Unbalanced
Accounting Tales
by
Lawrence Seinoff
Copyright 2012 Lawrence Seinoff
Smashwords Edition
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Contents
“Let’s take my car,” Eric Rothenberg said.
“Not a problem,” Epstein said, but it was a problem. They should have driven separately. He’d left fifteen minutes early for no reason.
“Everything’s in my car… my brace, my racquet, tennis balls. I don’t want to forget anything.”
“Not a problem,” Epstein repeated.
“You can put your car on the side of the driveway.”
Yes, boss.
Epstein leaned into his car to grab his tennis gear. Waiting for Rothenberg to point to one of the three cars parked around the circular driveway, he was eventually directed to a beaten up Mazda.
“Let me show you around. We have plenty of time.”
Because you asked me to get here early, Epstein continued his conversation with himself. Then the front door opened even before they got there, and a short-haired woman in her sixties handed Epstein an envelope.
“I had Barbara print something out for you,” Rothenberg said. “Just a few tax questions. Don’t look at them now.”
Epstein slid the envelope into the pocket of his tennis shorts, but he could practically taste the lump of car keys in his other pocket. Wouldn’t that be a nice way to stop the tax questions? Just pull on the pin and toss the grenade on the house.
“I won a battle with the town to get this place zoned for business.”
“That couldn’t have been easy.”
“I’m used to fighting.”
“I hate it.”
“Good, I’m in your head already.”
“Join the crowd.”
“Oyster Bay…Islip, Westchester, I’m in nasty fights with all of them.”
“Why?
“Zoning.”
“Just like you’re going to be in a zone when we play,” Epstein joked.
“Exactly.”
“I own a resort in Utah, too.”
“Fighting there yet?”
“Actually, I am. So how good are you in real estate?”
“It’s not my specialty,” Epstein lied.
“What is?”
“International,” he came up with.
“Take a look anyway. I’m checking up on my lawyers and accountants.”
You have money. I get it, but I came here to play tennis, not to do your goddamn taxes.
“Let me show you around.”
Trailing Rothenberg yet again, Epstein could practically hear Lawrence Seinoff, his blogging persona, typing away: What to do with ass holes who try to control you? What to do with ass holes who tell you how much they have? What to do with ass holes who are just ass holes?”
“I own about twenty developments.”
“Great.”
“Do you know anything about tax free exchanges?”
“No,” Epstein lied again.
“Man, what kind of an accountant are you?”
“A pretty bad one, obviously.”
“I’m just kidding. But they never check the tax basis on these things. I’ve sold quite a few properties years later and never picked up the original gain if you know what I mean. I’m probably ahead millions from something I finally dumped last year. Sometimes using an accountant who doesn’t know what he’s doing isn’t such a bad thing.”
“Or one that you can push around,” Epstein said.
“Is there any other kind?”
“It depends on your sleep factor.”
“My office upstairs used to be bedroom,” Rothenberg laughed. “If that means anything.”
“It’s getting late.”
“Can’t wait to get me on the court, huh?”
They headed right up to the hot shot’s office. Leaning against the desk, a pair of skis practically touched the ceiling. “I guess you don’t get to ski in your business, not when you’re a slave of a nice snow-filled tax season,” Rothenberg jabbed.
No, but I see the gift tax returns on your desk, douche bag. Epstein went right to the Social Security Number…100-22-7676. The last four represented two close sets of tennis. All he had to remember was a little 22 since his Social also began with 100. Epstein wins two tie breakers, Lawrence Seinoff typed for him.
“I’ll be heading to Aspen pretty soon, and then to the Caribbean.”
“You have places there?”
“What do you think?”
“You have anyone other than Barbara working here?”
“I do everything myself. I have property managers on the sites, of course.”
“Of course.”
“But I wouldn’t mind a controller one of these days…someone with real estate experience, of course.
“Of course.”
“I just set up grantor trusts for my kids, but my wife won’t sign a post-nuptial. It’s for her good, not mine.”
“I’m not sure I understand that one.”
“I’m not into cars,” was Rothenberg’s response, as if that made any sense. They left his office with Epstein on the usual leash. A few minutes later, in Rothenberg’s car, a spring stuck into his butt like a vaccine shot. No doubt he wasn’t the first opponent transported via Rothenberg’s hot seat.
Trying to ignore the discomfort, he visualized Rothenberg on the court. He’d seen his stupid under-spins and drop shots and thought, until this moment, that he could overpower him. The problem was that Rothenberg’s head game was powerful. He’d already aced Epstein with his real estate developments, moved him from side to side with his tax questions, bounced topspins over his head with his skis, and even slammed an overhead in his face with his comment about the controller, all while sticking him in the ass with the car seat.
By the time they made the last turn and drove along Oyster Bay, the car keys had turned to mush but the envelope was bothering him as much as the seat. Rothenberg was enjoying it, too. He knew exactly what he was doing, Epstein thought, as the club finally appeared on their right.
It looked like an airplane hanger, but the two courts housed under its slate roof bespoke graceful living. The damn place even had a manager living in a small apartment inside the building. Only on the North Shore, would you walk into a tennis club whose lobby greeted you with a fireplace and pictures of old ships. Neither he nor Rothenberg would have been allowed to set foot in the place in the previous generation. Now, that was all they had in common.
“I brought the balls,” Rothenberg said. “I prefer the Penn. They have Wilson here.”
Epstein wondered if his friends had set up surveillance equipment. Were they having a good laugh from inside the manager’s apartment? Rothenberg had a reputation. Now he knew why.
“Looks like both courts are available. Let’s use the far court.”
“No problem.”
“It’s in better shape. I still want to sweep the court before we start.”
“You’re a purist,” Epstein said, but the courts were fine.
Never-the-less, he swept one side while Rothenberg swept the other. Then he waited for Rothenberg’s endless layers of clothing to come off. The guy was like a moth coming out of a cocoon. Knee and elbow braces followed the clothes. Finally, while Epstein began stiffening up on his side of the net, Rothenberg topped it off with a pair of goggles.
“I prefer a certain type of warm up if you don’t mind.”
“Not a problem.”
