“Really? Dad was always so careful with his money.”
He nods. “That he was.”
“How much is left, Roger?”
He takes a deep breath and presses the detonator. “Twenty-two million dollars.”
“Twenty-two million dollars!” I choke.
“And change.” He reads from the papers. “Four hundred thirty-two thousand five hundred and seventy-four dollars’ worth of change.”
My mind immediately registers three possibilities, listed in order of likelihood. One, Roger made an error. Two, Roger is joking. Three, I'm rich! I'm rich! I'm rich!
I find myself standing up, though I'm not sure why. “Can't be, Roger. It's an appealing thought, but it's simply not possible.”
“You had no idea he had this kind of money?”
“He didn't,” I say firmly. “I knew he made some good investments over the years, but not like this. He would have told me. He would have raised my allowance.”
“I don't know what to say, Andy. But it's all real.”
My legs seem to give out from under me, and I sag back down on the couch. Roger brings the books over to me and takes me through them, every square inch of them, and there is no doubt about it. I am, in fact, rich.
It isn't immediately clear where the money came from, but it doesn't seem to be the result of particularly shrewd investments. The money is sitting in long-term tax-free municipal bonds, earning much less interest than it could be elsewhere.
None of this makes any sense, so I decide to investigate, and make the logical decision to assign my investigator. I call Laurie from Roger's office and tell her what I've learned, and the extent of my wealth.
“You've suddenly become far more attractive, you big adorable hunk, you,” she gushes.
Since I haven't told her about Nicole, this doesn't seem to be a good time to engage in sexual/romantic banter. So I don't, and she promises to get to the bottom of this quickly. I have no doubt that she will.
When I get home I tell Nicole the news, and her astonishment matches mine. My father would be the last person you'd expect to keep a momentous secret like this from his family, and I have to assume my mother had been in the dark about it as well. She was biologically incapable of keeping a secret; she would have told me without any prompting at all.
There are ordinarily no circumstances under which I have trouble sleeping. My ability to fall asleep on a moment's notice is a blessing I have never taken for granted. But tonight I toss and turn for half the night.
I don't even have Tara in bed for me to pet; since Nicole's return Tara has been reduced to sleeping on a comforter on the floor. I could pet Nicole, but she might read more into it than she should. So I just lie there, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Becoming an orphan, a husband, and a multimillionaire in the same week must be causing me some stress.
The next morning I go to the office for the first time since the funeral. When I arrive I find my secretary-receptionist, Edna, doing a crossword puzzle. Edna is sixty-six and she proudly and often proclaims that she has worked every day of her life since she was a mere child, yet she hasn't done a real day's work in the five years she's worked for me. If you think I'm about to tell her that, you don't know her or me.
Edna, to hear her tell it, has what must be one of the largest extended families in the United States. There is nothing one can mention, be it an experience, an occupation, a talent, an affliction … anything … that isn't shared by a member of Edna's family. The only thing they all seem to have in common is that all are constantly advising Edna that she doesn't need to work. If I could speak to all of them, and a venue the size of Yankee Stadium would be necessary, I would reassure them that their advice has been taken to heart. Edna does many things, but work is not one of them.
But whatever one might say about Edna, she is the greatest crossword puzzle talent this country has ever produced. It's amazing; she can go through the New York Times puzzle in less than twenty minutes. She often waxes eloquent about the injustice of it all. Here Michael Jordan made millions because he was better at basketball than anyone else, while she gets nothing for being at the peak of her chosen avocation. She vows she will live to see the day that crossword championships are held at Madison Square Garden before screaming multitudes, and she's signing huge pencil endorsement deals.
I get in early and set about trying to relax, which for me means a good sock basketball game. I take a pair of rolled-up socks (I keep some in the office for just this purpose) and shoot at a ledge above the door. I have to pretend to dribble, since rolled-up socks don't really bounce, and I create fantasy games to play in.
Right now I'm in the middle of an intense game, made all the more difficult by the fact that I also serve as commentator.
“Carpenter fakes left, the shot clock is off, the game clock is down to ten, his teammates have cleared out, giving him room … Carpenter loves to take the final shot … a two will tie, a three will win. The crowd is on its feet.”
Edna watches this with no apparent emotion, unimpressed by my prowess, since she has previously told me that sock basketball was invented by her Uncle Irwin. The door opens and Laurie comes in, carrying a huge watermelon. Even this isn't enough to hurt my concentration.
“Carpenter backs in, three on the clock. He turns, jumps, shoots … and hits!” The shot has actually gone in, but I'm not finished. I wait a few moments for effect.
“And a foul!”
I go up to my nonexistent opponent and get right up in his nonexistent face.
“In your face, sucker! In your face!” I snarl.
Laurie has finally managed to put the watermelon on a table, and she turns to me and my imaginary opponent. “I think you've got him intimidated.”
“Her. I've got her intimidated,” I say. “I combine my sports and sexual fantasies. It saves time.”
Laurie looks around the office, as she always does, her face reflecting her displeasure at the mess I've made.
“This is a dump,” she says with some accuracy.
“So is that why you brought in a four-hundred-pound watermelon? To class up the place?”
We both know that Sofý, the owner of the fruit stand downstairs, has given us the watermelon as partial payment for defending her son. I would have preferred peaches, but they're not really in season.
“Someday you might want to take payment in actual money. Although as rich as you are, you don't need to.”
This interests me enough to put down the sock basketball. I walk toward her, throwing out questions along the way.
“Did you check out the money? Where did he get it? Is it really mine?”
“Yes. I don't know. Yes.”
I focus in on the negative. “You don't know where he got it?”
Laurie takes a diet soda out of the small refrigerator and pops the top before she answers. “Correct. But I do know when he got it. Thirty-five years ago. It started as two million.”
This has now moved smoothly from the very strange to the totally bizarre. Thirty-five years ago my father was in his mid-twenties and in law school. How the hell could he have gotten hold of two million dollars?
Laurie continues. “It gets even stranger. He never touched the bonds, not once in all these years. The principal just grew from interest.”
“But he loved to play the stock market. When he retired he used to sit by the television all day and watch that stupid ticker go across the screen.”
She shakes her head. “Not with this money. The brokerage was instructed never to suggest new investments … they were told never even to call him … to pretend the money didn't exist.”
“You spoke to them?”
She nods. “Not the same people who were there back then, but the instructions were passed down, and nobody ever questioned them. Not a single person in the place had ever spoken to your father about the money.”