Rough Trade

haven’t found anybody going through the trash yet.”
    “You will.”
    “Why? What have you heard?”
    “Nothing. But that’s not going to make any difference.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It’s human nature. For some reason people don’t seem to be able to accept that famous people die just like everybody else. We expected extraordinary things from them in life, and that’s what we want from them in death. Dropping dead from a heart attack is just too ordinary. Americans think that an oversize life calls for an oversize death. Look at Marilyn Monroe. Look at JFK. In this country, when you’re famous, you don’t just die, you get a conspiracy theory, too.”
    “Wonderful. And to think that I called you expecting to be cheered up.”
    “Just be careful, Kate,” said Elliott, suddenly turning serious. “The last thing you want is for this to turn into something it isn’t.”
     
    * * *
     
    I had made arrangements to see Gus Wallenberg at his office at the bank the next morning. When I came downstairs, I found the baby-sitter in the kitchen, bundling up the baby for an outing in her stroller. Jeff and Chrissy, she reported, had both slept badly and had gone back upstairs to rest. I left them a note on the kitchen table and made my way through Milwaukee’s sedate rush hour to the First Milwaukee Building on Wisconsin across from the stately old Pfister Hotel.
    Wallenberg’s office was a cathedral-like space on the top floor of the building and, as such, far removed from the actual commerce of banking that still took place from behind the gilded teller cages on the first floor. Wallenberg came out and ushered me back to his wood-paneled office himself, his wing tips gleaming. He was a tall man with a rigid, parade-ground carriage and an aura of brusque authority. His hair was gray and thinning, dragged tight across his scalp and slicked down with some kind of pomade that smelled vaguely of lavender and reminded me of my grandfather. He was, I guessed, the kind of man who couldn’t go ten minutes in conversation without finding some way of telling you just how tough he was.
    He waved me into a clubby leather chair with one hand and settled himself behind his massive desk, the kind that seems at the same time imposing and impenetrable, like a Mahogany bunker.
    “I must confess that I was a little surprised by your call,” he announced, getting right to the point. “Up until now I’ve always dealt with Harald Feiss.”
    “No doubt that was the case while Beau Rendell was alive.”
    “And now that he’s dead, poor Harald’s out on his ass, 's that it?” he inquired gruffly.
    “I’m sure that Mr. Feiss will continue to play a role during this transitional period,” I replied. I knew that in some sense Milwaukee was a very small town, a place where all the power players operated on a first-name basis, which couldn’t help but put me at something of a disadvantage. “Nonetheless, Jeff felt that as the new owner of the Monarchs he needed a fresh perspective.”
    “I hope you don’t think me coarse for saying so, but I have to tell you that whichever way you look at it, what Jeffrey Rendell inherited looks like a pile of shit.”
    “Meaning the Monarchs’ current financial situation?”
    “Meaning that he’s not only going to be the youngest owner of an NFL franchise, but he’s also going to be the one who owns it for the shortest amount of time.”
    “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
    “So talk.”
    “Considering his father’s sudden and tragic death, I’ve come to ask you to extend the grace period on the loan agreement for an additional sixty days.”
    “You don’t want much, do you? Maybe you’d prefer it if I’d just agree to forgive the loan, and while I’m at it, maybe you think I should take you downstairs, open up the vault, and let you guys help yourselves?”
    “That’s awfully generous of you to offer, Mr. Wallenberg,” I replied with a smile, “but under the circumstances I think we’d be happy with the additional sixty days.”
    “You still haven’t given me a reason why I should give it to you.”
    “Because you’re a decent man who wants to make sure that Jeff has time to bury his father. Because you want to do the right thing. Because you don’t want to be always remembered as the banker who drove the Monarchs out of Milwaukee.”
    “I’ve known Jeff since he was a little kid. He doesn’t have the balls to move the team.”
    “If you