The Prodigal Daughter

by Jeffrey Archer

  “Better than fifty-fifty. My father would never have considered going ahead with such odds,” added Richard.

  “But my father would have,” said Florentyna. “He always considered a glass to be half full, never half empty.”

  “Thaddeus Cohen was right.”

  “About what?”

  “About you. He warned me that if you were anything like your father, prepare for battle.”

  During the next three months Richard spent most of his time with accountants, lawyers and tax consultants, who had all the paperwork completed for him by March 20. That afternoon he booked space on every major financial page in America for April 1 and informed the advertising departments that the copy would arrive by hand twenty-four hours prior to publication. He couldn’t help reflecting on the date and wondered if it would be he or Jake Thomas who would end up the fool. During the final two weeks, Richard and Thaddeus Cohen checked over the plan again and again to be certain they hadn’t overlooked anything and could be confident that the details of “Operation Bust a Gut” remained known to only three people.

  On the morning of April 1, Richard sat in his office and studied the full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal:

  The Baron Group announces that it will offer fourteen dollars for every Lester’s Bank share. The current market value of Lester’s shares is eleven dollars and a quarter. Any persons wishing to take advantage of this offer should contact their broker or write direct for details to Mr. Robin Oakley, Chase Manhattan Bank, One Chase Manhattan Plaza, New York, N. Y. 10005. This offer remains open until July 15.

  In his article on the facing page, Vermont Royster pointed out that this bold bid to take over Lester’s must have had the support of Chase Manhattan, which would be holding the stock of the Baron Group as security. The columnist went on to predict that if the bid succeeded, Richard Kane would undoubtedly be appointed the new chairman, a position his father had held for more than twenty years. If, on the other hand, the move failed, the Baron Group might find themselves with severe cash restrictions placed on their reserves for several years because the Group would be encumbered with a large minority shareholding without actually controlling the bank. Richard could not have summed up the situation more accurately himself.

  Florentyna called Richard’s office to congratulate her husband on the way he had carried out Operation Bust a Gut. “Like Napoleon, you have remembered that the first rule of war is surprise.”

  “Well, let’s hope Jake Thomas is not my Waterloo.”

  “You’re such a pessimist, Mr. Kane. Just remember, Mr. Thomas is probably sitting in the nearest men’s room at this moment and he doesn’t have a secret weapon and you do.”

  “I do?” said Richard.

  “Yes. Me.” The phone clicked and rang again immediately.

  “Mr. Thomas of Lester’s Bank on the line for you, Mr. Kane.”

  I wonder if he has a phone in the men’s room, thought Richard. “Put him through,” he said, understanding for the first time a little of what the confrontation between his father and Abel Rosnovski must have been like.

  “Mr. Kane, I thought we ought to see if we can sort out our differences. Perhaps I was a little overcautious in not offering you a place on the board immediately.”

  “I’m no longer interested in a place on the board, Mr. Thomas.”

  “No? But I thought—”

  “No. I am now interested only in the chair.”

  “You do realize that if you fail to secure fifty-one percent of Lester’s stock by July fifteenth, we could institute immediate changes in the allocation of bearers’ stock and voting shares that will diminish the value of the stock you already hold? And I feel I should add that the members of the board already control between them forty percent of Lester’s stock, and I intend to contact all other shareholders by telegram today with a recommendation not to take up your offer. Once I am in possession of another eleven percent, you will have lost a small fortune.”

  “That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” said Richard.

  “Well, if that’s your attitude, Kane, I shall call a full shareholders’ meeting for July thirtieth and if you haven’t obtained your fifty-one percent by then I will personally see to it that you are kept out of any dealing with this bank for as long as I am chairman.” Thomas’s tone suddenly changed from bullying to ingratiating. “Now perhaps you might like to reconsider your position.”

