The Last Bastion

by Peter C. Wensberg

  He knew he would not find a cab in the rain which at that moment began to crystallize into something less than liquid. He was certain to arrive late under the best of chances since Seymour had kept him on the telephone past noon telling him to bring as quickly as possible the financial exhibits which he, Seymour, had forgotten when he left the office for the Charles Club at eleven-thirty. Seymour had reserved the Large Reception Room for a luncheon for fourteen. Owen had not originally been included, but since he was bringing the display cards around which the discussion would center he assumed he would be inserted at the table however awkwardly. Seymour did not often use the Charles for business meetings since there were other locations, the downtown Harvard Club or the Bay Tower Room for example, close by in the financial district. The choice meant to Owen that Seymour was worried about this deal and needed to apply some gloss to the proceedings, or that there were European investors in the group, or both. He headed for the T station at Park Street, portfolio flapping. Sick weather, he thought. By tomorrow half the people on this street will have a sore throat. He turned the corner past the Parker House and ran as best he could against the freshening wind toward the subway entrance rising like a granite tipple at the head of the shaft. As the wind blew him sideways along he pondered the two great enigmas of life: women and mezzanine financing.

  He realized he knew little about the emotional or intellectual motivation of either. It had taken three calls to persuade Demi out to dinner again, three calls which were the result of half a dozen attempts to get past the machine. After each failed attempt he told himself he would not call again. Then an hour later or two hours later or a day later he called again. Suddenly the sun shone and she said yes.

  “You mean you don’t have a meeting?”

  “Stop it, Owen. Where shall we go?”

  “What about a movie?”

  “Can we agree on a movie?”

  They could and they did. It was Clint Eastwood but not “Dirty Harry” and by God’s grace it was funny. Then after their leaving the theater in Copley Place hand in hand everything mysteriously began to turn sour. Walking through the crowded halls of the shopping mall they somehow could not agree on a restaurant. Demi wanted to sit at the bar at Durgin Park and eat strawberry shortcake. Owen did not think that was the best suggestion of the evening but he agreed. They had to stand in line and after fifteen minutes he persuaded her to go to a seafood restaurant across the way. She agreed, but before the meal was over they agreed it was a poor choice. That was the last thing they agreed on. That an evening which started with a pretty good movie ended in black disaster and despair was as surprising to him now as it had been when she slammed the cab door on his scarf and disappeared into traffic with only the departing flutter of the Burberry plaid as goodbye. The hell with it, he said to himself as he hurried down the treacherous steps of the oldest subway station in America. I haven’t got a clue. Whatever I do or say seems to make her angry. I’m not the right person for her. She’s not the right person for me. What has that got to do with anything, asked a voice which proved only to be the voice of reason. As he fumbled for a token in the chill steambath of the station he knew he was still as lost to reason as ever. The hell with it, he said again. I’ll call her tonight and have a conversation with her answering machine. He ran for a trolley on the Green Line heading for Copley and points he had never visited farther down the line.

  The riddle of mezzanine financing was as puzzling—if less painful. At times, and this was one of them, Owen felt that venture capital had a rhythm of its own to which he could not seem to dance. Why would a group of venture investors entrusted by individuals and corporations with millions of hard-earned dollars consider pouring money for the third time into a company which had clearly demonstrated a talent for self-destruction? He looked out the window of the Japanese-made lightrail car which rocked along through the tunnel. Occasional light bulbs popped into view revealing gravel roadbed, sagging cables, indentations in the concrete where workers could escape the clattering cars. Workers were not present, nor was enlightenment.

  Metatarsal Technics, a manufacturer of cloth and rubber shoes, had sought oblivion on two previous occasions and almost achieved it each time. One of Gland’s personal enthusiasms, MT had begun life appropriately enough in the gymnasium of an empty schoolhouse in Malden. There the inventor, Prescott Hensile, known to his cohorts as Pre, working at night on a trestle table littered with scraps of plastic and tubes of glue, fashioned the first Watershoe. Walking or running in a shoe whose sole was a cell filled with water produced a sensation hitherto unexperienced by the country’s young athletes. A television commercial featuring a Celtics guard who likened wearing Watershoes to walking in bacon fat achieved instant national awareness. A Los Angeles Laker said it felt like his feet were inside a pumpkin. Despite or even because of these endorsements MT was an overnight success, selling all the Water-shoes they could produce. The boom did not survive the winter, however, when shoes began to burst and Hensile was forced to initiate experiments with antifreeze compounds.

