(1982) The Almighty Read Free Page A

Edward,’ Liddington said. ‘The paper is entirely yours for a year.’
    ‘A year,’ repeated Armstead bitterly. ‘He’s given me a year to do what he was unable to do in decades. He knew it couldn’t be done. The bastard.’
    The lawyer made one more effort at reason. ‘Edward, he must have thought highly of you. He left you almost everything. He left you the television stations, the big one here in New York. Everyone watches television.’
    ‘Fuck television,’ said Armstead. ‘A picture book for illiterates and morons. Two or three minutes on any one subject. No time for in-depth, for understanding, for absorbing and reflecting. The only things treated with care are the commercials. He left me television?’
    ‘And a billion dollars.’
    Armstead ground his cigar into a pewter tray. He stood up. ‘He left me shit,’ he said bitterly. He shook his head. ‘You’ll never understand.’ He cast about him. ‘Is there a telephone where I can make a call privately?’
    Liddington came to his feet. ‘Let me take you to the conference room next door. It’s not in use. Can I put through the call for you?’
    ‘It’s personal. It’s something I want to do myself.’ He had brought a small address book out of his jacket pocket. ‘There’s someone I have to see.’
    ‘I wasn’t sure you’d keep your appointment today,’ said Dr. Carl Scharf, closing the office door and directing Edward Armstead to the cracked and faded brown leather chair directly across from his own sand-colored armchair.
    Usually when he sat down for one of his three-times-a-week sessions Armstead made some derogatory comment about the leather chair - that it looked as if it had come secondhand from a garage sale. Always he made some critical comment about Dr. Scharf’s cramped and untidy office. Once he had even offered to lease and pay for a more commodious and modern suite in a better neighborhood for his psychoanalyst, but Dr. Scharf had politely declined. Armstead had then suspected that the analyst retained his Black Hole of Calcutta because it was contrary chic. To headquarter in a rotting and dangerous ancient building on Thirty-sixth Street off Broadway and there receive famous and wealthy patients showed a certain individuality, eccentricity, and disregard for facades that would finally impress overindulged neurotics.
    Armstead had given up on Dr. Scharfs shameful apparel long ago. True, the analyst was not built to be a Beau Brummel, and apparently from early on had decided to go with what he had. Dr. Scharf was a short, round man - round bald pate circled by a fringe of thinning hair, and fat round physique. A disgrace to the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, Armstead was sure, a psychiatrist who did not like to listen. But he was insightful, he was warm, he was brilliant. He had tried for years to get Armstead to break away from his father, to swim on his own, but that had been asking too much. This afternoon, as ever, he was attired in a rumpled and worn tweed sport jacket, turtleneck sweater, and unpressed slacks.
    Dropping into his armchair, Armstead hardly noticed. Nor was he aware of the shabby office and its disreputable furniture. Armstead was blind, blind with rage.
    While Armstead sat fuming, the analyst rearranged some back copies of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association on top of the ottoman before his own chair. Then he wriggled more comfortably into his shallow seat, propped his feet up on the magazines, put a match to his smelly briar pipe and said again, T didn’t think you’d come by today.’
    T didn’t intend to. But I just heard his will, and I got so pissed off I had to see someone - even you.’
    Dr. Scharf puffed placidly on his pipe. ‘You did go to the funeral, Edward, didn’t you?’
    ‘Just to make sure he was dead.’
    Dr. Scharf nodded gently. ‘Reminds me of the old Harry Cohn story. You know, Harry Cohn, who was head of Columbia Pictures -‘
    ‘For chrissakes, Carl, I