Schmidt Delivered (8 page)

So we need some start-up money. For the new office and as working capital. Are you willing to help?

Hold on. I am always there to help you, but there are things I have to know. First, how much do you want from me; second, how much money you have from your savings and what your mom left you; and, third, what about your partner, Mr. Polk? Does he have the money to invest in this venture? And where does Jon fit into this? I assume you realize that he’s in very serious trouble. Financial trouble, as well.

She named her figure. It was even larger than what Schmidt had expected.

This has nothing to do with Jon, she continued, you won’t be giving comfort to the enemy. It turned out that the price you paid when you bought my share of this house wasn’t enough to pay for the house in Claverack and the renovations there and the apartment in the city, so I spent Mom’s money too and most of my savings. I have all the records and statements with me, if you want to take a look. Harry has some cash. The rest has gone into a loft he bought a couple of years ago, and fixing it up. He thinks he can borrow against it, but not very much. For the time being, I’ll have to be the money partner!

I see. You realize, I hope, that when I bought your remainder interest—what you call your share in this house—I simply paid the market price. Quite frankly, it never occurred to me that what I paid was supposed to be enough to let you buy and restore that place in the country so you could be next to the Riker parents and also to pay for an apartment in the city. Weren’t the Rikers going to give you and Jon the money for the apartment? I recall your telling me that was the plan.

Yeah, but he decided he didn’t want to take so much money from them. You don’t have to make that face. Renata thought he was right. She said if he took the money from his mother—it would have to be her money because Myron doesn’t have much—it would increase his sense of dependency. So we borrowed as much as we could from the bank, and I put in Mom’s money.

There were endless advantages to be found in the exercise of a psychoanalyst’s profession. How it served to torment the father of the woman your son was going to marry, Schmidt had already seen. This was a new vista: you could back out of a financial commitment you made to that son and his wife and end up with them convinced you were doing them a favor. Empowering them! That was probably the fashionable expression.

I see, he told her.

Immediately, Schmidt was sorry he had repeated himself. It was time to break the habit of those automatic rejoinders. They steadied the nerves, but so would keeping his eye on the rosebush. There was no way out. However much he hated it, he had better go on with his questions.

And what did you and Jon do about title to these properties—I mean who owns what? I assume the house in Claverack is in your name, but what about the apartment? Are you both liable for the money you borrowed from the bank?

We thought we should take title in both our names, in Claverack and in the city. I think I signed on the loan. Jesus, Dad, give me a break. Isn’t that what married couples do?

Not always, not when there is such a financial imbalance. That’s something you will have to sort out, since I gather there is trouble between you. Is there trouble? What about you and Jon? What is Jon going to do? I don’t understand your ducking a subject that really seems very urgent.

Dad, can’t that wait? I’m trying to talk to you about my work and my life.

From within the house, Schmidt picked up welcome, happy noises. The whir of the juicer. The kitchen radio tuned to the Southampton University station. Carrie was up. His rosy-fingered dawn with the instincts of a grande dame. She would have understood that they were having that father-and-daughter talk on the porch and wouldn’t venture near them unless it went on so long those same instincts told her it was time to come to his rescue. Impossible to count on that anytime soon, but he might just sneak out on the pretext he was getting a glass of water, and hug her, plunge his hand into the dark cleavage still warm from the bed.

I am just trying to get a full picture, and I think what has happened to you and Jon as a couple is very much at the center of it. I had a talk with Jack DeForrest a couple of days ago. What he told me wasn’t just unattractive. It rocked me. Jon is in bad trouble. So I think we will have to talk about that sooner or later, and frankly I don’t quite see how you can think about quitting your job and starting a new business of your own without taking him into consideration.

Later, Dad. Can I get you to understand that?

Yes, you can. I have already understood that much. What is it then that you want? A loan, or do you want me to invest in this operation? In either case, I think I should first get to meet your partner, Mr. Polk, and take a look at your business plan. I suppose you’ve prepared one. Certainly Mr. Polk will need one if he wants to borrow from a bank. I guess I am quite ready to go either way, if your project makes sense.

