His cell phone rang. Marcia’s name appeared on the screen. He hurriedly pressed the talk button. “Marcia, what did you find out?”
“I worked on the figures all night. I have some good news and some bad news.”
“Give me the bad news first.”
“All five customers have irrevocable agreements with a European consortium. They negotiated a fifteen percent cost reduction. Unless we make certain strategic moves in the next month the hit on us is going to be twenty percent of our projected sales for the combined companies and lower our margins by up to twenty percent.
Adam appeared to be unmoved by the figures. “What about Masterson? Did he know this was going to happen?”
“I received assurances from all the companies that the agreements were negotiated in private at secret meetings in Italy. There is no chance that any outside party could have learned the details prior to the announcement.”
“So, what’s the good news?” His voice took on a sarcastic tone.
“Well, actually, it’s the effect that this will have on our bottom line. Unfortunately, Preston has the highest margins, so projected profits will only be impacted by slightly more than twenty-eight percent.”
“You call that good news?”
“Well, yeah, considering that it could have been significantly higher. I’m proposing that Hampton switch two-thirds of their sportswear production to Preston’s newer and faster machines, immediately. According to our three year projections, we’ll recoup the loss mid-way through the third year. Sportswear will benefit the most since the defecting companies were only marginal buyers.”
“Our three year projections?”
“Yes, Kane and I worked on these projections until 3 a.m. this morning. We had to re-do the work we’ve done over the last four weeks. I couldn’t have done it alone.”
Adam was quiet for a few minutes. At least she’s admitting they were together. Finally he said, “You better meet me in my office at ten o‘clock. I want to go over those figures. There must be a better way to limit our losses. Bring Masterson with you.”
Adam went down to breakfast at his usual time. As he sipped his coffee, Milton came to the table to tell him that John wanted to speak to him, privately.
“I’ll go over there now. Hold my breakfast.”
“Yes, sir.”
John escorted Adam into his office.
“What’s so important, John?”
“Well, Mister Hampton, It may be nothing, but I thought I should tell you this in person. We had a specialist in to check your father yesterday. Being new, he went through the usual litany of questions for his records. He asked your father how many children he had. Your father answered that he had two grown sons.”
“Are you certain?”
“It’s right here in his report and I checked the transcript. That is exactly what he said.”
Adam skimmed through the papers until he located the “Personal Information” section. He stared at the paper for a few minutes.
“There must be some mistake. Perhaps he heard wrong.”
“That’s certainly possible, but he was very accurate about the rest of the information and the transcript is also very clear. I just thought you would want to know.”
“You did right, John. I tell you what, I want to ask my father about this. Would you let me into his bedroom, and do me a favor and turn off all the recording devices.”
“Certainly, Mister Hampton.” John went to the monitoring desk and flipped several switches. The screen for Adam’s room turned black. “Everything’s off.” John ushered Adam to his father’s bedroom. He unlocked the door and stepped aside.
“I want to see him alone.”
“Of course, sir,” he said. He closed the door behind Adam and returned to his office.
Adam II’s bedroom was dimly lit. Adam could see that his father was awake but lying quietly in his bed. He flipped a wall switch and the room became illuminated with the soft glow of the recessed lighting.
His father reacted by sitting up in his bed. “Who’s there?”
Adam stepped closer to the bed hoping that his father would recognize him.
“It’s me, dad. I need to talk to you.”
Adam II squinted to see his visitor more clearly. “Adam? Is that you, son? Is something the matter?” he asked in a halting voice.
Adam smiled at his father’s recognition of him. That was an important breakthrough attributed to the new medicine and far better than the last time. He pulled a side chair up close to the bed. “I have to ask you a really important question. Take your time answering.”
“Of course son. You can ask me anything, like you always did as a young child. You always wanted to know about everything. I couldn’t keep up with you. We used to spend hours in my library as I showed you pictures or read to you.” He smiled as he briefly recalled some of these memories.
“Yesterday, during your exam you told the doctor that you had two sons. Why did you say that?”
He was hoping that his father would tell him that he had made a mistake, or that he had misunderstood the question, but apparently that wasn’t going to be the case.
Adam II sat stoically. His eyes locked on his son.
“Did you hear what I said?”
Finally his father answered. He looked remorseful. “I heard you. I just don’t know how to say this. You know that I wasn’t always faithful to your mother. Over the years I was with a lot of whores and I kept several mistresses. It was the early seventies and everything was different then. Your mother knew about them, but she didn’t care as long as I provided for you and her. This is hazy, now, but I recall that back in ’74 I had an affair with a married woman. She got pregnant and had a boy. She said it was mine and somehow I knew she wasn’t lying. I broke things off and made her promise never to tell anyone about our affair or try to contact me again. I paid for the expenses through my lawyer. She never contacted me after that and I let the matter go. She gave the boy her husband’s name. I was really fortunate that it didn’t turn into a scandal.” His eyes filled with tears and his voice quivered. “I’m not very proud of those years, son.”
