HOPE FOR CHANGE... But Settle for a Bailout (15 page)

“Do you want to order’?” asked Larry. “On
me.”

I hemmed, and while searching for a
diplomatic way of saying I hadn’t eaten at Jack-in-the-Box since I
was a teenager, Larry stood, took my arm and walked me to the
counter, where he ordered a breakfast Jack combo, with coffee, and
then turned to me, with the look one reserves to welcome family to
their favorite eatery.

“I…, I...,” I stammered, looking at the
menu.

“It’s a little early, but the churros are
good,” Larry said.

“Coffee,” I blurted out. “A tall
coffee.”

“Large, yes?” asked the middle-aged woman
behind the counter. I nodded.

As Larry picked up his tray, he passed me,
doctoring my coffee.

“Don’t want you to strain yourself, if it’s
too early,” he said, heading to the table.

“Nothing for you?” I asked Lori.

“I’m training,” she said. “I can’t eat this
stuff.”

Lori’s swims. During our marriage, it was
the pool Lori would insist be part of any apartment we looked at.
After a succession of small apartment that meant hundreds of laps
under watchful but hidden eyes, Lori moved to the Belmont Olympic
Pool, and, increasingly, to the Pacific. As our marriage grew more
dim, the length of her swims grew. I got the message of where I fit
into things when Lori recounted, after one morning’s swim, how a
pair of dolphins had swam alongside her for much of that day’s
swim, and that she extended her swim by half-an-hour, as the two
dolphins were so forward and affectionate that she felt it had been
the most passionate, fulfilling, soulful experience of her
life.

Larry ate a fried hash brown stick, as I
outlined the skills he would want in a team. If we were lucky, I
said, we would find two people who possessed the litany of traits
and skills needed.

“Where will they work?” asked Larry.

“What do you mean, where…?”

“Like, am I gonna rent some office building?
And would I get to go in, too, whenever I want?”

“Larry, this is why I say you have to let me
oversee this process,” I said, exasperated.

“No,” said Lori, instantly drawing Larry’
full attention. “If he wants to be involved in any decision, you
have to make that happen. This is his money. It has to be his
experience.”

Larry looked at both of us and raised his
two index fingers, perhaps signaling something, or perhaps only due
to his body at times moving independently of his mind. “Lori knows
my thinking. Lawrence, you know the whole banking thing. But since
Lori is smarter than me on life stuff, if someone has to sign
things along with you, Lawrence, I want it to be her. Two
signatures on everything; you, plus either me or her.”

“Well,” I said slowly, “that is an important
part of all this…. Signature control. I would prefer that, uh, that
we not... work together.”

“Oh,” Lori said swiftly, “that is my
preference, too.”

“That’s fine,” said Larry. “So now you have
two more people to find. Don’t bother screening. Lori and I will
sit in on the interviews.”

As Larry ate another hash brown stick, his
cell phone rang. “Hello? What? Who is this? I don’t know you,” said
Larry. “Look, what? No, I’m not going to give you money. Hello?”
There was a long silence at the table after Larry put his phone
down.

“Lawrence, can I hand my phone over, too?”
Larry said, picking up a hash brown stick, looking at it, limp and
oily in his fingers, before dropping it onto his tray. “People’re
calling me and I want someone else to tell them no. It’s stressing
me out.” He unpopped the lid from his coffee and added another
sugar and stirred. “It’d just he easier if I could hand everything
over to someone who can handle it, you know?”

“Just the phone? or... mail and bills?”

“You know,” said Larry. “Just all of
it.”

.

Lori lay on her stomach on the lounger, as
Larry, seated upright, surfed on his tablet. “December says she
bought a gift for you,” said Larry. Lori groaned. “She’s asking if
you’re around.”

“Don’t tell her I’m here,” said Lori,
“She’ll just come over,”

“That wouldn’t be so bad,” said Larry.

“You’re not the one she’s needy about,” said
Lori.

“She likes you,” said Larry. “You know how
many guys would kill to be in your shoes?” Larry typed. “She says
it’s an official army thing, the gift.”

Lori smiled. “She can have ‘em all. I just
want one – boy, girl, I don’t care – but someone who’s not needy…,
no more like Lawrence, ugh.”

.

“Miss Atkins, this is Larry,” I said,
showing the potential tax attorney to a chair.

Larry unwrapped a breakfast Jack sandwich
and took a bite.

