Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (35 page)

She shrugged.

“Go on–think about it and tell me.”

“A lot of money, I guess.”

“You’d be surprised how little. A million dollars is about half a small hospital. With a million dollars you could give all the children in a place like, say, South Korea, maybe one cupful of milk at each meal for two days. It isn’t much, really, when you come to think of it, yet it represents the entire life earnings of about six average men–the whole working energy of six men during their entire lives. A million dollars is a lot of things. It’s a college education for maybe a hundred boys. It’s a home of their own for maybe seventy-five people. It’s a pursuit plane for the Army, it’s a new television station, but one thing it’s not: it’s not something any intelligent person can consider a bore.”

“You’re saying it’s power,” she said. “I’m not interested in power, either.”

“Of course not. Neither am I. I wasn’t trying to say money is power. I’m saying that when you hold a million dollars in your hand, you are in a very real sense holding the entire working lives of six men, and you better be damn careful what you do with it!”

“Are you trying to tell me you’re going to leave your money to charity?”

“I don’t know. I’m saying that we’ve got a problem we ought to start working on together, a responsibility that is mine, which someday may be yours. I got a lot of training before I was given any responsibility, and I am appalled to think what you may have to do without any training at all. Susan, do you know I have a bad heart?”

“No! No one told me.”

“I never told your mother–there didn’t seem to be any point in worrying her. It’s not very bad, but it’s at least conceivable that I could die any time. And frankly, Susan, leaving a lot of money to you would be like giving a gun to a baby!”

“I’m not going to let that part of it worry me,” she said. “I hope nothing happens to you, but I’m not going to worry about money. I’m not going to let money ruin my life the way it’s ruined yours and Mother’s.”

“Let’s at least be accurate,” he said dryly. “Money has not ruined your mother’s life, and it has not ruined mine. I’m not willing to concede that either your mother or I have been more unhappy than most people, but if we have been, it’s not because of money. The money has come as a by-product.”

“It’s stupid, the way you work all the time!” she said. “You don’t know how to live. If I’d been Mother, I would have divorced you long ago. I don’t know why you have to work all the time–ever since I can remember! I think you must have a guilt complex. You’re a masochist!”

“Which of your friends is an amateur psychoanalyst? The playwright?”

“He understands people,” she said in confusion.

“Tell him to stop trying to give pat explanations of men and women,” Hopkins replied. “If he had learned that, his play might not have closed down so quickly.”

“It was a great play!” she said. “The public just doesn’t . . .”

“. . . appreciate great art,” Hopkins finished wryly for her. “I know. But Shakespeare didn’t do badly in his time, and not many good plays today shut down as soon as they open. If you war to know what the public wants, I’ll tell you: great art on the extremely rare occasions when it’s available, but no phony art–they’d rather have good honest blood and thunder. The public doesn’t like fakers, and
neither do I. If you want to meet some playwrights, tell me, and I’ll get some good ones up here for you.”

There was a brief silence during which he got up and poured himself another drink. While his back was turned she said passionately, “I want to get some happiness out of life! I don’t want to be like you and Mother. I want to have a good time. And no matter what you say, there’s nothing wrong with that!”

He turned toward her slowly. “Of course there isn’t,” he said. “I just want to see that you set about it properly.”

“I don’t need any help. Not from you, anyway. I don’t think you’re anyone to be giving lessons!”

“I’m not trying to give you a lesson,” he said. “I think we’re getting a little off the subject. I’m talking about learning to handle responsibilities.”

“I don’t want to handle responsibilities. I want to get some fun out of life. It’s time somebody in this family did!”

“How would you set about getting fun out of life?”

“I’d give parties. I’d give beautiful parties. I wouldn’t try to change the world. I don’t have any God complex. I just want to have a good time!”

“You’ll get tired of parties,” he said.

“Maybe. But by then I’ll have had a good time!”

She was breathing hard, and he saw that she was upset. “Believe me, I want you to have a good time,” he said gently, “but people who have that primarily in mind rarely accomplish it.”

“What do you want me to do? You must have asked me up here alone for some reason. You never did anything like this before!”

“Look, Susan,” he said. “I don’t want you to continue accusing me and your mother. I’m quite ready to admit that I’ve made a great many mistakes, and that a great many things are the matter with me. I’m not apologizing to you–there would be no point to that. And there’s no point in continuous accusations. The main thing is for us to see if we can start working together on what really are common problems. I can’t undo the past, but I’m going to try to be of more help to you in the future.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet. Let’s think it over. I have a number of ideas. If you’d like, it might be nice if you moved into this apartment for a while–we could see each other evenings. Perhaps it would be fun for
your mother and you and me to take a trip together somewhere. Someday it might be possible for me to arrange for you to get some sort of job working closely with me, if you’d like that. We both should think this whole matter over.”

“I don’t want to work with you!”

“You don’t have to. I’m just trying to think of ways in which you might get some training if you don’t want to go to college, and ways in which we might grow closer together.”

“Why don’t you leave me alone? You always have!”

“Susan,” he said quietly, “when I was your age, I didn’t have much money, and nobody paid much attention to me. I had a good chance to grow up. Now I’ve made a lot of money–I’ve never thought about it in this way before, but I suppose that if everything I have were liquidated today, there would be more than five million dollars. I know this talk of money shocks you–undoubtedly you think it vulgar. But I think this is a time for plain talking. For better or for worse, you’re rich. It’s nothing for you to be ashamed of, or proud of, or to worry about–it’s just a fact. Now there are two kinds of rich–foolish rich and responsible rich. I’ve hated the foolish rich all my life, and I’ve never seen anybody who was foolish rich and happy for long. It seems to me that you’re getting a good start on the way to being foolish rich. If you keep on the way your mother says you have been, you’re going to make yourself miserable. You’re going to get involved in a lot of half-baked marriages and divorces, and by the time you’re thirty, you’re going to find there’s no way in the world for you to have a good time. A lot of this is my fault, but I refuse to go into that now. What I’m trying to do is help you and myself too. This is just as much my problem as it is yours, and I plan to do something about it. I’m asking your help.”

