The Rothman Scandal (73 page)

Alex Rothman, of course, remembered that afternoon quite differently.

“So you decided to betray me, after all,” she said to him.

“I look at it in a different way,” he said. “I figure you betrayed me—marrying another man without telling him you were already married to me. You really hurt me, Alex. Now you're going to have to pay me for that hurt. Where's the check?”

“Sit down, Skipper. Let's talk a minute.”

“I think I'd rather stay standing up,” he said.

“All right. But listen to me, Skipper. You meant a lot to me once. In some ways, you still mean a lot to me. You were an important part of my life, and in some ways you still are, and probably always will be. One doesn't easily forget the sort of thing we had between us. I never really wanted to hurt you, and I don't want to hurt you now. And I'm sorry you're in some sort of trouble, and I'd really like to help you out.”

“It's my kid, isn't it?”

“I don't want to talk about that. I'm saying that I want to help you out of—whatever trouble it is you're in. But—a million dollars. I simply don't have access to funds like that. Being married to a rich man doesn't make me a rich woman. But what I've done—”

“You said a million bucks! You said it in your letter. You said ‘all your demands will be met.' I got it in writing, Alex!”

“I just can't,” she said. “I just can't get hold of that much. But what I did do was this. I went to a pawn shop. I pawned a rather nice triple strand of pearls with a diamond and sapphire clasp, that Steven gave me. I was able to get fifty thousand dollars for that, and I'd like to give that to you now, with the understanding that it's all I'll ever be able to give you, and with your promise that you'll never come back to ask me for anything more. I have the check right here—a certified check, as you asked for, payable to cash.” She opened her purse, and withdrew the folded check. “Please take this, Skipper, and try to understand that this is the best I can do. Because I really did love you once.”

He glared at the check. “You're double-crossing me, Alex. I'm going to your husband and tell him that the kid is mine!”

“Please, Skipper—”

He stepped toward her. “And I'm going to show him our marriage certificate. And I'm going to—”

That was when she reached in her purse and took out the pistol Ho had given her, and pointed it at him. “Very well,” she said. “Then get out of here, Skipper. Get out of here right now. Get out of here, and don't come back—ever. Walk to that door right now, and don't ever come back. If you don't, I'll—”

With that, he struck her with a sharp karate chop across the side of her head and, with his toe, caught her simultaneously behind the knees, and she crashed to the hardwood floor, landing on her back, while the pistol flew out of her hand and slithered across the polished floor.

He stood above her with the heel of his Gucci loafer pressed hard against her throat. “Bitch!” he said. “Give me the money, or I'll break your fucking neck.”

The sound of an express train rumbled by, and the foundations of the boathouse trembled. That was when the shooting started.

37

“Herbert Rothman received service yesterday morning in his office at ten fifteen,” Henry Coker was saying as he riffled through the papers in his briefcase on his lap. “And so now we are officially in litigation. Our lawsuit is a two-pronged affair. We are suing for breach of contract, which is fairly simple and cut-and-dried. We are also demanding to see a copy of the trust instrument—the so-called Steven trust—that is mentioned in your late husband's will, and we are asking for a full and complete documentation of the contents of that trust. Of course, if the trust never existed, or if, over the years, it has been subsumed by, or otherwise disappeared within, the company's rather unusual and idiosyncratic—to say the least—method of keeping its books, then there will be very little we can do. But on the matter of breach of contract, there's no question in my mind but that we have him cold.”

“He said something to me about a loyalty clause,” she said.

“Yes, there is indeed a loyalty clause in your contract,” he said. “But as far as I can see, he can't prove that you've done anything disloyal to the company. You haven't sold any company secrets, or anything like that, for God's sake. Your conversations with McCulloch were perfectly open-ended. He made you an offer, which you considered, and then declined. Talking with Rodney McCulloch about a job offer doesn't constitute disloyalty to the company. Every successful person receives new job offers all the time. On the other hand, if you were secretly plotting with Rodney McCulloch to take over Rothman Publications, that
would
constitute disloyalty. But that was not the case.”