“Thank you for coming, Miss Atkins, to...
.for this….”

“Please, it’s Emily,” she said, sitting
easily. “But it’s not Atkins. It’s Kashabara. Very nice to meet
you,” she said, offering her hand to Larry. “Your family is quite
famous.”

“Google doesn’t include that they’re all
bastards,” said Larry, a dab of egg yolk on his chin. “Except my
grandmother. She’s not.”

“Okay,” said the attorney.

“Right,” I said. “Miss Atkins....”

“Please, Emily, or Ms. Kashabara,” she said.
“Really not sure where you’re getting ‘Atkins.’ “

I looked down at my notes. I had Atkins
written several times and no where saw Kashabara. “Miss… um… She
appears, on paper, to be an ideal candidate on tax issues of sudden
capital inflow and long-term derivative income,” I said, as Larry
looked on, with a dull expression.

“Ms.,” said Larry.

Emily smiled.

“What?” I said.

“It’s Ms. Kashabara,” said Larry, before he
turned to Emily. “Where’d you go to school?” Larry asked, opening
his straw and trying to work it into his orange juice
container.

“I hold an M.B.A. from Stanford and a Juris
Doctor from Yale,” she said, with a hint of a smile. “I am a member
in good standing of the Bar in three states and the District of
Columbia.”

“No,” said Larry, still struggling with
puncturing his juice box, “where’d you go to school? High school...
Where’d you grow up?”

“High school?”

‘Right,” said Larry, abandoning the straw,
and pulling open one end of the juice box.

“I grew up in Torrance,” she said, “I went
to Torrance High.”

“I hate Torrance,” said Larry. “Nothing but
red lights on P.C.H., no synchronization at all… you look like you
skateboard.”

“So random,” said Emily, staring at
Larry.

“Okay, Larry,” I said, “back to the tax
issues.”

“So what’s so interesting to you about tax
law?” Larry asked.

“I wouldn’t say ‘interesting’ is the right
word,” said the attorney. “Frankly, tax law is about as dry as it
gets.”

“Yes...,” said Larry.

“But I got into it, actually, because I saw
my mom’s business fail. She ran into a brick wall with the Board of
Equalization and the Department of Corporations. And no one she
brought on would give her the help she needed. It was all about
their specialty and billable hours.” The attorney sat up straight.
“I’m sorry, that was not the sort of thing one should say....”

“Oh, that’s... hey...” said Larry, “would
you like something, by the way? It may not be fancy, but this is a
food place.”

“Actually,” she said, standing, “if you
wouldn’t mind. I rushed out the door.”

“Tell ‘em you’re with me,” said Larry,
waving his hand, as she disappeared around the corner. Larry leaned
towards me. “She’s the tax person.”

.

“By school,” asked the man in the crisp,
dark suit, “do you mean graduate? undergraduate?”

“High school.”

“High school!” said the man. “I attended
preparatory in Ossining, on the Hudson, as a student at the Atwood
Academy.”

.

“Would you like something, by the way? It
may not he fancy…”

“Oh,” said the woman, in her mid-20s,
looking around, “I simply never eat at... at....”

.

“Larry, this is Mr. Lossé,” I said,
pronouncing the last name in two syllables.

“The little thingie over the E makes it
silent,” said the tall, thin man, who sat without hesitation. “Just
‘loss,’ like losing. But Ed Lossé doesn’t lose. I’m like Charlie
Sheen… always winning. It’s the tiger blood. Mind if I get coffee
or something?”

Larry nodded his head to me as Ed Lossé
wandered to the counter. Larry’s phone, buried under food wrappers
and napkins, buzzed. Larry pushed the debris aside, looked at the
screen, and picked up the cell. “It’s the stupid film people. Tell
‘em I’m not here.” He handed me the phone.

“Uh, hello,” I said. “You’ve reached a
private line for Larry van der Bix.”

“Hel-loooow,” said von Sommerberg. “Tres...
Tres von Sommerberg, from Denmark... the director, the
film....”

“I remember you,” I said over the phone. “I
was with Larry in the car.”

Ed Lossé returned to the table with a full
tray of food. He proceeded to doctor his coffee, as Larry unburied
sugar packets and unused creamers, which he offered silently to
Ed.

“Can you tell your friend we’ve been six
days here,” said von Sommerberg. “Soon we fly to Connecticut, and
it would be really lovely if we could meet Emma Mathilde.”