“I’m not judging you, dad, but I think that after all these years it would be all right to talk about it. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your infidelities. I screwed around when I was young too. What I do care about is that you’re saying that I have a half-brother. Who is he and who is his mother?”
Adam II was slow to answer his son. “It was such a long time ago. There were so many I can’t remember all their names. I still have trouble remembering simple things.”
“Try, dad. This is important. Surely you can remember the name of a woman who had your son.”
His father began to tremble. His face turned ashen and saliva began bubbling in the corner of his mouth. His body was shaking uncontrollably as he fell back against the pillows.
Adam reached for the call button.
Seconds later John and another nurse entered the room with a cart. “I called Dr. Seagrams, he’ll be here in five minutes. I’m going to give him a sedative for now.”
Within a few minutes his father was breathing normally.
“Do what you have to do. We were having a discussion when he suddenly started shaking. What could be wrong with him? I thought the Arecept was helping.”
“I can’t say for sure, but sometimes Alzheimer patients have episodes when they recall periods that were emotional plateaus in their lives. It may not have anything to do with the medicine. He’s been trying hard to remember things. It probably has more to do with a painful memory. He’ll need to rest for a few days, then he should be back on track.”
“Thanks, John. Keep me informed with his progress.”
“I certainly will, sir.”
Adam left his father’s bedroom in an agitated state. Questions raced through his mind as he made his way back to the main house. Do I have a half-brother somewhere? Would he have any legal claim to the estate if this gets out?
Does he know who his real father is? I sure don’t need this now, with everything else I have to deal with. Life’s a real bitch sometime. I’m going to have to follow up on this, with, or without, my father’s help. My instincts tell me that there is something more to this.
Milton approached him in the foyer. “Are you ready for breakfast now, sir?”
“No, Milton. I’m going to skip breakfast today. Just bring some coffee to my den.
“Right away, sir.”
When the coffee arrived he closed the doors to the den and took out his cell phone. “Chuck, I’ve got another job for you. I need an extensive background check done.” He explained that he needed some information dating back to 1974.
“Wow! That’s a long time. You’re talking thirty seven years ago. It won’t be easy to access records going back that far.”
“I understand that. You’ll just have to do your best.”
“Who’s the subject?”
“My father, Adam Hampton II. That should make your job easier. I need you to look at his activities for that entire year. I should have all his personal papers for that year in storage. You just have to sort through them.”
There was silence on the other end. Then finally, “You want me to investigate your own father?”
“That’s right. Does that present a problem for you?”
“No, of course not, it just caught me by surprise. Is there something specific you want us to look for?”
“Yes! I want you to look into every relationship he had with women, especially with married women. I want to know their names and everything you can find out about them and their families. This will be a monumental job, but my father kept meticulous records. You’ll have file copies of memos, personal papers, his bank statements and appointment calendars. to go through. He was away from home for long periods at a time when I was young, From what I’ve heard, he was hell raiser back then, but what I am looking for should be in evidence somewhere in those papers.”
“It sounds like I’ll need to assign a lot of people to this. It’s gonna be costly.”
“I don’t care about the expense. Get me those names, and make sure that this is kept on the q.t. I’ll make his private records for that year available for pick-up at our long-term storage facility. You’ll need to check them very carefully.”
“We’ll do the best we can, but this kind of an investigation will requires a certain amount of candor.”
“Don’t tell anyone any more than you need to and do it as quickly as possible.”
“You can count on me Mister Hampton.”
Chapter 20
Adam was the first to reach his office. Marcia and Kane showed up with three bankers boxes full of files slightly before 10 o‘clock.
“Good Morning, Adam”
“Good Morning, Marcia.”
The men nodded perfunctorily. Coffee service was wheeled in and all three filled their cups, picked up a donut and chose a seat at the round meeting table. Marcia presented the sales and revenue projections. She was interrupted several times by Adam as he rechecked the data on a hand held calculator. Her analysis was flawless and brought them to the same conclusions that she had given Adam earlier that morning.
Adam sat quietly for a few minutes ruminating over what the next step would be. He glared at Kane and finally said, “Masterson, do you expect me to believe that you didn’t know that this was going to happen. Any executive worth his salt would have foreseen a defection of this magnitude. It doesn’t make any sense that you missed it.”
Marcia, looked at Adam with disbelief. Why did he say that? I told him that Kane couldn’t have known anything in advance. All the companies verified that. Sometimes Adam has a real stubborn streak in him. I don’t like him when he’s like this. I hope that he doesn’t do anything stupid to assuage his bruised ego.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mister Hampton. I wish I had known. We might have been able to save them. I am as shocked as you are about this. They were all good customers. They paid their invoices on time. That consortium made them a damned good offer to get them to turn. One good thing is that only one of them was a Neo-Weaves customer. Any more and it would have been a disaster. This change must have been in the works well before Hampton announced that they had enough stock to take over Preston. So don’t blame yourself for them leaving. It is obvious that there wasn’t any way either of us could have prevented it from happening.”