He couldn’t immediately remember when she had given him a look like that. Ah yes, when he told her that Mary and he couldn’t afford to buy a hunter with serious show potential, and certainly couldn’t afford to keep such a horse in the city. And after that? Perhaps never; he may have shattered her illusions forever with that refusal. But this time, he wasn’t saying no; he thought he was saying yes. What could be the matter?

Gee, Dad, this isn’t real, I can’t believe it. I didn’t think I was going to see a banker. I thought I was talking to my father who’s rich enough to give people BMWs as presents. Yeah, I was stupid enough to think that since my father has only one child—that’s me, remember—he might just give me the money, as a present, without buying anything like my interest in a house, or making me a loan, or investing in my business. I can’t figure you out. You think Harry and I want you to own our business? We’d be working for you. I don’t know about Harry, but I’d rather work for Marden Bush.

Ah.

Her eyes filled with tears.

Now, now, Charlotte. Can’t we discuss this calmly? It is, after all, a business matter.

Forget it. It’s like Renata said. You need to control my life. If I let you, everything’s peaches and cream. The moment I don’t, it’s Schmidtie the Hun.

Yes, Dr. Renata Riker. Why hadn’t he strangled her, in plain sight of the afternoon crowd on Fifth Avenue, after their first and only lunch tête-à-tête? Help, help! Voices have told me I had better waste that shrink before she wastes me.
No American jury would have taken more than five minutes to acquit him: self-defense or in the worst case not guilty by reason of insanity. He might not even have had to stand trial. Now it was too late.

Look, he said. You are asking for a lot of money. Nevertheless, you are quite right to think I am able to give it to you and go on living as I do.

She snickered.

Easy does it, Schmidt counseled Schmidtie the Hun. Don’t pay attention.

The point is that the gift tax has not yet been abolished, he told her. If I make a gift, I will have to pay the federal government and New York State a tax of more than seventy percent on top of what you want me to give you. That, too, isn’t the end of the world, although when you put the two together, the gift and the tax on the gift, it means parting, all of a sudden, with a large sum I hadn’t counted on spending. On the other hand, you are my only child, and I suppose no one can fault you if you expect to inherit from me. But that’s when I die, not right now. There will be an estate tax too when I do kick the bucket. That’s why some tax planners would say that it’s smart to make gifts and pay the gift tax because then the money I’ve used to pay the tax will not be in my estate and won’t be taxed on my death.

Wow, Dad!

No need to be sarcastic. It’s good tax advice, although I am not sure it fits my case. I am in good health and seem to take after my father, who lived to be very old. I might need every cent of my money to pay for a nursing home!

There was no telling whether she was listening. The hurt in her face had turned into bored gloom. What the hell, he might as well finish his speech. Trying not to hear his own words—the speech, he admitted to himself, was tiresome—he continued: Especially if the business you and Mr. Polk start doesn’t take off. If that was the case, if I made you a loan or invested, I wouldn’t have paid the gift tax and might be able to write off the loss on my loan or investment. That’s how sensible people plan their financial affairs.

I get it. Let’s just skip the whole thing. I’ll talk to Harry. Maybe we’ll just stay where we are.

Do talk to him. And think over what I have said. Look, sweetie, please get it into your head that if you decide you don’t want a loan and don’t want me to invest in your business, but you do want me to make you a gift, the money is yours for the asking, tax or no tax. But I want to meet Harry Polk first, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable that I ask to see a business plan. That’s for your protection. People used to pay a lot of money to get my judgment on that sort of thing. For you, it’s free.

Very funny. I guess I should say thank you.

You might, and you are welcome. When is all this supposed to happen?

We thought of giving notice like next week and then going on vacation. I’m beat.

Would you come here? I’d love it.

Dad!

It was just an idea.

He had really better stop the automatic speech and automatic ideas. This was a lousy one. How could he imagine that Charlotte would want to spend a couple of weeks with him and Carrie, and how could he make the offer without first asking Carrie? Probably she’d say, That’s cool, but suppose she didn’t, suppose she said, instead, You’ve got to be shitting me. What then? How does one back out without making a real mess? He had to hand it to Charlotte, she had saved the day.

