William Gaddis - J R

— Doesn’t sing doesn’t dance doesn’t smoke or drink or run around with women, doesn’t even…

— Pardon?

— Oh nothing Mister Beaton it’s all so, just so absurd so, lifeless, I can’t…

— Please I, Mrs Joubert I didn’t mean to make an emotional issue of it, the…

— Well it is! It is an emotional issue it simply is! because, because there aren’t any, there aren’t any emotions it’s all just reinvested dividends and tax avoidance that’s what all of it is, avoidance the way it’s always been it always will be there’s no earthly reason it should change is there? that it ever could change?

— Only, well, in this particular case as I was going to say it appeared advisable for tax purposes that this preferred issue paying six percent semiannually would have no voting rights unless four consecutive dividends were missed and of course in that case, the trustees would vote the stock, install new directors if they wished to and assume control of the extensive assets which…

— I think that’s your phone again, if this is all you want me to…

— I’m sorry yes, hello? Beaton… yes, yes just hold on a moment Dick, you did initial the second set Mrs Joubert?

— Oh dear… she opened her bag again digging for glasses, coming up with the wrong pair — I’m already…

— I’m sorry I thought you’d, these right here yes. Dick…? I did yes but I think this Endo divestiture has priority, he’s getting quite impatient about the Diamond tender and of course nothing can be… for you specifically to handle it as soon as you’re finished there yes, Frank Black’s doing most of the spadework and as soon as you… Yes originally yes, but they informed us the substantial tax write-off we proposed could be jeopardized by a suit with an original stockholder over sequestering the patents, that would probably drag the goodwill write-off down with it and the most sensible thing seems to be straight divestiture in connection with the Diamond tender once this decree has been… I know it yes but the sooner you can clear it up and get to Washington the better, we… you did yes she’s right here… I will yes, goodbye… I will, yes. That was Mister Cutler, he sends…

— Sends me kindest regards… she initialed, turned a page.

— He’s in Rome yes he, I’m terribly sorry Mrs Joubert did you want to speak with him? I didn’t even…

— What on earth about… she initialed, initialed.

— Well I, I don’t know of course I, he did ask me to tell you he hoped to be back in time to take you to the horse show and I think if your father is…

— Mister Beaton that’s what we’ve been talking about! he, Daddy still wants it all to be like it was when I rode at the Garden myself with that ghastly Ude girl, when her brother came down with Dick Cutler from Choate and, if he could see if Daddy could just see the only men I’ve met I can imagine getting into, into anything with them he’d die, one’s probably Freddie’s age he drinks and plays the horses his face is like the, he laughs and his face is just torment and, and his hands and the other’s a boy, a composer and he’s just a boy just all, all radiant desolation and he’s dear…

— Then I think you realize the…

— And they wouldn’t mind the money either of them honestly, I’d almost marry them both just for that…

— Exactly yes I think you can understand your father’s, that as guardian under your mother’s will you realize he has certain obligations to what would have been your mother’s wishes to see that the trust doesn’t become an attraction to, leading to another unfortunate marriage and so naturally he…

— Asks Dick Cutler to take me to the horse show… she’d folded her glasses again — that would be like, like marrying your issue of six percent preferreds… she opened her bag to thrust them back in, — avoidance payable semiannually… she snapped it closed. — I’m sorry Mister Beaton I, I shouldn’t talk to you like this but there’s simply been no one else… her hand fell empty, only half closed on the desk between them to close suddenly seized there in one even whiter — what…

— You, you must understand that I, that your father that, that for anything to happen to you would be, because you’re such a a stunning woman a stunning young woman I I, I…

Her hand turned that sharply on the tremor enclosing it — please there’s, Mister Beaton there’s nothing you can…

— No no I, all I can do honestly… he stared there where his hand lay hidden, and then it fled hers for the phone — hello Bea, Beaton… he cleared his throat. — It’s Senator Broos I’d better, hello…? Yes sir yes I… he called a few minutes ago yes sir if you could hold on for one moment I… he no sir his daughter is here she…

— No please Mister Beaton go ahead, there’s nothing else is there?

— Yes wait no there’s a form, there yes if you’d just sign it and, yes just one moment sir where it says age last birthday it’s just a formality, you can write over twenty-one if you, sir…?

— Right here? Twenty-seven, it’s still just a formality and thank you Mister Beaton…

— Sir…? Yes no sir no I believe it’s cleared up, General Blaufinger’s statement in the foreign press urging intervention was apparently made on the assumption that we would support the secessionists but when it was made clear to him that Washington sediment sed, sentiment favored the joint resolution backing the Nowunda regime the General immed… not a no sir not a retraction no a clarifying statement simply saying that the press had distorted his pos… his position yes sir exac… yes exactly sir your position on Chile regarding Kennecott during the… yes sir sir? If you could excuse me one moment Mrs Joubert? Thank you for coming in, please call me if there are any sir…? Yes sir she’s… yes sir Mrs Joubert? Senator Broos sends his… on which matter sir…? No sir I’m drafting the legislation on the banking bill now for him to… Oh I see yes sir no I don’t think you need to be concerned, it’s the state senate he’s running for sir, not your… just the state yes sir I’m certain he… I’ve never met him no sir but… no sir it’s c, c, i an Italian name not, not peachy no sir…

The door closed behind her, freeing one hand from the other she turned — oh…!

— I think we’re all set and, oh Miss Bulcke we’re going to camp out in the chief’s office here so Mrs Joubert can run through these proofs, we…

— But Mister Davidoff I…

— No trouble oh and Miss Bulcke tell Carol to put my calls through here, tell her to screen them I’m waiting for one from Washington and the, call Florence and tell her to tell Mister Eigen I want him on this speech draft for General Box ask him where the captions are for this Annual Report feature that we, sorry…! he’d made an abrupt end to a glide from a lost dance step. — One of us has an electric personality lady, he steered her — right in here, we can lay them all out. Static electricity, it piles up in the carpet you touch a doorknob and, you want to sit right here? he came on rounding the clear expanse of the desk still settling the acrylic sheen on his shoulders, put down the pictures and shot his cuffs to display gold simile coins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. — You can sit down right there if you…

— But I am in a hurry Mister Davidoff, I…

— Right, this will save you a trip to my office.

— But, there must be a hundred of them.

— Two eighty-six, I know how important this project is to you that’s why we want you to make the picture selection yourself, now I thought we’d lead off with that one on top there, one second… He stabbed the button-studded console and picked up the phone as he sat, his feet parting from the floor. — Pretty classy looking guy, am I right? Your Dad really, oh Miss Bulcke get the Waldorf, tell them the General won’t be back till the twentieth and I’ll be using his suite… he came forward hanging up the phone, feet treading air. — Your dad really comes across doesn’t he, a real statesman of ind…