The Rothman Scandal (77 page)

Miss Lincoln knew all about Mr. Rothman's marriage, long gone sour, to the skinny, picky Pegeen, the wife who hadn't called her husband at his office in nearly twenty years, and whom Mr. Rothman never called at home. But even though Herbert and Pegeen Rothman no longer spoke to one another, the skinny, picky wife wouldn't give him a divorce. She could spend his money, though! Oh, yes, she could spend his money to a fare-thee-well! Look at the bills! There was $6,452.67 to Saks, $7,609.23 to Bendel's, $126,000 plus tax to Maximilian for the new floor-length Russian sable coat, $9,900.00 to Cartier for butterfly earclips of diamonds and rubies set in platinum! Not bad for a month of spending!

Miss Lincoln just hoped that this new love of his was of such immensity and fervor that he would at last take drastic measures to get a divorce from Pegeen, and at last find peace of mind with an understanding woman.

Miss Lincoln, unlike skinny Pegeen, was able to show her love for Herbert Rothman daily in all sorts of little, quiet ways. She saw to it that the pots of prize orchids on his windowsill were misted twice a day, watered once a week, and fed every fourteen days. She made sure that the candy jar on his desk was always filled with those little Italian caramels from Maison Glass that he liked to nibble on while he worked. She saw to it that his silver water carafe was refilled twice a day with fresh ice water. She saw to it that his refrigerator was always stocked with eight-ounce glass bottles—never plastic, never cans—of Coca-Cola Classic. Hard to find, those eight-ounce glass bottles, but Miss Lincoln managed to find them for him. She polished his silver picture frames—the Bachrach portrait of the skinny, picky, spendthrift wife, and the photograph of his late son, so handsome, in tennis whites, standing at the net with his racket, looking as though he had just aced a serve.

Hourly, she checked the angle of Mr. Rothman's venetian blinds so that the sun would not get in his eyes. At quarter to five each evening, she reminded him of the time, and again at ten to five, and again at five to five. At five o'clock, she was waiting for him outside his office door, with his briefcase packed, and with five crisp new ten-dollar bills—he hated used money—in case he should decide to take a taxi home rather than walk to River House, waiting to help him into his topcoat, hand him his hat, and be ready with an umbrella if it looked like rain. All this she did for him, and much, much more—a thousand little daily offerings for the man she loved.

Suddenly Lenny Liebling came bursting through the door. “Miss Lincoln!” he cried. “Call nine-one-one! I think Mr. Rothman may have had a stroke!”

“You are a dear to come and call on me this way,” Fiona was saying. “I was certain we could sort things out between us without calling out all those barristers. Barristers are such a bore! Please do sit down, Alex. May I call you Alex?”

Alex seated herself in a small chair, and Fiona arranged herself on the big white sofa opposite her.

“That's a pretty Hermes scarf you're wearing, Fiona.”

“Thank you!” She touched the scarf. “I have a passion for these, I'm afraid. I just can't have enough of them.”

“Is it one you bought with one of Pussy McCutcheon's stolen credit cards?”

Fiona's dark eyes flashed. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she said.

“I had five hundred dollars in my purse that night at Maggie's party,” she said. “I suppose you took that, too.”

“What on earth are you accusing me of? You're not making any sense to me at all. Scarves, money, credit cards—”

“I think you know what I'm talking about, Fiona.”

“I thought you'd come here on a friendly visit. When you rang me up, I thought—”

“Well, now you know.”

“I think you must be quite mad.”

“Yes, Fiona, I think I am.”

“Then I don't wish to talk to a crazy woman. I think I shall have to ask you to leave. I think I would like to terminate this conversation, under the circumstances. I have important matters to attend to.”

“But I haven't finished what I have to say to you, Fiona. How much did you steal from that London dress shop?”

“Honestly, this is just too crazy-making.” Fiona started to rise. “Really, I just don't—”

Alex lifted Mel's pistol from her purse. “Please don't move,” she said, and pointed the pistol at her. Fiona let out a little scream, and sank back into the sofa. “That's not loaded!” she said.

“Yes, as a matter of fact it is.”

