“One of what?”
“An MRI?”
“No, not yet.”
“Quite right, too. I tell you, Joe, they’re as scary as all hell. You don’t want one,” Sid Graeme laughed.
“Let me understand, Sid. Private hospitals, which are not currently profitable, will be profitable soon and that’s why you want to acquire them?”
“That’s right.”
“There must be other interested parties who also want to buy up private hospitals.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
“I would think so . . . but you’re going to tell me I’d be wrong.”
“Right again, Joe.”
“Well, don’t other people know about this legislation and the profitability of managed care?”
“Yes, they do, but—” He paused significantly.
“This will be good,” I thought and, inadvertently, said. At least I meant it, even if I hadn’t meant to say it. This wasn’t always the case.
“It’s thought that the government’s legislation facilitating the introduction of U.S.-style managed care in private hospitals won’t get through.”
“It won’t get through?”
“The opposition have said consistently that they’re going to block it in the Senate.”
“If the legislation is going to be blocked in the Senate, why do you, why does Health National, want to buy as many private hospitals as you can?”
Sid Graeme looked at me with a smile. Here at last was the point, the point where the money was. He put his glass to his lips and swirled his scotch around in his mouth for what seemed like forever. When he finally leaned in close to my face to whisper the answer, I had to inhale the calm in the words that rode on his anesthetized breath.
“The legislation will get through. It’s going to get through.”
“What do you mean? You just said—”
“The opposition is going to have a change of heart. Nobody knows this, but they’re going to support the bill. They understand that in order to be electable they can’t fight the market. Oh, sure, they’ve got a few troublemakers but those guys are in the minority within their own party and, anyway, this is a matter that involves figures. It’s all too hard for them. They don’t really understand this stuff, and they know that themselves. If they get a soft and fuzzy win on some environmental issue, they’ll lie down. The pragmatists are just working out an acceptable form of words.”
“And nobody outside knows?”
“I do. Mitch does, and now you do.”
“How do you know this?”
“I have a contact. I have many contacts, Joe, you’d know that.”
“So you want to buy the hospitals as fast as you can before the bill gets through and before anyone suspects that private hospitals are going to start being profitable.”
“That’s right. If I move fast enough, we can get them for a song.”
“How fast is fast enough?” I asked him.
“It’s hard to say. It isn’t just a question of the legislative timetable. The news could break before the bill is voted on.”
“What’s going to stop it getting out now?”
“You’re right,” he swallowed. “It could get out anytime. Except that the leak has come from the opposition parliamentarians themselves, and they’re not likely to want to draw attention to how they’re intending to vote.”
“Why not?”
“Well, even though everybody knows this sort of reform is inevitable, they won’t want to draw attention to their one-hundred-and-eighty-degree policy turn. It’ll look bad, like they’re reneging on their principles or stealing the government’s policy. And it’ll give their extra-parliamentary membership the opportunity to rally to block the about-face. Clearly, the sooner we buy the hospitals the better, because if the information does get out, their price will skyrocket.”
“And why are you explaining this to me?”
“Because I would like your assistance. I need your assistance.”
“Go on.”
“I need to raise money, a lot of money, in a hurry, through a share issue by Health National. I’m in this unusual position of needing investors to rush the offer, only . . .”
“Only what?”
“Well, because of the sensitivity of the information, I can’t tell them why they should.”
“You can’t tell them about the plan to buy up private hospitals or about the opposition’s backflip on the managed-care legislation that will make these hospitals profitable?”
“That’s right. And that’s where you come into it.”
“How do I come into it?”
“I need the issue to turn investors on without telling them why it should. How am I going to do that?”
“You want some kind of rumor?”
“No, that’s too dangerous. The truth could get out.”
“Sid, I think I’ve followed you all the way up till now, but I don’t see how I can help you.”
“Joe, I need a blue-chip, high-profile, high-net-worth, established, and Establishment investor to get the world’s biggest hard-on for Health National as soon as possible. From what Mitch tells me, you can help me get him. You know who I mean?”
“Donald Sheere.”
“Can you get me Donald Sheere? Mitch says he likes you. He says he trusts you.”
“I think he likes me.”
“Mitch says he does. If Donald Sheere starts pouring money into Health National, everybody will. He’s precisely the sort of investor who creates a buzz all on his own.”
“Why would Donald Sheere start putting his money into Health National?”
“Because you’re going to tell him to.”
“Sid, Donald Sheere knows nothing about this whole health-care industry.”
“So you teach him, Joe. I’m sure he’s a fast learner. Here’s a chance for a few people to make a lot of money.”
“Do you know him?”
“I know him socially.”
“Sid, I’m going to have to tell him. It’s not going to happen if I don’t tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“About the legislation the government wants to introduce, the opposition’s forthcoming about-face on it, and, as a consequence, its assured passage through the Senate, the whole managed-care private-hospital thing.”
