Carriage Trade (12 page)

But when Tap Day came, nobody tapped Blazer Tarkington.

People began saying that, where the senior societies were concerned, something was “wrong” with him, but nobody knew what it might be. Was his sexual orientation a little off? Not that anybody knew. As far as anybody knew, his romantic life at New Haven was nonexistent.

As far as Blazer himself was concerned, he didn't seem to care that the senior clubs had snubbed him. He was preoccupied with other matters. From his offhand attitude, he seemed to say that he hadn't come to Yale to get involved in that sort of thing, even though to be tapped by a senior society is considered the college's ultimate honor. He had other things on his mind, he seemed to say, though no one knew what they were. Perhaps he had come to Yale to exorcise some private demons, demons that only he knew about.

On the night before graduation, he got drunk—all by himself, apparently—and around midnight who should come lurching into the Beta house, where a party was going on, but Blazer Tarkington. He hadn't been invited, and he wasn't a member of the house, so this was a serious breach of etiquette on his part, and quite unlike him. He stood there, swaying in the doorway, with an open beer can in one hand, and said, “Listen, you sons-of-bitches, there's something's been on my mind to tell you all for the last four years, and now I'm going to tell it!” Everyone grew silent. Then he leaned back out the door, vomited into a boxwood bush, and fell face forward into the bush, passed out. Peter and a friend carried him home and put him in bed. They never did find out what it was he'd had on his mind for four years and was finally going to tell them all.

After college, Peter pretty much lost track of Blazer. He was not the sort of person one tended to stay in touch with, after all, and the rest of his class were becoming too caught up in their new lives and careers in the outside world to take the time to look up old classmates. Occasionally, Peter would read something about the Tarkingtons in the newspapers. Mrs. Tarkington had been named number one on the International Best-Dressed List. Miranda Tarkington's coming-out party on Long Island was a big affair, and the gossip columnist Mona Potter anointed her Deb of the Year. There was no mention of whether Blazer was at that party or not. In fact, Peter read nothing in the papers about Blazer at all.

Then came today's obituary of his father on the front page of
The Times
. There were several things about this death notice that puzzled and intrigued Peter Turner. Why was the doctor flown in by helicopter from miles away in Manhattan? What were the reasons for the fact that no one knew Silas Tarkington's exact age, that his origins were “mysterious,” that he disliked being photographed, avoided the press, and had “successfully resisted the efforts of a number of would-be biographers.” Who was this guy, anyway? Peter wondered.

Blazer's name was not mentioned in the obituary. Had something happened to him? Peter looked him up in the Yale Alumni Directory, and Blazer was listed as living at an address in the East Village. The directory was a couple of years old, so he consulted the Manhattan telephone book and there he was, at the same address.

There was still something about the obituary that bothered Peter, and he couldn't put his finger on what it was. Then it dawned on him. It was in the very last paragraph:
Interment at Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn will be private
. Salem Fields is a Jewish cemetery. Blazer Tarkington was Jewish. That was why all the senior societies had snubbed him. Suddenly Peter was a little ashamed of himself for not having worked harder, at Yale, to make him a friend, for not having tried to get him to remove that chip on his shoulder.

He suddenly remembered, after the snub, hearing a Bones man say, “We just didn't think he'd be happy here.” And as far as Silas Tarkington's money was concerned, he supposed they just considered him another Jewish shopkeeper. That was what was wrong with Blazer. His Jewishness had given him a kind of birth defect.

So Peter decided to call him. “I was sorry to hear about your dad,” he said, when he got him on the phone.

“Yeah.”

“He must have been quite a guy.”

“Yeah.” It was the same old Blazer, taciturn as ever.

“I'm sorry I never knew him.”

“Why?”

“Well, because, as you say, he was quite a guy.”

There was a silence and, because this conversation wasn't exactly moving right along, he decided to try a different tack and get right to the point.

“Look,” he said, “I'm thinking of doing an article about your father. As you know, there's been very little written about him, and he seems to have had an interesting life and career. I was wondering whether you and I could get together.”

