THOSE HAVING BUSINESS WITH LANGDON TAFT TRIED TO get to him by eleven in the morning. For Taft, the clear, bright hours were his best. He felt his momentum build from waking to about eleven. Eleven was when momentum slowed and distraction set in. Distraction, diversion—or the need of them. Or of their substitutes. One substitute in particular. Eleven was when Taft was known to pour his first dram of Sir Walter Scott. An ex-gentleman, ex-teacher, ex-scholar, ex-householder, ex-abstainer, he was retired from many things, indeed from most everything, but not, his friends and neighbors observed, from Sir Walter Scott.
In fact it was a slander. Taft was not a forenoon drinker. If he was found to be imbibing in the morning, it was not from habit, but because he had forgotten to leave off the night before. So it was, no doubt, on this day, at ten-thirty, when Eli Adams knocked on the door of the room Taft used for a study. Too late.
“Eli!” cried Taft. “Eli, old sport. Come you in. Sit you down. Have an eye-opener with us.”
Be careful, whispered Dangerfield. He stood in the shadow behind Taft. Mysteriously, he was attired in a fresh, well-pressed, white lab coat over a crisp blue shirt and a red polka-dot bow tie. A stethoscope hung around his neck, and the left breast pocket of his lab coat was embroidered: MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL. He might have been a prosperous surgeon. Be careful, he murmured.
“Us?” Eli asked.
Taft pushed the Sir Walter’s across the desk toward Eli, pushed a glass after it. “Water?” he asked.
“Nothing, thanks. Nothing at all. Well, maybe some coffee?”
“No coffee,” said Taft. “Don’t use it. Don’t keep it in the house. That stuff is bad for you, Eli. Bad. Doctor told me once if he could get his patients to do one thing? For their health? Cut out coffee. That’s right, coffee. Worse than booze, worse than the cigs, worse than dope. Worse than loose women—”
“Worse than work?”
“Well, well,” said Taft. “But you get my point. Coffee. Stay clear of coffee, Eli. Sit.”
Eli took the chair across the desk from Taft.
Dangerfield bent to Taft’s ear. Ask him what he wants, whispered Dangerfield.
“What can I do for you this morning, old man?” asked Taft.
“Went by Marcia’s the other day after I left here,” said Eli. “The little boy, you know.”
“Bobby,” said Taft.
“Sean. He’s in Mass General. Been there a week.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“No,” said Eli. “He has to have surgery before they can start treatments, I guess. They don’t know what to do. Those big-shot doctors, all they get from them is the run-around. Carl hasn’t been working full-time. Marcia cleans, when she can, but she has the baby, too.”
Taft nodded. He raised his glass and took a sip. “Sure you won’t—uh—,” he said, pointing at the bottle.
Eli shook his head. “So I told her I’d come see you,” he finished. “She said I wasn’t to.”
Dangerfield bent to Taft’s ear again. Behind his hand he said softly, Ask him what he thinks you can do. Are you a doctor?
“I’m sorry for this,” Taft told Eli. “But what is it you think I can do? Am I a doctor?”
“You know what you are,” Eli told him. “You’re a friend. An old friend. They’ve got the Mass General bills in a stack on top of the TV. Stack’s two inches thick, and they’ve barely started. They’re looking at tens, more likely hundreds of thousands or they lose their kid. Probably lose him anyway, in the end. They know that. They need help. You’re able to help. Well able. And you’re a friend of the family.”
Not that family, tell him.
“Not that family,” said Taft.
“Come on,” said Eli.
“Come on, yourself, old fellow. You know the history.”
“History, is right. What is it, thirty years?”
“We Tafts have long memories.”
“So what?”
“So what? She threw me over, old sport.”
“So what?” Eli asked again. “The little kid in Mass General didn’t throw you over. His mother didn’t throw you over. It was his grandmother did, for Christ’s sake.”
