Governor Bright knew that. He knew this smoking gun would soon be covered with my fingerprints. I was only safe as long as I could claim to be innocent. If I didn’t use it soon, I never could. He didn’t believe I would anyway.
And Fred’s point was true—that the kingdom was brittle. I might take the governor down, but I’d be cracking my own foundation. Was I really enough of a leader to rebuild twenty or more companies into real, competitive, efficient businesses? Not likely. But was I enough of a leader to hold Melvin’s framework together, and did I even want to?
I chose sixty pages that were incriminating enough just by themselves to send the framework up in flames, made copies, and stashed them in my briefcase. The wad of originals I locked in my safe room.
Then I leaned way back in my chair again to survey the world beneath my feet. I closed the door in my brain on the closet full of skeletons. Well, even if I was seated upon a mountain of graft and corruption, the view was very nice, and I wanted someone to show off to. I called Eric.
“Hey, are you doing anything?” he said.
“I’m looking out my window.”
“What window?”
“Come and see.”
“Where?”
“Take the elevator to Fred Spellman’s office, but just keep going all the way up.”
“Cool, Jason. I’ll be right there.”
Why am I here? To have a great time and enjoy my wonderful life. I called Katie and asked her to meet us downtown for an early dinner.
When I let Eric in, the joy of brotherhood flowed between us like Niagara Falls, except with dollar bills instead of water. He sat in my chair and appreciated every ounce of wealth and power represented by that room as much as I had.
He pointed to the fifteen-by-twenty-foot space between the desk and the door. “Right there. You should have a Corvette.”
“For show. Right.”
“Or a Jaguar. Like some people have a pool table or a bookcase in their office. A Jaguar, on the forty-second floor.”
“You could probably spare one for me.”
His eyes lit up. “I could! I could get a new one, and you could have the old one.”
“A used car in my office?”
He leaned back. “Used by
me
. That’s better than new.”
There were no other chairs in the room, so I was leaning against the wall looking at him. “What would you do with your life if you weren’t rich?”
“I guess we’ll never know.”
“Sometimes I think I’d like to try it.”
“Philosophy makes my head hurt. Money is to spend, not to think about.”
My brother had a transcendent ability to indulge himself; it was the only profound thing about him. “Rule Number 87—a little pain is good for you.”
Eric shook his head in pity. “Where’s supper?”
“Across the street.”
We descended Olympus.
Nathan Kern called that evening, freshly back in his native habitat.
“Jason, this is Nathan Kern. I want to get together with you when you have an opportunity.”
“Sure. How was your flight? It’s a hard trip from Africa.”
“I stopped in Switzerland on the way back at the World Health Organization. So today’s flight wasn’t bad at all. And the time in Africa was excellent. Quite excellent. Very illuminating. This is a whole new type of program for us, and I want to tell you about it.”
“I’ll look forward to that,” I said, only half lying. “And, Nathan, I have a question. I wonder what you would think of putting Angela on the board.”
“Angela? On the board of the foundation? Why, Jason, I think that might be an outstanding idea. Have you discussed it with her?”
“She had doubts. If you called her, she could probably be talked into it.”
“I will. Certainly.”
“And maybe I could come by the foundation Monday. I haven’t seen the office.”
“I will be there.”
Life was so good that by Monday I was suffering from conflict deprivation.
I had the old reliable problems I could pull up at any time: all the corruption I owned; the governor, and now the senator, I was trying to own; Melvin’s murder, if it had been, and by whom. They were all just different chocolate chips in the same cookie.
But the sun was shining, and the cookie gently crumbled.
I pointed the Mercedes west, around town, to a gentrified semi-suburb, still recognizable as the rural village it had once been. Just past a very upscale neighborhood, I turned through a gate in the stone wall, marked with an immense but tasteful bronze sign mounted on a massive stone pedestal.
Melvin H. Boyer Foundation
.
