Death Of A Dream Maker (23 page)

But Abe was not dead. “Who's there?” he asked in a
creaky voice. He ended his sentence with a soft cough.

“It's Lillian Hubbert,” she said. Auntie Lil stood by
the side of the bed and touched one of his hands. It was cold. She
rubbed the skin to restore circulation.

“Lil?” he asked. He opened his eyes with effort. “So
it is. I heard you were at the funeral. It's sad about Max, isn't
it? They won't tell me much. Only that Max and my Davy are
dead.”

“Yes, they are dead.” Without warning, she was
overcome by the urge to weep. For days she had been surrounded by
people who had not known Max. She had carried the weight of his
memory alone. But here was his brother, someone who knew and
understood the power that had been Max. She held back sniffles and
could not speak.

“Ahhh,” Abe said. “Go ahead and cry, Lil. You always
were too stubborn to cry about anything. I'd cry myself. If I
could.”

She forced herself to regain her composure. She had
less than an hour and had no time for tears. “I'm sorry,” she told
him. “Seeing you reminded me of him.”

Abe slowly moved his free arm across his body,
holding it carefully in the air as if it were in a sling. He patted
her hand. “You really loved him, didn't you? I envied him that.
I've been thinking of Max a lot. Nothing else to do lying in bed. I
wasted so much time hating him. What did it get us? Nothing. It
didn't make me happy. It didn't make me smarter. It didn't do
anything but create this mess of a family, torn apart by greed.” He
stopped as a small spasm of coughs overtook him. It subsided as
quickly as it came. “It cost me Davy,” he ended. “My hatred cost me
my son. It's the price God wants me to pay.”

“God didn't kill Davy,” Auntie Lil said gently.

Abe did not appear to have heard her. “It's never
going to end. This family's hatred has a life of its own. I look
forward to dying. It's the truth. I do.”

“Don't say that,” Auntie Lil said. “You've got other
children. You have your wife.”

“My wife.” His smile was sad. “Abby and I had
everything we could ever want. Clothes, homes, cars, money. But we
never had a tenth as much as you and Max. And I'm not talking about
the things that money can buy. Why did you do it, Lil? Why did you
leave him? It was the worst I ever saw him. I thought I'd be happy
to see him suffer, but I wasn't. I felt like I had lost something,
too. He came out of it stronger, of course. Always did. Went on to
make more money, more machines, have more success.” He closed his
eyes and rested for a few moments. Auntie Lil patted his hand and
did not hurry him.

“Abby would throw a fit if she knew you were here,”
he finally said. “But I've been expecting you.”

“You have?”

“I knew you'd come. The day Max died, I could hear
them talking below. The boys were shouting, Abby was wailing like
she had a knife stuck in her gut. I knew Max had died when I heard
her. I always thought his death would set me free. It didn't. It
left me alone. But the second I heard he died, I thought of you.
And I knew you would come. You want to know a sad thing about the
world?” he asked suddenly.

“What?” She shrank from the question.

“It's changed. That's what.” His breath was overtaken
by a racheting cough. He waited a moment and continued. “It should
have been me that died. I've been useless for a year. Useless to
Max. Useless to my family.”

“It shouldn't have been anyone who died,” Auntie Lil
said.

“Max should never have married that woman,” Abe said.
“He got soft in his old age. He was old enough to be a grandfather,
but he wanted kids. I liked her at first. Thought she was a classy
lady. But she's not. She's not worth the dirt you walk on, Lil. Max
knew it, too. It was funny. It's as if he knew he was making a
mistake even before he did it. Didn't invite anyone to the wedding
at all. You know what I think? I think he decided that everyone was
entitled to one big mistake and he was going to have his.” They
were silent. The cuckoo clock chimed downstairs. Neither one of
them heard it. They were thinking of Max.

“He left me his money,” Auntie Lil said. “He left
half to me and half to my nephew. Your family is very angry.”

“Let them be angry. Max gave away the store while he
was alive. Bailed me out every time I tried to go out on my own and
failed. I wasn't always ungrateful, Lil. I stopped hating Max a
long time ago. I stopped when I saw that it was contagious.
Brothers should never hate brothers.” He closed his eyes as if a
spasm of pain had hit. She waited in the long, quiet moments.

