Junior stared at him, horrified. “You wouldn’t dare!”
Loren smiled. “Watch me.” He raised his arm, the belt dangling from his hand.
“No!” It was almost a scream. Junior darted behind his desk, pressing a button on it. “You can’t hit me! I’m president of the company!” He pushed the button frantically.
“You’re still my son,” Loren said coldly, moving behind the desk after him.
The door to the connecting office opened and Joe Warren came into the room. “Yes, Jun—?”
Junior darted behind him, holding Warren between himself and his father. “Joe! Don’t let him hit me, Joe!” he almost shrieked. “He’s gone crazy!”
Warren turned toward Loren. “Let’s all calm down, Mr. Hardeman,” he said. “I don’t know what the trouble is but I’m sure we can settle it like reasonable men.”
Something in his voice told Loren that he already knew exactly what the trouble was. He glanced down at Junior’s desk. The intercom switch above Warren’s name was open. He had been listening to every word said in the office. He looked back at Warren. His voice was ice cold. “Keep out of this, Warren. It’s a family matter.”
He started forward again, then stopped. A revolver suddenly appeared in Warren’s hand. “Now, will you be reasonable?” Warren asked.
Loren looked into the man’s eyes. They were glinting with a curious kind of triumph. He relaxed slightly. “You’re not going to pull that trigger, Warren,” he said quietly, moving toward him. “Or you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it.”
Warren’s eyes stared back at him balefully. “Don’t push me, Mr. Hardeman. Just stop where you are!”
Loren’s hand moved almost too quickly for the eye to follow. The looped belt caught Warren’s wrist, pulling the gun from his hand, sending it clattering to the floor. Warren dove for the gun as Junior shrieked and ran into the other office.
Warren’s fingers were just closing around the revolver when Loren’s shoe came heavily down on his forearm. He screamed in sudden pain as the arm snapped like a matchstick. He stared up into Loren’s face with a kind of frozen horror.
“This may teach you to keep out of family matters,” Loren said calmly.
Warren saw Loren’s shoe coming toward his head but there was nothing he could do to avoid it. The world exploded in a shattering fireworks of pain. Then blackness.
Loren looked down at the man lying at his feet. Warren’s head was against the corner of Junior’s desk, blood streaming from his nose and mouth. He turned and walked to the connecting door.
It was locked and bolted. He took a half step backward and kicked. The door flew open, half torn from its hinges, and he stepped through.
The other office was empty. The open door at the far end told Loren that Junior had fled. He went back into Junior’s office.
Warren was moaning, trying to sit up. Loren crossed the room to the far door and opened it. The two secretaries, who had their ears pressed to the panel, almost fell into the room.
“Clean this mess up,” Loren said emotionlessly and walked past them.
Chapter Seven
He walked up the flight of stairs to his third-floor office and let himself into it through his private entrance. The room was dark in the poor gray light of the morning. He pressed a wall switch and the lamps around the room went on. He went behind his desk and pressed the intercom switch down. His secretary’s voice came from it. “Yes, Mr. Hardeman?”
“I want two canteen trucks with coffee and doughnuts down at Gate Three right away.”
“Yes, Mr. Hardeman.”
“Then I want you to get Coburn and Edgerton up here.”
“Yes, Mr. Hardeman.”
He flicked up the switch and walked from the desk to the window. In the rain the men outside the gate were still huddled together like so many animals seeking shelter. He stood there for a moment watching them, then went back to his desk and sat down.
The pain began in his temples and started to throb. He groaned to himself. That was all he needed. Another migraine headache. Doctors were all stupid. There was nothing they could do about it, he had been told. Avoid excitement and take aspirin. He pressed the intercom switch down again. “Get me three aspirin tablets and a cup of hot black coffee.”
“Immediately, Mr. Hardeman.”
He leaned back in his chair. The aspirin should help and the doctor in Switzerland had told him that the caffeine in coffee made the aspirin work faster.
The door opened and a girl came in. She carried the sterling silver tray with the cup and saucer and coffee pot to his desk. Cream and sugar were in small silver servers. Next to them was a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water. She shook three aspirin out into her hand.
He looked up at her as he took the aspirin. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Mr. Hardeman,” she answered, giving him the glass of water.
He swallowed the aspirin with a gulp of water. “What’s your name?” he asked, giving her the glass.
“Melanie Walker,” she said. She picked up the coffee pot. “Black?”
“Yes. No sugar, no cream.” He took the coffee and tasted it.
“Is it all right?”
“Fine. What happened to the girl who was here all last week?”
“Miss Harriman?”
“I never did get her name.”
“She went back to her regular job in personnel.”
“I see,” he said, taking another sip of coffee. “What department are you from?”
“Personnel,” she said.
He was silent for a moment. “Do you have a regular job there?”
“Yes, Mr. Hardeman. In the steno pool. We fill in whenever a regular girl is absent.”
“What do they pay you for that?” he asked curiously.
“Twenty-two fifty a week.”
