The Hazards of Good Fortune Read online

“I’m meeting the coach to talk about the draft this afternoon,” Jay said.

  “You gonna fire him if they miss the playoffs?”

  “I’ll owe him eight million to not coach if I do.”

  Like many American men, Jay and Franklin were most comfortable together when talking about sports. Wins and losses, records set and broken, who was the best of all time at what exalted skill formed a buoyant language that obscured the abyss between them.

  “Licensed robbery,” Franklin said.

  Jay thought once more about mentioning the loan but decided against it. He did not want to reveal the depths of his suspicions. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to see a more detailed report by next week, okay?”

  “It’s like you don’t trust me.”

  “Come on, Franklin. It’s called discharging fiduciary responsibility.”

  “I’m just saying.” Franklin looked directly at Jay and made a point of holding his gaze. “We’re like Mantle and Maris, aren’t we?”

  “In what way?”

  “We’re both power hitters,” Franklin said. “But we’re on the same team and our team is winning.”

  “Did you not hear what I said?”

  “I’m flying down to Austin this afternoon. I’ll deal with it when I get back.”

  This answer did not satisfy Jay, but he was not going to press further right now. Franklin was on notice. If the surreptitious loan went unremarked in the next report, Jay would consult his lawyer.

  “What are you doing in Texas?”

  “I’m meeting with the governor down there to talk about the casino business,” he said in the voice of Cary Grant. A tic of Franklin’s that got on Jay’s nerves was his tendency to slip into dated celebrity impressions. In the persona of the star of North By Northwest, he continued, “It’s a swell business but the old chap doesn’t like it and I’m going to change his mind.”

  This tendency of Franklin’s—he also did mediocre versions of actors like James Cagney, Tony Curtis, and Bing Crosby—had a long history. After graduating from college, he moved to Los Angeles for a year to pursue a career as an impressionist. At open mic nights, he would enthusiastically perform his act, but interest in his repertoire of characters—which by then had grown to include Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, and Bette Davis, among other equally anachronistic points of reference (one historically-inclined heckler had shouted a request for Fiorello La Guardia)—was as limited as his skill set, so he returned to New York and his sinecure in the family business. Franklin’s lifelong interest in mimicry suggested to Jay that he lacked something essential, that his core was a ball of string whose threads were always threatening to unravel.

  “Are you going to be back for Passover?”

  “I w-w-w-wouldn’t miss it,” Jimmy Stewart stuttered.

  The ritual of celebrating holidays together had survived the deaths of Bingo (2009), and Jerry (2004), thus Jay had inherited Passover. As often happens with the passing of the older generation, family traditions that had been in place for decades started to fray, and the gatherings had begun to feel increasingly obligatory.

  “Then I’ll see you at the Seder,” Jay said.

  As he turned to go, Franklin stopped him.

  “One other thing.”

  Jay tried to hide his impatience. “Yes?”

  “I’ve been studying with the rabbi at our shul. I don’t like his politics around Israel, they’re a little too liberal, but he’s the genuine article. Anyway, I wanted to ask you if it was all right if I lead the service this year. I know you don’t take it that seriously.”

  Jay was not a godly man. His parents were revolving door Jews, in at Rosh Hashanah, out at Yom Kippur, and he had inherited their secularism. Still, it was not easy for him to control the degree to which this request annoyed him. The family always celebrated Passover at Bingo’s house, and that tradition had passed to Jay.

  “First, I do take it seriously, and since it’s at our house, I’m going to lead the service. But if you want to flip Passover and Thanksgiving next year, we can discuss it.”

  Franklin nodded, concealing his resentment as efficiently as Jay had hidden his pique.

  When Jay left the office, Franklin exhaled, a long airstream of relief. Who does that prick think he is, to come in here like some puffed up dictator and make demands? Does he think I’m one of those pituitary cases he overpays to play for him on that pathetic excuse of a basketball team?

