New York - The Novel

large city that dated back to the twenties, the marketing men called it the Big Apple, and invented a logo to go with the name. Central Park was filled with concerts, plays,every kind of activity. But behind all the razzmatazz, the city was falling apart. The park was turning into a dust bowl, where it was unsafe to walk after dark. Street crime continued to rise. As for the poor neighborhoods like Harlem and the South Bronx, they seemed to be falling into terminal neglect.
    Finally, in 1975, the Big Apple confessed it was bankrupt. For years, it seemed, the accounts had been falsified. The city had borrowed money against revenues it did not have. Nobody wanted to buy New York debt, and President Ford refused to bail the city out unless it reformed itself. “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD” the
Daily News
headline had memorably put it. Emergency help from union funds had saved actual collapse, but the Big Apple was still in a state of ongoing crisis.
    Charlie would have hated New York’s humiliation. But Gorham still wished that he had his father to talk to. They might disagree, but Charlie was never passive, always informed, and usually had an opinion. Since his passing, Gorham was left to make sense of the world by himself, and when he was alone in the apartment sometimes, he would feel quite sad.
    He had performed all his obligations toward his father, of course. He had delivered the little presents to his father’s friends, and heard their words of love and praise for Charlie. That had been a pleasant mission. All, that is, except one. Sarah Adler had been out of town at the time, on a trip to Europe. The present to her had been a drawing, carefully wrapped, so Gorham did not know what it was. He’d meant to deliver it several times, but somehow he’d always had something else to do, and after a year had passed, he had felt rather embarrassed to have waited so long. The gift was still sitting, fully wrapped, in a closet in the apartment. One day, he promised himself, he’d get round to dealing with it. God knows, he meant to.
    His banking career had started well. The first choice had been what kind of bank he wanted to go into. Gorham knew that ever since the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 had regulated the banking industry after the great crash, one had to choose between two kinds of banking career: the commercial, high street banks that took ordinary people’s deposits, and the investment banks—the merchants banks, as they were called in London—where the financiers made their deals.
    In a commercial bank, people told him, there was less risk, less frenetic hours, and probably a job for life; in an investment bank there were more risks, though maybe higher rewards. On the whole, he felt more attractedto the massive corporate respectability and power of the great commercial banks; he liked the solidity they represented. He’d been offered a position with a major bank, and he’d been very happy.
    The life suited him. He did well in the bank’s training program, and he was assigned to the automotive group. He spent long hours preparing the numbers for credit documents, but he worked fast, had an eye for detail, and when he got the chance to study the loan documents, he discovered that he had a natural understanding of contracts and their implications. And unlike some blue bloods, he didn’t only do the work, but he asked for more.
    “I see you’re not afraid of hard work,” his boss remarked to him after a long session.
    “It’s the way to go up the learning curve,” Gorham replied cheerfully.
    And when his boss took him to meet clients, they liked him. Client meetings in the automotive industry were a leisurely business, conducted on the golf course. Charlie had never had a country club, but Gorham had learned to play golf at Groton, and he’d kept up his game ever since. On these occasions, he did well, and his boss took notice. Client relationships were important in banking.
    Two years ago, Gorham had made assistant vice president. He was on his way. All he needed now to complete the picture was the perfect corporate wife. He’d had several girlfriends, but none that seemed quite right to be Mrs. Gorham Master. He wasn’t worried about that, however. There was plenty of time.

    At seven thirty, Maggie O’Donnell walked out of the Croydon rental building on Eighty-sixth Street, turned up Madison, walked a few blocks, past the Jackson Hole where she got her burgers, up to the tiny, enterprising