Behind Taft’s chair, Dangerfield hissed. I bet she wishes she hadn’t, now, he breathed to Taft.
“I bet she wishes she hadn’t, now,” said Taft.
“What was that?” asked Eli.
“I said, I bet—”
“I heard what you said. Okay, suit yourself. Marcia told me not to come. I’ll be on my way,” said Eli. But he kept his seat.
“She did?”
“Said I’d be wasting my time.”
Taft smiled and shook his head. “But you knew better,” he said.
“I thought I did.”
“Relax, old sport,” said Taft. “Come on, take the yardstick out of your rectum and have a boost with us, here.” He pushed the Sir Walter’s further toward Eli.
Careful.
“Us?” asked Eli.
“With me,” said Taft. Eli poured two fingers of Sir Walter’s into the glass and tasted it. He made a face.
“What’s the matter?” Taft asked him.
“That’s awful stuff,” said Eli. “All the money you have, you can’t get in a decent brand of Scotch? This tastes like ditch water.”
“It’s cheap,” said Taft. “We Tafts are a saving people, you know. We’re not Scots for nothing.”
“Scots?”
“Lowland Scots. Like our friend.” Taft nodded toward the bottle of Sir Walter’s.
“I thought you were part of those Tafts that had the President Taft,” said Eli.
“So we are—at a certain remove. And what were they? Border Scots, all of them.”
“We’re all Americans, I thought,” said Eli.
“Don’t go Ellis Island on me, here, old man. Point is, we’re a provident people. That’s why I’m able to help that poor little boy and his mother and his father and his perishing grandmother, God damn her black soul to hell.”
Hear, hear, murmured Dangerfield.
“You will help them, then?” Eli asked him.
“What do you think?”
“Really help? The whole shot?”
“The whole shot,” said Taft. “Do this, old boy: go back to Marcia. That two-inch stack of Mass General bills? Tell her to send it to me. Then in future, when more come, she’s not even to open them. Just send them here.”
“All of them?”
“All of them. She can forget about them. Her boy will be fine.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so.”
Eli blinked. He laughed. “Well,” he said. “Well, that’s good, then. That’s very good. I don’t know what to say. Thank you. What made you change your mind?”
“I didn’t change my mind, old sport. I just wanted to run you around a little. Forgive me.”
“Nothing to forgive,” said Eli. “I’ll go to Marcia’s right now. Well, I might have another drink before I go.”
“Help yourself,” said Taft.
“I might even buy you a bottle of something good.”
“Don’t bother, old boy. After about the first half a glass, quality doesn’t matter much. He’ll tell you the same,” he turned his head slightly to glance up at Dangerfield.
“Who will?” asked Eli.
Careful, whispered Dangerfield.
• • •
When Eli Adams had left, Dangerfield slipped around Taft’s desk and took the chair where the visitor had sat. He arranged his lab coat over his knees. He shook his head. I told you and told you, Chief, he said. You need to be a little careful.
“Careful?” Taft asked.
Discreet. You can’t just bring me into the conversation. Not with outsiders. You know this.
“Eli’s not an outsider.”
Everybody’s an outsider now, Chief. Remember that. Don’t blow our deal because you have a couple of pops for breakfast and start loving your neighbor.
“Eli doesn’t care about our deal. He’s a friend.”
Dream on, Chief. Friends? There are no friends. Never were. Never will be. There’s only the deal. Remember that. But we won’t argue. On the plus side, you played him very well. You had him going there for a minute, yes, you did. He thought you weren’t going to unbelt for him.
“No,” said Taft. “He knew I would. He knew from the start. He wouldn’t have come if he hadn’t known.”
He looked like he didn’t know. He said he didn’t know.
“He was pretending.”
Why would he do that?
“For fun,” said Taft. “I told you: he’s a friend.”
Dangerfield shrugged. If you say so, Chief. But why did you, anyway?
“Why did I help them? Why would I not?” asked Taft. “They’re my neighbors. They’re good people.”