“I knew he wasn't leaving me anything,” Abe said at
last. “I didn't tell Abby. She would have had kittens.”

“You knew?”

“He came to see me and told me everything a month
ago. About the trust and the cash bequests. Of course, the estate
was going half to you and half to Davy then. But Max didn't want to
leave Davy cash. He knew it would be gone in a week and thought it
would last longer with a trustee to rein him in. I didn't think
that Davy would...” His voice trailed off.

“I'm sorry. You're ill. I shouldn't be bothering
you.” Auntie Lil smoothed the covers around his shoulders. He had
grown paler from the effort of speaking. It was time for her to
go.

“I'm afraid,” he said suddenly, the words splitting
the silence with unexpected strength. “I'm afraid and I don't know
of what.”

“You're afraid?” she asked softly.

He did not answer for a minute. “I don't mean afraid
for my life. That's nearly gone. Besides, I keep a gun in the
drawer by the bed. Silly, isn't it? It's older than I am and I can
hardly hold it, much less use it. But I feel better with it
there.”

“Do you know who killed Max? Is that why you're
afraid?”

He shook his head slowly. “I don't know who killed
Max. Or who killed Davy. It could be anyone. Because hatred grows.
It's everywhere. It will never stop. I think anyone could have
killed them. My wife. My sister. One of our hundred and twenty
employees. Even me. Anyone can kill anyone these days. And they
do.”

“Is that what you're afraid of?” she asked.

“No.” He was quiet, trying to put his thoughts into
words. “I'm afraid of my wife's anger,” he finally said. “Afraid of
what it may do to her. She's angry at me for being sick. I'm no
help to her right now. She's angry at me that Davy died. She's
angry at everyone. Oh, how I miss my son.” He swept an arm in the
air and it flailed wildly. She coaxed it back to his side, stroking
his skin to calm him.

“Don't talk about it anymore,” she said. “I should
never have come.”

“No. You were supposed to come,” he whispered. “I've
been lying here praying for you to come. I need you. I want you to
do something for me.”

“What?” she asked.

“Davy is dead,” he said. “But Seth is still alive.
He's my youngest. He has a good heart. He loves me and I love him.
But Abby won't let him in the house. I know that's why he hasn't
been to see me. My daughter, Karen, sneaks in when Abby isn't home.
I tell Abby to leave the door open in case I have to call the
paramedics while she's gone, but it's really so that Karen can get
inside. So I do see her. And, of course, I see Jake. He comes by
all the time. But I want to see my son Seth before I die. Will you
find him and tell him to come? Tell him I'm sorry. Tell him that
now I understand that all the things we used to get angry about
really don't matter at all.”

“I will,” Auntie Lil promised. “I'll find him and
tell him.”

“And be careful,” Abe warned. His voice grew faint.
He coughed, then apologized for it. “I'm not used to so much—”

“I know,” she said. “Don't talk. I have a few
minutes. I'll just sit here a while.”

Auntie Lil sat in the silence of the sterile bedroom,
holding Abe's hand and watching him fall back to sleep. As he
relaxed, his features spread and she could see more clearly his
resemblance to Max. They had been so different at one time, the two
brothers, both in looks and in temperament. Age and death had
evened the score. For the first time she wondered what it must have
been like for Abe—never quite able to catch up to Max, no matter
what he did. Always chasing Max the war hero, Max the inventor, Max
the business whiz, Max the prodigal son.

It was a sad world, Auntie Lil thought as she finally
slipped from the lonely house. It was a sad world and Abe was right
about one thing: things had surely changed. There would never be
another Max.

 T.S. and Herbert sat silently in the backseat
of Lilah's limousine, each lost in thought. Grady, the chauffeur,
whistled an Irish folk tune as he drove. He seemed happy to be
helping out and T.S. was comforted by his support.

Herbert could barely contain his excitement. In the
deepest recesses of his mind, he had long harbored the wish that
was about to be fulfilled. He was to accompany T.S. to Sterling
& Sterling—not as a messenger but as the honored associate of a
client.

