by Emma Lathen
Thatcher sighed. Had he been less experienced, he might have wished he had never heard of Numero Uno. But where others regaled themselves with lush seed catalogs, Thatcher’s reading included lines of credit, commitment letters, and balance sheets. Like Standard Foods, the Sloan had a bundle riding on Vandam’s Numero Uno. That tomato had as valid a claim on Thatcher’s attention as Chrysler Corporation.
So following its fortunes was compulsory. The awkwardness was introduced by the organization chart. Working with Standard Foods would have raised no difficulties, but Standard Foods had to work through Vandam’s. Worse still, SF and the Sloan had to assume that Vandam’s knew what it was doing.
Dick Vandam did not make this easy.
Puffing out rosy cheeks, he spoke as one peer to another. “I still maintain that someone”—he looked darkly at Sanders—”is making a mountain out of a molehill.”
At issue, Thatcher knew, was more than the vaunted Numero Uno. A subsidiary does not necessarily inform its parent company of every nuisance suit, or shakedown artist, to come its way. Wisconsin Seedsmen, Inc. v. Vandam Nursery & Seed Company fell into one of these two categories, or so Dick Vandam had chosen to believe until far too late.
But the injunction that was playing havoc with the catalog had escalated matters out of Vandam hands. What the lawyers had already unearthed was not what anybody in Thatcher’s office wanted to hear.
On paper, Wisconsin Seedsmen, Inc., could have been designed for the sole purpose of preying on Vandam’s. In business for only five or six years, the Vandam centennial catalog had been mailed a decade ago, Wisconsin Seedsmen sold modest amounts of seed and supplies on a strictly local basis. They also, or so they claimed, pursued advanced research.
Moreover, as if to confirm the collective Vandam suspicion, Wisconsin Seedsmen was undeniably small. What kind of legitimacy could a two-man operation have? Dick Vandam still felt this way.
“All right, they’re not a couple of guys named Joe,” he snapped. “That still doesn’t mean they’re not cheap, two bit crooks who think they’re going to cut themselves in.”
As The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Farm Bureau Monthly had discovered, Wisconsin Seedsmen’s two principals came equipped with disturbing respectability. Edward L. (Ned) Ackerman had put in 20 years at the Department of Agriculture, retired, then gone back home to Wisconsin to start this second career.
Vandam had no trouble pegging him. The real threat came, as everybody kept insisting, with the other one.
The other one was Scott Wenzel. He had a Ph.D. in plant genetics and had published regularly in scholarly journals. It particularly galled Dick Vandam that, while the newspapers described him and his relatives as prominent businessmen, Scott Wenzel emerged as a brilliant young scientist.
“It isn’t just that Wenzel himself sounds pretty high- powered,” said Sanders, studying Vandam intently. “It’s the lawyer he’s got—”
Paul Jackson, Thatcher knew, was about as high-powered as you could get. “—who seems to believe that Wenzel really did develop a tomato. What’s got our legal department worried, Dick, is the tons of evidence Wenzel is submitting: lab notes, test records, the whole bag.”
“Impossible,” Vandam snorted, more magisterially than before.
To his indignation, he found his audience regarding him with open speculation.
“Look here,” he argued, “do you have any idea of the research effort that went into Numero Uno? The laboratory work was monumental, then there were field tests, which means hand pollinating, tabulating results, and studying whole generations of seedlings. This has been a major project, and a very costly one. There is no way Wenzel could have replicated what Vandam’s has done. Either he has falsified the whole thing or else . . .”
Too late, he broke off.
“Or else?” Sanders pounced. “Tell me, what kind of security does Vandam’s enforce?”
Before Vandam could get on his high horse again, Thatcher intervened to soften the charge. “Yes, I wish you would explain the process to us. Presumably you cannot keep an undertaking like this secret?”
“No indeed,” Vandam told him. “When you’ve got acres filled with ripe red tomatoes and there’s still snow on the ground, people all over the county notice.”
“Then what’s to keep a competitor from stealing some of your plants, starting a crash program of his own tests, and beating you to the finish line?”