  Franklin swung around and gazed out the window. The vista took in Park Avenue up to Harlem and beyond—its median bursting with the yellows and reds of spring annuals—the greensward of Central Park to the west, and to the north the steel necklace of the George Washington Bridge. In the other direction, he could see the gray ribbon of the East River, and beyond that the apartments, warehouses, and cemeteries of Queens all the way to the airports and Jamaica Bay. Whenever Franklin felt diminished, mishandled, or not accorded the respect he believed he deserved, he liked to lean back in his ergonomic desk chair and spot the individual buildings that comprised the nucleus of the family portfolio and think yes, yes, yes, I am a Gladstone.

  But when Franklin really wanted to feel like a god, he would stand on the roof of the building and take in the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view. There he imagined himself as an heir to Howard Roark, the main character of his favorite novel, The Fountainhead (he had listened to the audiobook five times), only with higher status because he owned considerably more property than Howard Roark, a lowly architect when you got down to it. Franklin hired and fired the Howard Roarks of the world. Grabbing his phone, he called his sons Ari and Ezra and summoned them to the roof.

  The April afternoon had warmed, and the sun hit Franklin’s ruddy face. When Bingo and Jerry divided the business and Franklin ascended to the leadership of the half bequeathed him, he had ordered the construction of an observation deck. From this aerie, he could make out the family holdings not just in the tonier uptown precincts, but also downtown and in Brooklyn. There were Gladstone apartment houses on the west side and the east side, both luxury buildings and structures that, in Manhattan, passed for affordable, and office buildings all over town with Fortune 500 companies as tenants. Together these holdings were as impressive a portfolio of real estate as any currently held in private hands. And then there were the less prestigious properties in Queens and Westchester, which he only thought about when there were problems. Like this week, when a police officer in White Plains had killed someone at one of their apartment houses. Franklin wasn’t going to worry about that unless it became a Gladstone issue and he couldn’t imagine how that could ever come to pass.

  Since the family’s New York real estate portfolio was Jay’s responsibility, none of these impressive edifices could provide him with the electric charge he got from his successes in the glittery world of hotels and gaming. The casino in Las Vegas and the expansion of the family footprint to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macao, these were his alone. And now he intended to move into a new area. Franklin had a dream, and that dream was to be the owner of a professional sports franchise. That his cousin Jay had managed to purchase an NBA team magnified his already finely-honed sense of grievance. For all of Franklin’s wealth, he was still capable of feeling diminished, and that was the role Jay had assumed in Franklin’s life: Diminisher-in-Chief. It wasn’t anything Jay did on purpose, but lately, his very existence riled his younger cousin. Jay had overshadowed Franklin in youth, been a better athlete, gone to a more prestigious college, and grabbed the glittering prize—presidency of the Gladstone real estate division.

  As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, Jay had, with his fortune, made a bold and risky bet on the performance of gold in the commodity markets and Franklin, who secretly harbored a nagging belief in Jay’s superiority, had followed his shrewd cousin’s lead. Jay rode gold like a dazzling rocket, and when he liquidated his position, he poured eye-popping ei
ght-figure profits into NBA ownership. Franklin, thinking Jay had bailed too soon, held his gold position, suffered through the precipitous crash of the gold market in 2011 that knocked his holdings down forty percent in value, and was still waiting for the recovery. This meant Jay was now significantly wealthier than Franklin, another blow to his delicate spirit.

  And then there was the matter of the social realm where Jay was a sought-after member of boards and private clubs, and now had a stunningly sexy, much younger wife. These baubles had eluded Franklin, and after years of enduring this condition, he developed a degree of umbrage at the way things had turned out.

  In the past decade, Franklin put together a group of investors and attempted to purchase the National Football League’s Indianapolis Colts. He withdrew his NFL bid after the league commissioner informed him that he didn’t have the requisite votes on the ownership committee to be approved. (Translation: We don’t want someone like you in our club.) When his attempt to become an NFL owner did not succeed, he divested himself of partners—Franklin Gladstone could not comprehend that he was the problem—and tried to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers. He blew the Dodger deal when his nerve failed him once the price climbed to two billion. These disappointments only heightened his need to own a pro team.