Rothenberg’s warm up translated to each of them standing about two inches away from the net and hitting the ball before it bounced, not that there was any room for it to bounce, totally ridiculous.
“Let’s not play a regular set. We’ll play a twenty-one point game.”
“Fine.”
“With no serve.”
“What do you mean?”
“We just hit the ball over the net twice, a couple of easy forehands before we start the point.”
“Okay,” Epstein acquiesced for about the tenth time. He looked at the empty court next to them. Only a few days earlier, he’d played a fun doubles match there. A week earlier, he’d played singles with another friend. Life was too short to put up with this.
“Think I’ll hit the bath room before we start,” Rothenberg said, and left Epstein thinking about the night where many of the members, including the dick he was now facing, had taken a CPR course out in the vestibule. Rothenberg had cornered him for the match just before they’d applied the defibrillator to a dummy. That was the bad news. The good news was that he wouldn’t resuscitate him, should that wonderful event occur.
When Rothenberg returned they finally began the dumb twenty-one point game, but the prick was truly in his head. He couldn’t keep anything on the court. Bottom line 21-3, Rothenberg.
Then Rothenberg took another bath room break and came back asking Epstein if he wanted a spot of 10 points. Bottom line 21-2, Rothenberg.
Now Rothenberg wanted to play a set, offering a three game handicap which Epstein refused. Bottom line, 6-3, Rothenberg
And just like that, they were back in Rothenberg’s shit box with the spring up Epstein’s ass. Oyster Bay was on his right this time. He stared across the water at a few of the estates. Then, as if he’d been unconscious during the rest of the return trip, they pulled into the driveway.
“The three game spot would have made it more interesting,” were the last words Epstein heard as he crumbled out towards his car. A block later he realized he didn’t have his cell phone. After pulling over several times to search, he finally headed back to Rothenberg’s place. Shit.
Sensing eyes on him as soon as he drove in, Epstein walked over to the Mazda. As expected, the phone was on the seat. Luckily the door wasn’t locked. Facing the ground, he waved the phone up in the air and headed back to his car. Let the ass hole put two and two together. Let him call one of his property managers.
“Have your people call my people,” Weinstein said in the car... because he had a property manager too
His name was Lawrence Seinoff. The property was Epstein. He was still in the development stage. He hadn’t come out the blog closet yet. He didn’t have to because he had a very cool alter ego who ranted on continuing education, peer review, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the IRS, the CPA journal, Napoleonic managing partners and mostly, thankless, scum-sucking clients.
Rothenberg was the quintessential torturer, the embodiment of a lifetime of unreasonable demands on a desperate accountant to sign off on just about anything. Worse, he knew the truth. He flaunted and savored it… that Epstein couldn’t afford to live in the area without cheating for his clients. He’d transformed the tennis net to the difference in net income between them. He’d turned a Sunday morning tennis game into a cage match between the man with the money and the counter of money. It was one thing to play well and bring someone’s game down. It was another to rip out your guts!
Reliving the most humiliating point, Epstein went back for a lob over his head and barely got his racquet on the ball. Rothenberg’s response was a drop shot mixed with laughter. Epstein got there but Rothenberg lobbed and laughed again. They repeated the exchange a few more times until Rothenberg sent Epstein to the ground with a fake slam. Then, trying to keep the point alive, Rothenberg tapped the ball softly to him. He managed to hit it back, even while on his knees, but Rothenberg slammed the final one, and not far from his face.
Still in his tennis shorts, he, no, Lawrence Seinoff, ace CPA, sat at his computer and signed on to The Unbalanced Accountant. He started with a nasty poem about the Big Four. Then he uploaded an image of a calculator and typed “EAT THIS.” As he looked at a few unpublished posts, an ad came to him and he uploaded a draft to the Help Wanted section:
OLD TIME CROOKED ACCOUNTANT SOUGHT
Must have had license suspended at least once. Jail time a plus.
Readying for the click he knew was coming, the crap-taking, tattered bagel brigade came to him. It was nice having an audience to watch his last shot. He knew a lot of them, too, their faces, their names, their stories, because he was their spokesperson. In a sense, he was their managing partner. He was managing their equilibrium. CPR for the CPA, he stored for a later entry.
Sensing footsteps, he finally tapped the link to IRS reward form 211 and swung a tension free stroke at Mr. Eric Rothenberg, 100-22-7676.
“Larry, did you have a good game?” his wife called from the other room.
Just won in the tie-breaker, dear.
Weiss had the same dream frequently. He was sitting in his Jeep but not turning the wheel or stepping on the gas because he was also working a remote control device from another place. At first, he’d somehow make it just by feel, but sooner or later, there would be a blind turn and fear would engulf him. Then he would wake up.
Today he wondered if the opposite might happen. Might he fall asleep at the wheel because another dreamer was controlling him? With that thought, he pulled off the interstate into a ghetto looking place with a sky-high sign that had the letters TA precariously angled at its peak. The phone rang just as he parked. What a putz? Did he think his dreamer was calling to say hello?
Oh, hi there Mr. Weiss, I just wanted to tell you that I am your dreamer. And you, my friend, are the dreamee. You’ll crash when I lose control, not you.
He pressed answer on the third ring.
“Where are you?” his wife asked.
“Eighty-four… just past Hartford.”
“What time is your audit?”
“Eleven.”
“You have plenty of time.”
“I just pulled off to take a little breather.”
“That’s smart.”
“I better get going.”
“You’ll be home for dinner, right.”
“A little late, maybe.”
“Know what you’d like?”
“Whatever you want… chicken?
“Okay. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
And just like that, the little love, the little wife, the little roast chicken, the little kids in college, the little dog, the little house, the little clubs… they all rounded the turn and compartmentalized somewhere else as he walked into Truck Stops of America.
Immediately he was greeted by aisles of snacks, sunglasses, air fresheners, and tea shirts, not exactly brain food for an accountant on his way to handle an out-of-state audit. Stopping at a row of smutty magazines, he asked himself: how does a sixty-year old tax guy become a porn star?
Ever dream about that?