He gave her the empty coffee cup. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Hardeman.” She picked up the tray and started for the door.
“Would you also ask Mr. Duncan to come and see me?” he called after her.
“Yes, sir.”
He watched the door close behind her. Warren had it all organized. The steno pool was a perfect nucleus for an espionage system to check on what everyone was doing.
Duncan was the first to arrive. “Sit down, Scotty,” Loren said. “I’m waiting for Coburn and Edgerton.”
Duncan took a chair just as the other two men arrived. Loren waved them to their seats, then sat looking at them silently for a moment. He opened the cigarette box on his desk and took one out and lit it. The faint sound of an ambulance siren came from outside.
The silence grew uncomfortable. The three men glanced uneasily at one another, then back at him. Loren drew on his cigarette calmly.
The siren grew louder and then stopped abruptly. Loren walked over to the window. The ambulance was parked in front of the main building entrance and two white-coated men were hurrying inside with a stretcher.
He walked back to his desk and looked at them. “Okay,” he said. “You tell me. What the hell is going on around here?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Coburn said quickly.
“Don’t give me any of your lawyer crap! You know damn well what I mean, Ted!”
They were silent.
“What the hell are you guys afraid of?” Loren asked. “You’ve all known me for years and you’ve never been afraid to open your mouths before. This isn’t a prison.”
“You don’t understand, Mr. Hardeman,” Edgerton said. He was a big man, almost as large as Loren, the last person in the world to look like the accountant he was.
“I know I don’t, Walt,” said Loren. “That’s why I asked you to come up here.”
There was a moment’s silence while they again exchanged uncomfortable looks. Finally Coburn got out of his chair. He walked around Loren’s desk and bent over the intercom. His fingers checked all the switches, making sure they were down.
“What are you worried about?” Loren asked. “No one can listen in.”
Coburn didn’t answer. Instead he bent down beside the desk and pulled the cable plug connecting the intercom to its socket from the floor. “There’s no point taking any chances,” he said, straightening up. He turned to Loren. “Now send your secretary out of the office on an errand.”
“Why?” Loren asked. “She seems like a nice girl.”
“She is a nice girl. Too nice,” Coburn said. “But she’s one of Joe Warren’s girls.”
Loren looked at him for a moment. Without a word, he went to the secretary’s door and opened it.
The girl looked up at him. “Yes, Mr. Hardeman?”
“Go down to the canteen and have some coffee. I’ll call you there when I want you back.”
She met his gaze. “I can’t do that, Mr. Hardeman. The rules are that I can’t leave the desk without relief.”
“I just changed the rules,” he said.
“But the phones? There will be no one to answer them.”
“I’ll answer them,” he said.
She sat there silently, not moving. “I’ll lose my job,” she said finally.
“You’ve already lost it,” he said. “Your only chance to get it back depends on how fast you can get your ass out of here!”
She stared at him for a moment, then picked up her purse and went out the door.
Coburn’s voice came from behind him. “Lock that door while I lock your private entrance.”
Loren locked the outside door and walked back into his own office. He walked around his desk and sat down. “Now, I want some answers and I want them fast!”
“You want it fast, Mr. Hardeman?” Coburn said. “I’ll give it to you in two words. Joe Warren. You can’t get it any faster than that.”
Loren got to his feet and walked to the window. Outside, the ambulance was still parked. The attendants came out of the building, carrying a man on the stretcher between them.
Loren gestured to the men in the room behind him. They came to the window. He pointed to the stretcher being loaded into the rear of the ambulance. “There goes your Joe Warren.”
An attendant ran around the ambulance and got in behind the wheel. The siren began again as the ambulance started for the gate.
Loren walked back to his desk and sat down. “Now maybe we can get back to the business of building automobiles,” he said.
“It’s not going to be that easy,” said Edgerton. “Between Warren and your son, they have the board of directors and the banks sewed up.”
“Leave them to me,” Loren said. “What we’re here to talk about is building a low-priced car to compete with Ford and Chevy and Walter Chrysler’s new Plymouth.”
“We haven’t got the money to retool,” Edgerton said quickly. “That will take fifteen million dollars and the banks won’t give it to us.”
“How much have we got?”
“About one and a half million in cash and another three million in receivables.”
“Could we discount the receivables?”
“For twenty percent.”
Loren turned to Duncan who had been silent until now. “Can you get a new car on the line for four million dollars?”
Duncan shook his head. “Impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” Loren said. “Do we still have the jigs for the Loren Two?”
Duncan nodded.
“Supposing we cut two feet out of the car by going from four doors to two? Would that be an expensive retooling job?”
Duncan was thoughtful. “It shouldn’t be. But there is another problem. We’d have to design a whole new engine for it.”
“Why?” Loren asked. “Couldn’t we make the small Sundancer ninety-horsepower fit?”
Duncan smiled suddenly. “I think we could. It would also reduce our inventory. We overproduced that engine by almost fifty thousand units last year.”