  “Dad!”

  Franklin turned around to see his identical twin sons, Ari and Ezra. It was Ezra who had spoken. Sometimes their voices were the only way Franklin could tell them apart, Ezra’s a slightly lower register. It was easier when they played high school hockey. Ezra was #14, and Ari was #22. Franklin wished they still wore numbered jerseys. Broad-shouldered, pumped up from the gym—the kind of physique that too much beer will quickly swell to fat—and a couple of inches taller than their father, they inhabited their tailored suits like beachwear. Ari and Ezra were so relaxed, everything they wore seemed like beachwear. They had attended the University of Miami together and exuded the country club casualness of men who had accomplished a great deal and were now savoring life, despite having accomplished nothing other than being born Gladstones. Their thick dark hair was gelled, and both sported a three-day stubble. Designer sunglasses raked their full faces. They could have been vacationing hit men from the Mossad.

  “What are we doing on the roof?” Ezra asked.

  “My father used to bring me up here when he wanted to talk privately.”

  “You told us that, like, a million times,” Ari said.

  Franklin did not appreciate his son’s tone. “What, am I interrupting something?”

  “No, no,” Ezra said. “Take it easy.”

  One way he was able to tell his boys apart was that Ari got lippy. Ezra never did. Sometimes he wanted to smack his son—Jerry Gladstone had belted Franklin a couple of times, always with an open hand, never a closed fist, and he didn’t suffer for it—but he could never bring himself to strike his wisenheimer son.

  “I ask you to come up, you come up,” Franklin said. “And if I want to talk about Grandpa, who busted his ass for this family, you two are damn well gonna listen.”

  Ari hadn’t meant to set his father off. “We’re listening,” he said. Ezra chimed in with the information that they had been on the Internet checking out potential development opportunities in Jersey City.

  “You’re supposed to be researching gaming regulations in Texas,” Franklin said.

  “We’re doing that, too,” Ari said.

  “So, what’s with Jersey City?” Franklin was already off message. Could these two not just follow orders?

  “We want to develop,” Ezra said. “Be like Grandpa and Uncle Bingo.”

  “Ch-ching!” Ari said.

  “I want to talk to you guys about something else.” They looked at him like a pair of spaniels waiting for their bowls to be filled. “What’s your favorite sport?”

  Together, they said, “Football.”

  “After football.”

  Together again: “Cross-training.”

  “Cross-training?” their father said. “What?”

  “Totally,” Ari said. “It rocks.”

  “What about hockey?” their father asked.

  “We love hockey,” Ari said.

  “Cross-training’s not even a sport,” Franklin said, shaking his head. Sometimes he wondered if his sons had what it took to succeed. “All right. Listen. I’m thinking about making a play for the Buffalo franchise in the National Hockey League.”

  The mouths of the twins gaped open at the same time. When they spoke, it was to express amazement and delight. They could barely tolerate the awesomeness this heralded.

  “I think we can get it for around half a billion,” Franklin told them.

  “Chump change,” Ari said as if he were used to hearing these amounts every day. But he was not, the boys rarely granted access to the big-time dealing in which their father and Jay engaged.

  “And if we get it,” Franklin said, “I want to move it to Miami.”

  The news had traveled from great to greatest. The twins loved Miami. White sand beaches, sweet cigarette boats, tight bikinis stretched over the comeliest of female bodies! The flames gathering behind their eyes were about to morph into full-fledged conflagrations when Ari said, “Dad, wait.” He was still trying to get back on his father’s good side after pissing him off earlier. “I totally love the idea, but there’s, like, no hockey tradition down there. It’s hella Latinos. They’re into soccer and boxing, right? Hockey not so much.”

  “Cause they don’t know it yet!” Ezra said. “Dude, they got a hockey team in Phoenix, and that place is all cactus and Mexicans.”