As if answering all the questions he ever had in his life, a busty girl in a bra smiled out from one of the covers. One cup had FLAT in bright red letters, the other, TAX. The words curved perfectly around the gigantic boobs. At least his dreamer had a sense of humor. It made sense, too. A flat tax would start small but eventually fill with more silicone than all the porn stars in the world.
He’d rounded his own turn! His little tax man life was in focus again. All he had to do was get back in his little car, step on his little gas pedal, drive to his little audit, get out his little papers, and put on his little smile.
But could a life get flat? Could you shrink so much inside yourself… not appreciating what you should cherish… could you lose a dimension? Could you get it back?
Reiter sat in his car at the Fox Hollow parking lot and scrolled down his emails looking for Weintraub’s invitation. Eventually he gave up and searched by name. When it popped up, he opened the attachment and still didn’t find the answer he wanted. The problem was that the Fox Hollow had a separate catering facility directly west of the hotel which meant that he had to get out of the car to figure out which one the event was in.
Now he put his tie on, something he’d always been good at, probably because he wanted to strangle everyone. It was time. Exiting and plucking his suit jacket from the back seat, he looked at his hooded ski jacket as if he expected to see the real Eliot Reiter under the hood. On the way to the hotel lobby, he knew, he’d made the wrong choice, not from knowledge but from his perennial incorrect choices.
“Is the Owl room here or at the restaurant?” he asked a young woman at the front desk. Like him, she had on clothes that she didn’t seem comfortable in, a little too dressy, more of a uniform. Unlike him, she was good-looking, and wasn’t pushing the big SIX O.
“It’s in catering,”
“They should have an owl sound coming from the place to hone you in.”
“What’s an owl sound like?”
“Is the Long Island Business meeting there?” Reiter asked rather than do his owl impression.
“No idea.”
Back to the car and back on Jericho Turnpike, Reiter pulled in again and went straight this time. With the hotel on his left now, a parking attendant stopped him by the restaurant.
“Can I park myself?” Reiter asked, for no reason.
“It’s valet.”
“I guess you think I’m a cheap guy.”
The attendant, long-haired and probably a college student, laughed.
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you were thinking it,” Reiter said to himself in the lobby. He looked in his wallet to make sure he had some singles. Luckily, he spotted a couple of twenties because he knew where the evening was going.
Sure enough, the second he found the famous Owl Room and was handed his name tag, one of the twenties went for raffle tickets. He moved quickly towards the bar area. It was filled with talkers, networking maniacs. Half had to be lawyers, maybe more. Their mouths moved: their heads moved: their arms and their little drinks moved. Was there someone above the ceiling tiles, a string master who would drag them to the empty tables for the fundraiser?
What a boring puppet show, yet there was something not boring about it, perhaps because Weintraub couldn’t make it and Reiter was the mystery guest of the shitty law firm of Steiner and Weintraub. He knew no one at the firm and no one knew him. Good stuff. He was string-less for the evening.
Wandering over to the prize area, Reiter saw half a dozen gift baskets, a signed hockey puck, two golf bags, and an ergonomic chair, not exactly high level stuff. Then the first suit wandered over.
“Are you an attorney?” Reiter asked, not knowing or caring what else to say.
“Marketing.”
“Should have looked at the name tag,” Reiter said, observing Selden Communications, under the name Richard Selden. Reiter immediately played with the words…seldom, selfish, sellout, self important, prison cell… he almost couldn’t stop.
“And you?”
“Accountant.”
“Out here?”
“I live out here, but my office is in the city.”
“Any specialty?”
“Dysfunctional clients.”
With that, Selden handed him a card and moved on as soon as Reiter reciprocated. Good, one dick down. Now he decided to focus on women. They were smarter, more on guard, and just different.
A group stood by the bar. He walked past overly friendly people on the way. They were too familiar with each other, almost incestuous. They also looked like they were from Long Island just like people from New Jersey looked like they were from New Jersey. And since Reiter knew that he, himself, looked like an asshole, he could make any stupid statement he wanted. No one was listening anyway. He wasn’t even talking!
He was simply walking through a tribe of shysters. They were beating on their money drums. “Giveth me business my fellow Long Island business brethren,” they chanted, “and I shall giveth thee business.”
Reiter parked next to two female suits, one short and thin, and the other tall and thin. Neither looked Jewish which didn’t mean anything, other than the fact that they could drink and had maybe gone out with a fireman or a cop at some point.
“Eldercare specialist,” the short one said. She pointed to her taller friend, and Reiter immediately thought of a dummy and a ventriloquist.
“I’ll need you soon,” Reiter said. “And you, Marjorie Reynor?”
“PR.”
“I just met a PR person.”
“There are lots of us.”
“I need reverse PR,” Reiter said.
“What does that mean?”
“I want to lose business.”
“He’s a burnout,” the taller one laughed. Her dummy nodded and smiled.
As they edged away, Reiter said “Human Charcoal.” It was going to be a long night. He had nothing normal to say to anyone. He didn’t want any more business. He wanted to kill his existing clients, too. He’d end world commerce if he could, and simply stop transactions, anything that could wipe out the profession of accounting.
Heading back to the gift baskets, Reiter thought of his wife. She was hanging out alone because he was at this ridiculous event. She’d be at the table now with either wine or vodka, depending on the level of desired buzz. No doubt, she was watching conservative commentators on FOX. But was she really doing that? Did he have any idea? Did she also have another desperate life, not with clients she wanted to kill, but with a “burnout” husband she wanted to be more normal?
Moving quickly past a fat prick in suspenders and a bowtie, who reeked of money, Reiter now faced the ergonomic chair.
“Is that going to do it for you?” came from behind.
As he swung around, a pleasant but slightly plump woman in her late thirties smiled. It was one of those smiles that came from the heart. Her hair was really frizzy, the mark of a good Jewish girl with a good personality.
“A non-lawyer,” he said, looking at her name, DEBRA. There was no business title, just her name in all caps.
“And Eliot Reiter is a CPA,” she said.
“I should have put Nobel Prize winner on my badge.”
“The chair’s going to be auctioned,” DEBRA said, laughing.
