William Vollmann - The Royal Family

How long will you stay here? she had asked him after explaining that she couldn’t see him.

I’m leaving town, he lied absurdly.

That didn’t matter, either. She had helped him. She had loved him, inasmuch as one stranger can love another. If there were a heaven, she would undoubtedly go there.

Two or three nights afterward, he dreamed about Irene. They were alone with each other in a valley which was very hot just like the cemetery in L.A., but they followed a creek upstream, and the creek kept foaming green and white with the shadowy reflections of alder branches bending like kelp, whirling deliciously cold breezes at them; and they found a bank of snow-white gravel on which to sit with the white rock faces reflecting starriness and sunniness down upon them. She sat upon his knee. Now it was almost evening, and the cliffs, crevice-speckled with trees, became as white as silver ore, as white as the beaches of glacier lakes. He slipped his arm around her waist. She leaned back against him, her head against his neck; he stroked her hair, which was as smooth and cool as a waterfall. He felt that she would be with him always. He awoke in a state almost of rapture. By mid-morning he had begun to wonder whether he would ever dream about her again.

A sad woman telephoned him. She suspected that her husband might be “seeing” another woman. The grief in her voice sent him plunging into those endless chambers of loss he now knew so well, and he lied: I only do insurance fraud, personal injury. I wouldn’t touch a divorce case.

Please, Mr. Tyler, the woman sobbed. I can’t bear not knowing. My friend Selena Contreras recommended you; you helped her…

Do you listen to your husband? he asked her.

What do you mean?

Do you make him feel good when he’s around you? Wouldn’t you rather—

I can’t stand it. It’s too late for that. I just need to know.

Have you ever discovered something about a person you’ve wished you didn’t know?

Stop it!

Well, are you better off knowing or not knowing? I’m trying to help you, ma’am.

I want to know. I need to know.

Well, then, you already do know. I’ll tell you why. First of all, if you suspect it, it’s probably true. Whether or not they’re having intercourse together, they’re doing something.

Oh, my God, wept the woman.

Think about it. If you still want me to check your husband out, call me in the morning.

The woman never called again. Tyler went to bed and for some reason dreamed of John’s angry face.

But after that, he began to have good fortune. He got two adultery cases in one afternoon, with satisfying retainers for each. Neither one made his heart ache. The landlord came over and fixed the toilet for the second time and it didn’t leak after that. On Monday evening he called Dan Smooth.

Well, are we ready to dot the i’s? said Brady. This is an obnoxious place. Who designed this place? I wouldn’t eat dinner here if you paid me. Well, maybe if you paid me. I’m not that particular.

John laid down the legal draft. — What’s the consolidated leverage ratio? he asked.

We’ll get to that.

John thought this red-faced entrepreneur to be a true original, a driven winner who did not need any other human being to make him full partner. Brady’s manner and his grand project exuded a sense of freedom which made John dream about someday trying his own luck in the financial jungle, of throwing up law and making millions by discovering or creating new desires in his fellow citizens. Was Brady playing a clean game? Well, in business how could games be clean? For that matter, weren’t all life’s gamepieces equally ordure-stained? How had Irene treated him? And that crooked Hank… Perhaps what really attracted him to Brady was the other man’s rage. (At the same time, of course, the man bored him, because everybody bored John.)

And another thing, Mr. Brady, he said. I’ll need a more thorough financial statement. Now, this revolving credit facility you’re talking about here, that’s fine, but I need you to break down these quarterly fees. That’s a lot of money right there.

I promise you this, said Brady. We’re going to keep a pretty goddamned low overhead expense to sales ratio. And we’re gonna keep our eyes on the gross margin returns.

Fine, but that has nothing to do with quarterly fees.

I honestly don’t know about that one, son. Let me find out.

No problem, said John making two tickmarks on the yellow pad. He was particularly fond of his mechanical pencil, which, slender, octagonal in cross-section, and gunmetal-hued, with inlaid lozenges of rosewood, had been a present from Irene. — And we still need clarification on some employee issues.

What issues? said Brady in surprise. What employees? It’s all going to be virtual reality, remember?

That’s fine, said John. But what about the bartenders, waitresses, hostesses, janitors?

Some day they’ll all be robots, Brady said dreamily. You know, I had lunch with that Alexis Dydynski, a very intimate lunch. Know who he is?

No, I don’t, Mr. Brady, said John, looking at his watch.

Executive Vice President at the Royal Grand. You remember when that place opened? Oh, it was a big brouhaha, but that’s another story. It’s not my policy to tell more than one story at a time. Anyway, Dydynski said to me: Slot machines don’t ask for raises, don’t get pregnant, don’t get sick, and always show up for work. — And I thought to myself, John: Here is one smart man.

All right, said John patiently. See if you can get a formal employee policy together. — And he made another tickmark on the yellow pad. — Now if you would, Mr. Brady, I’d like you to glance over clause three.

I don’t give a shit about that part, either, said Brady. That part is your job. Just make it all ironclad. This business is going to last hundreds of years. I’m thinking big.

What’s the working lifetime of your virtual staff?

Oh, five years. Maybe less. But in five years we’ll want to update the theme park with even more state-of-the-art experiences. Look. The theme park only cost three hundred and eighty-seven million. The real question is this and I hope you’re considering it: Who’s against us?

I don’t know what you’re talking about, John said.

Look. Every business venture has friends and enemies, right? So who are our enemies? Casinos? Department of Parks and Recreation? Gambling Commission? Women’s organizations? Rightwing Christians? Leftwing Christians? The Teamsters? I want this document to be enemy-specific. Do you see what I’m driving at?

You sound apprehensive, Mr. Brady.

Well, of course there’ll be various claims and actions against the company. But I don’t think they’ll have a leg to stand on. If they do, why, young John, you and I can kick that leg out from under…

Not my department. By the way, I think you ought to insist on the right to extend your leases up to at least fifteen years, John said.

At escalated rents?

Well, Mr. Brady, of course they’ll have to be escalated, unless you hold a gun to their heads. But that’s fine. If you lost the lease, you’d be paying escalated rents at a new site anyway.

All right, we’ll cut a deal. Let’s meet for breakfast at the Mark Hopkins on Wednesday, seven a.m. I’ll do my homework on consolidated leverage, employee guidelines and quarterly fees. You do yours on enemies.

John walked back to the office and told Mr. Singer that the Brady contracts were going to bring in many, many more billable hours.

I love the law, said Mr. Singer.