses, reading.

“It's kosher.”

“I always read before I sign.”

“You're a cautious man, Gene.”

And Dan took a cigar from his humidor, prowling the grass-papered office as he lit up. Gene finished reading. With each signature, Dan impatiently removed the stapled form.

“That wraps it up. My last investor in my last syndication.”

“What?”

“After this mall, I'm retiring.”

Gene couldn't prevent a smile. “To play golf?”

“The way I do business, you need to entertain. And let's face it, entertaining's not Beverly's forte. You might say she stinks.”

Gene considered Beverly's fragile bone structure elegant. Her eyes, to him, held a deep, mysterious sadness which he connected with artistic sensitivity. Mostly, though, he respected her. While he didn't think much of her overpink pastels or those watered-down Chagall oils, he did admire her for scrimping out a year of West Los Angeles livelihood from them. She had borne aloft the banner of art that years ago he'd found too heavy to lift.

“You really can be a prick, Dan.”

Dan, scrawling his name under Gene's, glanced up. “What?”

“She's a painter, not a housewife.”

“That's news? Gene, why do you think this mall is such a big deal? You know we fouled up once. I'm not going to let it happen again.”

“You're going to alter your entire business?”

“Tell me what else I can do? Yeah, I'm getting out.”

“But—”

“The mall'll bring in plenty. Okay, so maybe I put together an occasional deal, but it'll be gravy, not a living. She won't have to do a thing.” He scribbled his final signature. “The damn thing should be up already! I hate like hell having her push herself when she should be taking it easy.” He stopped, actually blushing. “Oh hell. Gene, don't tell anyone. And that means your wife. It's not due until the middle of February. We just found out.”

A baby? To Gene's surprise, his vision blurred and Dan was one huge, shimmering grin. A baby? When Cricket, his daughter, his beloved only child, was four, Caroline had had a pelvic inflammation that made it impossible for her to conceive again. Gene, experiencing a jab of envy, resisted a crazy impulse to embrace his friend, instead making a fist and lightly punching the smooth Italian silk over Dan's biceps.

“Hey, congratulations.”

Dan was still beaming. “Gene, come to the house for lunch. That is, if you don't object to burned cheese sandwiches and instant coffee.”

“Isn't Beverly working?”

“Why do you think I go home? She forgets to eat. Come on.”

Gene hesitated. “I'll be intruding.”

“Charge it to business. We'll talk about the Van Vliet's lease.”

“Locations aren't my department.”

“For a technicality you're going to pass this up?”

Gene had to laugh. “You're one domineering man,” he said.

“Somebody has to goose the world,” Dan said, propelling Gene through the door.

Dan could get 80% financing. He sold off four parcels. If he'd waited he could've gotten more, but the profit was there and no investor squawked. He borrowed on his life insurance, he borrowed on the boys' trusts, he even borrowed on his S&G stock, he borrowed and borrowed. “You realize you're taking an insane gamble?” inquired his accountant. “Once I pull it off, you'll call it vision.” “Okay, Dan, you're in over your head. But a quarter of a million on a house? Now?” Dan, not a man to live in his predecessor's home, was building north of Sunset in Beverly Hills. “Fuck off my business. And you say one word to Beverly, I'll kill you.”

So Beverly disliked the house plans for the eight bathrooms, the sunken master tub with Jacuzzi, the two ornamental pools in the enclosed entry, rather than the strain the bills were putting on Dan's blood pressure. She knew Dan was working too hard, but Dan in motion was an irresistible force. Right now he was wooing prospective tenants with the same restaurant chumminess he'd pursued investors.

As often as possible they ate at home. Alix and Jamie would go to their rooms, she would turn on the Gas Company's Evening Concert—low, Dan wasn't wild for classical—and lie on the couch, her bare feet on his lap, while he went over the mall figures. Occasionally he would smile at her.

“D'you think it'll be a boy?” she'd asked.

“Or a girl,” he would agree.

“I can't see you with a girl.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don't know. Too masculine, I guess.”

“Buzz, I'll be the strictest old man in town.”

They would smile at one another. Camellia branches would rustle at leaded glass windows, and although there is no working definition of happiness, Beverly knew she was as close to it as any human can get.

She miscarried.

One rainy night in September Dan sped her eastward to Cedars of Lebanon. Her hands clenched. Punishment, she thought. A sudden cloudburst slashed on the windshield, and Dan was forced to take his arm from around her. The moans, ahh, ahh, ahh, weren't part of her. Punishment, she thought.

A painful miscarriage. She recovered slowly.

6

In the March 17, 1963, Sunday real-estate section of the
Los Angeles Times:

MALL TO RISE IN SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

Final plans have been announced for construction of a 550,000-square-foot
, $
15-million shopping center fronting on Ventura between Cornice and Avianca roads. The 20.5 acres, adjacent to the Ventura Freeway, is said to be worth in excess of $3 million. The shopping center will be completely enclosed. It is a project of Victory Enterprises and its financial partner, Encino Mutual Savings and Loan
.

Dan R. Grossblatt, president of Victory Enterprises, says it is the first such facility on the West Coast. The complex will include a climate monitor
—
a central computer which collects information on air conditioning, ventilation, and heating
—
an indoor skating rink, a motion picture theater, a children's amusement park, a Van Vliet's market, and a Best Western motel facility
.