All right, we were thinking of going to this tennis camp in Aspen. But Harry doesn’t know if he can get away. It depends on the children.

Oh.

He’s divorced and he’s got these two boys, seven and five. If his wife can get some time off later this month, he’ll stay with the kids in this place they share in the Berkshires. They’re cute little guys. That’s another reason Harry hasn’t got much money. He’s paying both child support and alimony.

And he’s sure it makes sense for him to leave a job with a steady income for a start-up business?

Dad, this is a big chance. We know we can make it. Harry will never get out of the hole unless he makes real money and owns something.

I see.

He sure did. A divorced man with two children, obligations to his wife, and no money to speak of in the bank account, who wants the use of Charlotte’s money for his new
business. In the meantime, why not take a vacation together at a tennis camp! That seemed unambiguous enough, no need to probe. Who knows, she might even choose to tell him more. But she gave no sign of being about to speak.

Therefore he continued: Right, I do want to meet him. The sooner, the better. Look, Charlotte, could we talk about Jon now? I’ve told you that I’ve spoken with Jack DeForrest. I really don’t know where to begin.

All right, Jon’s an asshole. But he didn’t give that bitch the brief, she stole it out of his briefcase, and he’s too fucked up to tell on her. That’s the problem in a nutshell, and it’s his problem. I’m going to leave him. What would you suggest instead? Is there anything else you want to know? You must sure be glad you were right about him.

No he wasn’t, thank God he wasn’t. He hadn’t become the bad, vengeful witch. He had cast no evil spells, hadn’t hoped for vindication of this sort. That part of Renata the shrink’s warning, delivered during the presumptuous, inexcusably familiar lecture she gave him upon their first meeting, directly after the Riker family Thanksgiving lunch his daughter and the imbecile fiancé had blackmailed him into attending, he had taken seriously. Yes, he had grown to loathe Jon Riker. Furthermore, Renata may have been right, and Jon too, if she was repeating faithfully what Jon had told her, to claim that deep inside he had always disliked that boy—even when he worked with him so closely at Wood & King and pushed hard to have him made a partner. Their decision to be married in an odious restaurant in SoHo rather than in the family house, Charlotte’s refusal to wear her mother’s wedding
dress, the way she had taunted him—how else could one describe telling him that only a rabbi would officiate at the wedding and she planned to convert to Judaism?—Jon’s calumny, which she had dared to throw in her father’s face, that he was known throughout his firm as an anti-Semite, all this and more rankled. But none of it could make him rejoice to hear Charlotte, cool as a cucumber, make light of her marriage and dismiss her husband with a vulgar epithet. Nothing had prepared him for such disgrace. He must have been blind.

I am so terribly sorry. Poor Charlotte. Have you told Jon what you plan to do?

You’re sorry? You couldn’t stand him. You should be saying good riddance. No, I didn’t have to tell him. He’s an asshole, but he’s not dumb. The thing is that he won’t move out of the apartment. And I have to sleep in the guest room, because he won’t get out of my bedroom either. Harry says I need to get a lawyer real soon. Do you think W & K would take the case, since they’re throwing him out of the firm anyhow? He’s already got a lawyer, a guy with an Italian name—Cacciatore or something.

Schmidt sighed. I should think it would be very awkward for any of the lawyers at the firm to represent you against him, he told her. From the way you’ve just talked, and the way you own the apartment and the house in Claverack jointly, I don’t believe this is going to be a friendly separation, in which all you need is a lawyer to advise on taxes and write up what the parties agreed on. If you like, I’ll call Murphy and ask him for a recommendation. You must remember him,
he’s the partner at the firm who has done Mom’s and my wills. He knows a lot of divorce lawyers.

I remember Mr. Murphy. He’s not what I want anyway. I want a real tough Jew, so Jon and Cacciatore don’t run circles around him. I’d use Harry’s lawyer, but Harry doesn’t think he did such a hot job for him. You think I can move in with Harry? I’m sick and tired of having Jon around, but I don’t want him to be able to say it’s my fault if I leave the apartment and live with Harry.