Cash McCall

by Cameron Hawley

  The lawyer gestured toward his desk. “There’s a twenty-four hour option over there for another big block. He’s instructed me to exercise it as soon as we’re certain of Bergmann’s support. That’s another million dollars.”

  Gil Clark felt the crush of added responsibility. Before, he had visualized the loss of a profit as the only penalty of failure, thinking that if the deal didn’t go through, Cash McCall would still own Suffolk Moulding and be no worse off than he had been at the start. Now there was an extra million dollars at stake, committed beyond recall once the decision to move was made.

  “You were right when you said this isn’t worm fishing,” Conway commented sardonically. “And the bait comes high. That million would be as good as lost if something went wrong.”

  “But what could go wrong?” Gil asked earnestly. “If we’re certain of Dr. Bergmann’s support—and we won’t move, of course, until we are?”

  “You do recognize, don’t you, that Mr. McCall won’t have control until the three hundred thousand shares he’ll get for Suffolk Moulding have been issued and transferred? Before that can be done, there must be stockholder approval to raise the charter authorization. The law requires sixty days notice. That means two months before the deal could be consummated—two months when he won’t have control—two months when anything might happen.”

  “You aren’t suggesting that the stockholders might not approve.”

  “I suggest nothing beyond a possibility.”

  “But what else can Andscott do? They’ve got to have Suffolk Moulding in order to keep operating.”

  “Consider this, Gil—why is General Danvers so anxious to buy Suffolk Moulding?”

  “Because he was fool enough to get himself in a position where it’s the only way out.”

  Conway shook his head. “No, that isn’t completely true. Didn’t Mr. McCall offer to continue supplying Andscott with parts?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Exactly!” the lawyer said with point-clinching emphasis. “General Danvers’ real motivation is his personal prejudice against Cash McCall, the feeling that he didn’t want anything controlled by him, even a source of supply.”

  “Far be it from me to defend Danvers,” Gil countered, “but after all, there is some logic in what he’s doing. Andscott should get its hands on those patents.”

  “Granted,” Conway said. “But one of the axioms I’ve learned to trust is never to accept logic as a prime motivation when personal prejudice is obviously present.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t see what you’re getting at, sir.”

  “I’m assuming that Mr. McCall told you the things that Danvers accused him of doing.”

  “Yes, he told me,” Gil said, his voice colored by the memory of anger.

  “Then you must grant that Danvers has a rather violent prejudice against Mr. McCall.”

  “Of course.”

  “Very well. Now what do you think General Danvers’ reaction would be if, some time during that two months period before the deal finally went through, he discovered that by letting Cash get his hands on those three hundred thousand shares he was actually handing over control of the company? Wouldn’t Danvers find some way to block the deal? It wouldn’t take much, you know, only enough votes to keep the new issue from being approved.”

  “But he’d be in an impossible situation!”

  “As bad as being booted out and branded a failure? Think about that, Gil. General Danvers is a famous man—and very much aware of it. He’d fight back fang and claw, no holds barred. He’s a fighter, Gil. And don’t imagine that he wouldn’t rally a lot of support. He would! Yes, I know—he’s in trouble over there now—but he won some battles in the war that looked bad for a while. Winning lost battles is a part of the Danvers legend.”

  “He’ll never win this one.”

  “I’ll agree that he shouldn’t,” Conway said. “But suppose it came down to an open proxy fight between Danvers and Cash McCall. General Danvers is a national hero, one of the best-known men in the country.”

  “And Cash McCall is one of the least known,” Gil reluctantly conceded.

  “He’s known only by the rumors about him,” Conway said grimly, “and they’re not in his favor. Suppose you were an Andscott stockholder, knowing no more about Cash McCall than you did before you went to work for him, only the rumors you’d heard—”

  “But he would put a sound management into Andscott,” Gil protested. “He’d have to—that’s the only way he can get the company back on its feet. How else could he cash in if he didn’t? That’s what the stockholders want, isn’t it—a profitable company?”

