The Rothman Scandal (63 page)

When the news of the accident was whispered to Ho Rothman, an immediate family council of war was called in one of the small salons in the palace. Alex was excluded from this and, in fact, she knew nothing of the tragedy that befell M. Lautier that night for many months. At the time, she supposed she was excluded from this gathering because she was not a “real” Rothman and had no real title or position with the magazine. More likely, it was because Ho Rothman could not force himself to admit that the one detail of the party that she had not personally planned had gone tragically wrong. Steven Rothman merely told her that there was family business to discuss, and that he would meet her later back at the hotel. And so, in the early-morning hours at the Palais de Chaillot, grand portraits of assorted eighteenth-century Gallic courtiers and their ladies gazed sternly and imperiously down from the walls of the salon in gilded frames, while the various Rothmans screamed at one another.

“The only thing to do,” said Steven, pacing up and down the Aubusson and puffing furiously on a cigarette, “is to issue a statement expressing our sympathy to the Lautier family, and offering to make any necessary reparations—”

“What?” Ho bellowed. “And take blame? You'se damn fool, Steven. It was Frog's own fault.”

“But the spotlight was
your
idea, Gramps. You insisted—”

“Why not blame the city of Paris?” Herb Rothman suggested. “It was their damned electricity that did it. They hooked it up. Crazy electricity system. I can't even get my electric shaver to work in my bathroom.”

“And at the Ritz!” Pegeen interjected. “At the Ritz! My electric curlers won't work, either.”

“Shavers! Curlers!” Ho roared. “You'se all damn fools. I spend million bucks tonight. And this I get for it!”

“Ho could be given the French Legion of Honor for having given this party,” Aunt Lily said. “One of Pompidou's aides told me so.”

“Damn right,” Ho said. “Legion of Honor! Highest honor inna world.” (Later on, in fact, he was given it.)

“But what about
me?
” Pegeen wailed. “This was to be the party of the century. This was to be my entree into society—not just New York society, but international society.”

“Oh, shut up, Pegeen,” her sister-in-law, Arthur Rothman's wife, said. “Nobody gives a damn about you.”

“Herbert, are you going to let her talk that way to me?”

“Don't talk to my wife that way, Doris,” Herb said.

“I was photographed tonight with the Baroness de Rothschild.”

“Fuck the Baroness de Rothschild, Pegeen,” Doris Rothman said.

“I'm
that close
to being invited onto the board of the Metropolitan.”

“You?”
said Aunt Lily. “You, on the board of the Metropolitan? That'll be the day.”

“Herbert, are you going to sit there and let your mother talk to me that way?”

“Don't talk to my wife that way,” he said. “Pegeen and I have a certain social position to uphold.”

“I'll talk to her any damn way I feel like,” Aunt Lily said. “Some social position.”

“Bitch!”

“Social climber!”

“The point is, there must be no publicity,” Herb Rothman said. “No publicity about this, is that clear?”

“But how can there be no publicity, Pop?” Steven said. “A man's been
killed
.”

“But I'm the publisher of
Mode
. If any publicity gets out on this, I'll be blamed. Actually, it's all Alex's fault. She planned everything.”

“But how can you
say
that, Pop?” Steven said. “It was Gramps who wanted the floodlight. He wanted it to surprise Alex!”

“We could say she's young, inexperienced, uneducated. A little girl from the sticks—”

“Alex had nothing to
do
with the floodlight, Pop!”

“She wanted the party in Paris. Ho didn't want it in Paris—did you, Dad?”

“Damn right! I said no Frogs! Frogs said okay to Hitler—killed six million Jewish pipple!”

“You mean you've spent a million dollars on a party you didn't want to give?”

“Damn right!”

Steven shook his head in despair.

“Now, Ho, dear,” Aunt Lily said, “you know that this party was your idea. You told me so.”

“Damn right.”

“Every important idea this company has ever had has come from you.”

“Damn right.”

“And you wanted to hold the party in Paris.”

“Damn right. De Gaulle is hero. He stood up to Hitler. Saved millions of pipple's lives.”