“I could use a nice chair tonight.”
“Roll it to your table.”
“I might if I knew which table. The guy who invited me couldn’t make it. I’m supposed to meet his partner, but I have no idea what he looks like?”
“What’s his name?”
“Jerry Steiner.”
“I’ll take you to him. I’m with the Food Bank, by the way.”
“Whoops. Glad I didn’t say anything stupid.” Reiter followed her towards the entrance where Jerry Steiner was obviously waiting for him. He had the look of someone who worked out too much, a jittery and compulsive achiever. Let the torture begin.
“I found your date,” the Food Bank lady said, and then she floated away.
“Great,” Steiner said. They shook hands and Reiter trailed him towards another group. “Glad we finally got to say hello. Barry talks highly of you.”
“Same here,” Reiter said, following him towards the Steiner and Weintraub brain trust. “You don’t have to torture yourself babysitting me.”
“Nonsense, it’ll be fun.”
“Sure.”
“Your date’s arrived,” A woman said, and Reiter wondered how many more times he’d have to hear that. She was short but had a good figure. The rock on her finger was large enough to contain a hidden substance. Reiter thought of his cocaine days when, for a month in his life, and after a not too nasty divorce, he went wild on the stuff. Now he went wild on mild, he supposed, as the rock lady introduced him to several of the firm’s attorneys.
Then he spoke to her for a while. Not surprisingly, her husband was a surgeon. It must have been reassuring, Reiter thought, to know that you had the legal and medical world covered in your life. She moved on eventually, which brought Reiter back to the bar area and then out in the lobby where he wandered in and out of various rooms named after animals.
The escape didn’t last forever. In the bathroom, he ran into his babysitter who informed him that dinner was about to start.
“I’m just going to run out to my car for a second,” Reiter said, trying to delay the inevitable.
“Bring your checkbook back for the auction,” Steiner said. Reiter had forgotten his first name.
“That’s why I’m going,” he lied, but outside, sensing Steiner’s eyes even through the walls, he asked the attendant where his car was parked. His checkbook was in his bag. He might as well be a good boy, but that wasn’t it was it? He was afraid that Steiner was going to ask to see his checkbook. As he headed to the lot he smelled pot and found the original kid who quickly put out the joint.
“I need something from my car,” Reiter said. “But can I buy the rest of that? I haven’t smoked in thirty years.”
“That’s a long time,” the attendant laughed and lit up again. “Every week somebody tells me the same thing, but thirty years is the record.”
He passed the joint to Reiter as if they were college buddies.
“What school you going to?” Reiter asked, inhaling and heading back in time instantly. All the science fiction books he’d read, the trips to China Town when he should have been in class, the lousy first marriage, doing coke and hitting the clubs, teaching accounting in college after his divorce, the biggest joke of all.
“Hofstra.”
“Major?”
“Business.”
“Good.”
“You have the Jeep, right?”
“The Jeep has me,” Reiter said, stoned already, not unaware of the fact that he felt more comfortable out in the lot smoking pot with a kid than he did in the fucking Owl room.
“You see it?” the attendant asked, pointing.
“Yea.”
“Okay. I have to get back. Finish it.”
“Now you really must think I’m cheap,” Reiter said. “And weird.”
“No problem. Keep it for later.”
Heading back with the checkbook stuffed into his suit jacket, and the joint stuffed into the checkbook, Reiter soon found himself at the table between the rock lady and Steiner.
“Thought you’d run off on us,” Steiner said.
Reiter didn’t have time to respond because the waiter interjected himself, wanting to know Reiter’s choices. Did he want the chicken? Did he want the steak? Did he want the fish? No, he just wanted to smoke the rest of the joint.
“Let me tell you about our work at the food bank,” suddenly came from the front. It was the food bank lady. She seemed like an old friend now. “We feed fifteen soup kitchens, thirty churches, a dozen free food stores…the whole freaking world.”
Reiter, along with many others, could barely control the laughter when the trays started coming out. The setting was feast-like. The hunger jokes, as well as the wine, were flowing.
“They make you feel guilty,” the rock lady said.
“Is this the Irony Room?” one of the younger lawyers asked.
“We’re all going to hell.”
“We’re allowed to eat.”
“They have to raise money for anorexia too.”
“It’s about to be the money room,” Steiner finally shut everyone up with.
About half an hour later, it was. First, the lady who’d originally sold him raffle tickets roamed from table trying to hawk a few more. Fifteen minutes after that, they drew the raffles, and good old Harry would be proud, as Reiter continued the losing tradition of his dead father.
Then came what Reiter had been waiting for, the auction, which turned out to be for a lot more than the chair. There were dinners and trips and Broadway shows and spa packages. The auctioneer, amateurish, at best, had trouble getting more than the minimum bid on most items.
“And now we have the chair which is no ordinary chair,” he finally said. “It’s been donated by The Back Store. Retail Vale $2,000. Opening bid, let’s say $400.”
Reiter, who’d never bid on anything before, raised his hand. The rock lady seemed impressed.
“I can use a chair,” Reiter said.
“Obviously.”
“It’s going to cost you,” Steiner said, raising his hand.”
“Okay, we have a bidding war here,” the auctioneer announced.
“I don’t think so,” Reiter said to the rock lady, but his hand went up again as did Steiner’s. Ultimately, Reiter paid $950 for the chair.
“I wasn’t going to let you steal it,” Steiner said. “Hey, it’s for a good cause.”
“No problem,” Reiter said, thinking of the attendant. The guy was really going to think he was crazy when he rolled it out to the car.
The process of getting to the chair began about forty-five minutes later when he ran into DEBRA. Her lipstick was smeared, probably from kissing a bunch of contributor’s cheeks, excluding his.
“Have fun with the chair,” she said.
“It’s for a good cause, my comfort.”
“Hopefully you can fit it in your car.”
“It should be fine,” Reiter said. As he moved on, her sympathetic eyes remained, as if they were saying something else.
He managed to get to the chair without saying another word to anyone, but rolling it out was another story. Everyone seemed to have a stupid comment or joke. He was the chairman. It was for chairity. His ass was too small for the chair. The chair was too big for his ass. He looked like a chair thief. Was he going to pick up groceries with it?
