Jonathan Franzen - Strong Motion - A Novel

The next morning she couldn’t keep her breakfast down. She smoked the remainder of her joint and had a second breakfast at Au Bon Pain before returning to the microfilm machines in Widener. At one-fifteen she made a copy of a picture in the Globe of March 9, 1970. It showed a newly opened four-story bank and office building on Andover Street in Peabody; just visible through the bare trees in the background was the top of a structure that arguably resembled a drilling derrick.

She took her Series E bond to her bank. It was the gift of a dead grandmother. The customer-service representative observed that it wouldn’t mature for another two years.

“What’s it worth now?”

She had eighty hundred-dollar bills in the left front pocket of her jeans when she stepped off the train in Salem with the first wave of returning commuters. The address she’d been given led her to the County Courthouse, across the street from which, in a restored white clapboard house bearing a plaque that said 1753, were the offices of Arger, Kummer & Rudman.

“Ms. Seitchek,” Henry Rudman said expansively, pressing his broad hand into the small of her back. He put her in a chair directly in front of his desk and hovered there, offering refreshments. “Some cold water, please.”

Behind his desk, in a corner of his office between a computer and a struggling window airconditioner, Melanie was sitting with her head bowed and her hands clasped on her lap. She gave Renée a single glance, full of hurt, like a woman in a courtroom who no longer expects anything from her husband but a share of his assets and future income. Love had died. It had come to this.

Renée crossed her arms and tossed her head indifferently. Standing on Rudman’s desk were small photos of a wife and three little girls, but ornamentally the office was dominated by three black-and-white enlargements on the wall, all of them autographed: Ted Williams on a cruise ship, his arm around a younger Rudman’s shoulders; Rudman and Yastrzemski cheek to cheek, at a banquet table; Rudman and Jim Rice, drivers in hand, on a golf course with palm trees in the background. Renée laughed. Her eyes were inflamed, her chin spotted with new pimples. Her hair had been growing out for months, and now all at once it was almost shoulder-length — unwashed, a tangle of stiff waves. She smelled like scalp and outdoor sweat. Altogether she was sleek with skin oil, sleek and dirty and animal and hot. She threw a sudden glance at Melanie, who lowered her eyes again.

Rudman carried in a cup of water and planted himself behind his desk. “So, ladies, are we all set?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Ms. Seitchek, Mrs. Holland tells me you’ve approached her about making a bet on the performance of a certain piece of real estate and the stock of a certain company. The piece of real estate being her property in Ipswich, and the stock being Sweeting-Aldren common. Is this correct?”

“No,” she said. “I didn’t approach her. She approached me. Also, I don’t have anything to say about the real estate. If she wants to draw conclusions based on what I say about the stock, fine.”

Rudman and Melanie exchanged glances. “You’re a seismologist, Ms. Seitchek.”

“Yes.”

“We can assume you’re basing your prediction on your interpretation of seismological data. But the prediction applies only to the stock.”

“Peabody and Ipswich are eleven miles apart.”

“This is news?”

“I’m saying there’s no obvious linkage.”

Rudman turned. “Mrs. Holland?”

Melanie pressed her lips together, counting the proverbial five. “I’d like to remind you, Renée, that while it’s true I did approach you, it was you who mentioned money and suggested an arrangement. I’d also like to remind you that you began by deliberately concealing that you had information that could help me, and you did not tell me this would not apply to real estate.”

Renée gave her a smiley smile. “You want me to leave?”

“Ladies, ladies.”

“I would appreciate it if you told the truth .” Melanie said whitely. “That is all I am saying.”

“All right, Ms. Seitchek? You try to tell the truth so we can move along? That goes for you too, Mrs. Holland.”

Melanie struck a righteous pose.

“Now, Ms. Seitchek, ah.” Rudman scratched his mustache. “Mrs. Holland represented that you hoped she’d wager, ah, fifty thousand dollars, which we can assume is—”

“No,” Renée said emphatically. “No. I said I wanted a minimum of fifty thousand dollars. I also said that the more right I am, the more I should be rewarded.”

“I never agreed to any such thing.”

“Did I say you did?”

“Ladies.”

“I also said I’d bet as much money as I could get my hands on. Which I’m ready to do.” She took out her wad of bills and tossed them onto Rudman’s desk.

“Cash!” he exclaimed like a horrified Faust, half rising from his chair.

“Put that away,” Melanie said.

“Ms. Seitchek. Please, ah. This is very touching, gesture-wise, but really, you want to keep that in a safe place. You don’t want that on people’s desks, with no rubber band, et cetera. I was on the point of telling you that Mrs. Holland respectfully declines the offer of security and a sliding scale. In return she insists on the cap of fifty thousand you proposed.”

Renée stood up and stuffed the bills back in her pocket. “No deal.”

“Mrs. Holland?”

Melanie cocked her head mechanically, like a bird. “What kind of a cap did you have in mind, Renée? Or did you want no cap at all? Perhaps you were thinking of a straight thirty percent?”

“One million dollars.”

Melanie blew air out derisively.

“How much cash do you have there, Ms. Seitchek? If I may ask.”

Ignoring him, she took a step towards Melanie and addressed her directly. “I’m going to tell you what this particular stock is going to do in the next three months or six months, whichever you prefer. You’ll either buy or sell your shares on my recommendation. If you make five hundred thousand dollars because I gave you the right advice, I want fifty thousand. If you make ten million, I want one million. That’s ten percent up to one million. If you make nothing at all, or if you lose money, you keep all the cash I have on me now. It’s eight thousand dollars.”

Rudman was shaking his head and waving his arms, trying to whistle the play dead. Melanie looked up at Renée wildly. “It’s Louis!” she said. “It’s not you at all. You — you’re not even here! It’s Louis!”

“Oh dear, Mrs. Holland. Really.”

“You are wrong,” Renée said, shaking with hatred. “You are so wrong.”

Rudman nodded at her. “You see? She says you’re wrong. You see? But, ah, Ms. Seitchek, you’ll have to excuse us for a second.”

He led Melanie across the office and into a conference room, lined with precedents, that opened off the rear. Hearing the latch click, Renée sat down and closed her eyes and breathed. Five minutes passed before Rudman stepped out. “Ten percent up to 200 K, eight thousand security.”

She didn’t turn around. “No,” she said, and added, as if it were a foreign word she wasn’t sure she’d pronounced right: “No.”

He retreated. This time he was back in less than a minute. “Last offer, Ms. Seitchek. Three hundred fifty K.”

“No.”

Again the latch clicked. She thought she was alone, but then she felt his hand on her shoulder, and his mustache bore down on her. “You said no?”

“That’s right.”

“Let me ask you a question, Ms. Seitchek. Little question, OK? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

She stared straight ahead.