What about the one who threw you over?
“Mollie? She’s an old lady. She was something in her day. Our day. Really something. Big blue eyes. Big—you know. But now she looks like a dumptruck. You heard Eli. She’s a grandmother.”
She still threw you over, though, didn’t she?
“It wasn’t Mollie, it was her parents,” said Taft. “Didn’t approve of me. Can you believe it? Molly was willing. I think. Anyway, I don’t hold a grudge.”
The hell you don’t, said Dangerfield. And why not? If you’ve got a good grudge, don’t waste it. Hold it. Hold it tight. My advice.
But Taft shook his head. “Besides,” he went on, “you heard him. The little boy’s going to die.”
So what do you care if he does?
“Very well. What would you do?”
Let him die. Look, he’ll die someday, anyway. Not my problem. Not yours. Shit happens. Keep the money.
“Keep the money?”
Bingo, Chief.
“Keep the money, and do what with it?” Taft demanded. “What would you do? You won’t help Marcia and Carl and Sean. You won’t pay the doctors. What would you do?”
Oh, I don’t know. Anything. Have fun. Travel. Not like you, anyway. All you do is sit here.
“What if I do? Did you really think when I signed on that I was going to go in for fancy cars, boats, houses? Racehorses? Sea cruises? Football teams?”
Why not?
“The trouble with you,” Taft told Dangerfield, “is you’ve got no education. You’ve got no class.”
Not like you, you mean. You’re a regular aristocrat, aren’t you? I wonder, though, Chief. I know something about aristocrats. I’ve done business with thousands of them. You don’t look like one. You don’t act like one. Your pal Eli thinks you’re so rich. Are you?
Taft smiled. “Around here, if your tractor’s paid off, you’re rich,” he said.
My point, Chief.
“To be sure, I’m luckier than most. I have a cushion.”
A cushion, said Dangerfield. Good thing, too, since I’m guessing you never were much of an earner. Am I right?
“You’re not wrong.”
What about that cushion, then?
“Started with Grandad,” said Taft. “Grandad wasn’t a big man. Had a hardware store in the next town up the line here. Sold harness to farmers. But he was a careful man, a prudent man, and Dad was his only child. He meant that Dad should have opportunities. Dad went to the town academy, but then Grandad sent him to Harvard. He meant Dad should make useful friends. After that, he put him into a law office in Brattleboro. No law school. You learned the way you’d learn a trade, in an apprenticeship.”
The way I learned, myself, said Dangerfield. The best way.
“I don’t know. According to Dad, he never did learn much law. But he learned something almost as good.”
Insurance? Banking?
“Real estate,” said Taft. “Dad started investing. Nothing grand, just putting his spare change into properties. Raw land. Dad came along, you see, right after World War Two. This whole part of the country was in hard times. It was shut down. The doors were locked. The lights were out. The old-time, tit-squeezing dairy farmers had busted, the mills had busted. Nobody had a pot to piss in. You could have had the whole state for the price of a cut-rate cruise today.”
How would you know, Chief? Dangerfield asked him. You don’t like cruises, remember? Cruises, boats, so on, they’re for the likes of me, right? They’re for peasants. Not you. You’ve got too much education, right? Too much class?
“I’m sorry I said that. Whiskey talk. I must be a bit tight.”
You’re hammered, Chief. You’re hammered, and it’s not even noon. You might want to dial back on the sauce, don’t you think?
“Hah,” said Taft. “That’s pretty rich, coming from you.”
Friendly advice, Chief. But think it over. Where you’re going, it can be hard to get a drink.
“Dry county, is it?”
Dry as dust. Dry as dry bones.
“I believe that, anyway,” said Taft.
Go on with your story, Chief. Your father …
“Not much more to say. Turned out Dad hadn’t exactly been buying all that land at random. He had those useful friends. Time the interstate highways began to get built into this country up here, lo and behold, Dad owned a good deal of the land they were built on—or, more to the point, he owned the land where they crossed. ‘Mister Interchange,’ they used to call him.”
