She hit the switch again. The sound came on and she started across the floor toward me on her knees. The whine of the turbine and Duncan’s voice came from the speakers.
“‘ven … six … five … four …’”
By the time he reached “One and start,” she had my fly open and my cock in her mouth.
Chapter Two
The giant shepherd guard dogs knew me but not the car, so they followed the car suspiciously up the driveway until I got out, and then came running over, tails wagging and breaking themselves in half to be petted. I scratched their heads before they could knock me down. “Hello, Donner, hello, Blitzen.”
The silent call from the sonic whistle pulled them away from me. Number One’s man stood on the steps of the house. “Good morning, Mr. Perino.”
“Good morning, Donald,” I said.
“May I get the luggage from the car?”
“There isn’t any,” I said. “Just the small bag I have here.”
He took it from me and I followed him into the house. “Is Mr. Hardeman awake yet?”
“He’s in the breakfast room with Mr. Roberts,” he answered.
I continued on through the foyer to the back of the house where the breakfast terrace looked out over the beach and the sea. Number One and Artie were seated at the table. They looked up as I came through the doors.
“Good morning, Number One,” I said. “Good morning, Artie.”
Artie rose and gave me his reassuring lawyer’s handshake. The don’t-worry-I’ll-take-care-of-everything grip. “Good morning, Angelo.”
Number One grumbled. “It took you long enough to get here.”
“I was in Fort Lauderdale at one thirty this morning but somehow I had the idea you wouldn’t like me to wake the house up.” I pulled out a chair, sat down and poured myself a cup of coffee. “It’s a lovely morning.”
“You won’t think it’s so lovely after you read this,” Number One said, throwing a copy of the morning Miami Herald over to me.
I picked it up. It was folded to page two. A small banner headline over two columns, circled in heavy red crayon, down in the corner of the page, caught my eye.
LOREN HARDEMAN I SUED FOR CONTROL
OF FOUNDATION BY GRANDCHILDREN
Loren Hardeman III and his sister, the Princess Anne Elizabeth Alekhine, trustees of the Hardeman Foundation, petitioned the courts of Michigan to set aside and revoke the trust agreement by which the Foundation gave to their grandfather the voting rights to the stock in Bethlehem Motors Company for his lifetime. Arguing that such an agreement was illegal and invalid and contrary to the public interest which is the principal purpose of the Foundation, they further stated that such voting rights gave Mr. Hardeman control of Bethlehem Motors, which constitutes the only asset of the Foundation, and that his control thereof endangers these assets and as such, imperils the work, welfare and purpose of the Foundation. They were joined in their petition by the Attorney General of the State of Michigan as amicus curiae on behalf of the people of the State of Michigan, who further said that in his opinion the loss of and/or the devaluation of the assets of the Foundation would negatively affect those projects for the benefit of the people of the State of Michigan in which the Foundation and the State had joined together. Chief Justice Paul Gitlin took the matter under advisement and set the date of January 17th for a hearing; he gave the Foundation and Mr. Hardeman I until that date to reply to the charges.
I put the paper down and looked at Number One. “Now tell me what it means.”
He stared balefully at me. “It means we’re fucked!”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “I thought you told me there were five trustees. That means there are two more besides your grandchildren and yourself.”
“So what?” he snapped. “I haven’t been near them for years. For that matter neither has Anne. But Loren has always worked closely with the other two and he has them in his hip pocket.”
“Did you talk to them?” I asked.
“I can’t get them on the phone,” he said sarcastically. “They’ve mysteriously disappeared. Loren’s done his job well.”
I turned to Artie. “What are our chances?”
“Do you want a long legal opinion or do you want it short and sweet?”
“Short and sweet,” I said.
“We lose.” He looked at me. “I can’t say it any shorter than that.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s a conditional gift. When Mr. Hardeman gave the Foundation the stock, he either withheld or demanded the voting rights to that stock as a condition of his giving it to them. The court would have to rule that it was an incomplete gift and, since the validity of the Foundation is not at question here, order Mr. Hardeman to surrender those voting rights to the Foundation.”
“What if the validity of the Foundation is questioned?” I asked.
“Then the stock would retroactively become once again the property of Mr. Hardeman. And, of course, he would then become liable for the income received by the Foundation due to dividends from the stock. A rough calculation by me determined that approximately one hundred million dollars was received in that manner since 1937 to date. Assuming federal and state income taxes averaging sixty-five percent, that gives us a tax liability to Mr. Hardeman personally of sixty-five million dollars together with interest thereon at six percent from the year of earned income, which can very well put his tax liability at over double the base tax or one hundred thirty million dollars.”
I turned back to Number One. “You’re right. You are fucked.”
The old man nodded glumly. “That’s what I said.”
We were silent for a moment. I sipped the coffee. It didn’t taste so good right now. Somehow the sparkle had gone out of the morning. I looked down at the newspaper. Something in the story caught my eye. I put my finger on the line and read it aloud.