She smiled. “Of course that's what Rodney would like to do,” she said. “He'd like to destroy Herb Rothman.”

“So,” Henry Coker said, “would a lot of other people. But in the meantime, with a breach of contract claim, I think we've got Herb Rothman by the balls, if you'll pardon the expression. Of course now we have to wait and see what kind of response we get from the people at Waxman, Holloway, but I don't see how they could possibly recommend that he fight this. He hasn't got a legal leg to stand on, to begin with. For another thing, if he decides to go to the mat with this, it's going to cost him a lot of money. He's already got a billion-dollar lawsuit on his hands from the IRS, and I don't think anybody in his right mind would recommend that he take on another case that he's bound to lose. At the very worst, he could offer to buy out the balance of your contract—which would also cost him a lot of money.”

“Or he could fire me.”

“Yes. But your Aunt Lily Rothman was right. Firing you would
also
cost him a lot of money because he'd have to pay out the full balance in your profit-sharing plan. Firing you is the last thing he's going to want to do. So don't worry, Alex—we're going to win this one. I'm very confident.”

“But now, on this other matter—” She touched the letter that she had just shown him, that had arrived in her office mail that morning.

“Ah,” he said with a sigh, “I'm really afraid there's nothing we can do about that, Alex. Alas, they are within their rights.”

She picked up the letter again. It had been written by one of the company's in-house attorneys.

June 29, 1990

Dear Mrs. Rothman:

The apartment you presently occupy, to wit the North Penthouse of 10 Gracie Square, New York, N.Y. 10028, will be put to other Corporate use in future. Therefore, it will be necessary for you to vacate these premises within sixty (60) days of the above date
.

We trust this will cause you no inconvenience
.

Sincerely yours
,

Stuart A. Melnick

“You know, I could even accept him having this office repainted,” she said, “though Chinese red is not my favorite color. It was petty and mean, but it was typically Herbert. And, after all, the company owns this building. But I really never thought he'd do this—throw Joel and me out of our home. His own grandson.”

“Unfortunately, the company owns the apartment,” he said.

“‘I'll send you back to that little town you came from so fast you won't know what the hell hit you—without a pot to piss in. And on a Greyhound bus.'”

“Hmm?”

“That's what he said to me.”

“That was just sword-rattling, Alex. But this, unfortunately, is different. The shares in the co-op are held in the Rothmans' corporate name.”

“How could I have been so stupid, Henry? How could I have lived in that apartment for more than twenty years without knowing that I didn't own it—just because I paid the maintenance?”

“You were probably too busy running the magazine to look into details like that.”

“Coleman telephoned. One of the building's engineers was there this morning, measuring the terrace. It seems there's been a petition to enclose the terrace with glass. My beautiful terrace! My beautiful roof garden!”

“I know,” he said sadly. “I know exactly how you feel, Alex.”

“Oh, I really think I do hate him now,” she said. “Up to now, I just thought he was a mean, petty, stupid, miserable little man who never had any real power, and saw a chance to grab some now. I thought he was pathetic, more than anything else. But now I think I really
hate
him.”

“You've got him angry now. He was served with a lawsuit yesterday, and so he knows we were serious when we talked about taking legal action. He's playing hardball now, and he's playing it as dirty as he knows how. In a way, it's good that we've got him angry. When people get angry, they're seldom at their best, or at their most effective. So try to contain your hatred, Alex. Continue to play it cool.”

“Have you heard what he's calling himself now? President and chief executive officer of Rothman Communications. He's had that printed on his stationery! That was
Ho's
title! Can he just
do
that, Henry?”