“Jesus Christ, Joe, I want you to tell him. I want you to tell him everything, then I want you to arrange for me to tell him, and all as soon as possible, before any of this has a chance to get out. We just have to make sure Sheere understands that even his hearing about this is contingent on confidentiality. I can’t have him talking about this to anyone or it’s all over.”
“Well, he understands the need for confidentiality. He’s not a talker, Sid, but . . .”
“But what? What, Joe?”
“I can’t just tell Donald Sheere . . .”
“You can’t tell him that he has to undertake to keep this quiet or you won’t tell him anything? Now, listen to me, Joe. What the fuck are you afraid of? He’s old money, yes, but it’s still only money. If he wants to make a lot more in a hurry then he needs you. What’s he going to do? Don’t be afraid of him, Joe. This is your family’s future. You can see that. Run after it, for Christ’s sake. Grab it and embrace it, Joe. Your future does not have to be an enemy stalking you. This is an opportunity.”
I wondered how many times he had said that before, how many times it had worked and whether he knew before I did that it was working on me.
“Are you in on this, Joe? I’ve now told you everything you need to know. This kind of opportunity . . . well, you’ve been around long enough to know it doesn’t come along every day. Gorman will thank you. Sheere will thank you. And you’ll thank me. Will you get him for me, for him, for yourself?”
“You took a risk sharing this with me.”
“I made an investment, Joe. I invested this information with you on Mitch’s advice. He said you were the man I needed. He sa
id that not only do you have the ear of Donald Sheere but that Gorman thinks highly of you too.”
“Really?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Gorman?”
“Don’t be so modest, Joe.”
“What’s Gorman got to do with it?”
“You’ll have to sell the whole thing to Gorman if the firm’s to underwrite the issue.”
“Sid, you didn’t say anything about underwriting.”
“Mitch doesn’t think that will be a problem, Joe, not with the two of you selling it to him.”
“To Gorman?”
“To Gorman, to whoever you need to get it past in order for the firm to underwrite the share issue. Mitch doesn’t see a problem with that. You’re going to help, Joe, aren’t you? You’re not going to let this go?”
He knew and Mitch knew I was not going to let this go. Sid Graeme squeezed my arm at the biceps as we shook hands. I turned to go but I stopped when he started to say something I couldn’t quite catch.
“I know all this . . . a bad time for you, Joe.”
“I’m sorry, Sid, I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“What with the . . . er . . . loss of your son.”
“He’s not dead, Sid.”
“No, of course not. Look after him, Joe.”
14. One day when Sid Graeme was nine his father moved five miles down the road to another suburb without telling anyone. The repercussions of an event like that do not abate with time. They are the engine of Sid Graeme’s commercial enterprise still. And on top of that, he is a talented man. I have to admire him.
Driving home I was tempted to take the fact of this opportunity, the fact it was me that was acting as the intermediary between men like Sid Graeme and Donald Sheere, as a measure of my competence, my skill. Mitch had recommended me. Gorman thought well of me. He’d even told Sid Graeme about me, an asset to the firm by all accounts, now with a golden opportunity falling into my hands. If I could just take Sheere with me on this. But in any event, here was I in this beautiful purring car, thinking about getting these two men together while Laughing Boy Laffenden had been home for hours trying to explain to his wife how it all fell apart.
I was tempted to think how much I deserved where I’d gotten, how I’d worked for it, worked hard to get a reputation, worked to win the trust of men of such high standing in the financial world. Most of the drivers in the cars around me were not wearing suits. They appeared content to drive dented cars with leaky exhausts and prolapsed mufflers, content to cling to hairshirt salaries that would never keep them from shivering each night in expectation of the debts delivered each day in the mail to their unpaid-for houses.
I was tempted to think all of this when, at a traffic light, I caught sight of my own face in the rearview mirror. I had gotten older. I noticed my eyebrows. My father had one continuous eyebrow, which lent him a Cro-Magnon quality that was amply confirmed whenever he spoke to you of his plans. Since childhood I had kept tabs on my eyebrows to make sure they were not turning into his. In the days when Anna commented on such things, she would laugh, pointing out how, after a shower or after I had washed my face, I would unconsciously comb each eyebrow with my finger. Stopped at the traffic light, I saw that in between the two still well-behaved, separate eyebrows, a long, curly, wayward hair was growing chaotically from the bridge above my nose. The lights changed and I thought suddenly of Laffenden.
Would I be able to get Donald Sheere to invest in Health National? I felt a little tightness in my chest. I loosened my tie and kept fast-forwarding the tracks on the Phil Collins CD, looking for one I wasn’t sick of. I’m always forgetting to put other CDs in the car. I thought about my father’s hands and about Sid Graeme’s hands. I thought of Sam’s eyebrows and was grateful that he looked like Anna and not like my brother Roger, who was everything my father’s genes had threatened taken to the ghastly extreme my mother took two buses to visit each week.
