by Emma Lathen
“The Numero Uno tomato?” Walter prompted. “What’s so special about it?”
Sanders, immersed in the court order, looked up. “Numero Uno,” he said reverently, “is the tomato of the century.”
Before anybody could comment, less lofty sentiments overcame him. “Good God, it can’t really be threatened, can it?”
With sheepdog neatness, Bowman bustled in to separate hard information from all this agitation.
“Exactly how is it the tomato of the century?” he demanded sternly.
Sanders was still distracted. “It’s a hardy biennial,” he said. “And the second year it bears like a tiger for a full six months in most places.”
Bowman’s expectations had been much lower. “Six months!” he said, awed. “That’s a genetic miracle.”
John Thatcher had his own hobbies. “It’s more than that,” he observed. “It’s an economic revolution, isn’t it, Sanders?”
Startling discoveries about life forms, genes, microbes, and cells were giving the country a true scientific breakthrough. Thatcher was prepared to take the fundamentals on faith. But many of these incredible findings had been flowing across his desk since science had become a growth industry.
“A super tomato,” he mused, contemplating the most obvious implications. Millions of dollars worth of tomatoes were bought by the big canners, like Standard Foods, for soup, juice, pizza, and no doubt other ends mercifully hidden from Thatcher. There were the farmers planting tomatoes each spring, the outfits manufacturing mechanized tomato pickers, there were home gardeners, suburban nurseries, seed companies . . .
Every single one of them would be affected by a tomato that could be planted, wintered over, then harvested. Costs, risks, profits, the whole commercial landscape would explode, then re-form. Tomatoes being a cash crop with a vengeance, Numero Uno was an immensely valuable property.
Sanders was momentarily soothed by their response. “Yes indeedy,” he purred. “As soon as we got wind of Vandam’s results, we swung into action. Numero Uno is going to shake up the whole food processing year, and we wanted to be on top of it.” Words failed him as he looked back with pride. Then the unpleasant present overwhelmed him. “But this! . . .”
He glared at the offending document as if it were a cutworm.
“Now, don’t leap to any conclusions,” Bowman comforted him. “With a discovery as valuable as this, it stands to reason that every nut in the country is going to try to claim credit.”
“I suppose so,” said Sanders, not noticeably convinced.
“And remember, Vandam’s has a great track record in developing new and better vegetables and flowers,” Bowman continued.
“Sure,” said Sanders, dismissing All-America beets, carrots, and hydrangeas without a qualm. “I just wonder why they didn’t bring this court case to our attention. Well, I don’t want to take up any more of your time, Thatcher. Thanks for bringing this up. I’m sure it’s only a nuisance suit, but we want to keep tabs on it.”
He was itching to get away and Thatcher made no effort to detain him.
“Where would you guess he’s headed, Walter?”
Bowman quite rightly treated this as rhetorical. Standard Foods was not taking any chances with this wonder tomato of theirs. So Vandam’s was about to learn that, no matter what the terms of the merger agreement, there are no such things as family-owned-and-operated subsidiaries.
“Numero Uno is going to be worth millions to SF,” he murmured, rising. “Well, I’d better get back to the money supply, and see if AT&T has cut the dividend.”
His pleasantry was spoiled by the entrance of Miss Corsa, announcing that there were endless high-priority calls backing up on Mr. Thatcher’s line. Thatcher, fully appreciative of her Horatio-at-the-bridge endeavors, delayed reaching for the phone.
“Oh, Miss Corsa,” he said, catching her at the door. “At a guess, the Vandam situation is nothing to worry about. They may be having difficulty adjusting to their new role in Standard Foods, but that’s about all.”
“I’m very glad to hear that,” she said.
Unfortunately, neither of them had read the fine print.
Chapter 2
Going to Seed
CONTRARY to some opinions at Exchange Place, the Sloan Guaranty Trust was only one small portion of the civilized world. There were places where frozen bank accounts were a matter of complete indifference. In a significant number of these benighted areas, it was another aspect of Wisconsin Seedsmen, Inc. v. Vandam Nursery & Seed Company that was the kicker.