  “You don’t have to argue with me,” Conway smiled. “I know he’d do it—and you know it—but I still ask if you would have given him your proxy a month ago?”

  “Maybe not,” Gil conceded, recalling only too vividly the thoughts that had been in his mind as late as last week. “And I suppose that’s going to be the trouble in trying to line up Dr. Bergmann. He probably feels the same way about Cash McCall that so many people do.”

  Winston Conway started to respond but got no further than a nod of agreement when he was cut off by his secretary coming in with the Lockwood reports which she explained had just arrived. There were four volumes, all bound in the same leatherette cover that Gil recalled from the report on the Cavalier Chemical Company.

  “Good,” Conway said after examining the labels. “He’s sent us two copies of each. This one is Andscott Instrument.” He indicated the thicker of the two volumes and handed across a copy of the thinner one, “And here’s our friend Bergmann.”

  Gil took the report and, after a hurried scanning of the fifty-odd pages, followed Winston Conway’s example and settled down to read. The report was an astounding document, an incredibly detailed assemblage of biographical fact, put together with great perception of the purpose for which it was to be used. There was far more than the bare bone outline of Dr. Bergmann’s professional career as a research physicist, widely honored for his contributions to the science of roentgenology and the development of electromechanical aids to diagnosis and therapy. The Lockwood report added the flesh and blood of a human being, personal detail assembled with infinite patience and quite obviously the result of some very clever detective work.

  After the first ten pages, Gil could not restrain himself from comment. “This is really something, isn’t it?”

  Conway looked up. “Yes, they do a very competent job, don’t they?”

  “I thought we used to get out some pretty fair survey reports up at Corporation Associates,” Gil said, “but they didn’t hold a candle to what Lockwood does. In fact, I never realized there were reports like this. How in the world do they get all their dope?”

  The question seemed to please Conway. “That’s a very interesting story. You’d enjoy a day over there sometime, just going over their operations.”

  “I’d like to do it.”

  “That’s one of our assignments,” Conway explained. “Giving them a check-up now and then to be certain that they haven’t strayed from the straight and narrow. Lockwood is a bit annoyed at times, I fear. He regards Mr. McCall as being a little too straight-laced for this day and age—he’ll have nothing to do with wire-tapping or any of that sort of thing. In fact—I imagine you know this—that’s the reason he bought the agency—to control it and make certain that nothing off base was done.”

  “But what they do get their hands on is still astounding,” Gil marveled.

  “Yes, it really is,” Conway agreed. “But as you’ll see when you get over there, it’s all quite legitimate. An amazing amount of information that seems very secret to the man who thinks it is, isn’t really secret at all. Take credit information, for example. I often wonder if the average businessman realizes how many of the skeletons in his closet are common knowledge to a great many people.”

  “I’ve seen some credit reports that have made me wonder the same thing.”

  “And I�
��ve speculated, too,” Conway went on, “how many fewer conventions there would be—and how many cocktail bars would close down—if it weren’t for the tongue-loosening effect of a couple of good dry Martinis. The right word, dropped in the wrong place, can be very dangerous—or extraordinarily valuable, depending upon which side of the fence you’re on.”

  “What’s the legal situation on that sort of thing?” Gil asked.

  “Oh, rather vague,” Conway said. “And I’d say getting progressively more so. Actually, what law there is has been largely undermined by a shift in general attitude. There was a time, of course, when the invasion of a man’s privacy by eavesdropping was considered rather serious. Today, we’ve largely come around to the counter-view that there must be something wrong with any man who objects to having his privacy invaded—the point I was making in our talk at breakfast.”

  “I know,” Gil acknowledged, but trying to think his way through the seeming anomaly of Cash McCall owning an agency engaged in penetrating the same sort of secrecies that he so zealously guarded in his own case.

  “By the way,” Conway asked, indicating the report, “where are you reading?”

  “Page eleven.”

