Second Generation Read Online Free PDF

San Pedro? He was a rich man."
Goldberg ate his spaghetti and regarded her benignly. Finally, having consumed the last mouthful, he said, "He wants to be a fisherman."
Barbara shook her head.
"He doesn't want to be a rich man," Goldberg said.
"That's not an answer," Barbara said pleadingly. "You're laughing at me, Mr. Goldberg."
"No, I'm not. You're asking me why Danny Lavette did what he did. I can tell you what he did, but not why. Anyway, I'm sure you know."
"But I don't know."
"Didn't your mother tell you?"
"My mother doesn't tell me things."
"You know about May Ling, the Chinese lady?"
"Yes—I know she was his mistress for many years."
"No, that's the wrong word. Your father wanted a divorce, and your mother refused. Over a period of twenty years, your father built a small empire—ships, land, the L and L Department Store, a hotel in Hawaii, and the first commercial airline out here in California. When your grandfather died, he left the controlling stock of the Seldon Bank in trust for you and your brother. That was nineteen twenty-eight, and the trust was to extend over twelve years. In nineteen forty, when the trust expires, the control of the stock will come to you. You'll be a very wealthy woman then, but I'm sure you know that."
"Yes, I know that."
"Meanwhile, your mother was named sole trustee in the will, with the power to vote the stock as she saw fit. She then decided to take over as president of the bank, something no woman in this country ever did before, certainly not with an institution the size of the Seldon Bank. All right, your mother didn't know one damn thing about banking, but she learned. She was not a figurehead; she had her finger in every pie, and she didn't do badly, believe me. For the next five years, that bank became her life. But I suppose you know that too."
"Yes," Barbara whispered, "I know that. What about my father?"
"He had a partner, whose name was Mark Levy. The Levys had a chandler business down on the old wharf. Danny's father was killed in the earthquake. Danny had Joe Lavette's fishing boat and nothing else. He was just a kid then, but bright as hell, and soon he was operating three fishing boats, mortgaged to the hilt. He was always mortgaged to the hilt. Then he met your mother and fell in love with her, and nothing was going to stop him from having her and Nob Hill too. He and Mark Levy became partners—Danny was still a kid—and Levy mortgaged his business to finance the purchase of their first ship, a rusty old lumber carrier called the Oregon Queen. I still have a picture of it hanging in my office, and if you come back there with me, I'll show it to you."
"Do you know," Barbara said slowly, "I never met Mark Levy. All those years, and I never met him."
"Your mother didn't like him. He was a nice little feller, but your mother just didn't take to him. He's dead now, died in nineteen thirty. His son runs a winery up in Napa. Well, Danny and Mark stuck together to the end. They were like brothers. Way back in nineteen ten, they hired a little Chinese feller by the name of Feng Wo to be the bookkeeper. People didn't hire Chinese in those days for anything fancier than a houseboy,' but Feng Wo was smart as a whip. There was no way they could have done what they did without him. May Ling was his daughter." He took a deep breath and began to eat his veal cutlet. "It's a shame to let it get cold," he apologized. "I think a lot of your mother, don't get me wrong."
"I do too," Barbara said. "What happened?"
"I could go into this in detail and spend the rest of the afternoon talking about it, but the long and short of it is that when the Crash came in nineteen twenty-nine, Danny and Mark were overextended and their empire began to crumble. They were into the Seldon Bank for about sixteen million, and they couldn't meet their interest payments. Your mother called the loan, and that was the end of it."
"My mother did that?"
Goldberg stopped eating. "Now hold on. It's not as simple as