For fifteen years he had worked as an in-house
courier for the bank, delivering securities within the Wall Street
district. Yet despite his dignity, intelligence, and ability to do
a fine job, Herbert had remained a mere messenger in his coworkers'
eyes. This status had subjected him to a wide variety of
indignities he had tried hard to overlook: being ignored by younger
men in more expensive suits who felt it beneath their dignity to
comment on his existence because he wore a windbreaker; secretaries
ordering him to bring them back cups of coffee as a way to assure
themselves that they, at least, were not on the bottom of the
feeding chain; and, worst of all, complete invisibility so far as
Sterling and Sterling partners were concerned. To be ignored by the
very men upon whom Herbert bestowed his undying loyalty was the
worst indignity of all.

Given the stringent pecking order of the firm,
Herbert could be forgiven his euphoria. He had selected his finest
suit and conservative accessories for the groundbreaking trip
through the client door.

T.S. was equally resplendent. He sat in the
limousine, looking and feeling like a takeover king, his confidence
fortified by the alacrity with which his request for an appointment
with Preston Freeman had been granted. Yes, the managing partner
could work him in that afternoon, his secretary had assured T.S. In
fact, he had been about to call T.S. to set up a meeting
himself.

When they reached Sterling and Sterling's corner,
Grady was magnificent. He stopped the limousine at the client
entrance, cheerfully blocking a long line of traffic behind them.
Before either T.S. or Herbert could climb out, Grady was there to
open the door with a deep bow. Only T.S. was close enough to spot
the twinkle in his eye.

A guard tipped his hat to them as they entered the
marble rotunda that greeted all monied visitors. Both Herbert and
T.S. unconsciously straightened their ties before they pushed
through the inner doors.

“Feels a little different, doesn't it?” T.S. asked
Herbert quietly. They were marching down the long marble hallway of
the banking platform, approaching the Partners' Hall. The slick
stone floor gleamed beneath the glow of brass chandeliers and their
footsteps echoed importantly through the cavernous room. The air
seemed richer, the lights more golden. Herbert breathed slowly,
conscious that many pairs of eyes were watching their approach.
Word had leaked that the rarest of surprises had happened: an
employee was returning to Sterling and Sterling as a client. Since
every client of the firm was at least a multimillionaire or more,
this was no small accomplishment.

“Mr. Freeman is expecting you in Conference Room
Two,” the uniformed valet informed them. He nodded politely as he
escorted them through the swinging doors, and Herbert felt ashamed
of the swelling in his heart. One must not be filled with pride
about such unimportant measures of character as money, he reminded
himself firmly. Nor must one break into a jig of exultation at an
inappropriate time.

The conference room was small and filled from top to
bottom with memorabilia gathered during two hundred years of
international banking and commerce. Photographs, prints, maps and
beautifully framed paintings crowded every surface of its walls,
rendering the wallpaper nearly invisible. An ebony-topped table
graced the center of the room. All but two of the chairs grouped
around it were occupied. The occupants were all males of various
ages and physical types, but all wore the same somber expression.
No one seemed to recognize Herbert as the messenger who had toiled
so diligently on their behalf a few years before. And no one
acknowledged that they already knew T.S. Perhaps they felt it
impolite to refer, however obliquely, to his stint as a member of
the working class.

Managing partners were allowed to be different.
“Hubbert,” Prescott Freeman said cheerfully, doing his best to
wring T.S.'s arm from his socket. “Welcome to the rarefied air of a
client meeting.” The assembled bankers chuckled obediently.

“This is my associate, Herbert Wong,” T.S. said,
clearing the way for Herbert to have his arm wrung from its
socket.

T.S. and Herbert took their seats at the table,
huddling close together with the same instinct that inspired
settlers to circle their wagons against attacking Indians. T.S.
surveyed the men at the table. He recognized Sterling and
Sterling's lawyer from the meeting with the Rosenblooms. He also
identified the head of the tax area and Sterling's trust company
subsidiary. The other faces were less familiar. “Quite a crowd,” he
said nervously, trying a smile. To his horror, the bankers produced
another round of obedient chuckles, as if he had said something
witty. Thirty-three million was far more effective than Pavlov's
shocks when it came to behavior modification, T.S. decided.