What he heard seemed to disappoint him. He replaced the receiver in its cradle. “You may go up. Tenth floor.”
“What room number?”
“Mr. McCall’s suite occupies the entire floor,” the clerk said, turning wearily away as if the whole affair had driven him beyond the limit of his condescension.
Gil Clark started for the elevator.
Inside, looking out, he saw Dale Turner greeting two men, a gray-faced old warhorse with the stamp of a ward-heeler on him, and a great porcine slob who, with just a little more greed in his pig eyes, might have been mistaken for Harry Guizinger’s younger brother.
6
Grant Austen waited while Will Atherson inscribed his name on the guest register and then, with a sigh of expectant satisfaction, entered the first of the four rooms that constituted The Wharf’s present quarters, a room so skillfully reconstructed that it did not vary by as much as a single sliver of walnut paneling from the entrance hall of the old clubhouse.
Against the wall opposite the entrance were the mahogany racks that held the engraved silver plates of the members, flanked by a small teak table with a low stack of plain plates to accommodate the strictly limited admission of guests. In front of the plate rack stood old Willis—himself as much of a fixture as any piece of furniture—holding a tray of crystal goblets half filled with wine. No liquor was ever served before lunch in The Wharf and the wine, a special vintage supposedly imported from the island of Madeira, was always offered in goblets that were exact replicas of the crystalware that had arrived from England on the barque Morning Light which had docked in Philadelphia on October 29, 1752, after a passage from Liverpool, Lisbon and Funchal. There was a picture of the Morning Light above the center hunt table.
By tradition, luncheon was not served until one o’clock and, today, there was no early gathering crowd. Except for the waiters who were in the next room arranging silver bowls and tureens, they were alone and Grant Austen, as he took the goblet that Will Atherson handed to him, debated the propriety of immediately broaching the subject of selling his company. The atmosphere of The Wharf seemed to argue against it. He knew, as Will Atherson had more than once suggested, that a lot of big deals were pulled off right here at these Wednesday noon lunches, but he mistrusted his own ability to bring up the matter in precisely the right way. There was too much danger that he might miss, even if by the narrowest of margins, the achievement of that perfection of conduct that he had come to admire so much as a demanded attribute of a member—or potential member—of The Wharf.
It was, in fact, the very narrowness of the margin by which he so often failed to be exactly the man that he wanted to be that always plagued Grant Austen on these days when he was a guest at The Wharf. He had schooled himself in the amenities of gracious living until he had no concern about committing a grossly ungentlemanly blunder. It was the little things that bothered him now, those tiny margins of error by which he betrayed himself as not quite belonging to the world of The Wharf.
He had his suits made by the same tailor that Will Atherson and many other Main Liners patronized, yet there was always a difference in the finished result, too subtle to be recognized and pointed out at the last fitting, yet it must be there. He felt it every time he came here. He knew that it wasn’t his figure—which wasn’t at all bad for a man of his age—nor did he suspect his tailor of short-changing him because he wasn’t a second- or third-generation Main Line customer. It was something about himself, exactly what he didn’t know, his perception hovering in that no man’s land between knowing that something was wrong and yet not knowing quite what it was. The unfortunate result, as he fully recognized, was that he was always a little on edge when he went to lunch with Will Atherson, inclined to say just a word or two too many, laugh just the faintest shade of a tone too stridently. Yet there were no occasions that he found more pleasantly stimulating than these guest visits to The Wharf.
He raised the goblet to his lips and tasted. “Great wine you have here. This some of the special stuff you were telling me about?”
Will Atherson nodded, silent.
Grant Austen noticed the way the banker’s fingers held the glass and rearranged his own.
Three members had entered the room and one of them bore down on Will Atherson. His suit was of a fabric that Grant Austen recalled having seen at his tailor’s, his appearance craggily distinguished.
“Judge,” Atherson greeted him. “Want you to meet my guest—Grant Austen, president of Suffolk Moulding—Judge Torrant.”