A small parking lot appeared, and the two-story headquarters it earnestly served. The spaces were marked,
Mr. Hyde
,
Dr. Fitwell-
Monoque
,
Dr. Grambling
,
Mr. M’fele
, and ultimately,
Mr. Kern
. The second row of spaces, occupied by twenty or more less prestigious cars, was not marked. The staff no doubt.
I set my car in a space marked
Visitor
.
The building itself, of mellowed brick and polished wood, might have been from the same architect as my new house, just with his dial changed from “House” to “Office.” The budget knob was not changed from “Obviously Expensive.”
The receptionist, whom I had never seen before, stood immediately as I entered.
The executive offices were arranged around the reception lobby and took up the whole first floor. I had only a moment to glance at the displays of good done that filled the room.
“Mr. Boyer. Mr. Kern is expecting you. Please come this way.”
I was escorted into the prestigious office of the director.
This sumptuous room provided a second chance to be impressed by displays of the foundation’s works, and wasn’t the real purpose of the foundation to give a person a second chance? It was an eclectic mix of architectural models of inner city recreation centers, African
objets d’art
, photos of smiling state officials, and Nathan at his desk.
He leaped up at my appearing.
“Jason! What a pleasure.” He shook my hand, and the receptionist retreated. “It is so good to see you!”
And it was. There was so much good for me to see. It was not the same as the opera, which was the grandiose height of human culture. This building was founded on a different importance—that of human worth. The budgets of the two were actually nearly the same.
I met Dr. Hugo Grambling, a sociologist, whose groundbreaking insight on the risks to youth of urban culture could hardly be underestimated. Dr. Gloria Fitwell-Monoque directed the foundation’s programs in the schools. Mr. Cordele Hyde was at the state capital, lobbying on behalf of the disadvantaged.
I could direct Mr. Hyde to four of my own executives who could advise him on lobbying.
And Mr. Ebenezer M’fele was in New York at a UN conference on aid to developing countries. He had so greatly expanded the scope of the foundation’s efforts since he had come on board the previous year. With the new African projects, they were truly thinking globally as well as locally.
We went upstairs to the staff offices. These people were not introduced to me, only pointed out. They were researchers, writers, and accountants—the full-time staff. Others were contracted in as needed.
The overhead alone for this operation, as I knew from George Elias, was four million a year, the majority of it executive salaries and their travel expenses. They spent six times that on programs.
So much good was done, one might wonder how any bad could be left in the world. At least, in this one state. But I knew better, at least concerning this one state.
As we passed the receptionist, she deferentially interrupted our tour.
“Mr. Rosenberg is faxing some papers.”
“Very good. Set them on my desk.” Nathan returned his full attention to me. “Jacob Rosenberg is our legal advisor. He is newly on the board. Your father was very impressed by him, and I’m sure you will be, also.”
The ground floor was not all offices, I found. There was also the board room. Nathan and I settled there after the tour, amid yet more conspicuous exhibits of accomplished charity, and discussed the past and the future.
This had been the salve for Melvin’s conscience, where it hadn’t been seared senseless. Had he really had enough inner conflict that he’d needed this much of a foundation to ease his guilt?Was I going to have enough guilt that I needed something this big to ease mine? I tried to look at it objectively. Nathan was doing lots of good things. It was reasonable for a person with extra money to use some of it philanthropically. There didn’t have to be other motives, and did the motives matter anyway?
“I expect I’ve been presumptuous,” Nathan said, “simply assuming you would take on your father’s role with the foundation.” He lit a cigarette. We obviously needed a smokescreen for this conversation.
“It would have been a natural assumption,” I said.
“Then I would like to ask you, what is your expectation? What do you think of the foundation?”
“I’m very impressed.” Melvin probably had been. “And there’s no question about the funding. That will continue as it has.”
Nathan laughed. “I hadn’t really had a chance to consider that it might not. That would have been upsetting!”
Upsetting, right. At least upsetting. I could imagine these experts trying to get real jobs.
“As for my own participation,” I said, “I’m not sure. I’m willing to put money in. For now, we’ll leave it at that.”
