He saw his father often, not less frequently than once every other week, and he had seen him at his worst, depressed and probably frightened. He had seen him snatch a nitroglycerine pill from a bottle and jam it into his mouth. Lately, though, he had observed distinct improvement. Jonas had lost one-third of his heart capacity, the doctors said. He should moderate his activity, they said. Bat had watched him closely and knew what he was doing. Jonas was testing himself. He knew what he cared about, what counted for him; and he knew how much he was willing to give up to survive. He was the kind of man who wouldn't value life without bourbon, rare steaks, a lot of vigorous sex, and, above all, the satisfaction of challenging, competing, and winning.
"You know what?" he had said to Bat one day in the suite atop The Seven Voyages. "I get it up just fine. I didn't lose a bit of that. In fact, I had her go down on me before I left the hospital. The doctors would have— "
"How would she have felt if— "
"I know, I know," Jonas had said impatiently. "We talked about that. I told her it was okay with me. What a way to go!"
Bat had grinned. "You are irrepressible," he had said.
Jonas had laughed. "Damn right."
His father had given him authority to make the changes he had recommended; but, as he had expected, the older man looked over his shoulder every minute and intervened regularly. He won his father's approval often, but it was never unqualified approval. There was always some little thing that could have been done better.
For example—
"You passed up an opportunity. Lucky I saw it."
"What are you talking about?" Bat asked.
"Cord Aircraft."
"What the hell? You agreed to phase it out. I got eight million five for the plant and machinery, most of it obsolete. Sold the whole works to Phoenix Aircraft. Everybody I know says I got a damned good deal. We're out of the airplane business, and we got eight and a half million cash."
Jonas shook his head. "Well, you don't know anything about airplanes. You know what I did with the eight and a half million?"
Bat shook his head. "I'm afraid to ask."
"I bought twenty-five percent of Phoenix."
"Why? We were getting out of the airplane business. You agreed— "
"I asked the guys from Phoenix to stop by and show me what they were planning. I discovered I was talking to some aviation geniuses. They're gonna build a sleek little low-wing two-seater configured with the seats fore and aft, to be flown with a stick instead of a yoke. That little airplane will sell. I offered them their eight and a half million back, for twenty-five percent and a seat on the board of directors. God, were they happy!"
"So, are we supposed to be happy? We're back in the airplane business, where we were losing money, and— "
"Bat!" Jonas interrupted. "Can't you see a no-lose proposition when it's staring you in the face? All we invested in their airplane is the money they paid us for the plant. If this great little plane they want to build is a success, we have a percentage. If it isn't, all we invested is the old building with a lot of obsolete old machine tools. You've gotta watch for deals like that. They come along once in a while."
Another plaything. Another enthusiasm that would cost money. Another time when it would have been a big mistake to say so.
When the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers reported that Cord television sets would no longer be made, the market for the sets vanished. Retailers unloaded the sets they had at sharply discounted prices and ordered no more. Jonas was extremely annoyed and suggested someone had intentionally leaked the news. The family took a loss on the deal, and Jonas blamed Bat. He hadn't done it right. He'd let it get away from him.
"Somebody fucked us, Bat. Somebody who works for us. You've gotta be always on the lookout for that. You're too goddamned trusting. Look around for the guy that owes us, that we've bailed out of trouble. You think that wins us his loyalty? No. The other way around. He hates us. I'd first trust the guy we screwed, then the guy we saved from a screwing."
5
Jonas sat at the head of the table. Bat at the other end. The cook, without the supervision of Robair, had carved a big turkey, and a temporary man serving in a white jacket as a waiter set it on the table on a silver tray. Platters and bowls were filled with dressing, potatoes, gravy, vegetables, cranberry sauce, celery, radishes, olives, and hot rolls. Red wine, white wine, and champagne were in cradles or in buckets of ice.
Jonas surveyed the spread with a critical eye for a long moment, then seemed to be satisfied. He tapped a glass with a spoon. "Let me say how pleased I am that we are all together this evening. I wish we could do it more often. Let's plan on it. Next year we will gather in New York."
He didn't offer to say grace, and no one suggested it. The family and their friends set about eating.
Toni had noticed before that Jonas, Monica, and Jo-Ann — and five years ago, Nevada — ate like ranch hands: diligently filling their plates and moving food to their mouths as if they had but limited time. They spoke little while they were eating, and when they did speak it was usually to express satisfaction with a dish. ("This is good, isn't it? Tell Martha she did a first-rate job.") They were not rude in their manners; they just ate purposefully. They were purposeful people.
In this, Bat was not like them. He savored his food and wine and took his time. Toni was pleased that she and Bat and Bill Toller were still very much in the middle of their meal when Jonas, Jo-Ann, and Monica were finished and were allowing the man to take their plates.
"Well," said Jonas, glancing around the table. "Maybe this is as good a time as any, while we're all together, to announce a change or two I've decided to make in the organization of the businesses."
There could have been no more inappropriate time to announce a reorganization, and surely Jonas knew it. Bat went on eating, as if he knew what his father was about to announce — which he did not know.