How did he know where they’d cross?
“He guessed.”
Lucky, wasn’t he? said Dangerfield. You know, Chief? I’m going to have to remember to ask our IT Department to run your name in the archives. I’m thinking we might have more than one file.
“You think?”
Oh, yes, said Dangerfield. But either way, here you are. Your old man’s lucky. You’re lucky, too, aren’t you?
“Well,” said Taft. “You know what they say?”
What do they say, Chief?
“Happy the man whose father goes to the devil.”
Dangerfield showed a thin smile. Put it that way, he said.
“So, there you have it,” said Taft. “My cushion.”
That’s it? asked Dangerfield. That’s the cushion? You could hardly get two cats’ asses comfortable on a cushion that size, could you? It amounts to a shit-hook lawyer, not super-honest, who dabbles in real estate. That, and a few gas stations. Some cushion. It’s small time, Chief. Cub Scout stuff. Not high value, not at all. So how about all those tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands you’re going to send to Mass General for poor little what’s-his-name? Can the cushion really front that, like you told Adams?
“What do you think?”
Me? I don’t know. How should I?
“I bet you do, though. I bet you know to the penny.”
You lose. I’m not your accountant.
“What are you, then?”
I’m your spiritual advisor, said Dangerfield. Come on, Chief. Be honest. Can the cushion really cover the kind of bills you say these people are looking at?
“Not close,” said Taft.
Well?
“That’s where you come in, isn’t it? Mass General bills Marcia. Marcia bills me. I bill you. Right?”
Absolutely. That’s our contract.
“Another thing,” said Taft.
What’s that, Chief?
“It’s more than the bills,” said Taft. “Jimmy, the kid in Mass General? He gets better. Permanent remission. Complete recovery. Got that? He comes home. He’s fine. A long and happy life for little Jimmy.”
Whoa, Chief, said Dangerfield. Slow down. I don’t know. Our contract’s for the money, here, not for medical miracles.
“Whoa, yourself. Our contract is for whatever I say it’s for.”
I’m just telling you, said Dangerfield. It’s not something I can approve on my own. I’ll have to take it to my superior.
“We have a deal,” said Taft. “Your superior can go to hell.”
Dangerfield snickered. Put it that way, he said.
“Hah,” said Taft. “Nor is he out of it, eh?”
Put it that way, Dangerfield said again. He grinned. That’s a pretty good line, Chief. Did you get that in your reading, too?
“You bet,” said Taft.
• • •
Thought Taft after Dangerfield’s departure: fiends, writers, religious men, and educators—they always want to know about the money. Where is it? Who has it? Where did they get it? How much? Since when? Never was much interested, myself. Figured the poor you have always with you, likewise the rich. Use what you’ve got, not lavishly, but, especially for others, with the free, the open hand. No obligations, no game-playing. Give it out. Give it away. Secret of my unsuccess, no doubt.
Taft uncorked the Sir Walter’s and poured himself a small one.
The free, the open hand, that’s the ticket, whoever you are, whatever your line of work. Recall the good old story about Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber. Willie hits the Farmers’ and Drovers’ for a cool million, gets away clean. Then, the very next week, he hits the Merchants’ and Traders’, but there he’s unlucky. Somebody ratted. The law’s waiting for him. He gets caught. Cops have Willie down at the station house. They ask him, they say, “Willie, you just got a cool million from your last score, now here you are working again after only a week. What happened to the million you got from the Farmers’ and Drovers’?” And Willie tells them, “Boys, it was like this. Yes, I walked out of the Farmers’ and Drovers’ with a cool million. But that was last week. Boys, she’s all gone. Three hundred thousand I left at the track. Three hundred thousand I blew across the bar. Three hundred thousand I spent on the ladies of the night. And the last hundred thousand, I guess, I just kind of pissed away.”