Max (55 page)

‘How does your mother feel about all this?'

‘She says that if Ruby and Benny go to the slammer, she's going to kill herself.'

‘You believe that?'

‘My mother?' Max shook his head. ‘Not a chance. If she killed herself, who'd be here to torment me?'

‘You got something there.'

‘Sam, tell me, what do I do? You know as well as I do what's going to happen at that meeting. They're going to come up with three, four million dollars that can be pinned onto Ruby and Benny. Freddy tells me they're going back twelve years. Thank God, they can't trace the cash those two
momzers
skimmed.'

‘Maybe it won't be that much, maybe only a million or so. Remember that most of it went through Jake Stein, so it won't be easy to pin it on Ruby.'

‘Don't change a thing. You know why Sally's coming out here?'

‘Sort of.'

‘That goddamn husband of hers is ass to ass with every big bank in New York. You can be damn sure he's been talking to the people at the Chase. It's one thing to be a classy uptown Jew like Felix and it's something else to be a vulgar Henry Street kike like Max Britsky. As for the telephone company, I been a bone in their throat ever since we busted the trust. Sally'll be out here because her five percent of my stock is worth better than ten million at today's prices, but that ain't enough for those greedy bastards. They want the whole pie – they want the company – and this is the chance they been waiting for. They'll tell me, either you hand it over or we prosecute your brothers. Sam, what do I do?'

‘You really think that's it?'

‘I know that's it.'

‘They can't ask you to hand over the company. That puts them in Jake's class.'

‘Right. They'll simply ask me to make restitution.'

‘Can you?'

‘I don't know. I don't know what they're cooking. I don't know how much they'll come up with. Feldman says that without question, Ruby and Benny entered into a conspiracy with Jake Stein. Under the law, that could make Ruby and Benny responsible for the entire sum, which might be eight, nine, ten million. How in hell could I come up with ten million?'

‘Max, my stock is worth three million. I'll sell it tomorrow if you need it to keep control.'

‘Sam, I love you, but that ain't the way it works. I'd dump the whole package before I touch a share of your stock or Freddy's or Cliff's. Anyway, if I know those shrewd bastards, they took it into consideration. You wouldn't have to give me the stock. The voting rights would be enough. But they know that, and they won't leave such loopholes. The choice is up to me. I tell them to go fuck themselves, and I hold on to the company, and Ruby and Benny go to jail, and we see the biggest scandal this town has seen since Fatty Arbuckle.'

Fred Feldman confirmed Max's thinking. ‘You might as well know,' he told Max, ‘that Upperman checked into the Beverly Hills Hotel with Sally. I slipped the bell captain a five-spot to let me know when, and I added another five to it for him to make some notes about who the Uppermans hobnob with. Last night, they had a long, talky dinner with someone who fits the description of Bert Bellamy. My guess is that Bellamy's payoff will be your job, president of Britsky Productions.'

‘So they're burying me before they hang me. How do they know what I've decided? I don't know myself.'

‘My guess is that Sally has assured them you won't let Ruby and Benny take it.'

‘What does Sally think? That I'm decent? If she does, it's the first time.'

‘What do you think?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Come on, Max, you must know. You've had almost a month to think about this.'

‘Does the conspiracy thing hold? Are you sure of it?'

‘Look, Max,' Feldman said quietly, as if to make the point even more strongly, ‘the conspiracy factor is not something they created to hit us with. There was a conspiracy to defraud. The embezzlement could not have occurred as it did without the connivance of each of the three conspirators. We weren't certain of that at the beginning. We are now. Stein controlled the books, but he was in a sense a prisoner of his office. He needed an outside man on the lot and he needed an outside man in the theatres. So the fraud was an almost classical conspiracy. One of the conspirators died, but the law does not divide responsibility for the fruits of the crime. Ruby and Benny are responsible for the whole thing. And by the way, have you seen Ruby lately?'

‘No, and I don't want to.'

‘Well, he was in to see me. I wasn't going to tell you this, but he broke down and cried like a baby. He begged me to use my influence on you to get him off the hook.'