The federal judge had issued a restraining order, enjoining Vandam’s from attempting to exploit Numero Uno. He had then agreed to attach a bank account in order to ensure compliance. The assets tied up at the Sloan were a minor inconvenience compared to the real blockbuster. The Vandam spring catalog was printed, stacked, and ready. Now, under penalty of law, it could not be mailed.
This hit the non-Sloan sphere with devastating force. Each January the Vandam catalog found its way to over 20 million addresses. It traveled to business offices, to suburban homes, to remote RFD routes, and to far-flung APO boxes. It formed the basis of commercial projections, park planning, landscape designs, backyard gardens and, most of all, hopes and dreams. New homeowners, looking out on the wasteland left by bulldozers, could see leafy shade trees and lilacs in full bloom. Organic gardeners deposited one symbolic load on a virgin compost pile and already, in their mind’s eye, had a year’s supply of vegetables. An infant fruit tree ordered from Vandam’s was the promise of branches bowed down with ripe peaches.
The first shock waves were felt at the printers, now charged with restructuring the catalog so as to delete all reference to the new discovery.
“My God, did they have to brag about the damned tomato on every single page?” the layout man asked bitterly. He was overstating the case, but not by much. Numero Uno not only graced the cover and the tomato section, it was also central to the discussion of an ideal small vegetable plot, it led the recommendations for short-season areas, it ran rampant through gardening aids.
“17 pages, I make it,” he finally concluded.
“Oh, Lord!” groaned his superior.
But when push comes to shove, businessmen, so the Wall Street Journal claims, roll with the punches. John Q. Public, on the other hand, is a fretful baby, demanding instant gratification of his every whim. This theory received a good deal of support when the Sunday newspapers hit the streets. Traditionally, at this time of year, every home and garden page in the country carried the same advertisement. As a harbinger of spring it showed a clump of daffodils tossing in the breeze together with a cheerful offer by picturesque old Hendrik Vandam II to send his catalog free on request. For the first time in over a century those daffodils were missing. In their place was the stark announcement, in bold black type, that mailing of the Vandam catalog would be delayed until further notice.
Even TV networks realized that this was a heaven sent human interest feature. Accordingly on the Wednesday night news, after the usual dismal review of inflation, OPEC, and Soviet military might, the scene shifted to a living room in the small town of Shelburne, Vermont.
“Here in her home five miles west of Killington, Mrs. Elissa Tyrone has just learned that she will not be receiving her Vandam catalog at the usual time,” ran the introduction.
Mrs. Tyrone, a spry sixty-year-old sitting in front of a wood stove, then took up the tale. “We have big winters here in Vermont,” she began, then paused while the camera zoomed through the window to pan over a landscape of unrelieved white. “And they can seem mighty long sometimes.”
Lordmas, she went on to say, was a bright spot. But after that, it was hard, very hard.
“I just don’t know what I’m going to do this year.”
Gravely the newscaster tried to reassure her. Nobody would be planting anything for at least 12 weeks.
But Mrs. Tyrone was inconsolable. “You don’t understand. It’s as if that catalog is the o
nly thing that can convince me spring really will come.”
In theory a human interest story is universally acceptable. Not so with this one. Growers south of the Mason-Dixon Line were incensed.
“Those goddamned dummies! They think New York is the whole goddamned country!” raved a substantial tomato farmer in Texas. “12 weeks! We’ve got to plant in three.”
His partner had an irritating habit of looking on the bright side. “We don’t need the catalog. Why don’t we just phone in last year’s order?”
The look he got should have incinerated him.
“What the hell do you think I’ve been trying to do? The Vandam switchboard has been jammed for three solid days.”
He was not the only one who had tried using the phone as a substitute for the catalog. And two-star generals are less accustomed to being balked than most men.
