Carriage Trade (34 page)

“What's your role going to be in all of this, Moe?” the younger man asked carefully, staring at the check in disbelief.

“Why, your partner, of course! Your silent partner. I'm a behind-the-scenes type person.”

“But I'm to be in charge. That's clear.”

“Oh, absolutely. You're going to be the president of Tarkmgton's Store, or whatever the hell you decide to call it. Me, I won't even set my foot inside the door. You wouldn't want a Moe Minskoff type inside this fancy store of yours.”

“Will this really work, Moe?” His look was suddenly anxious.

“Hell, yes,” he said. “I make just three rules for you, Solly—I mean Silas. Rule one, never go back to your old neighborhood, not even to see your old lady. Rule two, grow a mustache. It will change the way you look, but it won't spoil your smile. Rule three, always remember: the richer a man is, the more he's loved.”

16

“In the parlance of penology, your son has been transferred from New York State's list of correctionally correctables to that of the correctionally corrected,” Moe Minskoff said. “Congratulations, Mrs. Tarcher!”

“Hmm,” she said.

“I must say what a great honor it is to meet you, Mrs. Tarcher,” he said with a bow. “It is a great honor to meet the mother who has produced and raised such a wonderful son, Mrs. Tarcher. You must be proud, very proud indeed. It isn't often that we officials with the New York State penal system have the honor to meet a mother of your caliber. Some of the mothers we have to deal with, Mrs. Tarcher—well, you just wouldn't believe some of those other mothers. Believe it or not, there are mothers out there who have no interest in their sons' rehabilitations or their sons' futures. But you, I can see, are a special case, just as your son is a very special case on our docket of prisoner rehabilitation cases. And may I compliment you, too, on this attractive shop? I can see from the items of millinery displayed here that you do beautiful work.”

“Thank you, Mr. Minskoff,” Rose said. “It was my own mother who started this business. My mother is Leah Roth. She still does some of the designing, but she hasn't been all that well lately.”

“Ah, I'm sorry to hear that, Mrs. Tarcher, truly sorry.”

“Thank you. But now tell me what I can do to help Solly.”

“Well, let me begin by explaining what we of the penal system have been able to accomplish thus far,” he said. “As you know, our job is to see to it that your son, recently released from his incarceration, takes his place as a useful and productive member of our society. That's the American way, and I'm sure your own wishes for your son's future are the same. As you can imagine, one of the greatest problems facing a recently released convict is the stigma of his incarceration. The stigma of incarceration can affect a man's ability to find work and his ability to establish credit, as I'm sure you can understand. But, fortunately, the people of this great state of ours have empowered officials such as myself to help the former prisoner overcome this stigma, particularly a former prisoner of such sterling promise as your son. To help someone such as your son overcome any such stigma, we are empowered to provide him with a new legal identity, including a new name.”

“A new name?”

“Yes. In order that your son's past record will not come back to haunt him, the State of New York has supplied your son with a new legal appellation. We want to help him make a clean break with his criminal past and make a fresh start in civilian life with a clean slate. Maybe you've heard of our criminal protective program, which is similar to our witness protection program. Your son will henceforth be known as Silas Tarkington. We felt this was close enough to his former name to be acceptable. His full name, incidentally, is now Silas Rogers Tarkington.”

She looked suspicious. “Tarkington?” she said. “That's a goy name, isn't it?”

“Possibly,” he said. “But it has a certain distinction, don't you think? There's a certain drumroll quality to it: Silas Rogers Tarkington.”

“Silas Rogers Tarkington,” she repeated. “So my son is now Silas Rogers Tarkington.”

“Correct,” he said. “Naturally, it will be to your son's advantage, and to the advantage of our overall rehabilitation program, if you no longer refer to your son as Solomon Tarcher. In fact, if I may make a suggestion, you may wish to think of Solomon Tarcher as a dead person, or at least as a person who is no longer a part of your life. Your friends, I think, would understand and sympathize with this attitude, considering the disgrace and humiliation he put you and your late husband through at the time of his arrest, trial, and conviction.”