"I've been reviewing this year's performance and this year's changes," Jonas went on. "On the whole, I'm satisfied. We stubbed our toes on a few things, but on the whole we've had a good year. Bat recommended reorganization, I accepted his recommendation, and I'm glad I did. Studying what we've done over the past five years, it has become apparent to me that Bat and I have complementary talents. Bat does some things better than I do. I do some things better than Bat does. For that reason, I want to change the structure a bit to take advantage of those disparate and complementary skills."
Bat glanced up at his father at intervals, but his attention seemed to remain focused on his dinner.
Jonas continued. "For myself, I'm very happy I got us into the hotel business. We're going to own two of the finest casino-hotels in Las Vegas, and they're going to make money like nothing else does! I will continue personal control over Cord Hotels. Bat recommended that we go into television production, and we've done reasonably well at that. I am oriented to show business more than he is. I made movies, after all, and we own Cord Studios because I established them. I am going to assume full executive authority over Cord Productions and relieve Bat of any responsibility in that area of the business."
It was obvious now that Bat's concentration on the remainder of his dinner was a façade against what his father was saying.
"I'm gonna run the casino-hotel business and the entertainment element of the business myself, hands-on," said Jonas. "Now, as to Bat, he has proved himself a shrewd businessman, an organizer, a man who understands how to finance things. As of the first of January he will be president and chief executive officer of Cord Enterprises. He will be president and chief executive officer of Cord Explosives, which incorporates Cord Plastics, and of Inter-Continental Airlines." Jonas paused and grinned. "With those offices he won't have enough work to do, so I'm handing him a new assignment. I'm creating a committee of the board of directors of Cord Enterprises — a committee on new ventures and acquisitions. Bat will be chairman. I'll serve on the committee, as will Professor Moynihan; and since the board is
not really large enough to have committees, I am enlarging the board from five members to seven. Our general counsel, David Amory, will be a director and a member of Bat's committee. In addition I have asked my dear friend Angela Wyatt to serve as a director."
6
Two of the bedrooms in the ranch house had small fireplaces. Jonas had taken one for himself and assigned the other to Bat. Snow had fallen all during their dinner and was still falling. The sight of snow, the deep silence of a snowy night, made them feel cold even when the temperature in a room was the same as it had been a few hours ago. Jonas had asked Angie to build up the fire, and she squatted in front of the fireplace, already naked, and pushed splinters of kindling against the few hot coals that remained from an earlier fire.
"Congratulations, Madame Corporate Director," said Jonas.
She turned and smiled at him. "Thank you, Jonas. That was a wonderful thing for you to do for me."
"You deserve it," he said. "You've earned it. Anyway, you know all about what the board does, since you've been at every meeting, taking the minutes. Now you'll have a vote."
"I'll always vote the way you do," she said ingenuously.
Jonas grinned. "Well, I hope so." He was sitting on a tweedy couch in a long blue terry-cloth robe. He picked up a bottle and poured a splash of bourbon. "Nightcap," he said. "One last sip." She'd had the temerity to count his drinks and remind him of his promise to his doctors to cut down on the booze. He didn't sip. He tossed the bourbon down with a satisfied grunt.
With the fire beginning to catch, Angie came to the couch, sat down beside Jonas, and reached inside his robe to massage his penis.
"I wish I had the place wired," said Jonas. "I'd like to hear what they're saying out there." They had come to their bedroom as soon as they left the dinner table. "Actually, they won't say anything. None of them trust each other enough to say what they think in each other's presence."
"Bat— "
"I wouldn't want him to know how much he means to me," said Jonas. "What I really wish I had wired is that bedroom at the other end of the hall. I'd like to hear what he and Toni say when they're alone."
7
As Toni undressed, Bat stirred coals, added wood, and knelt and blew on the coals, coaxing up a lively blaze in the little fireplace.
"What was all that about?" she asked when he stood and began to take off his clothes.
"I could say much ado about nothing. Actually, it's about something. He gives me a more impressive title, but he isn't giving up an iota of control."
"Was it a sort of Christmas present?" she asked. "The title?"
"You could think of it that way," said Bat. "He wants my allegiance. He could have assured it better another way."
"What way?"
"He could have arranged a transfer to me of a block of the CE stock. I hold just ten shares. So does each of the directors, except Judge Gitlin who owns two hundred. All the rest of it, my father owns himself. That's how he keeps absolute control. Absolute control."
"He won't give up control while he lives. You know that. You couldn't expect him to."
"No, of course not. But if I held ten percent of the stock, I'd feel more secure."
Bat hung his clothes over a chair and sat down on the bed beside Toni. She beckoned him to lie back, to cuddle with her.
"If you held forty percent, he could still fire you any time he felt like it," she said.
"Right."
"But why did he shut you out of television production?" she asked. "The Glenda Grayson Show was your idea. You've done as much with Cord Productions as anybody could."
"I can think of two reasons," Bat said. "In the first place, he likes the glamour aspect of it. He was always bored with businesses like explosives and plastic, though for a long time they were his basic moneymakers. He liked the airline. He liked building airplanes and flying them himself as the test pilot. And he liked making pictures."
