Israel (79 page)

“Absolutely not. I won't hear of it. We need you.”

“I suppose she'll be taking over my office. I wonder if she will remember the little joke I made to her some years ago. I said I had better be careful, else I'd come in some morning to find her behind my desk.” He nodded and added brightly, “Really, Carl, I offer my best wishes with my resignation.”

“Now listen to me,” Carl said. “First of all, your office belongs to you. I wouldn't think of having you anywhere but across the hall from me. Becky's office downstairs will be enlarged, as she'll continue to oversee our advertising. You're like family to me, my boy; we've always been a managerial partnership. That partnership has merely been strengthened by adding Becky to it.”

“Carl, I've enjoyed working here as your second in command, but you're asking me to accept a demotion. I've earned better than third place, Carl, and I intend to have what I deserve. The postwar expansion should be an exciting time in retailing, and I intend to be part of it—a vital part—even if it means working for our—I suppose I should say
your
competition.”

Carl looked away from Philip to hide his dismay. The young fellow did not hesitate to lay his cards on the table, and he held a strong hand. The one piece of advice from his father that Carl had taken to heart was to keep secrets about how the business was run. He was not his father and didn't possess the elder Pickman's talent for management. Carl needed help, and he'd found it in the talented young Philip Cooper. Now that he had Becky, he likely didn't need Cooper any longer, but he was terrified of letting
Cooper go off to work for a rival with all Pickman's secrets under his bonnet.

“Philip, I've said I consider you family, and I intend to prove it to you. As you know, Pickman's is a privately held company. Bernard never married. When he died his half went to my father, and when my father died, he bequeathed seventy percent to me and the rest to my sisters. As a token of appreciation for your years with us, I'm giving you ten percent of Pickman's to go along with your new title.”

Cooper was quiet.

“There are only two stipulations—that you never vote your shares against me and that if you should leave Pickman's you'll sell back your shares.”

“Can I think about it?”

“Of course,” Carl said benevolently, patting Cooper's shoulder. “Take your time.” He knew the young man was stalling merely to save face; he'd already accepted the offer. He ushered Cooper out of his office and went back to work. Within an hour his telephone rang. It was Cooper, officially accepting.

“Very good,” Carl boomed. Macy's never told Gimbels, as the saying went, and now that Philip Cooper had agreed to remain, it looked as though Pickman's wouldn't be telling anybody.

“Carl, I was thinking,” Cooper began. “Are you planning a large wedding?”

Carl hesitated before replying. Cooper's question caught him off guard, but the ceremony had been on his mind. His sisters were as much against this marriage as his former spouse, and for the same reason, that marriage into a poor Russian Jewish family was beneath him. His sisters had announced that they would not attend the ceremony, and his wife Gertrude had made it one of the conditions of her not contesting the divorce that their daughters, who
would remain in her custody, not be humiliated by having to go.

Where to hold the ceremony troubled him as much as his family's boycott. He'd contemplated arranging for the rabbi's study at Temple Emanu-El, but there was Becky's family to consider. It would spoil the day if they proved to be an embarrassment in such grand surroundings. He intended to speak to Becky on this matter as soon as he managed to figure a way to broach the subject in an inoffensive manner.

“Actually, I imagine the wedding will be private, Philip.”

“You've made a wonderful gesture to me, and I'd like to reciprocate. You know my apartment. Would you do me the honor of having your wedding there?

“How very kind of you, Philip.” Carl thought it presumptuous. Oh well, he supposed he had better get used to it; Cooper was now family, after all, and the more he thought about Cooper's idea, the more he liked it. No matter how private the ceremony, a wedding at Temple Emanu-El would be grist for the congregation's gossip mill in no time at all. There would still be the potential for embarrassment in having the bride's clan traipsing into Cooper's elegant home, but that potential would be minimized. Carl had always known Becky's origins did not do her justice, but he was prepared to accept the inevitable scoffing as the price he had to pay for his love. “I'm agreeable, but let me talk it over with Rebecca.”