Adam heard him out, but the flushing of his face presaged what was coming. “Spare me the speeches, Masterson. I’m not buying it. Why should I blaming myself for anything, but I know in my gut that you hand in this, somehow. I’ve decided that your continued involvement in the merger is counterproductive. So, I’m releasing you from your commitment to us. I want you off our property immediately. Get out, now!”
Marcia stood up and glared at Adam. “What are you doing,? Kane has worked harder than anyone during the past month to make this merger work. I told you that I was assured that he couldn’t have known about this in advance. I need his help to maximize the potential of the expanded Hampton Sportswear line.”
“I’ll give you all the additional analysts you need them, but I want that man out of here, now.”
Kane gathered up his personal laptop and headed for the door. He turned to Marcia. “I thank you for being the civil one at this company. Keep on in the direction you’re headed and it will all work out. This company will do just fine in the long run because of people like you and in spite of its unstable upper management.”
He smiled at Adam, turned and left the office.
Marcia wanted to go after Kane, but thought better of it. Instead she turned to Adam. “What the hell is wrong with you? Do you realize how much more difficult it is going to be without his input Without the VP and now Kane, I’m going to have one hell of a time making this merger work. Sometimes I don’t understand what motivates you.” She left the office and asked Adam’s secretary to have the file boxes moved to her office.
Adam called the security desk to check that Kane. He followed up with strict instructions that Kane was banned from ever entering the building.
Kane returned to the Belmonte and switched his room billing to his personal account. The front desk had already prepared the new signature card when Adam called to cancel any future charges to the Hampton account.
Adam’s impulsiveness had taken Kane by surprise. He hadn’t expect to be cut loose, especially by the man who had warned him that he planned to extract every last drop of his blood. He wanted to see Marcia before he made any concrete plans, but decided against talking to her at her office in the fear that Adam would find a way to penalize her as well. Instead, he called his mother to give her an update on his experience with Adam Hampton.
Evelyn Littleton didn’t take the news graciously. “I warned you to be careful with that son-of-a-bitch. I don’t know how you kept from punching his lights out.”
“There was nothing to be gained by doing that, although I must admit that I was tempted to wipe that smug look off his face. There’s more satisfaction in knowing that he’s going to have his hands full when more customers jump ship. The word will get around fast. They’ll find out, over time, that Hampton isn’t as nice to do business with as I was. Well, that’s behind me now. I’ve got to move forward.”
“So, what are your plans, now?”
“Well first, you’ll be glad to know that I have a love interest in my life. Her name is Marcia Bloom. She’s the lady I’ve been working with on the merger.”
“How could you be interested in her when she’s working for that man?”
“What? Did that just come from the woman who’s been bugging me for years to date more. Aren’t you the one wants more grandchildren running around? Look, I’m no longer obligated to Hampton and she can go out with anyone she wants to. She turned out to be a very special lady, she’s nothing like him. Besides, I’m thinking of moving away from Connecticut. I can start a new business anywhere in the cou
ntry. I think that this could be the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. We haven’t talked about anything like that, but I felt a closeness growing as we worked together over the last month. I’m hoping that she’ll want to go with me. I intend to find out tonight.”
Evelyn was quiet for a while. Finally she asked, “When did you decide all this?”
“I’ve been thinking about it since I lost the company. I’ve got to do something with my life. I don’t see any opportunities in New England that interest me. Anyway, it’s probably best for me to make a fresh new start away from Connecticut. Having Marcia with me will make it that much sweeter.”
Her voice had an air of sadness as she said, “I guess I’ve always known that one day you’d be leaving Connecticut, but I’ve dreaded the day it would happen.” She got quiet for a minute and then finally spoke, “Of course, you’re right. You go get that girl and make a life for yourself. Goodness knows you deserve it.”
Evelyn was careful to mask her real feelings as she thought, I’m sure going to miss him, but he needs to spread his wings. He’ll do all right whatever he decides to do.
“Thanks, Mom. You know I’ll come back as often as I can and you will always be welcome to come and visit. It would do you well to get out of this town more often.”
“Have you thought about what you will do if your young lady doesn’t share your plan for the future?”
“If that should happen, I’d be heartbroken, but I know that either way, I have to get out of this town.”
“Well, let’s not borrow trouble. She’d have be out of her mind not to want to run off with you.”
“I hope your right. Let’s get together for lunch tomorrow. We can talk more.”
“I’d like that. Why don’t you come over here. We can order in like we used to.”
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