The Coaster (4 page)

Chapter Five

We had to go to Lang's office for the reading of the last will and testament, as they say. That's lawyers for you. Never say something once if you can say it twice. Never say “stop” if you can say “cease and desist.” Never say “I give to my wife” when you can say “I hereby give, devise and bequeath to my surviving spouse.”

Lang's father had handled all of Sam's legal work for over forty years. When Don Langham retired a few years ago, the firm divvied up Sam's business among the partners. Sam had gotten too big and the law had gotten too complex for any one lawyer to handle it all. Or at least any one lawyer of this generation. If you plopped a young Don Langham down in today's world, he could probably do it. But they don't make 'em like Don and Sam anymore.

Estate planning fell to Langham the Younger, which worked out nicely for all concerned. Lang was an expert in the field, and Sam only felt comfortable confiding his intimate personal business to friends of the family who had his complete trust. As far as I could tell, Sam had always been happy with the work Lang was doing for him. He clearly didn't treat the son with the same deference that he used with Langham the Elder, but it was as much respect as Sam gave to a “next generation,” as he called us.

The law offices of Legal-sounding-names-I-made-up-so-you-couldn't-tell-what-firm-this-really-was and Langham are exactly what you'd expect. Expensive but understated. Mahogany everywhere. The impression you got was
We know what we're doing and we're professional and discreet. In exchange, we charge you the same hourly rate as a high-class call girl.

The receptionist, who could have been a high-class call girl herself, ushered us into a conference room with a large rectangular table and a bunch of expensive chairs around it. Again, the mahogany. The bookshelves in the room were filled with row after row of tan legal volumes with red and black bands that a Hollywood set designer would use to fill a lawyer's office. The classic “generic law book,” purely for show in the modern computer age.

Of course the dinosaurs at this firm may actually be using those law books. Lawyers in old firms are slow to adopt the new customs. I worked in a firm right out of law school that still used typewriters and carbon paper. If you wanted to make a minor change to a fifty-page contract, your secretary had to type the whole damn thing over again or type additions in the margins and draw arrows to where they should go. Something you billed a client five thousand dollars for looked like a rough draft for a seventh grade term paper. The senior partners would dictate something, hand the cassette tape to their secretary, she (yes, it was always a she) would type it up (with carbons for extra copies), give it to him (almost always a him) to review, he would make changes on the hard copy with a pen (probably fountain), and give it back to her for re-typing. Repeat as necessary. The whole thing could take weeks. Or he could type it himself now on a computer in about five minutes.

The receptionist brought in a silver tray with coffee for us and we sat around the conference table to wait for Lang. Despite being with my wife and mother-in-law under the somber circumstances of the reading of the will of my deceased father-in-law, I couldn't help noticing she looked like a porn actress pretending to be a receptionist.

She left us alone with our thoughts. This was not a classic “reading of the will” setting. There was no extended family all gathered in a room gnashing their teeth and hoping to be remembered fondly by the dearly departed. And there would be no gasps in surprise when it turned out the entire fortune would go to his cat or the illegitimate son we didn't know about. I was pretty sure Sam's will would not specifically mention every greedy relative who had been sucking up to him in hopes of being rewarded with a bequest, only to then skewer them from the grave.
And to my niece, Gwendolyn, who showed so much interest in my collection of priceless sculptures, I bequeath a month's worth of pottery lessons at the local community college.
It would be fun if they did, but most people write their wills without putting much thought into the dramatic possibilities at the will reading.

So it was the three of us. I wouldn't even call it an official “reading of the will.” Lang had just told us to meet with him so he could explain some things to us about Sam's estate.

After a few minutes, Lang came in carrying an accordion file. He was like a completely different guy when he was in lawyer mode. Pinstriped charcoal suit, maroon silk tie, gold cuff links. He even had his initials embroidered on the shirt cuff, an affectation I've never understood.
We know it's your shirt. You're currently wearing it. Are you worried you'll get it mixed up with another guy's shirt at the gym?
If you want to send the message that you're an arrogant prick, message received.
But we were going to figure that out pretty quickly anyway.

Lang spoke in that careful, deliberate way lawyers talk, like he wanted to make sure the court reporter got every word down on paper, not his usual bantering style when hanging out with the guys. “First of all, let me express my deepest condolences personally, and on behalf of the firm, to the three of you on the tragic loss of Mr. Bennett. As I'm sure you are all aware, Sam was a client of this firm before I was even born and, more importantly, a great friend to me and my family. If there is anything I can do for you, please don't hesitate to ask.”

He opened the folder and handed us each a document. At the top it read
Last Will and Testament of Samuel E. Bennett
. “The document before you is a copy of Sam's will. As you can see, there's not much to it. The will simply leaves everything he has to a trust that we created a number of years ago. Joan, you of course were involved throughout this process, so please forgive me if I explain something you already know, but I want to make certain we are all on the same page here.”

“Of course, Daniel,” Joan said. “My memory definitely needs refreshing. I signed the documents, but Sam handled everything. He didn't need any financial advice from me.” She did not say
financial advice from poor little ole me
, but she might as well have. Joan downplayed her business expertise, but some of the charities she's been in charge of moved more money around than Fortune 500 companies. For people Joan's age, it was seen as unseemly for a woman to get her hands dirty in the business world. She was taught to give all the credit to her man, but pull as many strings as possible behind the scenes.

“Okay,” Lang said. “When you die, your property is subject to an estate tax. Absent some careful tax planning, you're going to be giving most of the fruits of your labor to the government instead of passing it on to your loved ones, which is why you've been working so hard in the first place.”
Or not, as the case may be.