“Tell Becky that this is my last act as her supervisor and I won't take no for an answer,” Cooper said. They hung up, leaving Carl happy with his morning. Everything was falling into place, and he could look forward to a bright future with his bride-to-be.

Becky's wedding was at ten o'clock in the morning on Sunday, December ninth. Danny thought his sister was kind of rushing things, but he figured it was Carl's fault. Hell, a guy turning sixty hooking up with a twenty-eight-year-old woman had every reason to be in a hurry.

Danny was in charge of getting their father there. At seven-fifteen he left his boarding house in the West Village and began the walk downtown. He was wearing his one and only suit, luckily a dark blue. He had only his unlined uniform trench coat, so he walked briskly, both to keep warm and to be early enough to play valet if Abe needed a hand with his tie or shave. Once he'd collected his father, they'd grab a cab on East Broadway, but for now Danny didn't mind walking. He liked the exercise and it was cheap.

He wasn't exactly hurting for money. He fell under the government program that paid unemployed discharged servicemen twenty bucks a week for up to a year. A double sawbuck didn't go all that far anymore, of course, but it covered his tab at the boarding house. Becky had lent him some money as well, explaining that as far as she was concerned the Cherry Street building was half his. She was
going to arrange for his name to be put on the ownership papers, but he asked her to hold off. The rents didn't amount to much, and he didn't want to lose his stipend from Uncle Sam.

No apartments in the building had changed hands for as long as he could remember, and Becky steadfastly refused to raise the rents to what the tight housing market could bear. After all expenses were paid and the management company took its cut, there wasn't much left, but Becky had promised that Danny could always come to her for extra money.

I guess I can, Danny decided as he crossed Delancey Street. She's been making a good salary, and as of today she's going to be rolling in it.

He had his own key to the storefront. He relocked the door behind him and climbed the back staircase.

“You look real sharp, Pop,” Danny grinned. His father was shaved and wearing a light brown pin-striped suit, a clean white shirt and a dark maroon tie.

“Where's your coat?”

“I'm wearing a coat.”

“Shumel, feel how thin this so-called coat is.” Abe rubbed the khaki between his fingers. As Shumel dutifully shuffled over in his backless slippers, his weak eyes swimming, Abe assured his son, “I'll get you a nice coat.”

“Don't need one, Pop. I've bought myself a lot of nice clothes—slacks, shirts, sweaters. I never wear a suit so I never invested in a topcoat. My leather flight jacket usually does me fine.” Government regulations had given all servicemen thirty days to switch from their uniforms to civvies, but the regs didn't apply to stuff like flight jackets or trench coats shorn of military insignia. That was fine with Danny. His gold bars and silver pilot's wings were packed away. He wouldn't have displayed them even if he'd been allowed.

“I bet it's cold in that slum you're living in,” Abe went on. “Shumel, give him a hot glass tea.”

“That's just like you, Pop. You've never even seen where I live.”

“Well, isn't it a slum? You could live here with us. There's plenty room and you'd save a few bucks.”

Oh, that'd be just great, Danny thought. Stay here and watch you order poor old Shumel around the way you used to order me. He smiled. “I appreciate it, Pop, but I've kind of gotten used to living alone. No offense.”

Abe looked disgusted. “Drink your tea. Then we'll go.”

“We've got plenty of time.”

“I don't want to be late.”

Danny just nodded. They took their time going down the stairs and walking to East Broadway, where they had no trouble flagging a taxi.

They rode quietly, Abe sitting straight and tall, his hands in his coat pockets and his collar turned up. “I still think a wedding should be in a shul,” he suddenly said.

“Pop, when was the last time you were in shul?”

“That is not the point.”

“I thought you told me you didn't even get married in a shul.”

“Yeah, I did . . . didn't I?” Abe mused out loud. He turned to look at his son, his eyes suddenly frightened, beseeching.

Oh shit, I can't handle this, Danny thought. “Pop? Remember, you got married in Joseph and Sadie's apartment, on Montgomery Street.”