“And you wanted the floodlight,”
Steven said.

“Damn right. Got it, too. Cost me a million bucks tonight. What happened was Frog's own fault. Frog who plays with Frog electric stuff should know better. If he doesn't, it's suicide.”

“Could we say it was suicide?” Aunt Lily suggested.

“Look,” Herb Rothman said, “what did we give this party for, anyway? For publicity—right? For
good
publicity, publicity that will attract advertisers. But can you imagine what the enemy press will do to us if they get hold of this story? Look what the enemy press is saying about us already. They're saying the Helen J. Pritzl Award for
Tiny Tots
is a fake.”

“Helen Pritzl was fine woman! She taught me English language.”

“But what if we were all just to stand up tall, and say we're sorry?” Steven said. “A terrible mistake was made—by whom, we don't know, but a man's life was lost. We regret it deeply. Wouldn't that be good publicity?”

“Of course not, you horse's ass,” his father said. “Haven't you even been following what the enemy press has been trying to do to us? They're even hinting that the loss of our Ingleside printing plant was an insurance fire, for God's sake!”

Steven Rothman looked sideways at his father. “Well,” he said, “was it?”

“Shut up, you Goddamned horse's ass!
You
ought to know what the enemy press can do to us! What about what
Women's Wear
is saying about
you?
That you're nothing but your Goddamned wife's Goddamned errand boy—that's what they're saying. If you want to do something for this family, you can get your Goddamned wife pregnant, and give us an heir—that's what you can do.”

“Damn right.”

“Now, Ho, dear, they're
trying,
” Aunt Lily said gently.

“So what I been telling you all along?” Ho Rothman said. “Pay 'em off. Pay 'em all off—all the Frogs. Is all Nazis, anyway. Pay 'em off, and tell 'em to keep their traps shut. No publicity.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Herbert said. “That's what I was hoping to hear you say.”

Ho Rothman shrugged, though he was clearly unhappy. “So what's another million?” he said.

“But don't pay them off too much,” said Aunt Lily, ever the conscientious bookkeeper. “Keep your offers as low as possible. Don't let them get the idea we're rich Americans.”

“Does anyone here speak French?” Herb Rothman asked.

“I do,” said Steven miserably, and lighted another cigarette.

“So do I,” said Lenny Liebling who, up to that point, had said nothing, but had been doing what he always did at gatherings like this one: listening, observing, making mental notes.

And so that was the team that was dispatched that night—Herb, Steven, and Lenny Liebling—to deal with Jean-Claud Lautier's family: his mother, whom he supported, his widow, and his four young children. Lenny and Steven handled the negotiations, while Herbert handled the checkbook. In their grief, as it turned out, the Lautiers' demands were modest; in fact, the Lautier family seemed already to have resigned themselves to the fact that the young man's death was simply a work-related accident, and they seemed surprised that these strange Americans were approaching them with offers of money. But, most important in the waivers and release forms that they signed were statements to the effect that Jean-Claud's death bore no connection to the Rothman party and that, indeed, early that day, Jean-Claud had talked of committing suicide.

The cover-up operation did not cost Ho Rothman another million. It cost him only six thousand dollars—a thousand to each of Jean-Claud's heirs.

Alone in their suite at the Ritz, Alex Rothman lay wide awake, waiting for the sound of her husband's footsteps in the foyer. She had no idea where he might be, or what he might be doing. Here she was, in Paris, and as far as she knew then her party had been an unqualified success, the added touch of the floodlight a stroke of genius, the kind of genius she sometimes had to admit Ho Rothman had. Their suite was on the quiet side of the hotel, overlooking the Place Vendôme and the Espandon gardens, and the night was very still. But she was still on an adrenaline high from the excitement of the evening, and she could not sleep. She was thinking of her deep curtsey to President Georges Pompidou, and hoping that Steven had noticed it.