Lang continued. “The good news is you can transfer an unlimited amount of your assets to your surviving spouse upon your death, as well as an exemption amount to anyone else. So on the death of the first spouse we create two trusts, a marital trust for the benefit of the surviving spouse and a family trust for the benefit of the children, or in this case only child…”

I listened to Lang's spiel with one ear. He meandered through the mechanics of the trust document. “…the marital trust would be under the complete control of the surviving spouse…” yadda yadda yadda “the spouse would receive the income from the family trust…” this is why I don't practice law “…in the best interests of the beneficiaries.”

Lang paused and looked us over for a second. “Is everyone following this? Bob, you must remember all this from Wills and Trusts class, right?”

“Right,” I lied. “So Joan gets everything in the marital trust but only the income from the family trust, right?”

“That's right,” he replied. “And when Joan dies, it all goes to Sarah.” Sarah glanced at me with a tear in her eye. The last thing she wanted to think about was her mother being gone as well.

“So,” I said, continuing to show off my limited and out-of-date legal expertise, “are you the trustee, specifically, or did Sam just name the whole firm?” The latter was a typical thing to do in case your personal lawyer dies before you do (if only!).

“That's what I wanted to explain to you today,” Lang said. “You see, Sam didn't name me or the firm trustee.”

I knew that it's fairly common to name the surviving spouse herself as trustee. Joan could maintain control of her personal finances and Sam knew she would still rely on all of their advisors. “So did he name Joan?”

Lang was scanning our faces again. He looked like a guy with a story to tell who was afraid to tell it. He leaned forward. “No, Bob, Sam didn't name Joan as the trustee, either.” He looked straight into my eyes for what seemed like an inappropriate length of time for a heterosexual man.

“He named you.”

Both Sarah and her mother audibly gasped.

***

“Why me?”

“Why not you? You're his son-in-law. He trusted you. You're a lawyer.”

“I'm not a lawyer. I just went to law school. There's a difference.”

“Okay. Let's just say you have a legal background. Why wouldn't he pick you?”

Because I know nothing about wills or trusts or business and now I'm in charge of Sam's entire fortune? Because I can barely get through my meager workday as it is?

“I don't know. He'd want an expert to handle it. Somebody with experience in these kinds of things.”

“He wanted family, Bob. And you'll have the entire firm at your disposal. Maybe you don't know what you're doing, but we do.”

It still made no sense. Was it possible a savvy businessman like Sam didn't know I was clueless? Am I that good at faking it? Sure, random acquaintances around town mostly bought my act, but Sam was the smartest person I'd ever met. He didn't make it from a small farm in the middle of the prairie to being the head of a multinational company by not being able to read people. I always assumed Sam saw through me. I figured he tolerated me because Sarah loved me and I was a good husband and father, but I never got the idea he respected me professionally. I used to tease Sarah about the fact that she, Sam, and Joan were all on the boards of directors of his various companies, but I was conspicuously absent. Since he apparently never considered me director material, it made no sense that he would heap this level of responsibility on me. Or did I need to revise my self-image a bit?

Sarah chimed in. “Dad wouldn't have picked you if he didn't think you could handle it. You have less confidence in yourself than other people have in you.”
I know. That's because I know the real me. You might not be so confident if you spent a little time back here behind the curtain.

“Okay,” I said. “If that's what Sam wanted, I'm in. What do we need to do?”

Lang paused before he spoke. He had been glib and confident so far, but now he looked like the dog ate his homework. He cleared his throat. “There's actually another issue we need to discuss.”

I raised my eyebrows at Joan and Sarah but they didn't seem to know what was going on. I looked back at Lang. “All right.”

“It's important that you all understand the law so you can understand why we are where we are. I apologize in advance, Bob, for telling you things you already know.”

“Pretend I didn't go to law school. Use layman's terms so the ladies can understand.” I hardly remember anything from law school. I was always just smart enough to get a good grade without actually learning anything. I was an expert in the nonfunctional accumulation of knowledge. I screwed around the entire semester and then crammed for the final. I knew the material for the three hours of the test and not before or after. Law school for me was like those temporary Internet files your computer creates when you surf the web. You have to clean them out after a while or they start to gum up the works. I would empty my legal knowledge cache once the class was over.

The dirty little secret of higher education is that it's hard to flunk out of law school. Or college, for that matter. And the better the school, the harder it is to flunk out. Hell, everybody at Harvard has at least a B average. They figure if you're smart enough to get in, you must be above average. Lots of people do well in school without learning a thing.

Lang continued. “Remember how I said you can pass an unlimited amount of property to your spouse? You don't necessarily want to do that. You want to give as much as you can straight to the kids so it won't be taxed when the spouse dies. That's why we created two trusts. The marital trust is completely controlled by Joan to do with as she pleases. The family trust is set up to provide income to Joan during her life and then pass tax-free to Sarah. The family trust is funded with whatever the current exemption amount is at the time of death. The marital trust gets the rest. You with me so far?”

I didn't really remember any of this from law school, but I was paying close attention. What new issue could make Lang more nervous than telling the grieving widow that her son-in-law was going to be in charge of her dead husband's considerable estate? “I think we're with you. What's the exemption amount?”

“That's the funny part,” Lang said, but you could tell he didn't think it was funny at all. There was a layer of sweat across his upper lip. “Under the…” he put on his reading glasses and looked down at the document on his desk as if it was crucial to get this information exactly right. The glasses probably had plain glass in them. I'll bet he just used them to look lawyerly… “Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, the estate tax was repealed completely. In other words, this year there is no exemption amount. Any amount can be transferred to anyone tax-free.”

I was all over this. I felt like one of the gunners who used to raise their hand and answer every professor's question back in law school. “So there's no exemption to worry about, and all of the money would go into the marital trust.”