Cutler 03 - Twilight's Child by authors_sort Read Free Book Online

very cruel child, Dawn." Her eyes narrowed. "You don't know how much of your real father you've inherited."
    "How much have I inherited, Mother? Tell me," I pursued. I wanted her to talk about him and what had happened. I needed to know. But she waved me off.
    "I'm tired and disgusted," she said. "Do what you want," she muttered. "Do whatever you want."
    She returned to her room, shutting the doors tightly again and withdrawing to continue to feel sorry for herself. All I had done, apparently, was give her more reason.
     
    Just after Philip returned to college and Clara Sue returned to high school I began my education, too. Shortly after Grandmother Cutler's death and the reading of the wills, Mr. Updike and Mr. Dorfman, the hotel's comptroller, came up with a plan to continue the running of the hotel as smoothly as possible during the time Mr. Updike called "the interim period." I knew that meant the time it would take for me to grow knowledgeable and mature enough to take on really significant responsibilities.
    Mr. Dorfman was a small, bald man with eyeglasses as thick as beer mugs. Although he was quite a competent comptroller, he was very uncomfortable talking to people. I found him to be a shy man who didn't like to look directly or even indirectly at the people with whom he was holding a conversation. He would look down at his desk or at some papers in his hand. It was almost as if I had just wandered in and was listening to a conversation between him and someone invisible.
    "Well, I don't have the best news for you, I'm afraid," he began when we first met. "I've done a complete evaluation of the hotel's assets and liabilities. You know, of course, that the hotel is heavily mortgaged, and that most years Mrs. Cutler has managed only to pay the interest?"
    I shook my head with an obvious look of confusion on my face. But rather than becoming impatient with me, Mr. Dorfman appeared to enjoy the fact that I knew little about such matters. He then proceeded to explain what mortgages were, what interest involved and what significance all this had for the hotel.
    "So we're really no better than paupers," I concluded with surprise.
    "No, no," he said, smiling for the first time, if that twitch at the corners of his mouth could be described as a smile. "All major property owners carry big mortgages. It doesn't mean they're paupers. Quite the contrary. Your enterprise here employs many, many people, and the property value is very high, very high. Some years, as you will see, the hotel made a considerable profit, and some years—the last three, to be precise—it just about broke even. Maybe a small profit," he added, as if to make me feel better.
    "But if we paid our mortgage principal, we would have no profit," I declared.
    "You don't have to pay the principal. The bank's very content collecting the interest, which is considerable. They have no desire to become operators of a hotel, believe me."
    "It's still all very confusing to me," I cried.
    "In time you will understand this as well as I do. I've taken the liberty of preparing a number of papers for you to study. Read everything carefully, especially what it costs to run each aspect of the hotel, and then you and I will talk again. It's not all that complicated," he promised, and he handed me a thick packet of papers that included studies that went back twenty years. This really was going to be like attending school, I thought.
    "What does Randolph think of all this?" I asked, sitting back. Maybe it was better for me to become a silent partner and let Randolph take over most of the responsibility after all. Mr. Dorfman's short, bushy eyebrows lifted.
    "Oh, I thought Mr. Updike had already explained . . . that is, I assumed . . ."
    "Explained what?" I demanded.
    Mr. Dorfman fidgeted for a few moments and then looked firmly and directly at me for the first time since I had arrived.
    "Mr. Randolph," he said calmly, "is quite incapable of any real responsibility and has been