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.”
15
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?