Thatcher’s inquiry soothed Vandam’s ruffled feathers. He expanded visibly as he brandished expertise: “Time,” he said tersely. “You can’t rush nature when you’re in the field. Any thief would be at least a season behind us, even if he could finance the kind of effort required to propagate these plants. Very few of them can, and certainly not this Wisconsin Seedsmen!”
Sanders saw another possibility. “Okay,” he conceded. “But what about somebody getting an early pipeline into the Vandam labs, so he could track you every step of the way?”
“I suppose it’s just barely possible,” said Vandam unwillingly. “Almost any project involves dead ends. There were some with Numero Uno. Nothing out of the ordinary, mind you, but enough so that someone with access to our records could have avoided our errors and caught up with us.”
“Lord!” said Sanders savagely. “That brings us right back to your security.”
“Vandam’s maintains the strictest possible security,” Vandam said stiffly. “As do all our subcontractors—”
“What?” said Thatcher, fastening on the word.
“The people who do research for us on a contract basis,” Vandam explained, as if a vice-president of the Sloan Guaranty Trust might not be familiar with the concept. Then, still defending the Vandam way of doing things, he said, “As it happens, Numero Uno was not developed in-house. Of course, we reviewed the basic research and did all the field testing ourselves, but we had commissioned an independent geneticist—”
“Independent? This is the first I’ve heard of any independent geneticist,” Earl Sanders sputtered. “Have you mentioned this to the lawyers?”
He was wasting his sarcasm.
“Of course,” said Vandam, rising. “And that’s what they want to explore in greater depth. I’m running late as it is, so I think I’d better be going. Unless we get relief from that injunction, we may be heading for serious difficulties. I’ll keep you informed, Sanders.”
Sanders did not let him escape unscathed. “Do that!” he shot back.
Vandam treated this like any closing civility, removing himself from Thatcher’s office with bland aplomb.
“Well,” Sanders demanded the minute the door closed, “what do you think?”
Thatcher understood that Sanders wanted odds, not character analysis.
“I don’t have enough information to make an educated guess,” he said, keeping to himself reflections about Paul Jackson and the successful clients he represented.
“I suppose not,” said Sanders, who liked to talk, not listen. “But if Dick Vandam thinks he can get away without leveling, he’s got another think coming. How did you like that wild pitch he casually tossed? All of a sudden, we’re talking about subcontractors and independent geneticists.”
In the interests of fairness, Thatcher pointed out that Vandam had, by his own testimony, seen fit to mention this to his lawyers.
“To hell with the lawyers,” said Sanders recklessly. “He should have informed Standard Foods. Does he think we’re going to play games with him, about Numero Uno? Like hell we are! I’m contacting this independent right away. . . .”
“Which is no doubt why Vandam was careful not to give you his name or address,” Thatcher said gently.
Sanders was thunderstruck.
Dick Vandam, meanwhile, was battling against an icy wind, heading two blocks south of the Sloan. He was more troubled in mind than he had been in years. There were too many balls in the air and he was assailed by a premonition that, just this once, he might not be able to juggle them.
He plowe
d ahead, lost in unpalatable thoughts. Even so, Vandam was every inch an important man with important things to do. With his slicked-back hair, starched collar and conservative tailoring, he could have been a portly model for the Midwestern mogul. So, when he finally reached the elevator that would lead him to more lawyers, he took scant notice of his fellow passengers. The modishly casual young man in a stadium coat sported the latest look in curling black hair. The young woman at his side was attired with more propriety but Vandam could tell she was only a secretary.
He was taken aback when the young man suddenly said, “Talk about a small world! You’re Vandam, aren’t you? Richard Vandam?”
In Vandamia, Dick Vandam was a great man. Everybody in town might not work for him, but they all knew who he was and, frequently, pointed him out to the tourists visiting the Test Farms or the Gardens. So he saw nothing unusual in the question.
“Yes, I am,” he said with a brief smile and a courteous nod. While he did not want to encourage conversation, he knew what was required of a public figure.
“I’m Scott Wenzel,” said the stranger. “You can call me Dr. Wenzel.”
