Executive Suite

by Cameron Hawley

  “Ought to be a nice funeral, a big man like him,” she said, shuffling off down the dark corridor, her voice fading with her.

  The elevator door opened. Luigi avoided their faces, turning his head so that his eyes were shielded. The door closed and the car plummeted down through the shaft.

  As they stepped out Alderson glanced up at the clock. It was nine-ten. He turned back. “Luigi, what happened to the carillon at nine? I was listening for it but I didn’t hear it.”

  “Mr. Shaw say to turn it off so it don’t ring,” Luigi said and closed the door.

  Don Walling waited for Alderson’s reaction, but none came. They walked together out through the lobby and into the last of the dusk.

  “I’d left word for Jesse that I’d be at the office until nine,” Alderson said mildly. “That’s why I wanted to be sure of the time.”

  KENT COUNTY, MARYLAND

  9.14 P.M. EDT

  The last lingering loom of the twilight had faded from the sky as Jesse Grimm crested the hill from which he usually caught his first glimpse of Kinfolk Cove. Now he looked off into blackness and his mind rankled at the delay that had robbed him of the daylight. As he stared the night became translucent and he could see the dim masses of land and water. Memory filled in the detail—the thin line of Kinfolk Creek, the widening cove, the locust-fringed bar that ran out to the wharf. There were three pinpoints of light, one red and flashing, two yellow and steady. The red light was on the nun buoy that marked the channel off the shore. The yellow lights were the windows of the kitchen. One of them seemed to blink and he imagined that it was his wife stepping in front of the window to watch for him. Sarah had gone down in the middle of the week and he had gladly endured the days alone for the pleasure of knowing that she had wanted to go. That was the only thing that had ever worried him about moving to the Eastern Shore—whether Sarah would like it—and now she had proved that she did. There had been no way to let her know that he would be late tonight because they were still waiting for the telephone company to run its line down from the highway.

  His lateness tempted Jesse Grimm to turn off without stopping at Teel’s Store, but he decided that it was worth the minute or two that it would take. Anyway, Sarah might have left word about something that she wanted him to bring down. She did that sometimes. She knew that he always stopped.

  Teel’s Store was one of the unrecognized reasons that had made Jesse Grimm decide on Kinfolk Cove. He had found, in the nightly gatherings at the back of the store, an easy camaraderie that he had not known since his young machinist days in Pittsburgh, something that he had never found at the Federal Club.

  When Jesse Grimm had first started coming to Kinfolk Cove, the Teel-store regulars had fallen silent when he came in, the traditional treatment accorded any stranger, but with the special reticence reserved for visitors who were reputed to have “city money.” The change in Jesse Grimm’s status from a stranger to an accepted Teel-store regular had come about—although he did not know it—from Jim Bishop’s spreading the word that “this Grimm fellow” had fixed the magneto on Tim Culler’s boat engine. Anybody could tinker a boat engine, but fixing a magneto was something else again. A magneto’s going bad had always meant taking the thing off and sending it to Chestertown, losing a couple or three days of crabbing. It was after Jim Bishop told the story about Jesse Grimm fixing Tim Culler’s magneto in no time at all that they started offering Jesse Grimm a coke case to sit on when he came into Teel’s Store. Then one night when Matt Teel had been fussing about all the ice cream that had melted because something had gone wrong with the freezing machine on his ice cream cabinet, Jesse had fixed that, too. After the ice cream had started getting hard again Matt had said, “Captain Jesse, it’s a mighty good thing you decided to come here.” After that everybody had started calling him “Captain Jesse.” Being an Eastern Shore “captain” was something like being a Kentucky “colonel,” only it meant more. The governor of Maryland couldn’t write up any kind of a paper that made the Teel-store regulars call a man “Captain Jesse.”

  Jesse Grimm stopped his car back of the gas pumps, so Matt Teel wouldn’t come running out, and walked up the path. The gritty crunch of the oyster shells under his feet made a good sound in his ears. His nostrils tingled with the spicy scent of salt water and marsh grass that filled the soft sundown breeze.

  “Well if it ain’t Captain Jesse!” Matt greeted him as soon as he stepped through the door. “Just talking about you—wondering if you were a-coming or if you weren’t a-coming.”