  “Skip back to forty-one,” the lawyer said. “I always read these things backward—get the last first. Quite interesting bit here—this outline of the social relationship between the Bergmanns and the Danverses.”

  Gil found the page and began to read, amazed again at the Lockwood skill. With no more evidence than had been available in a file of clippings taken from the society pages of the newspapers, a fascinating fabric had been woven to reveal the personal relationship between General Danvers and Dr. Martin Bergmann. Until a year ago last January, the names of Dr. and Mrs. Bergmann had never appeared on the guest list of one of the big Danvers dinner parties. Suddenly, they had blossomed out as guests of honor. Two weeks later they were reported as house guests at the Danverses’ winter home in Nassau. Both events immediately preceded the annual meeting of the stockholders of the Andscott Instrument Corporation.

  “As you’ll note,” Conway pointed out, “that was the meeting where it was first revealed that the company was in serious difficulty. It seems a likely conjecture that General Danvers was attempting to prevent stockholder trouble by making a personal friend of Dr. Bergmann. You might note, too, that there was the further flattery of electing him to the Andscott board.”

  The report went on to offer continuing evidence. The Bergmanns had been in the Danverses’ box at the spring horse show, together on a July trip to Maine, pictured at the Danverses’ table at the Military Ball. Then, three months ago, it had all stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

  “Look at that second paragraph on forty-three,” Conway said, then reading, “There have been open-house receptions at the Andrews Foundation every year since its establishment. Always before, General Danvers has been on the program for a talk. This year his name did not appear even on the list of invited guests.”

  “This really looks encouraging,” Gil said, reading on. “Don’t you think so, sir?”

  There was no reply and he looked up to see the lawyer’s face frozen in astonishment, staring at a penciled note that had been added at the bottom of the last page of the report. Turning the page, Gil saw that the same note was in his copy:

  4/2 Dr. Bergmann left his home at 8:05 A.M. and drove to 1304 Wheelwright Road, home of Mr. and Mrs. John Allenby. Left at 9:17 A.M. and drove to Andrews Foundation.

  “Good lord, don’t you see what this means?” Conway demanded. “If Dr. Bergmann has gone to Allenby for advice—you know who Allenby is, of course?”

  Gil shook his head.

  “He’s president of Cox-Farrington, the man that Cash McCall put in when he reorganized the business. If there were any bad feelings on Bergmann’s part, surely he wouldn’t have gone to Allenby.” He stopped, suddenly cautious. “But that may be wishful thinking. We ought to know for sure. I wonder if I should call Allenby?”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Oh, yes. Worked with him on a couple of Mr. McCall’s deals before he went into Cox-Farrington—the same way I’m working with you on this one.” He reached for the telephone. “He may not be in a position to tell me anything—Bergmann may have sworn him to secrecy—but it’s worth the gamble.”

  While the call was being put through, Gil wandered off toward the windows that looked down upon the street, his mounting excitement broken only by a momentary recognition of the parallel between himself and John Allenby that Conway had suggested, a line of thought snapped at the instant he heard the lawyer start to speak over the telephone.

  There was an exchange of introductory banter and then, almost as soon as Winston Conway mentioned Bergmann’s name, the lawyer fell silent, listening intently. His occasional interjections were meaningless, offering no clue to what he was hearing.

  “All right, John, I’ll take over and see that it’s followed up,” Winston Conway said to conclude the conversation, only then smiling as he turned to Gil Clark. His right hand raised to an oath-taking position. “I, Winston Conway, solemnly swear that I shall never again doubt the unassailable perspicacity of Cash McCall.”

  “What’s happened, sir?”

  “I should have known,” Conway said with a chuckling sigh. “While we’ve been sitting here worrying about whether or not you should talk to Bergmann, Allenby has been trying to reach Cash to set up that very meeting—at Bergmann’s request!”

  “You mean that Bergmann wants the meeting?” Gil asked groggily.