“I will tell him that,” I said.

“Great.” I watched Ed and Larry both eating.
I waited during the long silence on the phone. “Well,” said von
Sommerberg, “please do.”

“I will.”

“Okay.... Lena says hello.”

“Good, yeh,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Really soon would be great,” said von
Sommerberg, finally. “And we’re not in the Hyatt, but not far. A
smaller place, but still really lovely. Please, if today is
possible....”

“I will be sure to let him know.” As I
handed the phone to Larry, Ed looked up from eating. “Being chased
for money already?”

“What?” I asked.

“Film people,” said Larry.

“Oh, they’re the worst,” said the investment
advisor. “If you hit the gamble, it can pay off big. Cameron’s a
solid bet, but he’s already got a pool of investors. Not a gamble
anymore, really.”

.

“Most of your money will necessarily be
invested,” I said Larry, as we both stood at the counter for his
coffee refill. “You’ll still have a portion as liquid cashflow,
but....”

“More coffee yes?’ the woman asked me,
warmly.

“Si, thank you,” said Larry, as he handed
his cup to the dark-haired, middle-aged woman. “Remember, I want to
give it away.”

As Larry waited for the woman to return with
his fourth cup of coffee, I pointed to the cash register. “Larry,
imagine your money is all in that cash register.”

“It wouldn’t fit,” he said.

“Just... imagine, Larry.”

“Even a stack of hundreds is only ten
thousand to the bundle, so two hundred and eighty four
million....”

“Larry,” I said, cutting him off, “Just…
just....”

The woman returned with a fresh cup of
coffee and a bag of creamers and sugar packets. Both she and Larry
smiled warmly at one another and we returned to the table.

“Okay,” said Larry, adding cream to his
coffee, “a big register that can somehow hold 28,485 bundles… it’d
probably be more like a vault.”

“Fine, a vault. Imagine a vault….”

“Lawrence, I am not going to get a vault.
Those’re probably really expensive and besides….”

“Larry, please, just stop... and imagine.
Just imagine it,” I said, taking a fast breath.

“Okay, what next?” asked Larry.

“Imagine a vault or a register….”

“Or both...”

“Yeh, good, both,” I said. “Better image.
You’ve got all your money in the vault.”

“The 28,465 bundles and the loose
change.”

“Right, it’s all there.”

“Probably on pallets. I think that’s what
they do, Pallets, and they shrink wrap it. So, guess we’d have to
get a fork-lift or something. Those’re probably pretty cheap, or we
could rent one. A fork-lift would be a good thing to have.”

‘‘Larry….”

Larry, after stirring his coffee, looked up.
“What?”

“So most of your money you want to keep
safe, right? You want a little available…. Not much, just
some.”

“Like the loose $920,” said Larry. “That’s
not much, though. That’s barely a month’s rent, so it’ll go
quick.”

“Right,” I said, drained. “But still, most
of it is protected…, safe. Those’re your investments, Larry. That’s
what we’re shooting for. Safe, over the long-term, but you still
have money available – liquid capital – for when you want to pay
for things.”

“Do you think I’m dumb, Lawrence? I know
what an investment is.”

I looked at Larry, whose dull expression
took on an air of disgust. “Right. So you know that it’s about
protecting your assets.”

“Which I want to give away.”

“Larry, let’s say everyday you grab money to
hand out.”

“Like, what, ten bundles a day? That’s
$100,000 a day, Lawrence. That’s why I need help,” said Larry. “I
can’t walk around with a hundred grand. That’d be crazy.” Larry
sipped his coffee. “And you ever tried to blow that kind of money?
I haven’t, cuz I haven’t had it, but even if you’re at a high-end
girly bar where you’re paying twelve bucks for orange juice, you
couldn’t blow that kind of money, although, you know, maybe, if
you’re
really
tipping.”

“Not where I was going with this,
Larry,”

“Just thinking outside the box,
Lawrence.”

“Well, okay, you seem to get the whole
investment thing. Emily will protect as much of your winnings from
taxes and Ed will help make the money grow.”

“I’ll look at getting a register, but I
really think the vault thing is a ridiculous idea,” said Larry.

“You don’t have to get a cash register,” I
said. “It’s just an image. You open the drawer and take out a
little bit. Even if you give away that money, the register is just
an image, a tool to help you remember how cash goes in and
out.”