  A voice out of the shadows called, “I knowed he was coming or I’da been fishing all week,” and a gale of appreciative laughter went up from the regulars. They had been joking about how Abe had better keep carpentering on Captain Jesse’s new shop if he ever wanted to get his wife’s washing machine running again.

  “Don’t tell me that wife of yours has kept you working all week,” Jesse said.

  Again the laughter rolled. Abe’s wife was one of the redheaded Connor girls and everybody knew she could do a lot of hell-raising when her washing machine wasn’t working.

  “If I hadn’ta done it, she’da made me sleep down to the crab house—sweet as she is on Captain Jesse there,” Abe said. You couldn’t get ahead of Abe. He could give it back as good as it came.

  Jesse’s laughter rang out with the rest—and it was laughter that no one in Millburgh had ever heard. Someone shoved a box toward him.

  “No, can’t stay,” Jesse said. “Have to get down home or Sarah’ll have me sleeping in the crab house, too. Kind of late tonight. Got held up.”

  “That’s what we figured,” somebody said.

  There was a lull in the laughter and Matt Teel came up to him with a torn scrap of brown paper. “Telephone call came for you, Captain Jesse. You’re to call this man. Said up to nine he’d be at his office. After that you was to call him to home.”

  The name on the paper was “Fredrik Allerton.”

  Matt wasn’t much on spelling but he ran a good store. There wasn’t anything from roofing cement to dill pickles that you couldn’t buy at Teel’s Store.

  Matt was looking at his watch. “Twenty after nine. Guess that means you’re to call to his home.”

  Jesse started for the telephone. He had to pass Abe on the way. “You really been working, Abe?”

  “Sure have, Captain Jesse. Got all them windows in, every last one.”

  “Got the doors hung?”

  Abe slapped his bony knee. “I told your wife that’s what you’d ask, but she said she was going to have them closet shelves of hers first or you and me was both going to get scalped—so I figured it better be closet shelves.”

  Jesse led the laughter, pushing past Abe to get to the telephone.

  Everyone sat in respectful silence while the operator tried to put the call through but there was no answer at Frederick Alderson’s residence in Millburgh.

  “Guess it isn’t anything that can’t wait until morning,” Jesse said. “Got to get down home.”

  Herb Tilligas followed him to the door. “Captain Jesse, you folks like a mess of soft crabs?”

  “Sure would, Captain Herb.”

  “I’ll be bringing ’em tomorrow.”

  Jesse Grimm went out chuckling to himself … water pump on Herb’s boat must be acting up again.

  MILLBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

  9.21 P.M. EDT

  Driving out North Front Street, Frederick Alderson had been telling Don Walling about his call from Julia Tredway Prince.

  “You say that it was this man Pilcher who was trying to get the stock,” Don asked, “and that he’s a friend of Shaw’s?”

  “Don’t you remember Shaw talking about him—the time we were discussing that price protection contract for Odessa Stores?”

  Don nodded vaguely. “I still don’t get the point, Fred.”

  “Can’t you see, Don—Shaw was trying to get his hands on more stock so that he’d have some extra pressure on Avery Bullard?”
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br />   “Because he thought he could force himself in as executive vice-president?”

  “Of course. It wouldn’t have worked—not with Avery Bullard—but Shaw’s too much of a fool to realize that.”

  “But why was he working through Pilcher?”

  “That’s plain enough—to keep Julia from finding out what was going on. Shaw knows that she’s close to Avery Bullard—that she’d never do anything he didn’t want her to do. They were pretty close, you know—closer than a lot of people realize. I mean—well, I’ve just been thinking about that—wondering whether I really ought to try and talk to her tonight—so soon. Unless I miss my guess, she’s going to be pretty much broken up.”

  Alderson leaned down to look at his watch in a stray beam of light that fell from the instrument panel. “Sort of late, too—maybe I’d better wait until morning to see her.”

  They rode for a moment in silence and then Don Walling felt himself impelled to ask. “Do you think there is any chance, Fred, that Mrs. Prince might change her attitude toward the company now that Avery Bullard is dead—that she might sell her stock?”