  Gland, Hollings led a second round of investment with the infusion of another three million dollars. Metatarsal brought out the next generation of athletic footwear six months later, the Duckboot, which enclosed the entire foot and ankle in a cushion of liquid. Duckboots, although heavier than most sport shoes, were an immediate hit with the industry trendsetters, the pickup basketball players in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles who spent their discretionary funds on gold, automatic firearms, and designer sneakers. When abrasion began to cause internal leakage and it became apparent that the glycol solution produced skin burns and blisters, Duckboots were recalled. Hensile left the factory in Derry, New Hampshire, for an extended trip on his forty-foot yawl to rebuild his shattered dream in the British Virgins.

  In its four years of life Metatarsal Technics had consumed sixteen million dollars. Now Gland, Hollings was pulling together a third round of financing to re-invigorate the company. Hensile, tanned and refreshed, had come up with a revolutionary design. Eschewing liquid completely, he had attached two plastic strips to a molded sponge-rubber casing. The New Age Puttee was described by its inventor as the most versatile shoe design of the century. Iridescent turquoise on one strap, Day-Glo orange on the other, it could be wrapped and tied in an infinite number of ways. The prototype had been tested with focus groups in the South Bronx and at an Indiana high school. All that was lacking was more cash.

  When Owen reached the Charles Club the sleet had turned gritty and he wished for any shoes other than his worn tassel loafers. He splashed up the steps, threw his coat on the rack and dashed the moisture from his hair. “The Gland group?”

  Abel pointed upstairs. Owen pointed at the elevator. Abel shook his head. Owen, glancing at the clock behind the bar which indicated fifteen minutes past one, started up the staircase two steps at a time, the cards which allocated six millions in new funds to manufacturing, working capital, marketing, and a media campaign featuring a famous young Muslim from Houston under his arm. Before he reached the landing, however, a commotion in the foyer below arrested his progress. The Distinguished Poet was engaged in a heated exchange with an attractive woman in furs. They stood in a cloud of sleet at the open front door. “I most certainly will do nothing of the sort,” she said and attempted to push past the shorter but equally determined Poet.

  “I am terribly sorry indeed, but it is a rule of the Club,” he managed to convey the capital, “that ladies must use the Ladies’ Entrance.”

  “I am not one of your ‘Ladies,’” she expressed the quotation marks nicely, “I am a vice president of the Old Currency. I am here for an investors meeting. I am late because I could not find a cab. I am freezing, and we are soaking this very nice Oriental runner.”

  “Madam …”

  “I am not at the moment married …”

  The Distinguished Poet clenched his teeth. He could not bring himself to utter the Ms. appellation.

 
; “… if it is any business of yours, which it most certainly is not. You may address me as Vice President, if you wish: My friends, among whom you will never be numbered if you do not stand out of my way, call me Margo.” With that she flung past him and stalked in her elegant black leather boots to Abel. “Where is the Gland, Hollings investors meeting?”

  “The Charles Club does not allow business meetings,” said the Distinguished Poet heatedly and incorrectly from the doorway.

  “In the Large Reception upstairs,” said Abel.

  “Follow me if you like,” said Owen.

  “I shall report this to the Committee,” cried the Distinguished Poet, although it was unclear exactly whom he was addressing. He held onto the door as if he had caught it in a heinous act, sleet encrusting his overcoat like the Northwind’s spittle. With something between a grunt and a sob, he forced the door closed against the gale. By that time Owen and Vice President Margo had reached the second floor and opened the door on dessert and Gland’s speech.