  “That’s racist,” Ari said, not that he cared. He did, however, have a vague perception that invoking an ethnic group in a general way had become unacceptable—even though he had done exactly that a moment earlier when commenting on the demographics of Miami.

  “How is that racist?” his less sensitive sibling asked. “There’s hella Mexicans in Arizona. It’s a fact.”

  “Never mind about Arizona,” Franklin said, ending the argument. “Ezra’s right. Someone’s gonna bring hockey to South Beach—it might as well be us.”

  Us? Did he say us? Was this going to be their project? All thoughts of properties in Jersey City were instantly forgotten.

  “Does Jay know?” Ezra asked.

  “This has nothing to do with him.” Franklin’s sons exchanged a conspiratorial glance. Something forbidden was happening, and they were thrilled at what appeared to be their inclusion. “There are other potential buyers, and our best chance of success is an all-cash bid.”

  The boys were not certain how to process this information. Although both boasted the title of vice-president, neither was privy to the inner workings of any aspect of the business. They had no real idea how much cash their father was able to access.

  “Dope,” Ezra said. Ari nodded.

  Given their limited understanding, it most definitely sounded dope.

  “If I buy the team, the three of us are going to run it.”

  When Ezra heard this, his knees wobbled.

  Ari let out a whoop, then: “Holy shit!”

  “Now, listen. Jay? I don’t want him to get wind of this.”

  Together, Ari and Ezra asked, “Why?”

  “Trust me; I just don’t. The guy runs his basketball team, does he discuss it with us? No, he does not. Makes all kinds of decisions, doesn’t come into my office and ask my opinion. I’m not saying he should. That team is his business. This one? Ours!”

  Franklin had never felt so convinced of his ability to escape his cousin’s shadow. Now he gazed past the twins to the city, spread out before them like a glorious banquet. He and his boys were going to grab their plates and claim a place at the table. And if the table they wound up at happened to be in Miami, at least it wasn’t Buffalo.

  “Let Jay find out when he sees it on ESPN,”
Franklin said. Ari and Ezra looked at one another and nodded. They could do that. “Don’t tell Bebe, don’t tell Boris. Don’t mention it to anyone.”

  “We won’t,” Ari assured him.

  Franklin extended his right hand, the light glinting off the diamond on his pinkie like a celestial benediction, and both sons, as they had done many times since they were boys, placed theirs on top of his. “Are you guys with me?”

  Oh, they were. They certainly were.

  Franklin teed them up: “We are—”

  “The Gladstones!” the three men shouted, and threw their arms jubilantly in the air. A flock of seagulls wheeled below them. A cumulonimbus cloud scudded overhead propelled by the gusty spring wind. The observation platform, bathed in sunlight seconds ago, was in shadow.

  “Can we get off the roof now?” Ari asked, shivering. “I’m freezing my cojones off.”

  “Cojones, bro!” Ezra shouted. “You’re gonna kill it in Miami.”

  The twins slapped palms as their father cradled a make-believe machine gun and in the Cuban-accented voice of Al Pacino as Scarface hollered, “Jay, say hello to my little friend.” Then Franklin sprayed Manhattan with bullets from his imaginary Uzi before realizing that if he wanted his sons to respect him the way he respected his father, perhaps waving an imaginary machine gun around the rooftop was not the best way to do it. He immediately ceased the pantomime, thumped his sons on their backs, and reminded them that the most important thing was family.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was late afternoon and as Jay’s legs pumped on the elliptical machine in the executive gym, he could not stop thinking about the lunch with Dag. His trainer had left five minutes earlier and he was alone. A cable news financial show flickered on the television monitor above him, but he ignored it as his mind ranged back to his youth. How could anyone, much less one of his players, insinuate that his attitudes about race were in any way questionable? When it came to the position occupied by “people of color” (a label he believed would eventually be as out of date as “colored,” but nonetheless employed because if others accepted it who was he to rock the boat?) in America, Jay held that no white person was more sensitive, kindhearted, and benevolent than he.