Evening's Empire: The Story of My Father's Murder by Zachary Lazar Page B
Authors: Zachary Lazar
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of their own mistakes. We’ve been running this business for two years, and we’ve always been straight. I’ve always been able to say, look, we’re doing it by the book, we’re clean—I told it to Don Bolles at the Republic, I told him to write a story about it. That’s what matters to me, that we’ve always been clean. So you see what’s at stake right now. Not just Ross but Cornwall—this whole shadow starting to hang over us. You see what’s at stake, not just for me but for you.”
Ed shook his head. “I’m not going.”
Warren nodded. He turned at the waist, as if looking for Sharon to come take away his coffee cup, and in that one movement his whole demeanor seemed to change. There was the briefest glimpse of contempt, and then there was self-possession. You could see that he was going to be mild, even cheerful, but absolutely silent about whatever he was thinking. It was suddenly as though the whole conversation had not occurred.
He stood up and patted Ed on the shoulder. “Okay,” he said. “No hard feelings, then.”
Ed nodded, shaking his hand.
“I’ll see you later,” Warren said.
Things were never the same.
10
I was looking just a few weeks ago for some more information about American Home Industries, the company that bought Consolidated Mortgage from my father and Warren in 1971, and then later, in 1972, filed for bankruptcy. I had done an Internet search earlier, typing in “American Home Industries,” but the name is general and nothing useful came up. They become compulsive, though, these searches, so a few weeks ago, I tried out some variations and it was there—the company was still there. One of the names listed was familiar. I knew the name because I know all these names now. I know them the way I know my phone number and address.
I called the number on the site without even preparing any questions. I knew better than this, but I did it because at that moment it felt like it was 1972 and not 2007. It felt like I could get the story in this one phone call, a ridiculous feeling I have had several times throughout this project, always immediately refuted.
The voice at the other end of the line was deep and assertive, but also guarded, the voice, I imagined, of someone who had made and lost money, a business voice. He recognized my last name. Perhaps that was why he took my call. The more we talked, the more his voice reminded me of another voice I had heard while doing this research. I had discovered, through a complicated set of circumstances, a few taped interviews made by journalists in Arizona in 1976, among them an interview with David Rich, who is now dead but who spoke at length back then about my father. That was how I learned that David Rich had an English accent. I heard him speaking on tape about my father’s story, and the sound of Rich’s voice made the story seem more real, that is to say smaller, less mythic. There was another taped interview with a man named A. A. McCollum, whose voice sounded like the man from American Home Industries. A. A. McCollum bought Consolidated Mortgage in 1973, after Consolidated had separated from AHI. By 1973, Consolidated’s assets had been compromised, and McCollum lost everything. His voice on tape had a certain flatness you hear in California, an accent perhaps transplanted there from the Midwest. It was the same timbre I heard in the voice of the man I talked to now, the man from American Home Industries.
What happened, as the man explained it to me, was that the housing market began to collapse in 1972. The Vietnam War, the rising cost of oil—it was the beginning of what would come to be known as stagflation, the deep recession that would eventually characterize the whole decade. The Fed raised interest rates. Almost immediately, no one could get the financing to build houses. AHI’s stock was traded on the NASDAQ, so all you had to do was look at the morning paper to see how far it had fallen.
The man told me
Ed shook his head. “I’m not going.”
Warren nodded. He turned at the waist, as if looking for Sharon to come take away his coffee cup, and in that one movement his whole demeanor seemed to change. There was the briefest glimpse of contempt, and then there was self-possession. You could see that he was going to be mild, even cheerful, but absolutely silent about whatever he was thinking. It was suddenly as though the whole conversation had not occurred.
He stood up and patted Ed on the shoulder. “Okay,” he said. “No hard feelings, then.”
Ed nodded, shaking his hand.
“I’ll see you later,” Warren said.
Things were never the same.
10
I was looking just a few weeks ago for some more information about American Home Industries, the company that bought Consolidated Mortgage from my father and Warren in 1971, and then later, in 1972, filed for bankruptcy. I had done an Internet search earlier, typing in “American Home Industries,” but the name is general and nothing useful came up. They become compulsive, though, these searches, so a few weeks ago, I tried out some variations and it was there—the company was still there. One of the names listed was familiar. I knew the name because I know all these names now. I know them the way I know my phone number and address.
I called the number on the site without even preparing any questions. I knew better than this, but I did it because at that moment it felt like it was 1972 and not 2007. It felt like I could get the story in this one phone call, a ridiculous feeling I have had several times throughout this project, always immediately refuted.
The voice at the other end of the line was deep and assertive, but also guarded, the voice, I imagined, of someone who had made and lost money, a business voice. He recognized my last name. Perhaps that was why he took my call. The more we talked, the more his voice reminded me of another voice I had heard while doing this research. I had discovered, through a complicated set of circumstances, a few taped interviews made by journalists in Arizona in 1976, among them an interview with David Rich, who is now dead but who spoke at length back then about my father. That was how I learned that David Rich had an English accent. I heard him speaking on tape about my father’s story, and the sound of Rich’s voice made the story seem more real, that is to say smaller, less mythic. There was another taped interview with a man named A. A. McCollum, whose voice sounded like the man from American Home Industries. A. A. McCollum bought Consolidated Mortgage in 1973, after Consolidated had separated from AHI. By 1973, Consolidated’s assets had been compromised, and McCollum lost everything. His voice on tape had a certain flatness you hear in California, an accent perhaps transplanted there from the Midwest. It was the same timbre I heard in the voice of the man I talked to now, the man from American Home Industries.
What happened, as the man explained it to me, was that the housing market began to collapse in 1972. The Vietnam War, the rising cost of oil—it was the beginning of what would come to be known as stagflation, the deep recession that would eventually characterize the whole decade. The Fed raised interest rates. Almost immediately, no one could get the financing to build houses. AHI’s stock was traded on the NASDAQ, so all you had to do was look at the morning paper to see how far it had fallen.
The man told me
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