“What do you mean you can’t get through to them? Use your head. Send Vandam’s a telegram telling them to call us.”
“I did,” the aide reported unhappily. “Two days ago.”
“Look, Sweeney,” the general growled, leaning forward with menace in every muscle, “I said that airport would be operational in February and it will be. But we have to have the poplars as a windbreak.”
“Yes, sir. But nobody else can fill the order.”
“These goddamned defense contractors,” said the general, casting Vandam’s in a whole new light. “So they think they’ve got me by the short hairs. Sweeney, you get on the first plane to Illinois and put the fear of God into those nits. Tell them they’ll never get another order from DOD!” “Yes, sir.”
“Tell them I’ll go to Japan for those poplars!”
Neither telephone nor airplane extravaganzas occurred to the owners of McQuaid’s Nursery in Tarrytown, New York. They had been saying the same thing to each other for hours.
“Jerry’s a good boy,” Alexander McQuaid repeated.
“I know he is,” Jerry’s mother said indignantly. “But he’s only been back from college for two years. We can’t leave this in his lap. It wouldn’t be fair to him.” She hesitated for a moment, then folded her lips.
The fond father was willing to go further. “And he could put us in the red.” Before his wife could explode, he added hastily, “Through no fault of his own.”
Appeased, his wife leaned forward to clasp his hand. “Oh, Mac, what a time for this to happen.”
“Well, what other time of year could it happen?” Mac asked reasonably.
From early spring right through the holiday season the McQuaids labored unceasingly. But experience had taught them it was the decisions made during the first two weeks of January that spelled the difference between profit and loss. Unlike most readers of the Vandam catalog, they studied it with an eye to its effect, not on themselves, but on their customers. Over the years Vicky McQuaid had developed an uncanny knack for predicting the desires of the yeomen of Westchester. She would look at 43 different petunias, narrow her eyes, commune with her soul, then point a finger.
“That’s the one they’ll go for.”
And three months later, long after the plants had been raised, she would be rewarded when couple after couple would enter, flapping the catalog and pointing to the same place.
“There! That’s the petunia we want.”
It was unthinkable that the ordering should be left in Jerry’s willing but untried hands.
“I guess we scrub the trip, huh?” Mac asked heavily.
Invariably, after the order had been dispatched, the elder McQuaids took off for the Caribbean.
“I guess so,” Vicky agreed sadly.
There was one household where the laments occasioned by the absence of the Vandam catalog had nothing to do with the wares it offered.
“But it was going to have my picture in it,” Mrs. Mary Larrabee reminded her husband.
“I know, I know.”
“Do you think, if they do another catalog, they’ll take my picture out?” she asked anxiously. “I’ve told so many people about it.”
Pete Larrabee had done some boasting himself, but nothing in the world would have made him admit it. “What difference does it make, Mary? You won the contest. You’re going to get the award in Chicago. That’s the important thing.”
“I promised a copy to Mother.”
“She’s already got plenty of pictures of you.”
Mary sniffed. “It’s not the same. And I promised one to Susie and Tom.”
Pete Larrabee was a genuinely affectionate husband but Mary came from a large, close-knit family to all of whom she had promised copies of the catalog. “Look, honey. Chicago’s only two weeks away, and there’s bound to be an army of photographers there.”
Mary had a very sound notion of the difference in distribution between the seed catalog and some publicity shots. “After all, the contest has been running for over eight years. They’ve been looking for the right sweet pea all that time. You’d think they’d want to commemorate the occasion,” she said wistfully.
Pete was tempted to ask if a $10,000 check didn’t represent commemoration, but he was a man who valued domestic harmony.
“You sure would, honey,” he said.
But hardest hit by the great catalog dislocation was the Vandam Nursery & Seed Company itself.
The switchboard at Vandam’s neo-Colonial headquarters, the showplace of Vandamia, Illinois, was for all practical purposes out of action for the duration. While this communications washout certainly aggravated the situation, it was not without its advantages. Headquarters, to put it bluntly, was in no shape to talk to anyone.