Thankful to have a different attendant get his car and help him maneuver the rather light chair into the back of the Jeep, he lit up the joint almost instantly and switched on one of the satellite classic rock stations. It sounded like a Led Zeppelin song but he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he would enjoy the ride home.
Four or five songs later, he hit the fancier houses and then the sidewalks disappeared as he reached the little village police station and the two acre zoning paradise of Spring Harbor. As he reached the causeway that divided the Harbor from the Long Island Sound, he finally went with the flow and pulled along the beach area. Earlier there would have been a Mexican or two fishing, but it was really late now, but not too late to sit on his new chair. He dragged it right onto the beach.
Then, finally, as if it had been his destiny before the evening had begun, he sat down and stared at the surf, just an old fart, stoned out of his face, playing with his new toy. All he needed was a neighbor out for a midnight stroll. He’d be through in his little North Shore world, he thought, as his cell phone vibrated.
“Where are you, Elliot?” his wife asked, annoyed.
“That’s not the question,” he barely said.
“What?”
“I’m on the beach.”
“Sure.”
“I’m losing you,” Reiter said, tracing a line of light along the water right up to the moon. It was as full as he was full of shit. Rising for a moment and then falling into the chair again, he thought…just a little pot, and, instead of pushing sixty, he was pushing the sixties…the music, the drugs… the R man.
“The big R,” he said, and swallowed what was left of the joint. Then either a bird or a bat flew across the moon. “Whooooooooo R U?” he finally did his owl impression.
As if answering him, the chair dug into Reiter’s spine. He’d been afraid to go to Woodstock. That’s who he was. R for riskless, he didn’t think… he knew, except for the drugs. But now, as cold and numb as the coked out lips he once had, he could practically hear the bands rocking under the moonlight.
Pressing a lever on the side of the seat, the chair shot up about two feet and he sat like a lifeguard. He’d grown up on the beach. To a kid, those chairs were as big as pyramids. He’d always wanted to sit on one. It was odd; fifty years later, here he was.
It was Lawrence Seinoff’s first day on the job and already he noticed how unreasonable his father-in-law’s client was. Aside from looking over his shoulder every minute to see what he was working on, Stan Banks had been complaining non-stop about his surprise tax bill. It all equaled the voices Seinoff had gone to sleep with.
“Only another thirty years of this,” one childhood friend said.
“Don’t complain. It should be fun,” came from another.
Then his sleeping wife joined in.
“You and my father are the same,” she said. Even in her limp, dream state, she knew everything.
“Look at it this way,” the great Harry Seinoff, right from the grave, memorialized for him. “If your father-in-law is the Old Master, does that make you the young master?”
The voices had finally stopped when he was having a bagel at the Virginian, a stupid place in town filled with old timers and their protégés. He’d counted six, all chewing away in their beige summer suits. He was number seven.
The cigar stench in the car had followed breakfast, along with a good view of his father-in-law’s twitch. It was like driving with a frog. Yet there was bravery in the desperate tapping coming from inside his jaw. The torture was contained. It didn’t affect others.
Of course the new tadpole wasn’t the same. By the time they’d reached Banks’ office, with the twitch continuing to send out its little SOS, Seinoff had already been looking at the clock. Worst of all, the marriage that had brought him to this very point, now seemed to be a first step into darkness. He could practically feel the pulse in his neck turning into a twitch.
“Is that my stuff you’re working on?” brought him into the light.
“It was before,” Seinoff said. He looked over at his white haired mentor, the Old Master. The twitch pulsed a mile a minute, yet still seemed tired.
“What do you mean?” Banks said.
“He finished so I gave him something else,” Ben Hoffman finally said, walking over. The Old Master knew how to take crap with the best of them. He put a checkbook in front of Seinoff.
“That’s ridiculous.” Banks walked off shaking his head.
“I told you to cover your work.”
“He’s hovering over me.”
“He’s pissed he owes so much.”
Seinoff could see Banks in his office on the phone but the rest of the staff sat hidden behind cubicles. He had a full head of combed-back, black hair and designer glasses with red frames. Through them, Banks’ eyes were all over him, even from his office.
“Write the checks, Larry.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t forget the Federal ID.”
“No problem.”
“I’m taking a walk.”
“Cigar time?”
“He’s a horse’s ass. They’re all whores. That’s my first lesson.”
Aiming a stupid smile towards Banks, Seinoff hurried with the checks and clipped them onto the forms. Then, as if he’d been directed by an invisible hand, he waved them towards Banks who immediately flipped off his glasses like he was removing boxing gloves.
Staring at the approaching pair of designer jeans, Seinoff pictured the Old Master puffing away outside. Was this a rite of passage? Had this been planned for him?
“You find this funny?” Banks said, hovering over him. “You like watching me pay.”
“I’m just writing the checks.”
“No, you’re doing a lot more.”
“Sorry,” Seinoff said, thinking that Banks was only about fifteen years older than him. Now the numbers, 25, 40 and 60 played like he was calling a play behind a center, Seinoff, Banks and the Old Master.
“Me too,” Banks mumbled, and marched outside. He didn’t come back, but his father-in-law soon did.
“He just fired us.”
“Hike,” came out of Seinoff, just like he was back in the schoolyard.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Pack up.”
“I don’t think he liked me.”
“He wasn’t paying any extra for you. He’s a whore. Do you get it now?”
“Definitely,” Seinoff said. He glared at Stan Banks’ home address on one of the tax forms before he threw it in the file. Muttontown. Nice. Seinoff’s wife was going to a baby shower tomorrow. That was nice too.
“He’s a horse’s ass.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What would my son-in-law do?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Back at the car, the Old Master skimmed Banks’ file across the rear seat. Half the papers ended up on the floor mats. The rest slid out haphazardly. Then Seinoff’s neck snapped back as his father-in-law floored the pedal. Half a block later, as the passenger window opened and the cigar butt whizzed past his nose, his heart pounded but the twitch looked normal as can be. He even felt a little baby one on the side of his neck, like he’d evolved.