“What are you going to do?” she whimpered.

“What I wish I could have done that night when you came prowling around Mel's house in Sagaponack. What I wish I'd done then. Shot the prowler.”

“I don't know what you're talking about!”

“Of course you do.”

“What do you want? Is it your five hundred dollars? I'll give it to you.”

“That white sofa.” Alex pointed. “Is that where you fucked my son the first time?”

“Please,” she said. “I shouldn't have let him seduce me—I knew that. But he was so insistent—violent, almost! I was terrified he was going to rape me! He was crazed on drugs! I thought it was better to submit to him than—”

Alex flipped the safety catch open with a little snap.

“Oh, please,” Fiona sobbed, cowering against the sofa. Tears streamed down her face. “I tried to help him. I thought I could help him with his addiction. You ought to know that Joel is hopelessly addicted to cocaine, and I thought perhaps—”

Alex leveled the pistol at her.

“Please … please don't … let me explain … I can explain everything …”

Alex studied the younger woman's face for a moment. Then she said, “Do you know something? I really was going to kill you. I really was. I drove all the way to Sagaponack to get this gun. But now I wonder if killing is too good for you.”

“Please, I only wanted—”

“Wanting to destroy my career and get my job was one thing. But trying to destroy my son was another …”

Fiona's telephone rang, and she started to reach for it.

“Don't answer that,” Alex said. “Let it ring.”

The phone rang six or seven more times, then stopped.

“But now I wonder if you're even worth killing,” she said. “I don't think you're even worth that. I think Herb Rothman is punishment enough for you. You and he deserve each other.”

“Please … oh, please,” the other woman said.

“But I warn you, if you ever come near my son again—”

“Please … I gave him his walking papers … I told him—”

“If you ever come near my son again—I warn you—I will kill you.”

Now someone was knocking loudly on Fiona's door.

“Stay where you are. Don't answer that.”

The knocking continued, and presently a man's voice called out. “Fiona—Alex—please open up. It's Mel.”

“All right. Let him in,” Alex said.

Fiona rushed to the door, and threw her arms around Mel. “Oh, thank God you've come, my darling,” she sobbed. “She was going to kill me!”

He pushed her aside and walked straight to Alex, and picked up the pistol that now lay in her lap. “When Lenny told me about Joel's diaries, I knew immediately what you'd gone to get in Sagaponack,” he said. “Thank God I got here before you did something crazy. Come on, let's get out of here.” He took her by the elbow.

“Wait till I tell Herbert about this!” Fiona shouted. “She tried to kill me! Never mind about loyalty clauses and contracts! This was attempted murder! She could go to prison for this! Just wait till I tell Herbert!”

“I don't think Herb Rothman's going to be much use to you right now,” Mel said. “He's in the intensive care unit at Roosevelt Hospital, on the critical list. He's had a massive stroke.” He dropped the pistol in his jacket pocket. “Let's go,” he said, and started to steer Alex by the elbow toward the door.

“But the bloody bitch tried to kill me!” Fiona screamed.

Alex stared at her. “Do you know something?” she said evenly. “I think I already have.”

They sat at the table in the wrought-iron gazebo on her terrace with their drinks. The moon had just risen in the east. “They did a CAT scan on him this afternoon,” Mel said. “They're talking major brain damage.”

“I can't believe it,” she said. “It's over. I ought to feel emotionally exhausted, shouldn't I? I ought to feel sorry for Herb, shouldn't I? I ought to feel drained. Why don't I? Why don't I feel any of those things? Why do I suddenly just feel so terribly excited, Mel? Can you explain it?”

“Because it isn't over. It's just beginning.”

“That's right! And all at once there's so much to do! I've got to get Joel back, for one thing—but on a whole new basis. Not as the hovering little mother anymore, but as my friend, a friend who trusts me as an adult—a whole new relationship! That isn't going to be easy. That's going to be work, but I've got to do it, and I can't wait to start. And then—and then—”

“And before you know it, you're going to have a new husband to take care of.” He touched his glass to hers.

“Yes! That, too! That's going to be work, too, and I can't wait to get to that, either!”