“What a beautiful bride your mother was. Leah was so frightened to be married.” He chuckled and nudged his son's ribs. “Not as much as I was. You know, I got a letter from Sadie and Joseph. They got a lot of snow in Chicago.”

Relieved that his father's mind had cleared, Danny
absently listened to the family gossip. It was funny, or maybe more upsetting than funny, how somebody could seem not to age at all for a long time, and then suddenly get older in shocking jolts. That his father's memory was going was understandable if disturbing. Danny frowned. How is Carl Pickman's memory? he wondered. My sister's marrying a guy who's just turned sixty.

At Cooper's address Danny paid the driver and helped his father out of the taxi. He told the clerk, “Philip Cooper,” and was waved on through to the elevators, where the attendant gave them both the onceover, unable to suppress a smirk at Danny's trench coat.

“Something strike you funny, pal?” Danny growled.

After a while the guy said, “Twentieth floor, sir.”

“Happy landings,” Danny shrugged off his trench coat and folded it over his arm before ringing Cooper's bell.

An old gent in formal attire let them in. Must be Pickman, Danny thought, and stuck out his hand. The old guy pretended not to see it, asking if he could take their coats, and Danny felt like kicking himself for not being able to tell the difference between the bridegroom and the butler.

Cooper had a pretty swanky place. The furniture was modern and there wasn't much of it, but that just seemed to add to the effect. The walls were pale violet; the floors were dark and highly polished. There were Oriental rugs, dramatically positioned paintings and so on. Danny got the feeling Cooper had done up his place with stuff that was the right color rather than with stuff he necessarily liked. Well, he didn't know much about decorating, but he did know this place was swanky.

Especially the view. One whole wall of the living room was windows, and the drapes had been pulled back. They were pretty high up, and the skyline view was in Danny's estimation as good as the one from the Empire
State Building's observation deck, better when you figured Cooper just had to roll out of bed to check it out.

One thing about the apartment, it sure didn't look set up for a wedding. Oh, there were vases filled with fresh flowers, but where was the wedding canopy? Danny glanced at his father, thinking, He ain't going to like this . . .

“Danny, Father,” Becky called to them. She was wearing a blue textured silk suit and had a tall, grey-haired guy in dark blue pinstripes in tow.

“Danny, what? No wedding dress?” Abe whispered shakily.

“Don't say anything, Pop,” Danny said out of the side of his mouth.

“Father, this is Carl Pickman,” Becky said. “Carl, my father, Abraham Herodetzky, and my brother, Danny.”

Sixty or not, this guy is in good shape, Danny concluded. If Pickman's hair weren't grey he could have passed for late forties. Danny was amused to see the relieved look on Pickman's face as they shook hands. He probably imagined his bride's kin showing up with long smelly beards and prayer shawls, Danny mused.

Becky introduced them to the other guests, but that didn't take very long. There was an older chubby lady named Millie, a blonde dish called Grace Turner who set Danny's heart thumping, a white-haired guy in double-breasted grey flannel who turned out to be a rabbi, and Philip Cooper, whom you really couldn't call a guest, since he lived here. Pickman had invited none of his family.

“Your sister is like a princess with these wealthy people,” Abe boasted to Danny as they stood along the sidelines. “She has done well for herself. First she makes a fine career, and now she is marrying a rich man.”

The ceremony took fifteen minutes. The bride's father was not asked to take part. Nobody, including the rabbi, wore a yarmulke, except for Abe, who'd brought his own.

When it was over there was a champagne toast to the new couple. The rabbi left and Becky came over to them.

“Father, how did you like the ceremony?”

Abe shrugged. “You shouldn't ask me. You already know how I stand on such matters. When you were younger I took you to shul. Maybe not enough, but I took you. On the other hand, Carl Pickman is well known in the community for kindness to those less fortunate, so who am I to say he is a bad Jew?”

“Oh, he's not, Father. It's just that he's not comfortable with—” She shook her head. “He tends toward understatement.”

Abe looked at her blankly.

“Where you going for a honeymoon?” Danny interjected.

“Palm Beach, Florida.”

“It must be nice there.” Abe nodded shrewdly.