“Oh, Scotty,” the girl murmured.
“And this,” Wenzel continued with high good humor, “this is my associate, Mrs. Gunn.” Embarrassed, she tried to disappear into the corner of the elevator. Since this was impossible, she smiled apologetically at Vandam.
“I’m going up to see my lawyer,” said Wenzel conversationally. “Maybe you’ve heard of him, Paul Jackson? We could have got somebody who cost less, but I said nothing but the best was good enough when you’re taking on Vandam’s. Didn’t I, Barbara?”
By now, she was past response, so Wenzel continued his performance solo. “Jackson wants to go over all our lab notes and affidavits and provide summaries that everybody can understand. It sounds like a waste of time to me, but then, he says, there’s got to be no question about any of the steps I took while I was developing the VR-117.”
Vandam was still astonished at the encounter.
“You’re the one who’s claiming that Vandam’s did not produce the Numero Uno,“ he said, as if there could be any doubt.
Wenzel dropped his affectations. “That’s me,” he said arrogantly, “and I’m the one who’s done the developing. You can forget about this Numero Uno of yours. There ain’t no such animal, friend. Vandam’s isn’t calling the shots on this one, no matter what you had in mind.”
Dick Vandam recognized personal hostility when he heard it. Therefore, with a restraint that might have surprised some of his relatives and acquaintances, he asked, “Have we ever met before?”
“No,” said Wenzel, flushing slightly. Then, with studied indifference, he amplified. “No, I tried to get Vandam’s to fund my research but the big brains in your R&D offered me a job instead. Washing lab equipment, or something like that. I never got as far as the president’s office.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” said Vandam.
“Yeah,” Wenzel drawled.
For once, Vandam ignored the manners and style, both of which he detested. Instead he concentrated on the germ of an idea. If Wenzel was nursing a grudge, or settling an old score, maybe the lawyers were on the wrong track. Maybe the whole thing could be resolved here and now, just the two of them in an elevator in a downtown Manhattan building.
Clearing his throat, he said, “Of course, it’s always hard when you scientists have to scratch around for research funds. Perhaps Vandam’s could make some contribution—”
“WHO . . . THE . . . HELL . . . DO . . . YOU . . . THINK . . . YOU . . . ARE?”
Wenzel’s intensity was as violent as a slap in the face. Vandam froze, not noticing the elevator doors had opened.
“Scotty!” the girl pleaded, clasping Wenzel’s arm and tugging. “We’ve got a plane to Madison to catch. Let’s dump this stuff in Mr. Jackson’s office.”
Wenzel was more interested in Dick Vandam than in planes or anything else. He stepped out of the elevator, but then he halted, waiting for his antagonist to join him.
“Vandam’s,” he said, ignoring the traffic around them, “is about to get the lesson of its life.”
Then, with a cavalier salute, he swaggered off.
“Excuse me,” said an enraged secretary, straggling in late from a coffee break.
Somehow Vandam removed himself from her path. Almost dazed, he moved down the hall, not knowing if he was even on the right floor. If he had been troubled before, now he was truly appalled.
Scott Wenzel was out for blood.
Chapter 4
In Full Sunshine
DITCHDIGGERS enjoy less prestige, and less take-home pay, than brain surgeons. Asking why, economists have come up with more explanations than you can shake a stick at. All of them are wrong. The differential exists because mankind esteems what it does not understand. As history proves, incomprehension always informs the prevailing standard of value. Keepers of the people’s secrets, Zulu indunas, kings imbued with Divine Right, Mahdis who saw what others did not, were yesterday’s top dogs. Today we have scientists.
So long as they are the only ones who see precisely why EC=MC2, scientists have us where they want us.
But contrary to widespread superstition, they are not all Albert Einsteins. They are actually a representative cross section of the general population, with the important reservation that whatever they are doing is totally baffling to the rest of us.
Until of course, it cures us, blows us up, or lands us on the moon.