“Oh, yes,” she said sadly, shaking her head. “It was awful, Mr. Minskoff. It shortened my Abe's life, I know it did. He was never the same afterward.”

“But in your heart, Mrs. Tarcher, you will always know that you have not lost a son. Instead, your son has been reborn, as a new man. He was a young man who had started down a dangerous and wayward path, but now, reborn, he is headed along the path of righteousness. That must be a very comforting thought for you to hold, Mrs. Tarcher.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “It is—I suppose.”

“Of course it is! What mother wouldn't be bursting with pride at such a development? What a pity your late husband couldn't have lived to see it!”

“Yes,” she said.

“Now,” he said, “in addition to helping erase any traces of your son's, shall we say, untidy past, the State of New York is willing to go even further in his behalf. Isn't this a wonderful state we live in, Mrs. Tarcher? Over in Jersey, they don't do nothing—excuse me, anything, like we do here. What I am also empowered by New York State to do for him is in the important area of employment. We must help this young man establish himself in a career. Now, it occurred to my office that an ideal career for him would be in retailing. Retailing, after all, is in the blood that courses through his veins. You, your late husband, and your mother have all been successful and highly respected retailers. Prior to his arrest, your son gained some experience in the fur business, and even fencing furs—though we don't like to use that expression—is a form of retailing, is it not? Up in Hillsdale, your son took courses; this is one of the services our great state's penal system offers. He took courses in business management and accounting and excelled in both of them. He also studied manners and diplomacy under the great Andrew Carnegie himself. He acquired all the aspects of a successful manager of a retail operation.

“Now, my office has located an excellent site for a retailing operation such as your son is so ideally suited for. It is an old abandoned mansion on Fifth Avenue, right in the heart of the city's most prestigious midtown shopping district. It is slated to be torn down but can be saved from the wrecker's ball for a price. The building itself is in excellent condition, though the interior will require some work to convert it into retail space, and this will also cost some money. The State of New York is willing to provide some funding for this enterprise but unfortunately, as in any bureaucracy, there are certain budgetary limitations and restrictions. Your son himself has, as you know, come into an inheritance from his father, and he is eager to put most or all of that sum into the start-up costs of his new business, which the State of New York, I might add, has carefully examined and found to be highly feasible and potentially highly profitable, with someone of your son's caliber running it. The State of New York has unilaterally approved every aspect of the plan. Unfortunately, the State of New York, with its budgetary limitations, cannot completely underwrite the project. It can only help. The project—of which we officially approve, of course—is a highly ambitious one. Your son wants to create a retail establishment of the highest caliber, which I'm sure is what you'd want for him yourself. He wants a class act, in other words, and who can blame him? He comes from a family that's always been a class act. And so, to help defray the start-up costs of the enterprise, it occurred to me and others in my office up in Albany that you yourself might be willing to be an investor in the project.”

She looked at him narrowly. “If Solly needs money, why doesn't he come and ask me for it himself? Why did he send you?”

“Silas.”

“Silas—that used to be Solly. Why?”

“My dear Mrs. Tarcher, there are really two answers to your question,” he said. “One is that I am simply doing my job. It is my job in the Rehabilitation Office to do whatever I can to help ex-convicts get back on their feet, to explore every possible avenue to achieve that objective. It's a heartwarming job, I must say, trying to help men who have strayed from the paths of righteousness, and help give new direction to their lives, to help them recover from the trauma of incarceration, but you're not really interested in hearing about my job. The second answer to your question is that your son asked me to come and state his case to you today because he is still too ashamed of what he did six years ago to face you. He is afraid you might not wish to see him. He is still too filled with shame over the disgrace he brought down upon his family and his family's good name. I'm sure you can understand these feelings, Mrs. Tarcher. He is, after all, a man. He is afraid that if he saw you at this point, he might break down. This is how deeply ashamed he is of the deep hurt he inflicted on you, his own mother, the only mother he'll ever have, and the mother he worships more than any woman in the world.” Moe Minskoff wiped a tear from his eye. “Forgive me, Mrs. Tarcher. In my line of social work, it's hard not to get emotionally involved in certain aspects of my case load.”