"That's one reason. What's the other?"
"As head of Cord Productions, I hired Jo-Ann. He's going to dump her. He doesn't want her anywhere near the business, any aspect of it."
"Does he hate her?"
"No, but he doesn't trust her. You can understand why."
"What kind of a job was she doing?" Toni asked.
"Good enough. Competent. But he won't let her work for him, and I don't think Monica will give her a job, either."
"She has a good education," said Toni. "Nothing prevents her from getting a job not working for her parents."
"She doesn't have to work. She can live very comfortably on what our father gives her. Of course, I understand how frustrated she has been, living on an allowance."
"Bat ..."
"Hmm?"
"You're not very happy, are you?"
"Well. I'm not accustomed to observing Christmas Eve by hearing a talk on the reorganization of the business."
"Yes, and you're full of tension. I've got a present for you. Just lie back and loosen up."
She put a pillow on his legs and laid her head on it, pressing her face against his belly. "I want to be comfy," she said in a low voice. "I figure on this taking a long time."
She opened her mouth and took his penis in. He saw what she meant by taking a long time. She licked very gently for a minute or so, then stopped licking and lazily nibbled his foreskin with her lips. She turned her big brown liquid eyes upward and watched his reaction. She smiled. Bat relaxed. She bent his penis to one side so she could lick along its length without having to lift her head from the pillow.
Bat moaned. He wouldn't think about his father anymore tonight.
24
1
JONAS ASSUMED PERSONAL CONTROL OF TELEVISION production. He began to fly regularly to Los Angeles, where he stayed in the Cord hotel suite and spent days at the studio. He did not fire Jo-Ann as Bat had thought he would. He ordered Arthur Mawson, now executive producer of the Glenda Grayson Show, to give him frequent and detailed reports on what she did, but he kept her in her job. He did not stop by her office to see her every time he came to Los Angeles — only occasionally.
Sometimes Angela came to Los Angeles with him. Usually she did not.
St. Patrick's Day fell on a Monday. Jonas did not celebrate it as a holiday, but he was conscious of it and regretted being alone in the suite on an evening when most people were drinking Irish whiskey, eating corned beef and cabbage, and pretending to be Irish. He had arranged not to be alone. Margit Little was with him.
They sat on a couch, where he had invited her to sit, with a bottle of Old Bushmill's, two glasses, and some crackers and cheese. Margit was wearing what was characteristic of her: black dance leotards with a maroon skirt. Her light-brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. She frowned over the whiskey in her glass.
He had been working on this for some time — that is, on getting her to come alone to his suite. She had been just eighteen when Bat signed her up for the Glenda Grayson Show, and she was not yet twenty-two now. She looked sixteen, which was the age she was represented to be on the show. She had the lithe body of a dancer and a pretty, open, innocent face. It was hard to believe Bat had not had this girl, but he swore he hadn't.
"It's traditional," he said of the Irish whiskey.
She pinched her lips and wrinkled her nose. "It's strong," she said.
"Well ... just a toast and then you can have something more to your liking. A toast— To you, Margit. To your career."
"Thank you," she said softly after she took a small and cautious sip.
"Can we talk in confidence?" he asked. "I mean in complete confidence. Neither of us will ever tell anybody anything we may say in the next few minutes."
"Yes ..." she said hesitantly.
"Fine," he said, nodding. "In confidence. I took over Cord Productions because I decided my son had run out of ideas. The Glenda Grayson Show is a success, and it makes some money, but it's getting a little stale. Glenda is getting a little stale. And her money demands are becoming unreasonable.
"
"Mr. Cord— "
"Jonas," he interrupted.
"Oh, sir, I couldn't!"
"Please. Hearing you call me Mr. Cord or, worse yet, sir makes me feel a hundred years old." He put a hand on hers. "Please, Margit."
She nodded. "Jonas."
"Okay," he said with a reassuring smile. "Now. In any case, Cord Productions can't go on forever with all its eggs in one basket. Whatever we do about the Glenda Grayson Show, we've got to start producing new shows. Can you guess what I've got in mind?"
She shook her head, but her widened eyes suggested she had guessed what he was about to say.
"The Margit Little Show," said Jonas. "Maybe a half hour weekly. Say you did a comedy skit every week, with a guest star. Not a continuing family situation like on the old show but a different idea with you as a different character each week. With dancing, of course. I'm thinking of you as a solo, in a simple classic dance number to open the show, then something of a production number with your guest to close the show — with the sketch in between. I bet you can sing, too, huh?"
"Well ... I have taken voice lessons."
"Okay. The Margit Little Show. You know, when I say I'm going to produce something, I'm going to produce it. I don't just play around."
Margit sampled the Old Bushmill's again, a little more boldly.
Jonas poured himself a second drink. "We will have to address a little problem," he said.
She nodded solemnly and fixed her eyes on him, waiting to hear what the problem was.
"What kind of a contract do you have with Sam Stein?"
She frowned. "None. He took me on as a kid and promoted a career for me, and we've never had a written agreement. I mean, he's been something like a father to me."
Jonas grinned. "He didn't want you to come up here alone, did he?"
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