  “New England has for one hundred years been the shoe capital of America,” he continued as he made flapping motions at Owen indicating his need for the financial cards. Owen extracted them from the portfolio and brought them to the easel by Seymour’s chair. The investors made room for Margo and continued to munch on Anton’s bread pudding. “With Metatarsal Technics we have joined Route 128 technology with one of our great traditional industries. The result is an enterprise with tremendous potential. Admittedly MT has not realized that potential as yet. What it has done, however, is to press the envelope of podiod technology,” Gland paused with a frown intended to convey the drama of the situation. “In four short years MT has profoundly changed the footgear market. Never again will the consumer be satisfied with a hundred-dollar pair of sneakers. Now, with the introduction of the New Age Puttee which, by the way, the technical people are calling the NAP, we can expect MT to take off. Before I take you through the financials are there any questions? Glad to see you could make it, Margo.”

  Owen had always wondered why businessmen spoke in initial caps. He assumed it reinforced the aura of reality but he knew this was not the moment to ask.

  “Puttees went out with World War I,” said a man at the foot of the table. It was not phrased as a question but Gland smiled at the man nonetheless.

  “Most living American basketball players have never heard of World War I,” he replied reasonably. “Four million dollars carefully spent on our target audience, and I am about to show you exactly how that will be done, will make the NAP the hottest item in foot sportwear.”

  “How does it stay on the foot?”

  “High-adhesion Velcro.”

  Margo interjected, “A man attempted to prevent me from entering the front door of this building. What was that all about?”

  Gland looked at Margo, then at Owen. Owen shrugged slightly and nodded his head.

  “He told me to go around to the side door,” she added. “It is sleeting and snowing and raining all at once. Perfectly dreadful. Of course I refused.”

  “I’m terribly sorry but it is a rule of the club.” Gland smiled ingratiatingly. “Would you like some bread pudding?”

  Margo looked around the room. “Am I the only woman in the group?” She ascertained that she was. “Then I shall have to walk out by myself. I am walking out of the deal as well as the front door. It’s a ridiculous concept, by the way, any woman can see that.” She left without having removed her coat.

  “What ROI are you looking for?” the man at the foot of the table asked, as if nothing had happened.

  Gland uncovered the first display card. “Excellent question. Let’s take a look at the five-year projections.” Coffee was served. The British investors were intrigued by the audacity of the vision. The venture arm of the Bank of Bangladesh nodded his head. By two forty-five Owen was pretty sure Seymour had made the sale. Owen’s understanding of mezzanine financing had advanced no further. Nor had his understanding of women.

  Chapter 25

  “This is the Boston Garden. Not where the Celtics and the Bruins play, that’s the real Boston Garden. This is the Public Garden, the site of the Boston World’s Fair of 1895. See the pond over there? Where they’re skating? It was dug out of the bedrock by Chinese laborers who were out of work after the railroads were built. They founded Boston’s Chinatown which we will see later this afternoon. The Garden was laid out by the famous landscape designer, Frederick Homestead. It is a reproduction of the famous gardens at Buckingham Palace in London, England. That’s the famous Ritz-Carlton Hotel, the most expensive hotel in the world. Howard Hughes once took an entire floor of this hotel for a year. He came to Boston in a private railroad car and no one saw him arrive or leave, but while he was here the elevators didn’t stop on the twenty-second floor of the Ritz except for Room Service. It will cost you five thousand dollars a night to stay in the famous Presidential Suite by the way.” The driver lifted the sponge-covered microphone for a moment and cleared his throat. He felt he was on today. It usually took him about ten blocks to warm up. A bigger load helped. They were light, as they often were in the winter. He ran his fingers through his curly black hair.