  “When I left your office, Mr. Thomas, I made it clear what I had in mind. Nothing has changed.” Richard put the phone down, opened his diary to July 30 and put a line through the page writing across it: “Stockholders meeting, Lester’s Bank,” with a large question mark. He received Jake Thomas’s telegram to all stockholders that afternoon.

  Every morning Richard followed the response to his advertisement with calls to Thaddeus Cohen and Chase Manhattan. By the end of the first week they had picked up 31 percent of the shares, which with Richard’s 8 percent meant that they held 39 percent in all. If Thomas had in fact started with 40 percent, it was going to be a tight finish.

  Two days after his phone call from Jake Thomas, Richard received a detailed letter sent by Thomas to all shareholders, advising strongly against consideration of the offer from the Baron Group. “Your interests would be transferred into the hands of a company which until recently was controlled by a man convicted of bribery and corruption,” stated the final paragraph. Richard was disgusted by Jake Thomas’s personal attack on Abel and he had never seen anything make Florentyna so angry.

  “We are going to beat him, aren’t we?” she asked, her fingers clenched into a tight fist.

  “It will be close. I know they have over forty percent among the directors and their friends. As of four o’clock this afternoon we have forty-one percent, so it’s a battle for the last nineteen percent that will decide who wins on July thirtieth.”

  During the end of the following month, Richard heard nothing from Jake Thomas, which made him wonder if he had already captured fifty-one percent, but with only eight weeks left until the stockholders’ meeting it was Richard’s turn to read over breakfast a full-page advertisement that made his heartbeat hit 120. On page 37 of The Wall Street Journal Jake Thomas had made an announcement on behalf of Lester’s. They were offering two million shares of authorized but previously unoffered stock to be sold for a newly set-up pension fund on behalf of the bank’s employees.

  In an interview with the Journal’s chief reporter, Thomas explained that this was a major step in profit sharing and the funding of retirement income that would be a model to the nation both inside and outside the banking fraternity.

  Richard swore uncharacteristically as he left the table and walked toward the phone, leaving his coffee to go cold.

  “What did you say?” said Florentyna.

  “Balls,” he repeated, and passed her the paper. She read the news while Richard was dialing.

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means that even if we do acquire fifty-one percent of the present stock, Thomas’s authorized issue of a further two million shares, which you can be sure will be sold only to the institutions, thus making it impossible to defeat him on July thirtieth.”

  “Is it legal?” inquired Florentyna.

  “That’s what I’m about to find out,” said Richard.

  Thaddeus Cohen gave him an immediate reply. “It’s legal, unless you succeed in getting a judge to stop them. I was in the process of having the necessary papers drawn up, but I warn you, if we are not granted a preliminary injunction you will never be chairman of Lester’s.”

  During the next twenty-four hours Richard found himself rushing in and out of lawyers’ offices and courtrooms. He signed three affidavits and a judge in chambers heard the case for an injunction. This was followed by a special expedited appeal in front of a three-judge panel which, after a day of deliberation, came down two to one in favor of holding up the share offering until the day after the extraordinary general meeting.
Richard had won the battle but not the war; when he returned to his office the next morning, he found he still had only 46 percent of the stock needed to defeat Jake Thomas.

  “He must have the rest,” said Florentyna forlornly.

  “I don’t think so,” said Richard.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because he would not have bothered with that smoke screen exercise of the pension fund shares if he already had fifty-one percent.”

  “Good thinking, Mr. Kane.”

  “The truth is,” said Richard, “that he fears we have fifty-one percent, so where is the missing five percent?”

  During the last few days of June, Richard had to be stopped from phoning Chase Manhattan every hour to discover if they had received any more shares. When July 15 came he had 49 percent and was acutely aware that in exactly fifteen days Thomas would be able to issue new voting shares that would make it virtually impossible for him ever to gain control of Lester’s. And because of the cash flow requirements of the Baron Group, he would have to dump some of his Lester’s stock immediately—no doubt, as Jake Thomas had predicted, at a considerable loss. He found himself mumbling “two percent, only two percent” several times during the day.