They exchanged greetings, shook hands, and Torrant turned to Atherson, craning forward, bringing his lips as close as he could to the banker’s ear. “One quick question, Will—something a client of mine asked me yesterday.”
“Yes?”
“There hasn’t been any change in the ownership of this hotel, has there, Will?”
Will Atherson fingered his pipe. “There’s been no recent change in ownership.”
“Thanks, Will, thanks. Didn’t think so, just wanted to confirm it. Glad to have met you, Mr. Austen.”
Judge Torrant moved away, swallowed up in the crowd that was now pouring in from the hall.
“Judge Torrant?” Grant Austen asked, using the technique that he always employed to establish the rating of a newly made acquaintance. “Haven’t I heard that name before?”
“Possibly,” Atherson said, preoccupied. Then, catching himself as if he had missed a cue, he added, “Yes, he’s one of our attorneys.” He hesitated and then, with a show of intimacy that warmed Grant Austen’s heart, whispered, “Good enough lawyer, but something of a bore. Never sees you but what he has some silly question to ask.”
Grant Austen nodded knowingly. Then, as carefully as he might have made a written note, he filed Judge Torrant’s name away in his memory. You never could tell when a contact like that might come in handy.
7
Facing the door that fronted on the tenth-floor foyer, touching the push button for the second time, Gil Clark was doing his best to keep his promise to Harrison Glenn that he would meet Cash McCall with an open mind. Perversely, the harder he tried to curb his imagination the more persistently it exhumed the matching memory of the morning he had gone to Harry Guizinger’s suite in this same hotel … the door opening on that hog-snout face, those hairy hands clawing his perpetually slipping trousers back to the high bulge of his enormous belly …
The door opened.
The man who faced him … no, it couldn’t be Cash McCall. This man was too young … no older than himself … someone else … an assistant …
“I’m Cash McCall,” the man said, extending his hand.
Dry-mouthed, Gilmore Clark heard himself speak his own name and then they were walking together into the big living room. In the instant of first seeing, the room seemed a startling fulfillment of Gil Clark’s oldest adult dream. It was, in almost precise duplication, the room that had been his haven of imaginary escape on those endless nights of tortured waiting on the carrier, the same room that he had again dreamed into being during those fever-burned weeks before he had awakened to discover the antiseptic reality of a hospital ward. Now fantasy had become truth. It was all here, the miracle of a dream come true … those same deep-set windows, the packed bookcases, the waiting chairs and the soft spillage of dimmed light, the narrow-framed prints on the cork-covered walls … a Frost watercolor over the mantel, Bishop etchings, a painting of a dart of pintails coming in over the decoys …
His moving eyes froze their attention. There, facing him, was a drawing of a hawk held high on an armored falconer’s wrist … no, he couldn’t be wrong! It was Lory Austen’s original drawing for the frontispiece of Knight of the Hawk. How had Cash McCall managed to …?
“How about a drink, Mr. Clark?”
The words had a shocking quality, not in themselves but because they brought the startling realization that, in his preoccupation, first with the room and then with the Lory Austen drawing, he had hardly looked
at his host. He studied him now, seeing him as perhaps a little older than he had guessed after that first glance at the door … late thirties, possibly forty … English doeskin slacks and cashmere jacket … more like a professional athlete than a businessman. There was a Western look about him … Texas or California. Millionaire playboy? No, he wasn’t the type … eyes too sharp, as sharp as his mind must be … seeing everything, missing nothing …
Gil remembered that he had expected the counterpart of Guizinger and then, instantly, there was the more urgent memory that Cash McCall had asked him if he wanted a drink. Did he? Yes … but careful now … easy to make the wrong impression. “I’m not much of a noon drinker,” he compromised, “but I’ll be glad to join you.”
Cash McCall stood over a low table in the center of the room, his hands spread fanwise over a bristle of decanters. “Martini? Or do you prefer whiskey?”
“Martini’d be fine.”
