New York - The Novel

weren’t rich? That’s despicable.”
    “No—as a matter of fact, we weren’t short of money at all. My father began his life as a bricklayer, and my mother’s family ran a delicatessen. But then my father received a legacy from his uncle and became a developer. Small-time stuff—he bought up Brooklyn houses, restored them and sold them—but he did pretty well.” Dr. Caruso paused. “No, the problem was nothing subtle. It was because I was Italian. Simple as that. Italian name. Dirt.” He shrugged. “Now I’m their obstetrician.”
    “I hope you charge them top dollar,” said Gorham drily.
    “I live well. Actually, my son just started at private school, and he has no trouble at all.”
    Ethnic was fashionable nowadays, Gorham thought, and he was glad of it. He’d heard of Jewish families, for instance, people who’d anglicized their East European names a generation ago, recently deciding to return to the original ones. Attitudes were changing. His own blue-blood name only gave him pleasure because it was honestly derived, from historical roots. At least, that’s what he told himself. “My view of ancestry is strictly postmodern,” he liked to pronounce at dinner parties. “A harmless ornament, to be shared with one’s friends.” That was pretty good, he thought.
    And was Caruso any relation of the famous tenor? he’d asked. The obstetrician’s intelligent face was not unlike pictures of the great singer.
    “Who knows?” said Dr. Caruso. “Way back, perhaps. My family knew him—they were very proud of that—and he always told them we were related.” He smiled. “Caruso was a man of great kindness, you understand.”
    Gorham Master was glad that Dr. Caruso would be delivering his son.

    He grabbed Maggie’s bag, told Bella to stay in the apartment in case they had to call her for anything, and took the elevator down to the lobby. The doorman hailed a taxi.
    It wasn’t a long journey. Across to Madison, then straight up to 101st, over to Fifth Avenue and you were at Mount Sinai Hospital. Dr. Caruso would meet them there.
    The taxi driver went three blocks up Park before turning left. Only a block to Madison. Then he stopped.
    “Is there a problem?”
    “Yes. Problem.” A heavy Russian accent. “Truck. He don’t move.”
    “I have to get to the hospital.” Maggie was probably already there now.
    “Vot can I do if he don’t move?”
    Nothing. Should he get out and pick up a cab on Madison? If he did that, the minute he got to Madison, the blockage would clear. Then the Russian would go by and wouldn’t stop if he hailed it again. Then there wouldn’t be any more taxis on Madison. Such things had happened to him before. Gorham Master swore quietly to himself and closed his eyes. Patience. Clear his mind. Keep calm.
    And try not to think of the other business. The business he hadn’t told Maggie about.

    On the whole, during the last ten years, his life had still gone according to plan. He’d made VP years ago, and the bank seemed to think well of him. He’d shown a real talent for client relations, and he’d been shrewd in picking his corporate mentors. Several years he’d been awarded six-figure bonuses on top of his salary. This spring, he’d been made a senior vice president. That was important. But even more important was something else he’d been offered shortly afterward.
    Stock options: the chance to buy bank stock at advantageous prices. Golden handcuffs, as they were known—for they were structured so that, to get the real benefit of the options, one needed to stay at the bank. A VP might get a promotion and a higher salary, but the only way to tell whether the bank really valued him was to follow the money. If the bank really wanted to keep him, it gave him stock options.
    The city seemed to be prospering too. In 1977, just after the terrible arson and looting of the blackout, the new, feisty Mayor Koch was elected. The first thing he’d set out to do was restore the city’s disastrous finances. And he’d been remarkably successful. In a few years, the city budget was even out of the red. In ’81, Koch had actually been nominated by both the Democratic and Republican parties—such a thing had never happened before. “How am I doing?” the mayor would call out whenever he saw a crowd, and most of the time they told him he was doing pretty well.
    And Gorham had married Maggie.
    Their courtship had been typical of those where at least one of the partners