There was another long silence, and for a moment Peter thought they'd been disconnected. Then he heard Blazer say, in an almost incredulous tone of voice, “You want to write something about
him
? Why the hell would you want to do that?”

“Look,” he said. “The obituary in
The Times
seems to raise more questions than it answers. Like, where was he born, and when? How did he get his start? I think there's a fascinating business story here, and a fascinating personal story too. After all, he created a specialty store like no other in the world. How did he actually
do
it? He was a kind of Horatio Alger hero, wasn't he? The American success story. Rags to riches—”

“Bullshit!”

“I'm serious. He seems to have been a completely self-made man. He—”

“Bullshit.”

“Readers are always interested in finding out how a man, starting out with a single, rather specialized idea, can build—”

“You really want to dig up all that crap?” Blazer said.

“Maybe you're familiar with some of the business stories I've been writing for
Fortune
, Blazer,” he said, moving right along, even though he wasn't getting much encouragement from the other end of the conversation. “I'm thinking of the corporate history of Tarkington's. The personal history of your father. Because the store
was
your father. There's even the question of who's going to succeed him—or if anybody
can
succeed him. Or if, in a business recession, when a lot of retailers are having problems, a store like yours—”

“Like mine? It ain't my store, buddy. Never was.”

“Whether a store like Tarkington's can survive as the kind of store it's always been. There've been buy-out offers, I understand, and—”

“You're talking about opening up a real can of worms. I guess you know that.”

“No,” he said carefully, “I didn't know that.”

“Or are you just one of those guys who come sniffing around my family because you've got the hots for my kid sister?”

“Nonsense,” he said. “I've never met your sister.” Though he didn't add that he'd certainly like to talk to his sister too.

“All you Yale guys were only nice to me because I had a sister who looked like a hot piece of ass.”

Peter decided not to comment on this, though it seemed a crude way for a man to speak of his sister. He continued with his pitch. “So what do you say, Blazer? Can we get together? Can I present my case to you in person?”

“Are you going to go into the funny way the old man died?” Blazer asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?” Peter said, all at once excited.

“Died of a coronary? There was nothing wrong with the old man's heart, except that it was made of industrial-grade concrete.”

“You mean you think your father was—”

“Ha! They only put in the obituary what the family told them to put in. I'm just saying that something damned fishy happened that day at the pool, no pun intended.”

“But who?”

“The old man had a lot of enemies,” Blazer said. Then he said, “But what the hell. I don't really give a damn how the old man died. I hated the old bastard.” Then, without skipping a beat, he said, “And loved him too. Hated him, and loved him too. After all, he was my father.”

“Look,” Peter said, “let me take you to lunch. We could go to the Yale Club—”

“Fuck the Yale Club! You won't catch me dead inside the fucking Yale Club!”

But even as he said these harsh things, Peter had the strange feeling that there were tears in Blazer's eyes. “Or wherever you say,” he said quietly.

Blazer paused and seemed to consider this. “Well,” he said at last, “if you're going to write all that garbage about the old man, I guess I can't stop you.”

“It's not garbage, Blazer. It's hist—”

“Talk to Jake Kohlberg,” Blazer said, interrupting. “Kohlberg was the old man's lawyer. Kohlberg knew him longer and better than I ever did. He'll tell you all the wonderful things the old man did. Then, maybe, if I talk to you, I can tell you some of the things that weren't quite so wonderful about him. Isn't that what you journalists like to get—a balanced view?”

A note of sarcasm had crept into his voice, particularly in the way he came down hard on the word “balanced,” so Peter decided to change the subject. “Okay,” he said pleasantly. “So—tell me what you've been up to, Blazer. It's been a while.”

“Not much.”

“Interesting job?”

“No.”

Since that sort of left Peter hanging there, he said, “Well, look, I'll call Mr. Kohlberg, and after I've talked to him I'll give you a call, and maybe you and I can get together. It'd be great seeing you again, in any case.”

