Five Fortunes (24 page)

Five Fortunes / 181

They walked in silence until they were in the car.

“So,” said Laurie. “Do you want to go back to the airport?”

“Hell, no. Let’s go talk to Hunt, and get to work.”

Laurie gave him a quick smile. When they were out of town, Walter added, “Thank you for telling me now. I’ve known candidates who would have let me read it in the paper.”

“You’re welcome.”

Laurie drove, feeling an odd sense of apprehension and elation.

T
he Monday after Thanksgiving, Carter and DeeAnne met with all the ops to discuss current and future business.

Carter made the case for Shanti’s vigilantes. “It will be dangerous,”

she said more than once. “This is gang territory.”

“I
hate
those guys,” said Leesa. “Dealers. Posers. Jerks who think going to prison or dying young makes you a man.”

“Can’t be any more dangerous than the freeway,” said Mae Ruth.

The yes vote was unanimous.

Two nights later Carter was in the basement of the Good Hope Baptist Church, with Shanti and Flora. Almost fifty of Shanti’s neighbors were sitting on folding metal chairs, drinking coffee and holding notepads. They were mostly women, though the minister of the church was there, and a number of the church wardens. Shanti gave Carter the cast of characters as people arrived.

A tall green-eyed man wearing a Lion of Judah emblem ran the local video store. There was a man in his sixties who owned a fried chicken franchise, and a Hispanic couple who owned a bodega.

There was also a lone Korean who ran a grocery store two blocks down; Shanti had urged him to come but was surprised that he had.

“Who’s the one with the hat?” Carter whispered. She watched a matron in a flowered dress and a regal air take a seat in the first row.

People came to pay respects as if she were the matriarch of the gathering.

“Aunt Sallie Spear. The church organist. She’s lost three sons on the street,” Shanti explained. “They were all she had.”

182

Five Fortunes / 183

“She’s not your real aunt?”

Shanti shook her head no. “Her grandnephew, Titus, is Flora’s best friend. There’s eight…no, nine women here who are raising their grandkids, because the parents are dead or in jail.”

“Who’s this now?”

“That’s Thomas Magee. He’s like the mayor of the square. He used to court my grandma.”

The old man walked slowly, and his head wagged slightly from side to side, as if his neck were on a spring. Someone gave him a chair so that he too could sit in front. He wore large pink hearing aids, the color once designated as “flesh.”

The minister called the meeting to order with a prayer, and then Shanti spoke. She announced that she had copies of a legal guide to fighting street drug markets, anyone interested should see her. She reported that a citizen’s group ten blocks away had gotten the housing court to shut down a crack house by filing a civil suit against the landlord. She repeated what had obviously been discussed before, the way to turn in a dealer. “You got to describe the dude from hat to shoes, man, and get it right, or else they don’t have ‘reasonable suspicion.’ They’re not
allowed
to stop him and search him if you just say ‘little black dude, the one that’s always out there dealing by the basketball hoop.’”

“I don’t want to call The Man at all,” said a woman wearing a purple dress and matching lipstick. “I just go up to the guy and say,

‘Get the fuck off my block!’” There was applause and laughter.

“I hear you. But
you’re
the one they’re going to hurt if they start having serious business trouble. We’ve got a new plan.” And she introduced Carter.

Carter started by establishing her credentials, then she explained the drill. There would be a regular rota of watchers monitoring the block. All the watchers would have her cell-phone number. When anyone knew where a drug supply was stashed, she would call with exact details. “We’ll come as quick as we can and leave as quick as we can. If we have to poke around looking for the stuff, it puts my people in danger, so help us.

184 / Beth Gutcheon

“Next: Shanti has a petition we want you all to sign to get the incoming service to the pay phones in this neighborhood cut off. That will keep the customers from calling to place their orders.”

“Numbers guys aren’t going to like it,” someone shouted from the back row, and there was laughter.

A young woman nearby answered, “Why not get them to change to rotary phones, so they can’t page the fucking runners on their beepers?”

“That’s a great idea,” said Carter. “You need someone to bird-dog it. After you send the letter, you’ve got to call every day, be polite but firm…”

“I’ll do that,” said Aunt Sallie Spear. There was a stirring of approval. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that if this woman said she’d get it done, it would get done.

“Three: you’ve got to put pressure on the merchants who allow dealing in their stores. If they’re afraid, offer to work as a group to keep the police responding to calls. But if they refuse, make it clear that you will boycott the store until you close it down.”

She told them to work as a group, avoid confrontations, and try to stay anonymous.

“When the police see you’re serious, they’ll start answering your calls,” she added. She hadn’t expected quite so many people to laugh.

But the main thing, everyone understood, was that if the dealers kept losing their stashes, the suppliers, or their enforcers, would start taking care of the problem themselves.

A
lbie Strouse had made a point of informing his family of the provisions of his will, so it came as no surprise.

The Strouse Foundation got a bequest equal to half the estate. Bert and Eloise had been amply provided for during his lifetime, and the grandchildren had trusts that would pay for education and travel.

He had set up a similar trust for Rae’s grandchildren, per stirpes, in case Walter married. He had given Harriet and Walter $10,000 each on their birthdays every year, and they had known that this would go on only for his lifetime. There was also a trust set up for Rae’s support, more she said than she could ever use, that would revert to the Strouse Foundation at her death. The rest of the estate, except for bequests to James and Doreen and other servants, and some jewelry and furniture left to Bert and Eloise, went to Rae outright.

It amounted to quite a few millions. The number of millions was a surprise, but the real surprise was a letter, filed with the will, sealed and addressed to Rae.

