(1982) The Almighty Read Free

placidly.
    ‘The zinger?’
    ‘The needle, the shiv. You can’t tell me the old man went to the grave and just left me everything without trying to needle me some way, exert some influence on me after he was gone, make something difficult?’
    ‘Well…’ Liddington hesitated momentarily. ‘I repeat, he left you the bulk of his estate.’
    ‘Clean?’ persisted Armstead. ‘No ifs, ands, or buts?’ He had a sudden intuition. ‘The newspaper,’ he said. ‘Does the estate include the newspaper?’
    ‘The newspapers,’ Liddington corrected him. ‘He had liquidated most of them, as you know. But there are still five left.’
    ‘I’m interested in only one,’ said Armstead sharply. ‘The New York Record, his flagship paper. The others are rags. But the Record, that could be important.’ He held on the attorney’s face, and detected a certain evasiveness. ‘He left me the Record, didn’t he?’
    ‘Ah, yes,’ said Liddington. He fumbled with the pages of the document. ‘Yes, I was about to get to that.’
    ‘What’s there to get to?’ said Armstead impatiently. ‘It’s his one possession that matters to me. That paper made him
    famous, until he became inattentive. I grew up on that paper. I know what to do with it. It is mine now, isn’t it?’
    Liddington was turning the pages of the will. ‘Well, yes and no,’ he said. He found what he wanted and reread it to himself. ‘Concerning the New York Record, there is a restrictive clause -‘
    ‘What kind of clause?’
    ‘He bequeathed the newspaper to you but there is a restrictive condition.’
    ‘What condition?’
    ‘It’s - it’s an odd clause. I remember when he inserted it. I didn’t understand his reasoning, but I did as I was told, I included it.’
    ‘Will you tell me what the damn thing says?’
    ‘You are to have the New York Record, of course. But conditionally, for a trial year. During that year you must at some point exceed the daily circulation of the New York Times. If you can do that just once, the paper is yours, permanently. If you fail, the newspaper must perforce be sold to Paul Eldridge of the New York Times. Eldridge had made your father an offer some months before his death. But, of course, that clause is inoperative if -‘
    ‘The bastard!’ Armstead burst out. He was livid. ‘I knew it was too good to be true. There had to be a zinger. I knew E. J. had to shiv me somewhere. He knew what that paper means to me. He knew it hasn’t topped the Times once since 1954. He set a condition that he knew couldn’t be met. He didn’t want to appear the bastard that he was. He wanted to show the world he was the good parent, leaving me what I wanted most, but then to be sure I lost it. He wanted to show the world what he always believed - that I am incompetent, not worthy -‘
    ‘Wait a minute. Hold on, Edward,’ Liddington broke in, trying to placate him. ‘Even if you lost the paper, you’d get the money from its sale. You could start another newspaper in Xew York.’
    ‘You don’t understand,’ said Armstead angrily. ‘You didn’t know him the way I did. After a point, he never cared about money, and neither do I. He cared about his newspaper. It had made him - made him internationally famous. I was raised on it. I wanted the Record above
    everything else. Having it would give me my chance to prove myself, prove I was worthy. But he didn’t want me to have the paper. He didn’t want me to have my chance.’
    ‘Edward, perhaps you are being somewhat unreasonable. I repeat, you could start your own newspaper -‘
    ‘You can’t start a newspaper, not these days. A newspaper has to be there. It is like a person. It has a heart and soul. It’s a friend, a part of every reader’s family and life. The Record is part of the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of people here, and I could have carried it on, made it more, returned it to its highest glory - but no, he wouldn’t let me.’
    ‘You can still do so,