She hesitated. “Do you always do this?” she said. “When you're trying to get an ex-convict back on his feet, do you always come to the mother and ask for money?”

“Certainly not, Mrs. Tarcher.”

“Here. Use my hankie. It's clean.”

“Thank you.” He blew his nose noisily into the proffered handkerchief. “Certainly not,” he said again. “Most of the mothers of ex-convicts don't have a pot to piss in. Excuse my French. In my business you get used to a lot of rough language. What I'm saying is that most ex-convicts are not of your son's caliber, and most mothers of ex-convicts are not women of your caliber and social position. You'd be surprised how many mothers don't give a rat's ass what happens to their sons—pardon my French again.”

“That's okay. You can use rat's ass with me.”

“That's the only word for it,” he said. “But it's true. You are a special case. You are a very caring woman, I can tell. You've raised two fine children—”

“Huh! One of those fine children just got out of prison.”

“Oh, you won't recognize him now, Mrs. Tarcher. That's how much he's changed. But the real point I want to make to you, Mrs. Tarcher, is that I did not come here to ask you for money, as you put it. Remember that this is all a part of a carefully organized rehabilitation plan that has been worked out in Albany. What we are offering you is an opportunity to invest in a new business that we in Albany have studied thoroughly and feel will be very lucrative and profitable. Other investors have already approached us and are highly eager to get on board. But we felt—I felt, my superiors in Albany felt, and your son also felt—that you, of all people, deserved to be let in on the ground floor of an operation that is going to make you a lot of money. Who deserves to get rich from this more than you, who brought the retailing genius of Silas Tarkington into the world?”

“Hmm,” she said. “What would I get for this investment?”

“You would get shares of stock in Tarkington's, Incorporated, class A stock. It is expected that, once your son's store's operations are under way, quarterly dividends will be paid at the rate of nine percent per annum, which I think you'll agree is a nice return on your money. I could send you a prospectus, but there's not much time. Too many other investors want to get on board.”

“Don't bother. I could never read those things. My late husband could, but not me.”

“Your son plans his store as a series of small, select boutiques, each specializing in a different category of choice merchandise. It occurred to your son, and we in Albany agree, that in view of the fine reputation of Leah Roth millinery, a Leah Roth boutique might be placed somewhere prominently on one of the selling floors. Your son thought you might like having an outlet right on Fifth Avenue, the city's principal shopping thoroughfare, rather than down here, which is a bit out of the way nowadays.”

“Hmm,” she said thoughtfully. “The millinery business isn't what it used to be, I'll say that much. It used to be that every woman worth her salt had to have a hat for every occasion—for morning, noon, and night. Mrs. John Jacob Astor certainly did. She was a client of ours, you know. But women just don't seem to wear hats anymore, except to special things like weddings and funerals. Now everything's hair, hair, hair. Women spend more on their hair than they do on hats. When did hair take over from hats? Don't ask me how that happened.”

“And of course, as an initial investor and as a family member, you'd have your space on the floor rent free.”

“Rent free?”

“Absolutely.”

She hesitated. “Well, let me think about this,” she said. “Let me talk it over with my lawyer.”

“By all means, Mrs. Tarcher,” he said. “But of course while you wait for a legal opinion, the shares the State of New York wants you to have first crack at will most likely have been snapped up by other investors, and you'll have missed the chance of a lifetime. All you'll be left with is a big legal bill. But do talk it over with your attorney, and let's just hope there are a few shares left for you. I hope there will be. But I can't promise anything.”