“—such voting rights gave Mr. Hardeman control of Bethlehem Motors which constitutes the only asset of the Foundation, and that his control thereof endangers these assets.” I looked up at Artie. “Don’t they have to prove that in order to win?”
“Not really,” he said. “Merely the showing of the fact that the entire capital of the company is risked to manufacture and sell a new car would be sufficient for the court. Generally, prudent business sense doesn’t permit commitments like that. Part of the capital, yes. All of it, no.”
“But if the car is a success, the company will make more money than it ever made in its history,” I said.
Artie looked interested. “When will you know that?”
“Six months to a year after the car is on the market.”
“Too late to do us any good.” He shook his head. “I can’t hold them off that long.”
“If Loren gets control of the company, the Betsy is dead,” I said. “And the company blows a hundred million dollars just like that.”
“But they don’t lose it all,” Artie said. “That’s less than half of what I understand you might lose if you can’t sell at least two hundred thousand of the new cars.”
“I’d feel more positive about selling enough Betsys if we weren’t having all that trouble with the dealers,” I said.
“That’s it!” For the first time Number One’s voice had an edge in it.
We stared at him.
“That prick Simpson,” he said. “We all knew he didn’t have the money to pull off a campaign like that on his own. Someone had to be backing him.”
“We checked around,” I said. “Nothing turned up.”
“Who was doing the checking?” asked Number One.
“Dan Weyman, of course,” I said. “That comes under his department.”
“Dan Weyman.” Number One’s voice was sarcastic. “And you took his word for it?”
I didn’t speak.
“Weyman is Loren’s boy,” Number One said.
“You’re implying that your grandson is behind that campaign?” Artie asked incredulously. “I can�
�t believe that. Why would he want to destroy the company of which he is president?”
“I’m not saying he is and I’m not saying he’s not,” Number One answered slyly. “But my grandson’s getting more like me every day. And if I were him and I wanted to throw a scare into management, I would do a thing like that. The only thing wrong with it was that we didn’t scare.”
“If we tie Simpson in to Loren, will that help us in the court?” I asked Artie.
He thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. I think that the court would remove Loren as a trustee for violation of his fiduciary responsibilities, but it won’t alter their right to vote the stock.”
“But if we catch Loren with his pants down, surely they’ll switch their votes to Number One,” I said.
“If we catch Loren,” Number One said, “we won’t need the Foundation’s votes.”
“You got me,” I said puzzled.
“I have forty-one percent, right?” he asked.
“Forty,” I said. “I just decided to exercise my warrants.”
He grinned. “Why now?”
I grinned back at him. “I figured you might need another million in cash with all your problems.”
He laughed. “Okay. Forty percent. You got one percent. My granddaughter Anne has ten percent. That’s fifty-one percent. I don’t need any more than that.”
“But how do you know she’ll go along with you?” I asked.
“I know my granddaughter,” he said. “If she loses her faith in her brother, she’ll turn to me. Her husband will see to that. He goes where the money is.”
“Then we have only one problem left,” I said. “That’s to tie Simpson and Loren together.”
“That’s your problem,” Number One said. “You do it and you only have eight days left to do it in.”
“How the hell do I go about doing a thing like that?” I asked.
“I don’t give a damn!” the old man snapped. “Do anything you have to. It was money that got to Simpson. Money will buy him back.”
“What if that doesn’t work?” I asked. “What if Loren is really clean?”
The old man stared balefully at me. “Frame him then! This is no child’s game that we’re playing!”
Chapter Three
There was a telephone message in my box at the Ponch when I returned to Detroit that evening. I read it in the elevator going up to my apartment.
PLEASE CALL MRS. HARDEMAN
There was a New York operator and telephone number. I looked at the time at the top of the message. 7:10 p.m. I checked my watch, wondering what Bobbie was doing in New York. It was close to nine o’clock.
The faint sound of the music from the cabaret on the floor above my apartment filtered down through the ceiling as I let myself in. I picked up the telephone at the far end of the living room and looked out the window down at Cobo Hall while I waited for my call to go through.
This week’s convention was the morticians. That had to be a fun thing. The operator came back on. “I have Mrs. Hardeman on the line for you.”
“Hello, Angelo?” It was not Bobbie’s voice. It was Alicia.
I hid my surprise, “Hey there.”
She laughed. “Hey there,” she said. She hesitated a moment. “I suppose you’re wondering why I called?”
“Yes,” I said frankly.
“I know you’re busy so I won’t take up too much of your time.”
“Don’t go formal with me, Alicia,” I said. “We’ve known each other too long for that.”
She laughed again. This time her voice was relaxed. “Sorry,” she said. “But since the divorce I’m never quite sure where I stand with people I knew when I was married.”
“I knew you before you got married.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll still keep it simple. As part of my divorce settlement I received half of Loren’s stock in Bethlehem.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Very few people do,” she said. “Loren didn’t want to give it any publicity. That’s why he has my voting proxy.”
“I see.” That meant that Loren owned only five percent of the company stock, not ten as we thought.