“I want to savor it awhile,” the Old Master said about fifteen minutes later. “You should too.”
“Savor what?”
“The justice.”
“What can you do?”
“You’ll learn.”
Another year and Nadia was still impressed by the diversity of fingers clicking around the conference room table, the perennial melting pot, black, brown, yellow, white, ringed, non-ringed, ink-stained, spotless, new ones, old ones. The list bopped to the beat of the key tapping, which created yet another list because each calculator had its distinct sound. The nails were the culprit. The longer they were the sharper the tap: dirty, broken, polished, and truest of all, fake with a touch of glitter. It was difficult to stop. There were her coworkers’ names, the list of items they had on, the list that defined her.
Contributing to the concerto and thinking of Elton John’s fat fingers on the piano, Nadia punched any number that came into her head, her age, her parents’ age, their birthdays, her weight, the year she thought she might die, how many teeth she thought were in the human mouth. Was it thirty-two? Whoops: that was her age, too.
“Times up,” the office manager finally ended the recording session with, but Harold Lieberman, the ace calculator man, had already stopped. He was holding up his tape like it was a scroll. He wore a short sleeved shirt and Nadia, opposite him, had a direct line to his arm pit hair. Reddish and curly, like the clumps on his head, there was a Hassidic feel about it. Perhaps religion was why he won every year.
“Dead on,” Teresa said, looking at the bottom of his printout. One by one, she scrunched the other tapes into golf balls and tossed them in the garbage. “Harold wins again.”
“Like why are we doing this,” came out of everyone, but Nadia was beyond words. She rose quickly, catching a glimpse of the plaque as she left the conference room. Harold Lieberman times eight stared back, the calculator king. The only problem, and she knew this for a fact, was that he was about to get the axe.
No notch on the plaque for poor Harold next year, she thought, but no next year. If there were, in his honor, would they rename the Calculator Olympics the Harold Lieberman award? How about the number crunching asshole award? Would a different prize go to her? Considering who was waiting out there for her, she certainly deserved one. Finally rushing to the reception area, she stopped short of ‘the stage’ and leaned against the wall.
“She’s not answering,” Nadia heard Diane say to him. “I’m not sure where she is.”
“Me either,” Nadia said, stepping around the corner, surprised how tall and well-built he was for an IRS guy, a huge contrast to his squeaky phone voice. Was that a gun under his jacket? She’d heard revenue officers carried guns. Moving closer, she surmised it was a rolled up magazine, probably Soldier of Fortune. He did have a bit of military face, not a red neck, more of a young Clint Eastwood. Too bad about the voice, but his name was something else, too.
“Where are we going?” Kenneth Fuchs greeted her with. In one motion he flashed a badge and business card. Instead of the usual drab card, it mimicked the badge: you didn’t ‘Fuchs’ with the IRS.
“I was just about to hit the intercom,” Diane said. Her face was pretty, but the lower half off her huge body lurked behind the divider like a hidden church bell.
“I was in the conference room participating in our annual event.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Diane said. “Harold won again?”
“Of course.”
“What event?” the revenue officer asked, feeling left out, no doubt. He sounded like he should be singing with the Chipmunks, but what gave her the right to be so critical? Look what she had done. How would she be described, a single, mean, greedy bitch?
“They’re oblivious here, anyway, but I think we should go into my office.”
“Great,” shot through his sinuses, a bullet for the whistle blower perhaps.
A moment later, safely behind her desk, she said, “They’re firing Howard as we speak. I should care, but I don’t.”
“The calculator champ?”
“Yea”
“Too bad,” he said, like he gave a shit. Maybe she should tell him to shove it.
“The way of the accounting world,” she said. “He adds well, but he’s disorganized as hell.”
“I’m the opposite,” Fuchs said, sitting opposite her. She watched him read her license and then maybe her, she thought, until he looked behind her through the window at 2 Penn Plaza, the A building that the glorious CPA firm Seedman and Company could never afford
“Should I call you Ken?”
“That’s my name, Ms. Pap..pas….how do you pronounce it?”
“You got it right. Like the lab test with a touch of Greek. What do we do now, Ken?
“Not much,” he said, pulling out the whistle blower form she’d submitted. “You do know you’re not entitled to anything if you participated?”
“I didn’t participate…until now.”
“Okay, according to you, they’ve taken an illegal position with one of their clients, pushed a tax shelter…”
“Great,” she mimicked him. “It cost you guys about $5,000,000. Isn’t there a penalty for not declaring you’re in a tax shelter?
“Form 6542,” Fuchs eked out. “A nasty one: 50%.”
“And interest on the penalties?
“Sure.”
“Do I get paid on that, too?”
“I’m not sure. But I am sure that you do know that we have to get paid before you get your ten percent.”
“The client has deep pockets.”
“Because they don’t pay their taxes.”
“Until now,” Nadia said. “What about us?”
“We can’t protect the firm?”
“Do I get a reward for bringing down a grossly negligent, if not a crooked CPA firm?”
Now that caught Fuchs’ attention. “You’re a piece of work,” he said. “I guess they should have treated you better here.”
“Will it bring them down?”
“From what you supplied to us, the answer is…Yes.”
“It’s too late to turn back, right?
“What do you think? The client just received the subpoena. They’re probably on the phone now with your managing partner.”
“No audit letter?”
“No audit letter necessary. You did the audit for us.”
“I’ve got a little present for you guys, too.” Fuchs said, standing, pulling out what she had thought was the magazine. There was that badge again, across the top of the eight by eleven envelope.
“That’s it?”
“Just wanted to see the hero.”
“Your voice doesn’t do you justice,” Nadia let slip out.
“I know. What can I do? My tragic flaw. You want to go have some lunch?”
“Now I do,” she said. “I certainly don’t want to be here after you drop that thing off.”
After Diane signed for the ‘present,’ they ran into Lieberman. He was facing the elevators with one foot against the wall as if he were waiting for someone to sit on his knee. He wasn’t crying but his eyes were filled with red pixels.
“They could have fired me before the Olympics,” he said.
“You okay?” her new “Ken” doll asked.
