Page 588 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
couldn’t tell whether he remembered me. He told me to meet him in his office at 9:00 on Tuesday of the following week (he being “all jammed up” until then) to talk about a job for me at what he referred to as “the RTC.” I didn’t know whether he was aware that I was sitting “sans portfolio” in Westchester, but I was certain that he didn’t know that I didn’t have the slightest idea what RTC even stood for, much less what the RTC did. At this point, however, I did understand what was meant by the word job.
Between the Portman days and my Coronet period, Goldstein had also made a career move. His was on a slightly grander scale, however: The apparent loser in a power struggle at Weil Gotshal, where he had been a very sizable, albeit rotund and short, player, he had picked up with almost all of its real estate department and moved about thirty attorneys to Shea & Gould, another large firm. He had left his relatively palatial surroundings at the GM Building (from which he could see Central Park to the west) to, some would say, more expensive space that he had forced Shea to lease in the equally prestigious Equitable Build- ing (from which he could see Central Park to the north). That description appeared to be borne out by the huge and lavishly decorated reception area in which I sat for an eternity. While I sat, I went over what I had learned about the RTC through multiple calls to former colleagues and friendly adversaries (there was still no Google) and prepared myself for what I assumed would be an in-depth conversation.
It wasn’t. I don’t think that I spent five minutes in “Sir Charles’s” office. He stood to greet me from behind his rosewood desk, which sat atop a six-inch platform, and proceeded to ask exactly one question— “How are you?”—which really wasn’t a question anyway. He told me that Jerry Jacobs, a friend of his who was the general counsel at the RTC, needed an attorney to take charge of the legal aspects involved in the management and disposition of its real estate holdings. Then: “You’ll be fine for the job. Any questions?”
This was far too easy, in fact almost inexplicable. (I later realized that Goldstein hoped that, if I got the job, I would use Shea & Gould as outside counsel.) There was, naturally, a hitch. In what then passed for my conversation with Goldstein, he let it drop that, if I wanted to meet
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