There was another short silence. Then Blazer said, “Listen, Turner, none of you guys ever did shit for me at Yale. Everything I did at Yale I did for myself. What makes you think I should do shit for you?”

Peter took a deep breath. “Well, Blazer,” he said, “I helped carry you home after you vomited and passed out drunk in a boxwood hedge in front of the Beta house. I held your head over a toilet bowl while you puked some more. Then I laid you on top of your bed, took off your shoes, loosened your belt, undid your collar, and wiped all the stinking puke off the front of your shirt. I took off your granny glasses and that dumb cap you always wore and put them on top of your dresser, laying the glasses neatly with the stems down. I wet a towel with cold water and put it on your forehead. Then I put a pillow under your head, my friend, and covered you with a blanket, and put a bucket beside your bed in case you needed to puke again. Remember any of that? Maybe not, because you were passed-out drunk. But I certainly never got any thank-you for that from you.”

There was another little silence, followed by a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah,” Blazer said. “Maybe you did do that. So give me a call after you've talked to Kohlberg.” Then the line went dead.

But when Peter Turner called Jacob Kohlberg, he felt he had struck a dead end. The lawyer's tone was almost icily formal. “Silas Tarkington was a friend and client of mine throughout his entire business life,” he said. “I'm afraid client confidentiality prevents me from discussing either his business or his personal life with you. In my book, client confidentiality extends even after the client's death. I'm sorry not to be able to help you, Mr. Turner.”

Then, late in the afternoon, Jacob Kohlberg had called him back, and his tone was friendlier. “I mentioned your project to Mrs. Tarkington,” he said, “and I believe she'd be willing to talk to you. She gave me permission to give you her private number. But give her a few days, while she adjusts to—the loss of her husband.”

7

Miranda steps out from under the Pierre's marquee, turns south and walks a block, and there it is, her father's magical store, dark now in honor of his memory but still full of his life. As always, the sight of the grand old building, which appears to be nestled in its newer L-shaped addition, evokes a little inner gasp of wonder. How gracefully the elegant Nile-green awnings seem to reach out and embrace the avenue. She stands at the corner of 59th Street, waiting for the
WALK
light, admiring the sheer presence of Tarkington's as it manages to grace this corner of Manhattan.

Suddenly she turns, takes several rapid steps eastward down 59th, and steps into the recessed doorway of a religious bookstore, where she appears to be intensely interested in the titles displayed in its window. She has just seen Diana Smith emerging from Tarkington's side entrance, looking not quite her usual spiffed-up self, looking preoccupied. She has no wish to encounter her late father's mistress at this point, and out of the corner of her eye she watches as Smitty steps to the curb, raises her hand to flag a taxi, greets a passing friend, and finally steps into a cab and is borne away, southward, into the evening. This process, which takes mere minutes, seems to take hours. Then Miranda emerges from her hiding place, returns to the corner, and waits for the next
WALK
light.

Inside the store, she waves a greeting to Oliver, the watchman.

“Sad day, ain't it, Miss Tarkington,” he says.

“Yes, it is.”

“You have my deep condolences.”

“Thank you, Oliver,” she says.

“You just missed Miss Smith,” he says. “She was just here.”

“Oh, what a pity,” she says.

“She was lookin' real bad, real green around the gills, like the fella says. She's takin' it real bad. We all are.”

“What did she want, I wonder?”

“She took out a big ring she wanted to show to a customer from South America.”

“Oh?” she says, making a mental note, thinking, Have the vultures already begun to descend? In a book about Barbara Hutton, she read how, after the heiress's death, all her jewelry was mysteriously missing by the time anyone from the family arrived. At least all of Smitty's merchandise is comfortably insured.

In the bank of three elevators, the southernmost car goes directly to the apartment, and Miranda enters it, using the magnetic card that will permit her to be carried, nonstop, to the upper two floors. The elevator glides upward, and she steps out into the mirrored foyer of the apartment. Milliken, her mother's major domo, greets her. “Mrs. Tarkington hasn't arrived yet, ma'am,” he says. “She telephoned to say she'd be a few minutes late.”