Gil Clark watched his host as he mixed the cocktails, noticing his hands, quick and deft yet with the suggestion of enormous strength, as if with the closing of his fingers the crystal mixing urn would have shattered. There was that same suggestion of latent power in the movement of his body when he went to the sidetable for glasses, the deceptively soft-muscled grace of a lion.
The cocktail was excellent and Gil was tempted to a compliment, but when he tried the words in silent rehearsal they seemed pointless. A perfect cocktail was a part of the scene. It was impossible to imagine Cash McCall mixing a cocktail that would not have been perfect.
“Glad you could lunch with me,” McCall said. “Hope it wasn’t too inconvenient?”
“No, not at all.”
“Good. Most people talk more easily over food. Hope you’re one of them. I want you to do some talking.” He lounged back on the giant couch, a bedlike affair upholstered in green glove-leather.
Gil Clark wished that he hadn’t chosen a straight-backed chair. He felt stiff and uncomfortable, wordless.
Cash McCall fixed him with a narrow-eyed smile that suggested clairvoyance and his words brought a confirmation of the power. “No need to get your guard up, Mr. Clark. If I ask questions that you don’t care to answer—don’t.” The smile softened. “That’s a privilege I claim for myself every now and then.”
“I’ll tell you anything I can, Mr. McCall.”
“Mind starting now? Or would you prefer to eat first?”
“The sooner the better,” he said, wishing after the words were out that he hadn’t spoken so quickly, betraying his bewilderment at finding himself in a situation so completely different from what he had anticipated.
“What do they call you—Gil?”
“That’s right.”
“Mind if I do?”
“No indeed.”
“My first name is Cash. If you’ve heard rumors to the contrary, it’s not a nickname. Cash was my mother’s family name.”
Gil Clark shifted uneasily. There it was again … McCall had read his mind, knowing that he had thought Cash was a nickname.
“I hope you won’t resent my inviting you here under a false pretense,” Cash McCall said.
Gil stared his lack of comprehension.
“I may be interested in buying Suffolk Moulding,” McCall said casually. “I don’t know. I was several years ago but I’d more or less forgotten about it until yesterday. At the moment I’m interested in you.”
“In me?”
Cash McCall was looking at him across the rim of his raised glass. “I’m thinking of offering you a job. I hope you’re open-minded enough to consider the possibility.”
Gil could not breach the silencing grip of surprise.
“How much do you know about me, Gil?”
“Not much,” he said, forcing the words.
“I’m what you might call a dealer in secondhand companies,” Cash McCall said. “I buy them and sell them.”
“I know that much,” Gil Clark said, attempting to match the smile that crow-footed Cash McCall’s eyes.
“When I buy a company, I usually put in someone to operate it for a time—long enough to give it a general overhauling, refurbish it, attempt to make it a more valuable property than it was when I bought it. Then I sell it at a profit. Or at least that’s the objective. For example, if I were to buy Suffolk Moulding—”
Cash McCall paused and Gil Clark knew that the quick rise of his desire had already shown on his face.
“Then you are interested?”
It was too late for denial and he nodded.
“Harrison Glenn thought that you might be,” Cash McCall went on.
“Mr. Glenn?”
“I’ve discussed you with him on several occasions,” Cash McCall said, letting a grin break and then adding, “As I presume he’s discussed me with you.”
“No, sir. That is—well, not discussed you.”
“He’s never told you about my relationship to Corporation Associates?”
“No.”
“I own Corporation Associates.”
Gil Clark felt a quick-knotting constriction that choked back exclamation.
“Had you guessed?”
“No, I—I hadn’t.”
Or had he? Was this another case of knowing without knowing, of his subconscious mind having realized what he had failed to acknowledge, a confirmation of his suspicion last night that there was something more between Harrison Glenn and Cash McCall than the president of Corporation Associates had admitted.
“At least now you’re certain,” Cash McCall said. “Your worst suspicions are confirmed.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Gil Clark said, and then wondered why he had.
“But my position does strike you as—perhaps slightly unethical?”
