It's a waste of money even if you've got money. How many bathrooms do you need?" Lester chuckled, then asked, "Would you buy Stanhope Hall if you had ten million dollars?"
"You mean five million, partner."
Lester smiled sheepishly and glanced at me to see if I was baiting him, then lowered his eyes, which swept across the paper-strewn table and rested on the piles of stock certificates. He asked, "Or would you buy that sixty footer and sail off into the sunset?"
I was sorry I had confided in Lester. I didn't reply.
"Or think about getting Susan out of the guesthouse and back into the great house." There was a silence in the room, during which Lester was thinking of what he'd do with five million dollars, and I guess I was thinking of what I'd do with ten, since I had no intention of compounding a crime with the sin of sharing any of it with Lester Remsen.
It occurred to me that Lester is the type of person who is honest out of fright, but he likes to flirt with dishonesty to see how it feels to have balls, if you'll pardon the expression. And he likes to see how other people react to his enticements.
Lester spoke in a way that suggested he was speaking apropos of nothing. "It's very easy, John, now that I see the paperwork and the actual certificates. And it's a big enough sum to make it worthwhile. And I don't think we even have to leave the country afterwards, if it's handled right. When the old lady dies, you'll have seen to it that nothing appears in her will regarding this." Lester went on in this vein, never using bad words such as federal tax evasion, steal, forge, or fraud. I listened, more out of curiosity than a need to be educated in crime by Lester.
I don't know why I am honest. I suppose it is partially a result of my parents, who were paragons of virtue if nothing else. And when I was growing up in the fifties, the message from the pulpit and in Sunday school and my private school had less to do with the world's ill and injustices, and more to do with how to behave correctly toward others. It was the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, and believe it or not, young men and women were supposed to have personal mottoes to live by. Mine was, "I will strive each day to give more than I receive." I don't know where I got that, but it's a good way to go broke. But I must have lived by it once, maybe until I was eighteen. Maybe longer. Yet millions of men and women of my generation were raised the same way, and some of them are thieves, and some much worse. So why am I honest? What is keeping me from ten million dollars and from the nearly naked ladies on Ipanema beach? That's what Lester wanted to know. That's what I wanted to know. I looked at the pile of stock certificates, and Lester interrupted his dissertation on how to safely steal ten million to inform me, "No one cares anymore, John. The rules are out the window. That's not my fault or yours. It just is. I'm tired of being a sucker, of fighting by Marquess of Queensberry rules while I'm getting kicked in the groin, and the referee is being paid to look the other way."
I made no reply.
Until very recently, one of the reasons for my honesty was my contentment with my life, the whole social matrix into which I fit and functioned. But when you decide you won't miss home, what keeps you from stealing the family car to get away? I looked at Lester, who held eye contact for a change. I said, "As you once observed, money doesn't tempt me," which was the truth. "Why doesn't money tempt you?"
I looked at Lester. "I don't know."
"Money is neutral, John. It has no inherent good or evil. Think of it as Indian wampum. Seashells. It's up to you what you do with it." "And how you get it."
Lester shrugged.
I said, "Maybe in this case, I think that taking money from a batty old lady is no challenge and beneath my dignity and my professional ability to steal from sharp people. Find something dangerous and we'll talk again." I added, "I'll have the stocks delivered to your Manhattan office tomorrow by bonded courier." Lester looked both disappointed and relieved. He gathered the paperwork into his briefcase and stood. "Well… what would life be like if we couldn't dream?" "Dream good dreams."
"I did. You should dream a little."
"Don't be a schmuck, Lester."
He seemed a little put off, so I guess I used the word right. Lester said coolly, "Don't forget I need Mrs Lauderbach's signature cards." "I'll see her tomorrow, on her way to her lunch date."
Lester extended his hand and we shook. He said, "Thanks for giving me this account. I owe you dinner."
"Dinner would be fine."
Lester left with a parting glance at the ten million dollars lying on the table.
I carried the stock certificates downstairs and put them in my vault. The remainder of the week, which was Holy Week before Easter, passed in predictable fashion. On Thursday evening, Maundy Thursday, we went to St Mark's with the Allards, who were well again. The Reverend Mr Hunnings washed the feet of a dozen men and women of the congregation. This ceremony, if you don't know, is in imitation of Christ's washing the feet of his disciples and is supposed to symbolize the humility of the great toward the small. I didn't need my feet washed, but apparently Ethel did, so up she went to the altar with a bunch of other people who I guess had volunteered for this ahead of time because none of the women had panty hose on and none of the men wore silly socks. Now, I don't mean to make fun of my own religion, but I find this ceremony bizarre in the extreme. In fact, it's rarely performed, but Hunnings seems to enjoy it, and I wonder about him. One Maundy Thursday, when I get enough nerve, I'm going to volunteer to have my feet washed by the Reverend Mr Hunnings, and when I take my socks off, on each toenail will be painted a happy face. Anyway, after services, we had George, and Ethel of the clean feet, to our house for what Susan referred to as the Last Supper, being the last meal she intended to cook until Monday.
Friday was Good Friday, and in recent years I've noticed that around here at least, people have adopted the European custom of not working on this solemn day. Even the Stock Exchange was closed, and so, of course, Perkins, Perkins, Sutter and Reynolds, whose Wall Street office is in lockstep with the Exchange, was shut down. Whether this new holiday is a result of the religious reawakening in our country or a desire for a three-day weekend, I don't know, and no one is saying. But in any event, I had earlier in the week declared the Locust Valley office closed for Good Friday and then surprised the staff and annoyed the Wall Street partners by announcing that the Locust Valley office would also observe Easter Monday as the Europeans do. I'm trying to start a trend. Susan and I, along with Ethel and George, went to St Mark's for the three-o'clock service, which marks the traditional time when the sky darkened and the earth shook and Christ died on the cross. I remember a Good Friday when I was a small boy, walking up the steps of St Mark's on a bright, sunny day that did suddenly turn dark with thunderclouds. I recall staring up at the sky in awe, waiting, I guess, for the earth to shake. A few adults smiled at me, then my mother came out of the church and led me inside. But this day was sunny, with no dramatic meteorological or geological phenomena, and had anything of the sort occurred, it would have been explained on the six-o'clock weather report. St Mark's was filled with well-dressed people, and the Reverend Mr Hunnings, looking resplendent in his Holy Week crimson robes, stuck to business, which was the death of Jesus Christ. There were no social messages in the sermon, for which I thanked God. Hunnings, incidentally, also gives us a guilt break on Easter Sunday and usually at Christmas, except then he goes on a bit about materialism and commercialism.