Anna would ensure there was none of my father or Roger in him and if she did that and only that, maybe I could stand her affair with this Simon of hers. But he can’t touch Sam. Perhaps Laffenden wasn’t home at all. Perhaps he hadn’t come home yet. Maybe his wife still didn’t know that her husband was finished. How do you tell your wife? The eyebrow grows and grows and you can’t do anything about it. We’d have to get the firm to underwrite the Health National share issue. Mitch could do it. Mitch could get Gorman on side. I’d do what I could to help him. Laffenden could have helped him to do this just as much.
The meeting and the traffic made me late. I turned into our drive with a thin disk of pain in my head. Removing the key from the ignition finally stopped Phil Collins from telling me again that you can’t hurry love. Great version, just like the original, but please, some other time. I’d have to put something else in the car.
My mother’s candy had not moved from the coffee table. They sat there in their cellophane bag, a little shrine of sweet anachronism, unwanted. Anna was standing in the kitchen, reading the newspaper while eating a bowl of stir-fried something or other. It was late, late for dinner, late for any semblance of cozy domesticity which, on reflection, we only contrived in company anyway. When I asked about Sam, she managed to make a simple statement of fact sound like an accusation.
“He’s upstairs. I’ve just put him to bed.”
“I’ll go up and see him, kiss him good night,” I heard myself say in a voice that asked permission. We have looked at each other differently since Sam was taken. We watched each other and waited to see which one of us would break first, which of us wanted to know, needed to know, the prime details the other had been hiding.
“How’s my little man?”
“Dad!”
He was reading Winnie-the-Pooh. It is impossible to say how much I love him. It continually astonishes even me.
“Whatcha reading?”
“Winnie-the-Pooh.”
“Oh, that’s a good one. Haven’t you read that? Haven’t you read that before?”
“Yes. I like it, Dad.”
I gave him a kiss on the forehead. “How was school?” When I asked him this, he turned back to the book.
“Sam? Sammy, how was school?”
“Okay,” he said without turning from the book to look at me.
“Sam, listen, little man. Can I put the book down for a sec?”
“Oh, Dad.”
“Please, Sam,” I said, taking the book and putting it on his bedside table. “Sammy, can we have a little talk?”
“Yeah.”
“A little talk . . . a father-and-son talk?”
His eyes were getting heavy as he answered, “Yes, Dad.”
“Just a little talk between a dad and his son, which we won’t tell Mum about . . . ’cause it’s just between us. It’s something between the boys, and we’re both boys.”
“Yeah,” he said. His eyes were closed.
“Sam, you remember last Friday when you got to visit the police station?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
“You remember the man that picked you up from school?”
“Yeah.”
“You were a brave boy, weren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Were you . . . Sam . . . did he . . . did that man . . . touch you at all?”
“Yeah.”
“He did touch you?”
“Yeah.”
“Where? Sam, where did he touch you?” He didn’t answer. “Are you sleepy, Sammy?”
“Mmm.”
“Where did he touch you?”
“We . . . we had chocolate milk, Dad.”
“Sam. Sammy, does Mummy know?”
“Mmm.”
About a week later, Anna told me he was having trouble at school.
“What do you mean, trouble?”
“His teachers have commented that his marks are lower.”
“Lower than what?”
“Lower than they were before.”
“Before what?
Before your boyfriend molested him?”
“Joe, I don’t know if you’re capable of having an adult conversation anymore.”
“Yeah, and I don’t know if you’re capable of speaking without condescension anymore.”
“Joe, we’ve got our problems, separately and together. We’re angry at each other. But this is Sam and he’s unhappy. You’ve been burying yourself in your work even more than usual and, don’t say it, I know it’s for all of us but . . .”
“Okay, Anna, okay. You’re right. Tell me what his teachers have been saying.”
“They say he’s not paying attention in class.”
“Well, he’s got to have inherited something from me.”
“I’m serious, Joe. You know he used to pay attention in class. He used to be near the top of the class.”
“I know.”
“They even mentioned ADD.” “What’s that?”
“Attention deficit disorder.”
“Oh, that’s bullshit, Anna. He gets plenty of attention. Is this since the . . . the night he was taken?”
“That’s not what ADD means, and anyway, they say it started before that.”
We looked at each other guiltily. My eyes grew moist, and I didn’t know why. Perhaps it was the way she was speaking to me. She had not spoken to me in that gentle, soothing tone in the longest time. It was how she still sounded when she was alone with Sam. How in God’s name was I meant to know how to be married? It had seemed enough once just to know how to choose a wife. I think she knows that I am forever fighting the sneaking suspicion that it is all my fault. But if she knows it, how does she justify using it against me in that self-righteous holier-than-thou way? How cruel is that? If she really is so superior, she ought to be able to see that whatever it is about me that has made her change her mind about all of this is beyond my control. She mustn’t be so hard on me for her mistake.