She stared at him a moment. “Why are you doing this?” she asked finally. “Why the long speeches all of a sudden?”

“Because you’re my daughter,” he said. That sounded strangely inadequate, and he added awkwardly, “Because I love you.”

“That’s not true!” she exclaimed. “Don’t be a hypocrite! You’ve hardly bothered to see me since I was born!”

He was shocked at her vehemence. “People love in different ways,” he said.

“Why can’t you be honest? You don’t love me and you don’t love Mother. To tell the truth, I don’t think you love anyone–I don’t
think you love anyone in the whole world! And I don’t want to be like that!”

Before he could say anything, she got up and fled from the apartment, slamming the door behind her. “Susie!” he called, getting up and following her. “
That’s not true!
”

Frantically she rang for the elevator. He stood in the door of his apartment and said, “Come back and sit down. Let’s be reasonable.”

“I don’t want to be reasonable,” she replied. “You and Mother have been reasonable all your lives. I’m going to try something else.”

Before he could answer, the elevator doors slid open, revealing the calm and aloof face of the girl who operated them. “Going down,” she said. Susan stepped into the elevator, and the doors rumbled shut behind her. Hopkins was left alone.

E
DWARD
S
CHULTZ WALKED UP
the stairs to Judge Saul Bernstein’s office. He wore a shabby raincoat over his uniform. He had always had his uniforms provided by his employer and for years had refused to buy a suit to wear on his day off. He walked into Bernstein’s office boldly, without knocking, and stared for a moment at a man sitting in a wheel chair there. Then he turned and looked at Bernstein, who was sitting behind his desk. “You wanted me?” he asked harshly.

“Yes,” Bernstein said calmly. “Sit down, Mr. Schultz.”

Edward remained standing. “Who’s he?” he demanded, jerking his thumb toward the man in the wheel chair.

“This is Mr. Sims, Mr. Rath’s lawyer,” Bernstein said. “Sit down, Mr. Schultz. We have some things we wish to talk over with you.”

“Why isn’t my lawyer here?”

“This isn’t a trial, and you are at liberty to call your lawyer whenever you want,” Bernstein said. “I suggest that you hear what we have to say first.”

“We want to do you a favor,” Sims said icily.

“A favor? What kind of a favor?”

“We think we can save you money.”

Edward sat down in the nearest chair. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“We want to give you a preview of the hearings on this document you brought in signed by the late Mrs. Rath,” Sims said quietly. “We think that might save you money–lots of it.”

“She signed it!” Edward said.

“We know that,” Sims replied. “But by a curious coincidence, she never told anyone about it, and there are no witnesses to her signature. Do you know why the law generally requires witnesses to a signature?”

“It doesn’t always!” Edward said. “I read that any document can be considered a will if in the opinion of the court it represents the intention of the deceased.” He spoke in a monotone.

“That’s true,” Sims replied gravely. “But there usually is some reason even for technicalities in the law. The reason that witnesses to a signature are generally required is that theoretically–theoretically, mind you–it would be possible for a man to trick an elderly woman into signing something without knowing it. I don’t say that happened in this case, mind you–I just say it’s theoretically possible.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“Of course not,” Sims replied soothingly. “Of course not. But if you persist in pressing your claim against the estate, there are a few facts I can prove, and I intend to bring them all before the court. For one thing, I intend to show it was part of your job to type up the checks Mrs. Rath used to pay her bills and to submit them for her signature. I also intend to prove that her eyesight was extremely poor during her later years. And finally, Mr. Schultz, I will prove that you are dishonest.”

“How?”

“By presenting at least five witnesses who will swear that you asked them to pad bills,” Sims said mildly.

Bernstein, who had been looking at Schultz’s face, glanced away. His stomach was hurting badly.

“They’re lying,” Schultz said.

“I doubt that the court would think so,” Sims continued evenly. “Our witnesses happen to be the most respected tradesmen in town. And there are other things we could look into. It might be interesting,
for instance, to compare your bank balance with your income tax returns–that too might show you are dishonest.”

Edward’s face went white. “You can’t . . .” he began.

“Just keep quiet a moment,” Sims said. “I’m going to give you a chance to save your neck. If you withdraw this document of yours and sign a release giving up all claim to the Rath estate, you can get out of this by paying only a small fee to your lawyer for the trouble you’ve already caused him. It’s entirely possible, of course, that your lawyer will sue you for giving him a fraudulent case, but that will be between you and him. If you continue your suit he’ll be much more likely to sue you himself, and that won’t be all. We may reconsider and sue for all the bills which you’ve been padding during the last thirty years. If you pursue this fraudulent claim, you’ll walk out of here without a cent, and you may go to jail!”

“Wait a minute,” Bernstein said, “You understand, Mr. Schultz, that we don’t want you to sign any sort of release if you feel further investigation would clear you of the suspicions Mr. Sims has formed. If you have a clear conscience, I suggest you sign nothing and that you call your lawyer immediately. If, on the other hand, you know that Mr. Sims’s suspicions are justified, you will probably be saving yourself and everyone concerned a lot of trouble if you drop your case here and now.”

“I have prepared those papers,” Sims said, pointing to some neatly typed documents on Bernstein’s desk. “It is an ordinary release, and by signing it you will give up all claim to the Rath estate. I’d like you to sign all five copies, and we’ll have a witness come in from next door.”