“Well, I am surprised—naturally.”
Cash McCall crossed his long legs. “That’s something we can discuss later, after we’re better acquainted. Until then, how about giving me the benefit of the doubt and telling me something about yourself? Suppose you start with a quick rundown on your life—vital statistics, family, education, business experience, so on. I know that’s putting you on a spot but at least it’s a way to make you start talking.”
His voice had been easy, intending reassurance, but the effect on Gil Clark was the opposite. His host’s manner only emphasized, by contrast, his own disturbing lack of poise. His thoughts spun themselves into a tightly wound ball and he could find no loose thread to pick up for a beginning.
“You’re Main Line, aren’t you?” McCall prompted.
“Yes, for several generations back.”
“Both sides?”
“Yes. My grandfathers were Phares T. Dudley and Gerard Clark. They founded Clark-Dudley & Company, the publishing house. It was carried on until a few years ago by my uncle, Jefferson Clark.”
“Your father didn’t go into the family business?”
“No, he spent most of his life in public service.”
“For example?”
“Well, various charitable organizations. At one time he was general chairman of the Special Services Foundation. He didn’t have much interest in making money.”
“In other words, he lived largely off your grandfather’s estate?”
Gil sipped his cocktail, consciously delaying an answer. Cash McCall’s question had probed a sensitive realization. It was true that his father had lived off the estate, used it up to the last penny.
A quizzical grin formed slowly on Cash McCall’s face. “Gil, why do you feel the necessity to defend your father?”
“I don’t. I—” His voice caught and the break was an admission that, once made, allowed no turning back. “I suppose by some standards he did live a rather useless life.”
“By your standards?”
Gil Clark wasn’t sure what his inquisitor meant, nor toward what blind corner he was being led, and he felt the need for a side-stepping escape. He attempted a laugh and it came off better than he expected. “If you’re asking me if I have any obje
ctions to making money—personally—the answer is no, none whatsoever.”
There was something like approval in the way that McCall chuckled. “There are people, you know, who do feel that making money is rather ungentlemanly, something that isn’t done in the better circles.”
“Perhaps that’s because they’re having so much difficulty doing it these days,” Gil said, pleased after he heard his voice that he had managed to say it as well as he had.
There was a clipped laugh as Cash McCall put down the urn. “In case there’s any doubt in your mind, Gil, I don’t belong to the better circles. I’m a thoroughly vulgar character—I enjoy making money.”
Gil felt himself stiffen, oddly shocked, and them impelled to rebuttal, his eyes involuntarily sweeping the room. “I’d hardly say that you—”
McCall cut him off. “Don’t let the trimmings fool you. I’m no gentleman. I don’t fit the prescription. A gentleman spends all day beating his brains out to make money—and then goes out to the country club at night and tries his best to convince everyone else that he’s a very high class character who would never stoop so low as the pursuit of a fast buck.”
“That isn’t far from true,” Gil said, smiling in spite of the warning in McCall’s eyes that he was not indulging in aimless chatter, that everything he said was pointed toward a purposeful end.
“We have a peculiar national attitude toward money-making,” McCall went on. “We maintain that the very foundation of our way of life is what we call free enterprise—the profit system. We’re so serious about it that we’ll fight to preserve it—literally go to war—but when one of our citizens shows enough free enterprise to pile up a little of that profit, we do our best to make him feel that he ought to be ashamed of himself.”
Gil Clark smiled automatically, his mind occupied with the oddly effortless way that McCall’s voice ranged from the easy colloquialism of street speech to something closely approaching a tone of polished culture.
“Of course it could be argued that there’s nothing really current about that attitude,” Cash McCall went on. “Oddly enough it’s always been one of our Christian precepts that poverty is somehow associated with virtue, but it still strikes me as something of an anomaly that here, living under the profit system—fighting and dying to defend it—we’ve come now to regard the accumulation of profit as a crime against society. It’s gotten to the point now where the only way a millionaire can expiate his sin is to endow a charity or a cancer research foundation.”
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