“You’re my replacement, right?” Lieberman said. It was more of a moan than a question.
Fuchs raised his arms as if he were being robbed. “Not me.”
As Nadia jumped in the elevator with him, a delivery guy from one of the delis smiled. He had a small white bag that looked like it was about to break through. Probably the wrong order, she figured, as coffee leaked onto the floor. As the door shut, Lieberman’s knee straightened like a baby might slide off.
“There’s a good Greek diner,” she said. “On the corner of Eighth and 34th.
“On every corner” Fuchs.said, bemused at the dripping coffee. “I’m game.”
“We can pass the torch,” Nadia said, connecting the dots for once on her life. She should give Harold something. He’d been such a good little Olympian, and the whole firm was getting axed, not just him.
“How about Sushi?” Fuchs said, not playing the dot game with her, Uncle Sam’s snot man tuning up for the whistle blower. His annoying voice lingered for a while until her imagination took over.
“Let’s skip lunch,” she said, but the desire to keep his pipes moving grew.
“Why?”
It could easily have been an ancient musician’s horn bringing on the competitors. But it was something else, an eraser of meaningless lists, or maybe the first one on the list. With the elevator swooshing to a stop, Fuchs marched out, but the deli man, dripping coffee in one hand, waved her out with the other. When she didn’t move, he smiled and waved again, a long swooping motion that did the job.
“Greece,” she yelled ahead to Fuchs.
“What?” he yelled back, as the delivery man passed him and disappeared outside.
“I’m going to visit my homeland,” she said, “my Olympics.”
“You throw a mean javelin,” he said, the horns announcing her arrival.
As the waltz played in his head from the previous evening’s session, Seinoff watched the bookkeeper hand the Old Master two plastic wrapped sweaters she’d plucked from under a stack of computer printouts. She could have had more under there for all Seinoff knew. Her desk was a pig sty. She worked on piles of papers, at least three levels. Her keyboard sat at an angle as a result. It was flanked by coffees on both sides, and those didn’t look like they were from the current work day.
“I heard our friend Stan Banks needs a bookkeeper,” his father-in-law said after a while.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“It’s a small airport.”
“News travels fast.”
“I’m not finished with that ass hole.”
Remembering the day the Old Master spoke of savoring the justice he would eventually deliver to the freight forwarder for firing them, Seinoff turned to the bank reconciliation, a mess he had no idea what he was looking at. Then a flying sweater slid across his desk and landed on his lap. His father-in-law laughed, but the bookkeeper, who was as big and sloppy as her desk, asked “What size is your wife?”
“No idea.”
“You picking her up tonight?” the Old Master asked.
“Like clockwork.”
“He’s a good son-in-law,” the bookkeeper said.
“He’s the best.”
“I’m one of a kind.”
“That you are,” the Old Master said, twitching away. His glasses hung far down on his nose, as if he knew how “far” Seinoff’s role-playing had progressed to keep Beth satisfied.
He’d been married three years. Year 1 had equaled the real Lawrence Seinoff in bed. Year 2 equaled James Dean. And now, in glorious year three, there was a permanent Opus in his brain and the magical fingers of Frederick Chopin. The piano stopped as another sweater slid into him.
“Take two,” the bookkeeper said, and Seinoff immediately saw Beth trying on one for Chopin and one for James Dean. As he stared down at a scrolled up tape of outstanding checks that had been stapled to the bank reconciliation, he played with the personas and how each might react to the fashion show.
Frederick would tap out a pressure point masterpiece on her back and say, “You look magnificent, my dear, absolutely magnificent.” Jimmy would mumble something incoherent and give his best hurt look, “the wounded James Dean.” Then he’d flick an invisible cigarette, hop in bed, and take care of business.
Even though he sounded like Dracula, Seinoff preferred his flamboyant Polish accent over his nearly inaudible Midwestern one, and Beth’s ridiculous George Sand over her rather boring Natalie Wood. At least she didn’t smoke cigars like the real George Sand. Perhaps that was coming next. She could borrow one of her father’s Teamos.
“How’s that bank rec. coming?” the Old Master asked, as if he’d been listening in.
“WRECK is more like it,” Seinoff spelled out quietly.
“It’s fine, don’t worry. I have no idea how she reconciles it either.”
“She’s got so many staples on the tapes. I can’t even get them off. Everything’s crossed out, too.”
“Forget it. Check the payroll taxes. Put the sweaters in your bag. I don’t want anyone seeing. Let’s wrap up pretty soon.”
“Sure.”
“Might as well get an early start,” the Old Master almost finished saying, but Michael Denton came out. Like always, he was unkempt and unshaven. Seinoff quickly shoved the sweaters into his bag.
His father in law was going to get stuck there, but Seinoff had his own car with him in order to pick up George Sand. Perhaps they could relive the famous nineteenth century romance in the car and pretend it was a horse drawn carriage. He’d better not mention it; Beth would request a horse and buggy ride through Central Park and a room at the Plaza.
“Things look good?” Denton asked, and Seinoff’s fingers, as if they were flowing with his blood pressure, actually started tapping out an etude on an invisible calculator. What a moron! Couldn’t he see that it was one thing to be a slob and another to have to have a slob doing the books?
“Larry has to take off,” the Old Master said, but Seinoff thought he said “get off.”
“Sure,” Denton said.
“He’s going into the city.”
“Got my statement?”
“Just about there,” the Old Master said.
Packing up, Seinoff could barely control his laughter. Having a statement meant posting no more than seven or eight entries into Quickbooks. The bookkeeper did everything. They had no idea what the bookkeeper did. His father-in-law didn’t seem to care and, therefore, neither did Seinoff. Considering, their total lack of review, they could have been finished in an hour, which was about how long it took him to reach the Midtown Tunnel.
About half way through, his throat started to hurt, probably from his feigned coughing fit the night before. Chopin may have died from TB, but Seinoff made love by it. Now James Dean was going to have to make a comeback and get violent if Seinoff couldn’t extricate himself from his current situation. Of course, half the time James Dean had been directed to climb out of the Porsche he’d died in before hopping into bed.