  With only a week to go, and with Richard finding it hard to concentrate on the new hotel fire regulations being put into effect, Mary Preston phoned.

  “I don’t know a Mary Preston,” Richard told his secretary.

  “She says you would remember her as Mary Bigelow.”

  Richard smiled, wondering what she could possibly want. He hadn’t seen her since leaving Harvard. He picked up his phone. “Mary, what a surprise. Or are you only phoning to complain about bad service at one of the Baron hotels?”

  “No, no complaints—although we once spent a night at a Baron if you can remember that far back.”

  “How could I forget,” he said, not remembering.

  “No, I was only calling to seek your advice. Some years ago my great-uncle, Alan Lloyd, left me three percent of Lester’s. I’ve had a letter from a Mr. Jake Thomas asking me to pledge those shares to the board and not to deal with you.”

  Richard held his breath and could hear his heartbeat.

  “Are you still there, Richard?”

  “Yes, Mary. I was just thinking. Well, the truth is—”

  “Now don’t start a long speech, Richard. Why don’t you and your wife come and spend a night in Florida with my husband and me and then you can advise us.”

  “Florentyna doesn’t return from San Francisco until Sunday—”

  “Then come on your own. I know Max would love to meet you.”

  “Let me see if I can rearrange a couple of things. I’ll call you back within the hour.”

  Richard phoned Florentyna, who told him to drop everything and go alone. “On Monday morning we will be able to wave good-bye to Jake Thomas once and for all.”

  Richard then informed Thaddeus Cohen of the news. He was delighted. “On my list the stock is still under the name of Alan Lloyd.”

  “Well, it’s now in the name of Mrs. Max Preston.”

  “I don’t give a damn what her name is, just go and get it.”

  Richard flew down on Saturday afternoon and was met at the West Palm Beach airport by Mary’s chauffeur, who drove Richard deep into the countryside. When he first saw the house Mary was living in he wondered how they could fill it without about twenty children. The vast mansion stood on the side of a hill in a thousand acres of its own land. It took eight minutes to drive from the Lion Lodge gates to the imposing forty steps in front of the house. Mary was standing on the top step waiting to greet him. She was dressed in a well-cut riding outfit. Her fair hair still touched her shoulders. As Richard looked up at her he recalled what had first attracted him more than ten years before.

  The butler whisked away Richard’s overnight bag and ushered him into a bedroom large enough to hold a small convention. On the end of the bed was a riding outfit.

  Mary and Richard rode around the grounds before dinner and although there was no sign of Max, she said he was expected about seven. Richard was thankful that Mary never went beyond a canter. It had been a long time since he had ridden, and he knew he was going to be stiff in the morning. When they returned to the house Richard had a bath and changed into a dark suit before going down to the drawing room a little after seven. The butler poured him a sherry. When Mary floated into the room in a slight off-the-shoulder evening dress the butler handed her a large whiskey without waiting to be asked.

  “I am sorry, Richard, but Max has just phoned to say he’s been held up in Dallas and won’t be back until late tomorrow afternoon. He will be very disappointed not to meet you.” Before Richard could comment, she added: “Now let’s go and have dinner and you can explain to me why the Baron Group needs my three percent.”

  Richard took her slowly through the story of what had happened since his father had taken over from her great-uncle. He hardly noticed the first two courses of dinner, he became so intent.

  “So with my three percent,” said Mary, “the bank can return safely into the hands of the Kanes?”

  “Yes,” said Richard. “Five percent is still missing, but as we already have forty-nine percent, you can put us over the top.”

  “That’s simple enough,” said Mary, as the soufflé dish was wisked away. “I’ll speak to my broker on Monday and arrange everything. Let’s go and have a celebration brandy in the library.”

  “You don’t know what a relief that will be,” said Richard, rising from his chair and following his hostess down a long corridor.