Max shrugged. ‘All right. Use it.'

‘I have no intentions of doing so, and I told him so. Anyway, I know you too well to imagine that anything I might say would make a difference.'

The board meeting was scheduled to take place on the lot, in the VIP dining room. Max had arranged passes for the four off-lot members, sending Sally's pass to the hotel and arranging for a studio limousine to be there to pick her up. He was still in his office on the afternoon of the meeting when his telephone rang. It was Pat Maguire, the guard at the west gate, and he said, ‘The limo is here with Mrs Upperman. Shall I let it through?'

‘Pat, she's got a pass, hasn't she? So what in hell are you calling me for?'

‘I'm sorry, Mr Britsky. I should have known better. Sure, she's got a pass, but her husband's name ain't on it.'

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. Are you telling me her husband's with her?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Mr Felix Upperman?'

‘That's what he calls himself.'

‘Mr Felix Upperman. Pat, you were absolutely right to call me. Mrs Upperman goes through. Mr Upperman does not. He can stand at the gate and wait until Mrs Upperman is through with her meeting or you can phone for a taxi to take him back to his hotel.'

‘You don't want the limo to take him back, Mr Britsky? I mean, I've never heard you tell me to call a taxi for anyone –'

‘Pat, the limousine functions on studio business. I can't imagine any studio business that brings Mr Upperman here.'

‘But Mr Britsky, sometimes it can be an hour before a taxi comes.'

‘So it can,' Max agreed. ‘Sometimes an hour, sometimes even more.'

Max put down the telephone and smiled for the first time in days. ‘Little things,' he said aloud. ‘Sometimes, they're more important than the big things.'

Then he walked over to the VIP dining room. Feldman and Avanti and Sally were there, and as he entered, Sally turned on him in fury. ‘You malignant bastard!' she cried. ‘To humiliate a man whose boots you aren't fit to wipe!'

Max spread his arms. ‘Sally, Sally, I didn't know he'd take it so hard. After all, he understands the confidentiality of a meeting like this.'

‘He didn't come here for the meeting. All he wished was to walk around the lot and look at it –'

‘Now that he's taking over.'

‘He's never been in a studio before.'

‘Poor man. But won't he have time enough for that?'

Sally pulled herself together. ‘The West Coast hasn't improved you. I don't know why I should have thought that it would. You're the same old deplorable little delinquent from Henry Street.' And with that, she turned on her heel, walked to the other side of the long table, and seated herself. For Max, the amazing thing was how little she had changed. Like Sarah, she adapted well to the advantages of wealth. She wore a stockinette Chanel dress with satin collar and cuffs, a knit scarf loosely carried, a diamond of at least four karats, and a pearl necklace. Her marcelled hair displayed spit curls and showed no gray. She had always been slender, and though she had aged well and changed little, Max could not connect her with the Sally he had known years ago; and it occurred to him that if he saw her on the street, he might well have walked by without recognizing her.

Feldman and Avanti had watched Sally's outburst in bewilderment, and now Max felt ashamed of his tawdry little triumph. He walked over to Sally and said, ‘If you want me to, I'll have them admit your husband. He can have the freedom of the lot.'

‘Go to hell,' Sally said to him.

There was a telephone on a small side table. Max picked it up and asked for the gate. ‘Pat,' he said, ‘is Mr Upperman still there?'

‘Yes, sir, waiting for his cab.'

‘Admit him to the lot or tell him he can have the limousine take him back to his hotel, whichever he prefers. Give the cabby a five-spot for his trouble if you can stop him, and remind me that you laid it out.'

He put down the telephone, and Sally said to him, ‘And aren't you the big, gracious host.'

‘I do my best.'

The room was filling up. The last to arrive was Frank Humboldt, from the San Francisco firm of Humboldt, Lee and Morrison, certified public accountants. Mr Humboldt carried a briefcase, and out of it he took nine bound folders, one for each of the board members.