In short, these modern mandarins come in many shapes and forms. Howard Pendleton, for example, was a towering figure in the world of plant genetics. His first, path-breaking paper on the hybridization of winter wheat, written back when he was a brand-new Ph.D., had stirred Moscow and Peking, as well as Fargo and Washington. Since then his contributions had been legion: a brilliant stint in the Luther Burbank Chair at the University of Wisconsin, important findings in high-yield soybeans and mosaic-resistant tobacco, experiments and papers in an unending flow.
But, although he was an authentic hero of the Green Revolution, Pendleton bore no resemblance to a mad genius. He did not even look like an absent-minded professor. Tall, rangy, with humorous eyes and hair that had once been fiery red, he looked like a man who knew how to get things done.
This impression was accurate. Pendleton did not pursue his researches in a backyard laboratory, but in the large well-equipped Institute of Plant Research in Aleman, Puerto Rico. IPR had three separate buildings, five acres of test gardens, an electron microscope, and a staff of 26 professionals. It was one of the largest independent plant research facilities in the Western world and, by any standard, a very considerable enterprise. Pendleton, who had founded it, presided over this empire with efficiency and success.
In return, IPR made him dean of an increasingly common breed, the scientist-entrepreneur. Devising new life forms for profit has only recently made the headlines, but Pendleton had been doing it for decades. Since new strains of petunias, spring onions, and sorghum are less ominous than recombinant DNA, the media had barely noticed.
Plenty of other people had, including the United States Department of Agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, and Burpee’s, Parke’s, Kelly’s, and Vandam’s. IPR not only developed new fruit and vegetable strains on its own initiative, it did research for others at cost plus a handsome fee. In the beginning, Pendleton’s reputation and the caliber of work he demanded from IPR had made the difference between profit and loss. Now, with established patent rights, Pendleton was, to his mild surprise, growing rich. Since his personal tastes were modest, the practical consequences of this windfall could be seen in IPR equipment. Always excellent, in recent years it had become superb.
Most people, including his wife, would have sworn that nothing could shake Howard Pendleton’s self-possession.
“Are you there?” the phone barked.
“Yes, of course I’m here,” Pendleton drawled,
trying to curb his impatience. “You’re not making much sense to me, Dick. You say something’s cropped up about Numero Uno—”
“I did not say something’s cropped up,” said Vandam sharply. “I said we’ve got a helluva mess brewing.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Pendleton said uncompromisingly.
Dick Vandam forced himself to slow down. He found Pendleton as trying as Pendleton found him. Still, much had to be forgiven the man who had single-handedly developed Numero Uno. Modulating into a more conciliatory tone, he said, “Look here, Howard, you didn’t have any trouble with Numero Uno, did you?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you called for?” Pendleton ordered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Trouble? You’ve got complete copies of all my findings, my lab notes—everything.”
With the best will in the world, he could not help sounding possessive. Vandam’s might own rights to Numero Uno, they might go on to market it. But it was still Howard Pendleton’s baby, the fitting crown to a distinguished career.
Vandam, who should have welcomed that proprietary note, bristled. “All right, I’ll tell you. Someone’s contesting our patent application. He says that he’s developed a biennial tomato.”
After a long pause, Pendleton said, “Say that again.”
With perverse relish, Vandam repeated himself.
“Nonsense!” Pendleton snapped.
“Of course, of course,” said Vandam hurriedly. “That’s what I’ve told . . . but Howard, I think it would be wise for you to come up. We all know how vital ...”
It took ten minutes for Pendleton to extract a coherent account from Vandam. Once he did, his patience was exhausted. “All right, I’ll call back this evening,” he said, unceremoniously downing the receiver midway through one of Vandam’s sentences.
For a few moments he sat tapping a pencil against his teeth, oblivious to his surroundings. The office he occupied when he was wearing his manager’s hat was as lifelessly correct as an interior decorator could make it. But despite the executive carpets and paneling, it was not completely removed from the real work of IPR. The door behind Pendleton did not lead to a sumptuous bathroom, but to the data center where the punch of a button could summon reams of IPR results, abstracts from all over the world or simply lightning-swift computations. His windows looked out on one of the test plots where just now a sweating crew was measuring the seedlings set out in arrow-straight rows.