  Alderson hesitated. “I was thinking about the same thing. Yes, I’d better see her tonight. She’ll probably appreciate my stopping, anyway. It’s right up here in the next block, Don. Just drop me off. I can walk home afterward.”

  They were already at the corner and Don Walling touched the brakes, pulling in toward the long white wall that guarded the old Tredway home from the street, stopping where the wall opened for the driveway.

  Alderson started to get out and then, suddenly he was frozen into immobility.

  Walling turned in quick alarm. “Fred, what’s the—”

  Then he saw it. Loren Shaw’s car was already parked in the drive.

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  9.09 P.M. CDT

  The trained eyes of the airport porters watched the passengers coming in through Gate 9, expertly calculating their potentialities. Three made an almost simultaneous lunge for the handsome, prematurely gray man who was obviously the pick of the lot. The quickest-footed won and J. Walter Dudley handed over his checks.

  Walt Dudley was not unaware of what had happened, nor was he surprised. It was a form of flattery to which he had long been accustomed. He liked it. It was worth that oversized tip that he would be honor-bound to bestow. He knew that it would be several minutes before the bags came in off the plane, so he sauntered toward the newsstand. An overheard crowd voice said, “No, that’s Eastern time. It’s only nine-fifteen here in Chicago.”

  Nine-fifteen … the whole evening left … hotel room … alone. No, he would not call Eva Harding! That decision was made. He wasn’t even thinking about her. Anyway, the telephone booths were all in use. This time it was different … this time he meant it … this time he wouldn’t give in to himself. Why should he? What did it mean? Where could it lead? Nowhere but trouble. No, that wasn’t fair to Eva. She’d never cause him any trouble. It wasn’t fair to think things like that … made her sound cheap and common. The least he could do was to be fair to her. Eva would never cause trouble … no strings … no demands … nothing. That’s why it was so easy to break it off … but that’s why it was hard, too! But he had made the right decision … the only decision … never call her again.

  The fat woman in the bright blue dress was backing out of the end telephone booth. It was empty … waiting …

  He turned away, snapping his head around, and when his eyes focused he saw a girl who had just rushed into a man’s arms. Her lithe young body arched inward, reaching, and there was the mind-feeling of the soft crushing of her breasts and the hard backpress of her thighs. He walked quickly away, his eyes on the baggage counter.

  The bags hadn’t come in yet and he stood in the long low-ceilinged corridor, looking out through the window at the endless yellow, yellow, yellow of the taxicabs sliding past. It was a good thing he had made his decision. It would be so easy … all he had to do was not say, “Palmer House”… say, “Thirty-two forty-four north—”

  “Your bags, sir. Cab, sir?”

  The dollar bill—“Thank you, sir, thank you very much”—and then another voice saying, “Where to, Mac?”

  For a moment, he had a hard time answering “Palmer House.” It always annoyed J. Walter Dudley to be called “Mac.”

  All the way down to the Loop he kept telling himself how much easier it was not to think of her than he had imagined it would be.

  It was still two minutes before ten when he came into the lobby of the Palmer House … two minutes to eleven in Millburgh. He would get a good night’s sleep … store it up. There were two weeks of market ahead. But this market wouldn’t be so bad … more sleep. Yes, he’d made the right decision … no more losing sleep … no more of those never-sleeping nights with Eva … no more of …

  “Check your mail, sir?” a bellboy said, eager to please.

  “Yes, thank you—J. Walter Dudley.”

  A sheath of white satin floated up the stairway to the Empire Room and the body within undulated with the steps … that man following her was a fool … wasn’t going to get a good night’s sleep. Eva had never wanted to come to the Empire Room … “It’s silly, darling, to be anywhere else when we can be here.” Silly … yes, silly … silly to be anywhere else when …

  “Two telephone messages, sir. Which are your bags, sir?”

  He pointed, stripping the little envelopes from the two messages that the bellboy handed him. CALL MR PEARSON AS SOON AS YOU GET IN. Pearson was the manager of the Chicago office. CALL MR SHAW IN MILLBURGH PA IMMEDIATELY

  He placed the call to Loren Shaw as soon as he got to his room, without waiting to take off his hat, tipping the bellboy a dollar and acknowledging his salute while the call was going through.