“I read in the papers about the lawsuit,” she said. “I heard Loren and Dan Weyman talk about it many times but I never thought he would really do it.” Then her voice went hard. “I don’t want them to have control of the company.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I spoke to my attorney and had him draw a new proxy in favor of Grandfather,” she said. “I want you to tell him that for me.”
“Why don’t you call him? I’m sure that he’ll appreciate it.”
“No,” she said. “His secretary-housekeeper, Mrs. Craddock, reports back to Loren. I don’t want him to know anything about it.”
I was right and I was wrong. I had figured Number One’s man to be the leak. “I’ll make sure Number One hears about it.”
“I’m sending the proxy to you at the hotel,” she said. “Tell Grandfather to vote it any way he sees fit.”
“I will,” I said. I was curious. “You say Loren and Dan spoke about this many times?”
“Yes. It was nothing new. Every time Loren was angry at Grandfather it would come up. Especially after they learned about the Betsy.”
I tried a wild shot. “Did you ever hear them talk about a man named Simpson?”
“Mark Simpson?”
“That’s the man,” I said.
“He’s a friend of Dan Weyman’s,” she said. “Dan brought him over to the house to talk to Loren several times. They were working on something together. It had to do with automobile safety, I gathered.”
Jackpot! I deliberately kept the excitement from my voice. “Would you do me a favor and write a note to me mentioning the times you recalled they met at your house?”
“Of course,” she said. There was a curiosity in her voice. “Will that help?”
“It might,” I answered cautiously. I looked down at the message slip in my hand. “If I have to reach you again, will you be at this number?”
“No,” she answered. “I’m leaving tomorrow night for Gstaad.”
“I didn’t know you skied.”
She laughed. “I’m not going there for the skiing. Betsy’s due to have her baby any day now and I want to be with her.”
“How is she?”
She laughed again. “She’s very calm about the whole thing. Her husband, Max, is more excited about it than she is, but I still can’t believe it. I’m going to be a grandmother.”
“Grandmothers are getting younger every year. You can thank the younger generation for that. Give Betsy my best.”
“I will,” she said. “Good-bye, Angelo.”
“Good-bye, Alicia.” I put down the telephone and walked over to the bar. I broke out a tray of ice cubes, opened a new bottle of Crown Royal and made myself a stiff drink. I needed it.
Number One had been right in his thought that Weyman was covering up. But I wondered whether he really thought that Weyman and Loren were involved with Simpson. It just didn’t make sense. Until now.
The music from the cabaret was growing louder. I was annoyed. I went back to the phone and called the assistant manager. “You have to do something about those amplifiers in the cabaret upstairs,” I complained. “They’re driving me out of my mind.”
“You must be mistaken, Mr. Perino,” the A.M. said smoothly. “The cabaret is closed tonight. Perhaps one of our guests has the radio on too loud. We’ll check into it.”
“Please do,” I said shortly. I put down the phone and started for the bedroom, the music growing louder. I had enough troubles to manufacture my own headaches without outside help. I opened the bedroom door. The blast of music from the eight speakers almost knocked me down.
Cindy was sitting up in bed, her long hair falling across her naked shoulders and breasts to the sheet over her legs, stoned out of her mind on the sound. She turned to look at me, her head still nodding to t
he beat. A slow, happy smile came to her lips. “Welcome home, Angelo. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Turn it down!” I shouted above the noise. “What are you trying to do? Break my lease?”
She picked up a remote-control device and aimed it at the tape player across the room. The volume went down to a respectable level. “The latest thing,” she said. “I couldn’t resist it.”
I stared at her. “How did you get in here?”
Her eyes went big and round. “Would you believe there wasn’t a vacant hotel room in this whole town when I came in yesterday?”
“That’s not answering my question.”
She got to her knees on the edge of the bed. “Come over here,” she said.
I walked over to her and she put her arms around my neck and pulled herself up against me. Her lips were warm and soft.
I pulled my mouth away. “That’s still not answering my question.”
“It wasn’t too difficult, darling,” she said, her eyes smiling into mine. “I merely told them that I was installing the new sound system you had ordered.”
“But that was yesterday,” I said. “How come they let you stay all this while?”
“Everybody knows you can’t do installations like this in one day,” she said innocently. “Besides I was very quiet. Until just now when I heard you come in and go right to the telephone to call another woman.” She stuck her hand under the pillow and came up with a telephone message which she thrust into my hand. “Especially her!”
I looked down at it. It was the door copy of the message I had picked up downstairs. When I looked up again, her face was so angry I had to laugh. “You’re jealous,” I said. “That’s not like you. I thought you were too cool for that sort of thing.”
“I’m not jealous!” she said heatedly. “But how would you like it if you spent two days in bed waiting for me to come home and when I did, I went right to the phone to call another guy?”
“But I didn’t know you were waiting,” I laughed.
“That doesn’t matter!” she snapped. “I don’t think that was very nice. You could have at least looked in the bedroom first!”
The Betsy (1971) Page 32