Here she was, in Paris, the City of Lights, the city of license, the city of sin, but she was certain that, wherever Steven was, he was not off in search of license or of sin. After four years of marriage to him, she had grown almost used to the fact that theirs was, as it was said, a marriage in name only. They were partners, they were friends, they enjoyed each other's company. They often made each other laugh. They told each other that they were good for one another. They told each other that they made each other happy. He told her that she made him enjoy his life, and his work, more than ever before. Their wedding present from Ho Rothman had been the apartment at 10 Gracie Square, with its magnificent terrace and sweeping river view, and Alex had spent nearly two years decorating it and designing the terrace plantings and gazebo. The black-and-white drawing room had a lustrous black walnut floor defined by thin lines of brass inlay. The dining room was decorated entirely in a pale gray-blue, with eighteenth-century English
faux marbre
dining table and chairs. The library was painted a rich, dark malachite green, and their newly acquired paintings were illuminated with the latest Wendel lighting system—small spotlights concealed in moldings and end tables and operated by switches on a control panel. Alex and Steven entertained often, and they were invited everywhere.

To all outward appearances, they were a dream couple—bright, handsome, young, eager, and very much in love. They were often in Mona Potter's column in those days, and Mona, who had no reason to be jealous of Alex then, had christened them the Ravishing Rothmans.

The Ravishing Rothmans entertained again Thursday night at their fab-u-lous apartment high above the East River—a gay dinner of sixteen in honor of the visiting Sir Noel Coward. Alexandra and Steven Rothman are the newest and no question the most beautiful of New York's Beautiful People.

He is tall, dark and handsome, a young Rock Hudson look-alike, the scion of the Rothman publishing fortune and editor-in-chief of
Mode
. She's a willowy, creamy-skinned beauty with hair the color of cornsilk from the tall cornfields of Kansas, which was right where—you guessed it, kiddies—Steven Rothman found her. (She was last June's
Mode
cover girl.)

Steve Rothman says, “She's my new unpaid assistant on the magazine.” And, yes indeedy, that old-time mag really
does
seem to be shedding some of the dowdy look it was beginning to get under Connie Ferlinghetti.… Editorially, there's a new sparkle … Now that the beauteous and talented Alex has a hand in things, I betcha we can expect more changes. Remember, you heard it from Mother, kiddies.…

They seemed a perfectly matched pair in every way.

Except …

In the quiet hotel room, her thoughts turned dark.

“There are some men who are simply asexual,” Dr. Richard Lenhardt had told her. “It's not common, but it's not unheard-of. It isn't impotence. Sex simply doesn't interest them.”

“But how can that be? Everybody talks about how much sex appeal he has. Women fall all over him. They—”

“Yes. Until they discover the asexual personality. There is often a psychogenesis. It may be due to some childhood trauma—the overpowering father and grandfather that you've told me about. It's really up to you, Alex, whether you decide to stay in this marriage that's without love—”

“Oh, there's love,” she said. “I really love him very much. In some ways, we're crazy about each other. We never run out of things to talk about. We have wonderful times together, but—”

“I should have said without sex,” he said. “The so-called white marriage. There have been other, quite successful white marriages like yours. There are asexual marriages.”

“But—” she began. She realized that she was beginning to dislike Dr. Richard Lenhardt, and his repeated use of that term. In fact, this would be their last session together.

“But what, Alex?”

“I really hate talking about this,” she said.

“But you must! It is important that you unlock these feelings, Alex.”

“But there
is
sex. Sometimes. Not very often. And it's so—perfunctory. And quick. And he doesn't seem to enjoy it, and as a result I don't enjoy it. And I—”

“Yes?”

“And if there is sex, I have to initiate it. Which makes me feel—dirty, somehow. Whorish.”

“The asexual personality,” he said again. “A textbook case. So you must weigh your options. On the one hand, you have a husband who is very good to you. You have the excitement and glamour of working with an important fashion magazine, meeting and knowing famous and important people. You have the beautiful apartment in the city. You have the lovely estate in Tarrytown for weekends. You have the jewels he gives you, and I'm sure he gives you jewels in lieu of the sex he cannot give you. The jewels are his guilty offering. Each pearl on that triple strand you're wearing represents a drop of his manhood, a drop of his semen, if you will.”