  After what seemed like an interminable delay, the operator said, “I’m sorry, sir, we are unable to locate Mr. Shaw. Shall I try again in twenty minutes?”

  “Don’t wait twenty minutes, keep trying.”

  Then he called Pearson, and it was from Larry Pearson that he learned of the death of Avery Bullard.

  Less than an hour later a keen-eyed redcap in the Union Station spotted a handsome gentleman getting out of a cab, the kind of a gentleman who was usually good for a folding-money tip.

  Sitting in Roomette 5, waiting for the train to start, J. Walter Dudley checked back over the fast moves that he made in the pellmell hour since he had talked to Larry Pearson. The meeting was all set … Pearson could handle it … cancel the appointments for tomorrow afternoon … hold the others until the funeral time was set … shift the Tuesday meeting to Thursday. Pearson would keep on trying to get Shaw … tell him that he was on the train.

  The porter passed the open door.

  “Porter?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Do we make any stops during the night that would give me time enough to make a telephone call?”

  “No, sir. No stops that long, sir.”

  It was all right. Even if he hadn’t talked to Shaw there was no question that getting back to Millburgh was the right thing to do. Too bad there wasn’t a plane tonight … but getting in at nine-forty-five in the morning wouldn’t be too bad. Everything was under control in Chicago … Pearson could handle it … and Eva would understand why he hadn’t called when she read about Avery Bullard’s death. She would be sure to see it in the morning paper.

  MILLBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

  11.40 P.M. EDT

  Mary Walling lay waiting in the darkness, holding her own breath so that she could hear the sound of her husband’s breathing. It was soft and even-spaced and she decided that he must be asleep. She was alone now and free to think the thoughts that she had been afraid to think before because of the fear that he might read them in her face.

  This had been one of those difficult evenings—the most difficult of all—when she had been forced to balance on the knife edge that separated hindrance from help. One moment Don would ask her opinion, but the n
ext moment he would seem to resent her offering it.

  There were times when Mary Walling found her husband a frighteningly mysterious man, when the strange processes by which his mind worked were completely beyond her understanding, yet the fear and the mystery and the lack of understanding in no way diminished her love. They only increased her desire to help him, to be more a part of him, to share his life more completely. That was why, again tonight, she lay awake in the darkness.

  At the root of her difficulty was the fact that Don’s mind worked in such a different way from her own that she could never reconstruct the pattern of his thinking. Actually, as she often told herself, Don did not think—at least not in the sense that she thought of thinking. He disliked the orderly setting down of fact against fact, and seemed to instinctively side-step any answer that was dictated by pure logic and reason. He never seemed to study a problem with the intense concentration that she would have applied. Instead, he appeared to skitter about over its surface, snatching up disconnected facts here and there, jumbling them together in a mental tangle that lacked all semblance of order. Yet—and of this fact her intelligence had by now made Mary Walling acutely aware—the end result was often a brilliant flash of pure creative imagination of which her own mind could never have been capable. She had learned that lesson a hundred times. The last time it had been their house.

  For years she had clipped house plans and details. They jammed two carefully indexed file drawers. A notebook bulged with meticulously made checklists, corrected and recorrected with every new idea that she had uncovered in her reading. Yet, when they had finally decided to build, it had been almost impossible for her to hold Don’s attention long enough to get him to study what she had done. He shuffled clippings so rapidly that she was sure he couldn’t have seen them. He turned the pages of her notebook so fast that reading would have been impossible. When he finally settled down to the drawing board, her files were neglected and the notebook was unopened. The fast sketches that he tossed off, one after another, drove her to almost unendurable exasperation. Any sketch that pleased her, any sketch that bore even a faint resemblance to something that she had liked and put in the clipping file, he perversely tore up. The sketches that he saved evidenced neither reason nor logic. She had almost, but not quite, driven herself to the ultimate extremity of suggesting that they retain an architect, when Don had sat down and, in an astoundingly short time, without a single false move, had designed a house totally unlike any house pictured in the clipping file, unlike any house that she had ever seen, and yet by some strange miracle it was exactly the home she had always wanted. When it was built all of those things in her unread notebook were there.