“That’s quite a lot.”
“And I’d like to get together once in a while, Nathan. We started a conversation two weeks ago that I’d like to continue.” I considered the man in front of me—sophisticated, sincere, intense, waiting patiently for the next words of this callow youth. “I’ve been going through Melvin’s papers. The picture they’re painting isn’t nice.”
“I understand.”
“How do you feel about the money you got from him, knowing where it came from?”
He leaned back with a deep sigh. “I’ve simply done the best I could with it.”
“I’ve been wondering,” I said. I hadn’t meant to get into this. “You warned me before, how money corrupts. I knew it was true, but now I’ve seen more closely how that works. What if . . .”
“Yes?” he said, after my long pause.
“What if I shut it all down? In some way that wouldn’t put too many people out of work. But what if I got myself out of it all?”
His stare was piercing, right through me. As debonair as he might be, his eyes were the eyes of a very deep man.
“I think you would have done a very noble thing.”
“Even if the foundation lost its funding?”
He took a moment to load, and let me have it with both barrels. “The foundation’s good work is small compared to the evil that your family’s business practices have wrought. On balance, shutting down the foundation would be a small price to pay to restore integrity to this state.”
He said it calmly, which helped me listen the same way. Then I calmly considered whether I should deck him, and then whether I should just fire him.
“Well, I asked for it,” I said. “You wouldn’t have said that to Melvin.”
“He wouldn’t have asked. Would you actually consider taking such a step?”
“I don’t think it’s possible. The tumor is too big and too deep. The patient would die on the operating table.”
We stepped back from the precipice. “It is something to think about,” he said. “I agree it would be, at least, tumultuous.”
Time for a new subject.
“Did you have a chance to call Angela?”
He smiled. “Yes. It was an excellent conversation. She didn’t commit, but she had a number of questions. I think she will decide to join the board.”
“Good,” I said. “That will be to everyone’s benefit.”
Back toward my office. I decided I needed a second opinion on the meaning of life.
“Mr. Spellman’s office,” the voice said.
“This is Jason Boyer. Could you please tell him that I’d like to drop in, in about thirty minutes? If he’s free.”
“Just a moment.” I was pulling out of the foundation parking lot. “He would be pleased to see you.”
As much as I would be to see him. I got on the highway and crossed the vast space between Nathan Kern and Fred Spellman.
Fred was waiting, as large as life.
“I’m just checking in,” I said. “Is anything happening?”
“From Governor Bright? No. I’ve heard nothing.”
“Is that good?”
“Probably not. Although I expect he’s still off-balance.”
“I’ve been through Melvin’s papers. I guess I know a lot of the details now.”
“I would advise you to stay away from the individuals named in those papers.”
“My own employees?”
“They’re doing what you employ them to do.”
“That’s an interesting point,” I said. “It was Melvin who employed those gentlemen.”
“Of course.”
“But I’m going to have to claim them as my own, sometime.”
“Yes. In what context do you mean that?”
“I can’t play ignorant forever.”
“No. Are you worried that these people might betray you? Or that they might need encouragement that you continue to approve of their activities? That might be useful, but it should be done very carefully. With this type of person, a financial bonus would be the best way to enhance their cooperation.”
Yes, this was certainly an alternative viewpoint on life.
“That had crossed my mind,” I admitted. “But that’s not what I mean. My threat against Governor Bright is to expose the whole bid-rigging arrangement. It’s only a threat while I’m still supposedly innocent. But the threat fades the longer I don’t use it.”
“I know.” He’d been through all those angles. “Which you should have considered earlier.”
“What if I still mean to carry through?”
“Then go ahead and do it, and get it over with.” Apparently Fred was one person who no longer believed I would. What did that say for Bright or Grainger? “But Governor Bright will quickly decide you’re not serious, if he hasn’t already. If he ever thought you were. So I suggest you start working on your next step.”
“I will think about it,” I said. “Would you have any thoughts?”
“I wouldn’t.”