‘These reports,' Feldman told them, ‘contain all the information pertinent to the reason for this extraordinary meeting, namely the embezzlement of monies over a period of twelve years. I have examined this statement together with Mr Avanti, and we are both satisfied that it presents a fair and reasonably complete picture. Mr Humboldt will remain in the next room, available for any questions we may wish to address to him, but both Mr Britsky and Mr Avanti join with me in feeling that this meeting should be absolutely confidential and limited to the nine members of our board of directors. Since the subject we entertain here is of a most serious nature, I suggest that the board members take the next half-hour to examine the auditor's statement, after which we will open the floor to discussion.'

Max went through his copy of the audit. The embezzlements added up to something over seven million dollars, and he was somewhat relieved that the auditors had ignored the untraceable cash thefts, not even alluding to the possibility that they had taken place. That they had taken place, Max had no doubt, but there was no way to trace them. He was fascinated by the number of dummy companies Stein and Ruby had created: a billboard rental company, three different advertising agencies, two travel agents through which to launder the cost of several hundred European trips that had never taken place, a costume company, a lumber supply house, and an industrial cleaning company. Max himself had opened up the kick-back question. The dealers they bought automobiles and trucks from kicked back to Stein. When Max had threatened to cut them off, they opened up and laid it on Stein, but that at least was not in the audit. Nevertheless, that and much more would be in the audit if criminal charges were filed and subpoenas were issued for the records of Stein, Ruby, and Benny.

How much more would it amount to? Max wondered. Three million, four million – he shook his head in wonder at the amount of money generated by this instrument he had created, turning the pages until he had skimmed through the whole sorry report.

When the half-hour had passed, Feldman rose and said, ‘Mr Britsky has asked Mr Avanti to chair this meeting, since he feels that he himself has too vested an interest to act objectively. As with our last meeting, I felt it best not to have a stenographer present. I will take notes. I'm a bit rusty, but I did learn shorthand when I was a law clerk.'

Avanti then accepted the gavel from Max, called the meeting to order, took the roll call, and noted for the record that all nine members of the board of directors were present.

‘Mr Britsky has requested that he be allowed a few remarks before I open the floor to a general discussion. Does anyone object?'

There were no objections, and Max rose and said, ‘Britsky Productions went public about twelve and a half years ago. Since then, everyone in this room has profited. We put out our stock at ten dollars a share. Today it is selling at four times that. We paid dividends the first year we were public, and we never missed a dividend after that. Now we've discovered a huge embezzlement going back almost to the day we went public. If Stein was still alive and my two brothers were not even involved, I would still say to you, let us eat this ourselves. Nothing is gained by public prosecution. A scandal is provoked, and God knows, this industry has suffered enough scandal. I would put it another way. For a company to take that kind of embezzlement and not even know it is a sign of great financial health. So I move that we adopt the new accounting procedure suggested by Mr Humboldt and put this matter to rest. Of course, Reuben Britsky and Benjamin Britsky have been fired. They will not work for Britsky Productions again.'

Without asking for the floor, Byron said, ‘No reflection on the financial health, but a reflection on management. You can underline that.'

‘I think we should proceed orderly,' Avanti said, tapping with his gavel. ‘We accomplish nothing by shouting or abuse.'

Both Sally and Snyder were asking for the floor. Out of deference to her sex, Avanti recognised Sally, who spoke without looking at Max.

‘I do not understand Mr Britsky's suggestion,' she said, appearing to be genuinely puzzled. ‘Is it conceivable that if a man robs your house, you tell him to go in peace and keep his loot simply because public prosecution would involve you? Can Mr Britsky be so unaware of criminal procedure in America that he does not realise that all prosecution of crime is a public matter? And that this system could not work without the public's involvement? And I'm afraid I must mention the moral issues involved. If we should cover up this enormous crime, are we not then joining in a criminal conspiracy, becoming part of it ourselves?'

‘I have to speak to this point,' Feldman said. ‘We have to clear it up immediately.'

‘I'll give you the floor after Mr Feldman,' Avanti said to Snyder.