  Conway nodded but did not reply, lost in silent speculation, suddenly broken when he got to his feet. “You’d better get out there, Gil. There’s no time to lose. General Danvers is pressuring Bergmann for a decision as to whether or not he’ll support the proposal to buy Suffolk Moulding.”

  “But he has to support it,” Gil said, alarmed. “If he doesn’t, we’re licked before we start.”

  “Exactly. Driving your own car?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d take a cab if I were you. Give you a chance to study this report on the way out. According to Allenby, Bergmann’s pretty well worked up over what’s happened. He may require a little handling. In any event, it won’t hurt you to have all the background you can get.”

  Gil had already picked up his topcoat. “Maybe I ought to call him first to make an appointment.”

  “I’ll call him and tell him you’re on your way,” Conway said, reaching out to hold his coat, making it a gesture that could not have been more deferential if he had been serving Cash McCall himself. “I’m sorry to have plagued you with all my pointless worrying. I should have known better.”

  Gil Clark was going down in the elevator before his mind cleared enough to question the lawyer’s last remark. Winston Conway’s concern had been about General Danvers, not Dr. Bergmann. That situation was in no way changed. Or was it? Had Allenby told Conway something that the lawyer had not repeated?

  6

  A mechanical voice, barely recognizable as Cash McCall’s, burst in from a loudspeaker hidden in the plane’s ceiling, telling them to fasten their seat belts, that they would be landing at Moon Beach in five minutes. Lory Austen responded with the same lift of courage that an all but exhausted runner feels upon finally sighting the tape. Bad as it had been, she knew now that she could see it through to the end.

  Sitting in the cabin with her parents, there had been none of the exhilaration of rapturously free flight that she had experienced yesterday at Cash’s side in the cockpit. Instead, she had felt imprisonment, the onerous punishment of being forced to talk and talk, feeding her father’s egocentric pleasure in being so luxuriously transported to Moon Beach, responding to his fulsome descriptions of the hotel’s wonders, rationalizing her lack of sincerity as the feeling of a righteously discharged duty, excusing the white lie of her pretended interest as the final payment on the price of freedom.

  But it was all her own fault. Cash had given her a
chance of escape, looking at her after they had come aboard, silently asking whether she wanted to join him in the cockpit. It was yesterday’s error of omission that had forced her to decline. Her mistake had been in not telling her mother about going to Aurora Valley with Cash … not because there had been need or reason for secrecy, only because she had gone directly to her studio after she had arrived home, not seeing her mother until late afternoon … and by then her father had gotten home from Philadelphia. But it was just as well the way it was. If she had gone up front with Cash, there would have been the silly temptation to go on hoping that yesterday hadn’t been the end. It was the end! Cash had only asked her to come along today because he knew it was something her father had wanted … and she had only done it because agreement was easier than refusal. They would be together on the way back, of course … he’d probably ask her to ride up front again … but it wouldn’t matter now. She had made her decision yesterday. There would be no more little-girl fantasies from now on, no foolish hopes, no senseless daydreams that could come to no end but nightmares of terrorizing ecstasy.

  Her father had been speaking to her and she had let his words beat unheard against her ears, but her mother’s voice, lower and softer, broke through. “I wish I hadn’t told Anna that she could go to Reading this afternoon. But you’ll be all right, won’t you? It’s just for the night and she is counting on it.”

  “Of course I’ll be all right,” Lory said, responding to the hunger for intimacy that showed so plainly in her mother’s eyes. Miriam had sat across the aisle from them all during the flight, somehow separated by a distance greater than the space between their chairs, taking less and less part in their conversation, peculiarly preoccupied except when her husband made some demand for a show of pleasure.

  There was another demand now as he excitedly identified the Atlantic Ocean. Lory kept her eyes on her mother, seeing the attention that lighted her expression, wondering if her interest could possibly be as sincere as she made it seem, asking herself if it were possible that she failed to realize that this trip was a fool’s errand.