Even luckier than springing back from that squashed tin can, Seinoff got a legal spot near Lincoln Center. Now he could sit in front of the damn Institute and watch the loonies walk in and out. The thought of Beth helping anybody was help in itself, Seinoff thought, and then he decided to see what was doing up there.
He ran into his wife’s boss in the bathroom, the head psycho, a Clark Kent look-a-like, who seemed a little too uncomfortable. Now he wondered if, perhaps, Franz Liszt had made an appearance.
In the waiting room, he heard Beth on the piano. She played by ear and obviously with his brain, too. She was a music therapist and also in Supervision, which meant that she needed to have years of therapy in order to give therapy. The Master of Social Work and the Old Master: One mastered him by day, the other by night, all because he’d run into Beth in a Psych course. Now he was a CPA rather than an English teacher, and doing the books instead of writing them.
Thinking for about the thousandth time that he didn’t have anything to say anyway, Seinoff went outside again and stood in front of the building for about thirty seconds. Then he headed to Central Park and around the block back towards Lincoln Center. He’d seen a ballet by himself a few months earlier while waiting for Beth on a Saturday. It was the first time he’d ever seen one. Rather than appreciating it, all he could think about was divorce. He’d actually prayed that his wife would meet someone else. And now, real or not, as if one of those hoisted ballerinas had landed where he wanted, the scene in the bathroom had flushed forth his wish.
Ironically, half way down 66th Street, a black Porsche exited from a parking lot and cut in front of Seinoff. The usual fat bearded guy, not James Dean, was at the wheel. The accountant in him immediately saw a new business: shrinks driving their patients around while offering their services. Seinoff saw himself squeezed behind the two front seats discussing his childhood with the bearded wonder. It was like a baby carriage for adults. He was just getting comfy when his cell went off.
“I’m running late, Larry” Beth said. “I need half an hour. Are you in the car?”
“In a way.”
“What?”
“I got a spot. I’ll walk around for a while.”
“I have to go. Bye”
“You look magnificent, my dear,” Seinoff continued talking in his favorite accent. “Absolutely magnificent. I’ll just finish up that waltz I was working on.”
He headed north on Broadway listening to the Grand Waltz Brilliant. Ever since they’d listened to a show on WQXR where it had been played back-to-back by different pianists, the piece had been stuck in his head. The narrator, with the snobbiest of voices, had discussed the varying interpretations by artists such as Arthur Rubinstein or Vladimir Horowitz. This interpretation lasted four and half minutes while that one went a full thirty seconds longer. This one played it like a bird. That one played it like a wolf. When pointed out, every interpretation was so different, and now he wondered what the narrator might say about him. Would he comment on his various performances? Would he prefer the Jimmy or the Frederick? Would he time them? Might he measure the quality of the orgasms?
In front of Fiorillo’s, his phone went off again. This time it was the Old Master, the grand interpreter of the books. When Seinoff answered, no one was on the other end, but half a block later, it rang again.
“She’s a crook.”
“Who’s a crook?” Seinoff asked but he knew exactly who, and he knew the Old Master knew he knew.
“The insurance expense was a little high, so I went through the general ledger. I traced the account back to a few checks to American Insurance that were endorsed by American Express, and it wasn’t his card. I told you to look at the endorsements.”
“I did.”
“Well you missed that one. It doesn’t matter. I’ve been missing it for years. There’s other stuff, anyway.”
“Like what?”
“It’s his fault anyway. He signed the checks. She put everything in his face, even checks to her. She gave herself a raise. How were we supposed to know it wasn’t approved? It’s his business, not ours.”
“Are we fired?”
“No.”
“Why not?
“Because he doesn’t know,” the Old Master laughed, “and he’s never going to know. He’s an idiot. She admitted to me that she was even shipping sweaters to her sister in Florida who was selling them for cash. She wasn’t entering the invoice, obviously.”
“How long has it been going on?”
“Who knows?”
“How much did she steal?”
“Same answer.”
Seinoff looked at a tourist family sitting at one of the outdoor tables. They had a bottle of wine for themselves and two Shirley Temples for their perfectly clothed kids. Ironically, the wife had a sweater folded over her shoulders.
What are you going to do?”
“I did it already.”
“Did what?”
“She will be interviewing at a certain business establishment, and she’ll get that job, because she has to, even if she works for free. I already spoke to someone over there, just to make sure she gets hired. You think I’m the only one who hates that guy?”
“Stan Banks Air Freight?”
“Can’t fool you.”
“What about the money she stole from Denton?”
“Compared to what she’ll do to Banks, it’ll only be a dent,” the Old Master joked, and must have hung up. It was the happiest Seinoff had ever heard him, as if the savoring had been perfectly aged, and the cork of justice popped.
Crossing the street to take a walk onto the square in front of Lincoln Center, Seinoff tried to interpret himself differently. He’d been given the final lesson from the Old Master, the delivery of justice. Banks had fired them for no reason and now the Old Master’s voice was coming through. “You’ll learn,” he’d said on that very first day, and he just did. Any more time with him was too much time spent on the welcome mat. He was free. That was the interpretation, he thought, walking through the square.
At the entrance, he imagined moving from the Chopin generation of pianists to whoever the hell came next. But his musical knowledge, other than the role-playing kind was pretty limited. Inside, he looked at a few posters of upcoming events. Then he searched the internet on his Iphone to see who, in fact, did succeed Chopin. He scrolled past a few Polish names but noticed an older woman with short white hair outside. As if perched there to mock him, she was smoking a damn cigar.
Typing “George Sand,” he observed a miniature of the real thing. With a little imagination and a different outfit, this one wasn’t far off, he thought, but moved on to his other alter ego and saw the names of a few actors he was very familiar with, and then a string of James Dean’s lovers, both female and male. Great.
The phone rang. “You coming?” his wife asked. I got out earlier than I thought.”
“In a minute” he said, and hung up. Then his internet scroll turned into a stroll past the cigar smoking lady who offered up a wicked smile. Maybe he should go for the real thing. It was all about fear; that much he knew. The acting was easy.
“What are you doing?” Beth called again.
“Research.”
“What are you talking about?”