He smiled. “Neither can I,” he said.

“And I've got a
magazine
to run, my very own magazine! At last! Deadlines to meet, assignments to give out—more work! But suddenly I can't wait till it's tomorrow, and I can start on all of it.”

All at once he jumped to his feet. “Look,” he said, and pointed.

“What is it?” she said, rising beside him, her eyes following his pointing finger, mystified by the pale arc of light that was now stretched across the night sky.

“It's a moonbow,” he said. “It's a lunar rainbow. They're very rare. Atmospheric conditions have to be just right.”

“But it has no colors.”

“Moonlight is only a reflection of the sun's light,” he said. “So moonlight can't refract the colors of the spectrum. Lunar rainbows are always white.”

She laughed softly. “Where do you get your bits and pieces of arcane information, Mel? Lunar rainbows, tidal bores …”

“They generally last only a few seconds. Damn, I wish I had a TV crew here.”

“I don't,” she said. “I like to think we're the only two people in New York who've seen it. I hope we're the only two people in the world who've seen it! I think it's just for us. I think it means good luck.” She took his hand. “Let's make a wish,” she said.

He lifted his glass in a toast to the moonbow, even as it began to fade.

“What did you wish?” she asked him.

“Just a wish for a little girl from Paradise, who can't wait till it's tomorrow.”

“Dots-a me,” she said, with a laugh. “Dots-a me.”

Epilogue

From
the
New York Times:

IRS DROPS
ROTHMAN SUIT

Courtroom Drama
Unfolds

By Irving Eichbaum

The Internal Revenue Service today withdrew all claims against Rothman Communications, Inc., the publishing-broadcasting giant, and its chief executive officer, Herbert Oscar “Ho” Rothman. The government had sought some $900,000,000 in back taxes from the company. With penalties and interest, if the government had been able to make its case, the total amount owed could have reached the billion-dollar mark, which would have been a record in such cases.

Essentially, the government had claimed that the senior Mr. Rothman, 94, had always run his company as a one-man operation, reserving all decisions for himself, and that therefore the entire earnings of the corporation should have been taxed as Mr. Rothman's personal income. Rothman attorneys had countered that, on the contrary, the private company had always been run on a consensus developed among Rothman family members and other shareholders, with each shareholder voting his or her own interests.

Histrionic Outburst

As tensions built at the trial in the Federal Courthouse on Foley Square, witness after witness appeared to testify in Mr. Rothman's defense, declaring that Mr. Rothman's stewardship of the company had for years been only honorary, and that no real decisions had been made by Mr. Rothman since the mid-1970s. A series of physicians and private-duty nurses who have attended the ailing nonagenarian tycoon over the years testified that Mr. Rothman was neither physically nor mentally able to exercise the kind of power and control the government claimed he wielded. In a dramatic moment in the proceedings today, an attorney from the firm of Waxman, Holloway, Goldsmith & McCarthy, who represent Mr. Rothman, arose and in a ringing voice announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Mr. H. O. Rothman!” The aged patriarch founder of the company was then wheeled down the center aisle of the courtroom in a hospital gurney, accompanied by two male nurses, two female nurses, and two attending physicians, one of whom wore a stethoscope and kept his fingers firmly pressed on Mr. Rothman's wrist to check his pulse rate. Tubes from various life-support systems were attached to Mr. Rothman's body.

Mr. Rothman was then asked just one question, which had to be repeated several times before the witness appeared to understand that he was being questioned. “Mr. Rothman, will you please tell this court how you run your business?” asked Jerome Waxman, 43, Mr. Rothman's chief defense lawyer. When finally the defendant's lips began to move in response to the question, a microphone had to be placed at his mouth in order for the court to hear the response. The only intelligible words from Mr. Rothman were, “The
Titanic
is going to sink.” This was an apparent reference to an early journalistic coup of the defendant's when, early in 1912, Rothman's fledgling newspaper, the
Newark Explorer
, suggested that the S.S.
Titanic
was not as seaworthy as its builders claimed, and “predicted” the famous maritime disaster. This coup launched the communications magnate's career, and became the cornerstone of his growing empire.