October 16, 1988

Dear wife,

If you are reading this, we have already said good-bye. I can’t
guess how far in the future that may be, but I know my memory
is failing and I believe I see where I am headed. I want to make
clear (and I enclose my doctor’s report, dated and witnessed) that
I am very much in my right mind as I write this.

185

186 / Beth Gutcheon

I want to leave you with a wish. Although I hope we will have
many more happy years together, it seems wise to communicate
it now. I have thought about this from all angles and am not likely
to change my mind. Nevertheless, it is not an instruction, or in
any way binding on you. You will know when the time comes
what is right.

If it happens that it pleases you to fall in with this wish, it will
affect our descendants, and for that reason, I will explain myself
more for them than for you; I believe you will understand without
much explanation.

As you know, my father’s parents came from Russia, from a town
whose name I do not know. My grandfather wrote only Russian
and Yiddish; my grandmother could not read or write in any
language. If there were ever family letters or diaries, they were
not passed on, because my generation couldn’t read them. My
grandparents were very proud of having come here, and they
wanted their children to be Americans. That is how the name of
the town we came from was lost and the name of the family, for
that matter. My grandfather, who loved music, renamed himself
after the composer of waltzes, but he spelled it his own way, so
no one would think he was pretending a relationship. Late in life
he was reunited with his brother Hymie, who had settled in New
York. Hymie had renamed himself Harley Shore. Harley, Grandpa
never understood; Shore is easier. It’s a family full of poets. (And
dancers!)

The Shore cousins have prospered. And I have had luck beyond
all expectations, as I don’t have to tell you. What I do have to tell
is, I was especially lucky to make my fortune when I was a grown
man. Already a person, I learned my lessons from my parents and
my grandparents, not from the way the world treats you when
you have a certain kind of bank account. I’ve seen the children
who grow up with that, and I am not impressed with the result.

I do not know much about my family’s history, and I do not expect
my distant descendants to know much about me. I have not been
a practicing Jew. I haven’t really been any
Five Fortunes / 187

kind of Jew, but I am the son of my fathers, whether I know their
names or not. From them I have learned to be grateful for what
life has given me. More important, I know that true charity is not
conducted in public in exchange for recognition. The gift that
feeds the giver is done only in sight of God. I’m enough of a Jew
to know that.

I do not believe that I made millions of dollars because I am
smarter than everyone else. There are hundreds of thousands
smarter, harder working, more deserving. I made money because
it was a boom time after the war, and because I was lucky. I knew
my business, like hundreds of others; I had some good ideas, like
hundreds of others. I worked hard; so does the man who tends
our garden. California happened to be giving away great
educations in those days. My idea happened to take off. Other
people had good ideas that didn’t. I’ve been lucky financially but
that doesn’t make me beloved of God. If I’m beloved of God, the
proof is that I’ve been lucky in love.

In my grandmother Sunny’s house, we always met for Shabbes
evening when I was a boy. She sent me down to O’Farrell Street
for challah every Friday, and every Friday night, after Grandpa
said the blessing, she tore a piece of bread from the challah, and
burnt it in the candle. That was the offering. It meant, “We have
enough. We remember the needs of others.” Then the bread went
around the table. Each one tore off a piece, and you said out loud
one thing from the week that made you happy and then you had
to say one thing in the coming week you hoped to improve.

This is the Sabbath evening of my life. This is what I want to say.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with being rich. There have
always been rich and poor. But in the old world, you couldn’t get
rich and forget so easily that the poor are your neighbors. Rich
and poor, you were all side by side, and if the village was sacked
you were all going to suffer together.

I love America. I have had a wonderful life. But here the rich get
so rich, you don’t know anymore that the poor are your
188 / Beth Gutcheon

neighbors. They
aren’t
your neighbors. They live out of sight,
and it might as well be a different planet. The gap is too wide. I
think it is wrong for everyone. In my grandfather’s world, you
were rich if you had a house, and plenty of food, and enough
clothes, and your sons went to school. You could also have a gold
watch and a diamond for your wife. If you had ten times as much
money as you needed for that, you didn’t then have ten houses
and ten gold watches. Here we have ten houses.

While I was making this money, it seemed so lucky, I didn’t know
when my luck might turn sour. I was also brought up to put
something aside for a rainy day. So I did, and it’s a good excuse.

But if Grandma Sunny were here, I’d burn my piece of challah
now. And my wish for the future? I wanted to leave this choice
to you, so you would never, ever feel I hadn’t taken care of you
or the family. But if, as I think, you have enough to live as well
as you want for as long as you may need it, and if you agree that
our children already have enough to ruin them several times over,
it is my wish and my gift to you that you should give the rest
away.

The letter was signed and witnessed, as was the enclosed doctor’s report.

Rae took off her glasses, and looked across the fireplace to Andrew Simon, Albie’s young attorney. Andrew had been one of the witnesses, and it occurred to Rae that this explained, in small part, why Albie had suddenly stopped using his old friend George Livermore, the senior partner. Albie wanted to be sure his lawyer would outlive him.

“I imagine you have some questions,” Andrew said.

“Well, yes, I have.” Rae poured herself another cup of tea and handed the plate of cookies to Andrew. “What if I had died first?”

“If you had predeceased Albie, similar letters would have been sent to Bert and to Eloise. After the bequest to the foundation, the remaining estate would have been divided equally between them, and each would have had the choice to follow his wishes or not.”

Five Fortunes / 189

“That would have been interesting,” said Rae.

“He thought so too, but he hoped it would work out as it has.”

“And have you notified Bert or Eloise?”

“No. My instructions were to leave that to you. You can show them the letter, you can leave it with your own will, or you can keep the whole thing to yourself.”