  The vehicle, a jitney to the driver and a trolleycar to most of the passengers, was actually a bus powered by a gasoline engine concealed under the floor. Unencumbered by electrical pickups or cable grips, it circumnavigated Boston without restraint of tracks or wires. Its square shape parodied the streetcars of fifty years earlier with open sides and wide, uncomfortable seats. A round brass front light and a gong on the roof which the driver frequently rang by pulling a cord, completed a halfhearted gesture toward mechanical antiquity. Hubtour’s Trolley Twelve carried three German businessmen travelling in pharmaceuticals from Mainz; a retired man and his wife a week out of Omaha with five weeks of sight-seeing ahead of them; a group of Japanese computer scientists attached to Tokyo University but on loan to MIT; four teenage girls from Bristol, Rhode Island, who were to sing that evening in the semifinals of a television talent show; a drug mule from Medellin who had never been to Boston before; and one passenger who boarded when the driver, to relieve himself, stopped at the Bull and Finch Pub. In the brief interval it took Gary, as he had introduced himself when he loaded at the Tourist Information Center on Tremont Street, to empty his bladder, an elderly man in an ankle-length quilted coat stepped inside and glared at the passengers. “Just checking,” he said fiercely and walked to an unoccupied rear seat. Before Gary returned he was curled on the floor between seats near a heating duct.

  With the clear plastic side curtains lowered the jitney was warm enough if drafty. Turning down Newbury Street the driver continued in his butterscotch radio announcer’s baritone: “This is one of the three most expensive shopping streets in the world. The others are in Paris and Tokyo. I’m sure you know the ones I mean. That parking lot charges six dollars every half hour and if you leave your car there all day you might as well let the attendant keep it, ha, ha.” A sedan stopped in front of them and a double-parked van blocked the other lane. Gary waited as an old lady began backing herself out of the front passenger door. “There are art galleries on this street that sell Picassos and Old Masters for millions of dollars. You can see one of them in the window above you on the right.” He indicated a watercolor of a Mediterranean villa which brightened a second-floor display window. “That’s an original Andy Warhol that was just bought by Larry Bird for a high six figures. Well, for shit’s sake lady, please give me a break. All right everybody let’s give her the old raspberry when she finally decides to let us by.” The passengers dutifully saluted the woman as she negotiated the curb with the exception of the couple from Omaha, who were not sure what a raspberry was, the Colombian, who thought it impolite, and the man on the floor, who was asleep.

  “These are some of the most exclusive boutiques in Boston,” Gary reported as they rolled past Banana Republic. “This is real yuppie country. Most of these people are stockbrokers and investment banker
s. They’re the only ones who can afford to live in Back Bay. I certainly can’t on what they pay me to drive you good people around, ha, ha. See the little market on the right? It doesn’t look like much on the outside but oranges cost ten dollars a dozen there and they will deliver your caviar anytime of the day or night.” Trolley Twelve turned right on Hereford and stopped at the light. “This is the famous Commonwealth Avenue, so named because only wealthy people have lived here since Colonial times. These all used to be single-family houses. Now they are all condos. Do you want to guess how much a condo in this block costs? Don’t even try. They are all in the million dollar class. I guess they should call it Uncommonwealth Avenue, ha, ha.”

  He turned left and stopped just past the corner. Three men stepped out of the Charles Club and paused to adjust their coats against the chill. “This is one of Boston’s oldest and snobbiest men’s clubs,” said Gary, his amplified words clearly audible through the side curtains. He didn’t have much to work with for the next few blocks. Until he reached Kenmore Square and Fenway Park his load tended to get out of control, to talk among themselves, and to read their maps and guidebooks. “You have to be a member of one of the old Boston families like the Kennedys or the Fitzgeralds to join a club like this. They do not allow Jews, blacks, Muslims, Iranians or women. No woman has ever set foot in this building. Including, I might add, the Queen of England on her royal visit here several years ago.”

  “Whatever is the man talking about?” asked Roger Dormant. “I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life.”

  “They come by all the time now,” said Walter Junior.

  The Architectural Critic hung his walking stick on his arm and pulled on his gloves. “It’s worse in the summertime when they have the curtains up. You can hear them blocks away.”

  “See the fat one? The one with the cane? He’s a Cabot. You remember the old song: The Cabots speak only to Lowells and the Lowells speak only to … I can’t remember who the Lowells speak to but that’s a real Cabot.”