Consumer Relations, for example, was in shock. So was its director, David Vandam Maynard. Not since the days of the founder had it occurred to anybody in the company that marketing could be pursued actively, not passively. D.V. Maynard and his large staff sat in their gracious quarters, surrounded by the finest equipment in the world, trying to assimilate what was happening to them. In their particular firmament, the catalog was divinely ordained. As surely as the earth turned, the catalog went out, orders trickled back in January, then swelled to flood tides in March and April. Throughout this natural progression computers hummed, D.V. bustled in and out, and another Vandam season passed.
But no catalog, no orders. D.V. could have been elbow deep in radical ways to meet this emergency. He could have been organizing a Vandam first, radio and TV spots. Instead, he sat dull-eyed with incredulity. His secretary, who had been with him for years, was so unnerved that she forgot to water the rare potted plants in his window.
All the sprigs, shoots and collaterals of the family flourishing in the extensive compound were equally demoralized.
And, as so often happens when catastrophe strikes, the leadership was out of town.
Chapter 3
Storm Damage
THE chairman of the board was in Japan, judging chrysanthemums. But Hendrik Vandam II’s twinkling smile and homey admonitions, familiar to millions of Vandam’s contented customers, were not much missed during these dark days. For as long as most people could remember, Hendrik’s contribution to the firm had been strictly photogenic. The man-in-charge was Hendrik’s son Richard, and he was not propping up morale on the home front because he was fully occupied in New York, meeting the enemy head-on.
The battle, the site and the ground rules were not of his own choosing. For this, he had no one but himself to blame. Dick Vandam had made the decision to sell out to Standard Foods; he had forced it through the family; he had hammered out all the details, held out for a whopping price and wangled fat employment contracts for most of the Vandams still active in the company.
Since his victory, Vandam honestly believed that he had contrived to improve on perfection. The last three days had opened his eyes. Hour after hour with the lawyers was an exercise in frustration. Far from following his orders to get that damned injunction lifted, they were treating it as a mere footnote to the underlying patent action.
Now, Standard
Foods was rubbing it in.
“Forget your precious catalog, Dick,” Sanders advised. “When I saw that bank attachment, I was afraid you were having trouble with the Patent Office. Maybe the examiners didn’t think Numero Uno was patentable yet. But it turns out that somebody else claims the patent should be awarded to him. And that, I don’t have to tell you, is a lot more serious than all the flower catalogs in the world.”
Hot words, and plenty of them, trembled on the tip of Vandam’s tongue. But for the first time in his life, he was not dealing with a captive audience.
Furthermore, this skirmish was taking place before a neutral observer. John Thatcher, who had a fair notion of Vandam’s feelings, avoided any show of sympathy, or even comprehension. When visitors to his office were at obvious cross-purposes, he liked to stay on the sidelines.
“The Sloan is delighted to cooperate with Midwestern Trust in facilitating the shift so that your foreign payments and receipts aren’t prejudiced,” he said, recalling them to the ostensible reason for this conference.
But one minor bank account, even if frozen, was not the trouble.
“Although,” said Sanders, “this injunction proves that the situation is more serious than Dick seems to realize. If there’s the slightest possibility that this patent interference will stick ...”
“I repeat,” said Vandam forcefully, “that patent is as good as in our hands.” Sanders showed no inclination to accept this ringing declaration. With a pained smile he said, “I only wish our lawyers were equally convinced.”
He had hit another sore spot.
“I have explained it all to our lawyers,” Vandam growled. “And, at your request, I have repeated it to SF’s lawyers. Frankly, I think the whole bunch of them are part of the problem, not part of the solution. And that judge must have been crazy! To think, the Vandam catalog held up, God knows how many hours and dollars wasted! Simply because some god-damned kook—”
“You keep calling him that!” Earl Sanders could not help saying.
Stung, Vandam forgot himself. “Well, how was I to know?”