  The library turned out to be the size of a basketball court with almost as many seats. Mary poured Richard a coffee while the butler offered him a Rémy Martin. She told the butler that that was all she needed for the evening and sat down next to Richard on the sofa.

  “Quite like old times,” said Mary, edging toward him.

  Richard agreed as he came back from his daydreams of being chairman of Lester’s. He was enjoying the brandy and hardly noticed when Mary rested her head on his shoulder. After she had poured him a second brandy he couldn’t miss that her hand had shifted onto his leg. He took another sip of cognac. Suddenly and without warning she threw her arms around Richard and kissed him on the lips. When she eventually released him, he laughed and said, “Just like old times.” He stood up and poured himself a large black coffee. “What’s keeping Max in Dallas?”

  “Gas piping,” said Mary, without much enthusiasm. Richard remained standing by the mantelpiece.

  During the next hour he learned all about gas piping and a little about Max. When the clock struck twelve he suggested it might be time to turn in. She made no comment, just rose from her seat and accompanied him up the vast staircase to his room. She walked away before he could kiss her good night.

  Richard found it hard to sleep, because his mind was a mixture of elation at having secured Mary’s 3 percent of Lester’s and his plans for how the takeover of the bank would be carried out with a minimum of disruption. He realized that, even as ex-chairman, Jake Thomas could still be a nuisance and was considering ways of controlling the man’s anger at losing the takeover battle when he heard a slight click from the bedroom door. He glanced toward it to see the handle turning, and then the door itself pushed slowly open. Mary stood silhouetted, wearing a see-through pink negligee.

  “Are you still awake?”

  At first, Richard lay motionless, wondering if he could get away with pretending to be asleep. But he was aware that she might have seen him move, so he said, sleepily, “Yes.” He was amused by the thought that this could not be a time for thinking on his feet.

  Mary padded over to the edge of the bed and sat down. “Would you like anything?”

  “A good night’s sleep,” said Richard.

  “I can think of two ways of helping you achieve that,” said Mary, leaning forward and stroking the back of his head. “You could take a sleeping pill, or we could make lov
e.”

  “That’s a nice idea, but I’ve already taken the sleeping pill,” said Richard.

  “It doesn’t seem to have had the desired effect, so perhaps we should try the second remedy,” said Mary. She lifted the negligee over her head and allowed it to fall to the floor. Then without another word she slipped under the covers and drew herself close to Richard. Richard could feel that her firm figure was that of a woman who did a lot of exercise and had had no children.

  “Hell, I wish I hadn’t taken that pill,” said Richard, “or at least that I could stay another night.”

  Mary started kissing Richard’s neck while running a hand down his back until she reached between his legs.

  Christ, thought Richard, I’m only human. And then a door slammed. Mary threw back the covers, grabbed her negligee, ran across the room and disappeared faster than a thief when a light is flicked on. Richard pulled the sheets back over his body and listened to a murmur of conversation which he couldn’t make out. He spent the rest of the night in a fitful sleep.

  When he came down to breakfast the next morning, he found Mary chatting to an elderly man who must once have been very handsome.

  The man rose and shook Richard by the hand. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Max Preston,” he said. “Although I hadn’t planned to be with you this weekend, my business finished early and I managed to catch the last flight out of Dallas. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted you to leave my home without having experienced true southern hospitality.” Max and Richard chatted over breakfast about the problems they were both facing on Wall Street. They were deep into the effects of Nixon’s new tax regulations when the butler announced that the chauffeur was waiting to take Mr. Kane to the airport.

  The Prestons accompanied Richard down the forty steps to the waiting car, where Richard turned and kissed Mary on the cheek, thanked her for all she had done and shook Max warmly by the hand.

  “I hope we shall meet again,” said Max.

  “That’s a nice idea. Why don’t you give me a call when you’re next in New York?” Mary smiled at him gently.