Henry Coker smiled faintly. “The fact is, he's just done it. Grabbed the title before his younger brother could, I guess. When a company and a family are the same thing, anything can happen. The prize belongs to the person who grabs it first. And don't forget there's his new ladyfriend in the picture. He's got to demonstrate and prove his new power and authority to her. Which is why, if he loses this lawsuit—as I think he will—it will be an even bitterer, more humiliating pill for him to swallow. Which is why I imagine we not only have him running angry now, but also a little scared.”

She hesitated. “Let's go back to the trust fund for a minute,” she said. “If the trust fund exists. Could the trust fund be affected—not just for me, but mostly for Joel—if it turned out that I had been married to someone previously to Steven, and that, for whatever reason, I had never actually been divorced from that other man?”

He gave her his most prim, buttoned-down look—a look that suggested a mild stomach distress rather than a frown. “I think I once told you,” he said, “that a lawyer always tries to learn as little as possible about his clients' private lives. I still believe that. But, in this case, Alex, perhaps you'd better tell me just a little more. For instance, is this other man still living?”

“No.”

“I'm considerably relieved to hear that,” he said.

“But what if someone should come forward with a piece of paper—a marriage license or certificate, indicating a previous marriage? Would that be anything more than just a mild embarrassment to me?”

He steepled his fingers. “Let me just say that I would hope that no one would come forward with such a piece of paper,” he said. “But if someone did …” He smiled grimly.

She sighed. “You love a fight, don't you, Henry? I suppose all lawyers love a fight. That's their job—fighting other people's battles for them.”

His buttoned-down look now composed itself into a prim, self-congratulatory smile, his eyes downcast. “Yes, I guess you could say I love a fight,” he said. “In school and college, I was the gawky, skinny, ninety-nine-pound weakling, whom the bigger boys bossed around. As a lawyer, I have learned that there are other, more satisfying ways of besting one's opponents.”

She sat back in her chair and looked up at the newly lacquered Chinese red ceiling. “But I dunno about this one, darlin',” she said at last. “Is it really worth the candle? Is this little job really worth the fight I'm putting up? Maybe it's time for me to throw in the towel.”

Outside, in the anteroom, Gregory Kittredge, who rarely missed a word, heard these words, and winced. And, in the office, Henry Coker's buttoned-down look transformed itself into one of thorough disapproval.

“I found something interesting in Alex's jewelry case,” Pegeen Rothman said to her husband when she found him in the music room at “Rothmere.” It was ten days after the shooting incident in 1973. In those days, Pegeen's figure had a certain roundness, though she was not plump. It was before years of dieting had given her a figure which, when she stood in a room at a cocktail party, was straight up and down in every direction, and, when she gestured with her hands and thin arms, she became all corners and sharp angles. It was before, in Lenny Liebling's phrase, she had become another East Side Razor Blade. Pegeen had never been technically a pretty girl but, in those days, she had a soft and pleasant face, before the face-lifts had frozen it into a permanent, almost feral smile.

“I wouldn't dream of asking you what you were doing rummaging around in Alex's jewelry case, dear,” Herb Rothman said. “But what exactly did you find?”

“This, for one thing,” she said, and she dropped a gold ring into his palm.

“A ring,” he said.

“Yes. It looks like a wedding band, don't you think? And look how it's engraved inside.”

He peered inside. “J.P.—A.L.,” he said.

“A.L. would be Alexandra Lane. But who do you suppose J.P. was?”

“I've no idea. Some teenage crush, perhaps?”

“And I also found this,” Pegeen said, and she handed him a folded sheet of lined yellow paper. He opened it. It was a note scrawled in a large, uneven hand, and it bore no date or salutation. It simply said:

I don't know why you say such things to hurt me in your letter, after all we were to one another. I just need your help right now. Well, anyways, I'll be there on the date and time you said to be there
.

J.P
.

“Well, what do you make of it?” she said when he had read it. “It's from J.P.”

“I don't know,” he said.

“It sounds like a letter from a lover, or a former lover, doesn't it? ‘After all we were to one another.'”