“That’s more like it,” Loren said. “You get down to your office and start on it right away. Check your costs out with Walt. I want figures in two days.” He turned to the lawyer. “Now I want some answers from you, Ted. Is there anything in the book that can keep me from doing this?”
Coburn thought for a moment. “Not if you’re not challenged.”
“And if I am?”
“There are only two people who can do it. Your son and, maybe, Warren. I’m not quite sure, but he is the executive vice-president and his powers might spill over into that area.”
“What about the board and the bank?”
“They don’t come into it until the next meeting. And that’s almost a month away. Of course, your son can call a special meeting any time.”
“I understand,” Loren said.
“Just another word,” Coburn said. “Make sure that you don’t dictate any memos on your plans. All secretaries now have to make a blind copy of everything they type. It’s Warren’s way of knowing everything that goes on.”
Loren looked at him. “Did my son know about that too?”
“I don’t know,” Coburn said carefully. “None of us can see him unless the appointment is arranged by Warren. I haven’t seen him except at board meetings for more than a year now.”
Loren turned to Edgerton. “How about you?”
“Much the same story.”
He looked at the engineer. “How about you, Scotty?”
“The last time I spoke to him was the time he told me to stop production on the Loren Two. That was three years ago.” The Scotsman’s voice was caustic.
Loren was silent for a moment, then he got to his feet. “Okay,” he said. “Go to work.”
They got to their feet and started for the door. Loren’s voice stopped them. He was smiling. “Can one of you fellows reconnect this damn thing?” he asked, pointing to the intercom. “I might have to use it for something legitimate.”
Chapter Eight
The telephone began to ring just as she came from the kitchen after talking to the cook about the children’s lunch. She picked it up in the living room. “Hello.”
A familiar voice echoed in her ear. “Sally?”
She sank into a nearby chair. “Yes.”
“This is Loren.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “How are you?”
“Fine,” he answered. There was an awkward pause. “I wanted to come out and see you and the children but I’ve only been back a few days and I’ve been tied up.”
“I understand,” she said.
“Is Junior home?”
“No. Isn’t he in the office?”
“No,” he answered.
“He left early as usual,” she said. “Maybe the car broke down on the road.”
“No. He was in the office.” There was the barest hesitation in his voice. “We had an argument and he left. I want to reach him. Do you have any idea where I might find him?”
“Sometimes he goes to the Athletic Club for a steam and rubdown.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll try there. Good-bye.”
“Loren!” she said quickly.
“Yes?”
“Aren’t we going to see you?” she asked. “Loren Three is a big boy already and you’ve never even seen your granddaughter.” She had just caught her tongue in time to keep herself from saying daughter.
“I’ll be out later this week,” he said. He hesitated a moment. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said.
“If Junior should come in, tell him to call me.”
“I will,” she said.
“Good-bye.”
“Loren, I still love you,” she said quickly. But the click in the telephone told her he was off the line and hadn’t heard her. Slowly she put the phone down and sat there. She could still feel the pounding of her heart and wondered if she would ever get over the way she felt about him.
The front door burst open and Junior came rushing in. Through the archway he saw her seated in the living room and came toward her.
Still filled with her own thoughts, she spoke to him. “Your father just called. He wants you to call him.”
“He’s crazy!”
For the first time she saw how distraught he was, his face pale and ashen. “What happened?”
“He tried to kill me! Joe Warren’s in the hospital with a broken arm and possible skull fractures! He’s crazy, I tell you!”
“Why?” she asked.
“All I told him was that he couldn’t build a new car and he went crazy. He came after me. If it weren’t for poor Joe, I might have been the one in the hospital, not him.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said, bewildered. “There has to be a reason. He sounded perfectly calm on the phone just now.”
He stared at her. His voice changed. “Go upstairs and pack. We’re taking the children and going away for a while.”
“Calm down,” she said, rising. “Let me fix you a drink.”
“I don’t want a drink,” he said sharply. “Just do as I tell you. We’re going over the border to the summer cottage in Ontario.”
She looked at him. “I’m not dragging the children anywhere,” she said stubbornly. “Not until I know what we’re running away from.”
“You’re on his side!” he shot accusingly.
“I’m on no one’s side,” she replied. “I’ve just got two small children that I’m not going to drag around like so many pieces of baggage, that’s all.”
“I’ve turned it all over to my attorneys,” he said. “They told me to go away for a while. He can’t take the company away from me.”
“But how could he?” she asked. “It’s not your company, it’s his.”
“Don’t tell me whose company it is!” he almost shrieked. “I’m its chief executive officer.”
She didn’t speak.
“He’s going to jail!” Junior snapped. “Joe signed an assault-and-battery complaint and right now the police are on their way out there to pick him up. I signed a deposition.”
“Joe had to do something to get himself hurt,” she said. “I don’t believe your father would—”
“You don’t believe!” he almost screamed. “You’re in love with him!”
She didn’t answer.
“Listen,” he said earnestly. “All Joe did when Father came after me was to get between us. Even the gun Joe had didn’t stop him!”
The Betsy (1971) Page 23