“Of course I’m right. Monday’s no day not to be in Millburgh.”
He knew what she meant … things would be happening in Millburgh … out of sight, out of mind. She was right.
KENT COUNTY, MARYLAND
10.18 A.M. EDT
“Goodness, Jesse, I don’t know what we’re going to do with a whole dozen soft crabs.”
“Eat ’em. You never really had a soft crab until you ate one just out of the water like that.”
Sarah Grimm opened the refrigerator door. “What did he charge you, Jesse?”
“Charge? Nothing. Herb was just being friendly,” he said, not thinking it necessary to say that he had spent an hour tinkering Herb’s water pump. That was just being friendly, too.
“That’s nice, isn’t it?” She was moving the milk bottles and the butter jar so that the crabs could be right next to the freezing unit. “Down here it’s a lot like it used to be in Pittsburgh, isn’t it, Jesse? Remember the time that Mrs. Kerchek brought over that Polish soup when you had the flu?”
He watched her, wondering if she wasn’t being a little too cheerful, trying to keep his mind off Avery Bullard’s death. “Sarah?”
She turned, wiping her hands.
“Sarah, you sure we’re doing the right thing? If you wanted it, you could be the wife of the president of the Tredway Corporation.”
Her little smile was as quick as her voice. “I’d rather have free soft-shell crabs and a live husband to eat them.”
“Okay, Sarah, I just wanted to be sure.”
“You aren’t going to regret it, are you, Jesse?”
He looked at her for a long time. “Not if you figure you can stand me around underfoot all day long.”
“I guess I’ll manage,” she said, looking at him sidewise, the way she used to do years ago when she was expecting to be kissed.
NEW YORK CITY
10.21 A.M. EDT
The dress hung in soft scarlet folds over the clerk’s arm. “Will this be a charge or will you pay for it?”
“I got the money here,” Anne Finnick said. She stepped back into the dressing room and pulled the curtain. It wasn’t any of that snooty clerk’s business how much money she had. Some of the bills still looked kind of funny from being all soaked the way they were, but she found three twenties that looked all right.
WEST COVE, LONG ISLAND
10.24 A.M. EDT
“But, George darling, you can’t!” Kitty Caswell squealed in horror-stricken anguish. “We have to go to Nancy Brighton’s wedding this afternoon at six.”
She had been put out when he came home to pack a bag and had surprised him as he was leaving a note for her on the front-hall table.
“I’m sorry, Kitty, but I have no choice. Something very important has come up.”
“What?”
“It’s just business, dear. Don’t bother your pretty little head about it.”
“I want to know.”
“Kitty darling, I—”
“Tell me.”
He took a deep breath that barely escaped being a sigh. “A very unscrupulous man is trying to get control of the Tredway Corporation and I have to stop him.”
“Who?”
“No one you’d know, dear. Now I do have to hurry or—”
“What’s his name?”
He took another deep breath. “His name is Pilcher.”
“Pilcher?”
“Now, dear—” He lifted his bag.
“No,” she nodded in studied agreement. “We’ve never had him to dinner. I’m sure of that.”
“And we never will!”
He started to plant a farewell kiss, but her voice held his lips away. “Is he really unscrupulous?”
“Very!”
“Maybe we should have him to dinner, George. He sounds interesting. All of the other people we know are so terribly scrupulous.”
“Kitty, don’t be a fool!” he said too sharply, immediately softening his voice to wipe the spanked child look from her face. “I’m sorry, dear, but I do have to go.”
“All right,” she said contritely, tiptoeing up for the kiss.
He said what he hadn’t intended to say. “Maybe I can be back in time for the wedding.”
She glanced at his bag. “You’re just saying that.”
“It’s only an hour each way and with some luck I might get through in time.”
“An hour?”
“I called Ronnie and he’s letting me have his plane.”
“Oh, George, no! Not in that awful little plane.”
“Darling, it’s not a little plane—it’s his company’s DC 3 and they have—”
Unaccountably, she quickly pulled down his face and kissed him again, fervent and crushing, and then quickly broke away. “Hurry, dear, or you won’t get back in time.”
12
MILLBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
10.29 A.M. EDT
Don Walling had been at the Federal Club for a full half-hour waiting for Alderson to arrive. How in hell could the old man have taken that much time to get rid of Dudley … even if he had driven him all the way home? Talk! Yes, damn it, that was Alderson’s trouble … talk, talk, talk … but they were a pair, Alderson and Dudley … probably sitting out there now yapping their heads off.
The long wait had sensitized his nerve ends until every sound was an irritation. From behind the closed doors of the Wagon Room, he heard the crash of a heavy object and jumped up to begin another aimless pacing of the room. Why had Alderson wanted to meet him here in this godforsaken place? The Federal Club was a damned morgue at any time of day … all the worse at ten-thirty in the forenoon.
Footsteps sounded in the hall and he wheeled to face the door. It was only an old man shuffling past toward the kitchen. He looked like a flophouse bum, but a glimpse of his face made Don Walling recognize him as one of the old waiters who, after he was attired in his immaculate uniform, would become the social arbiter upon whom Federal Club members would call to verify their own high standing when out-of-town guests were present … “Yes sir, old Joe here remembers when my father used to bring me in here when I was only a kid in knickers, don’t you, Joe?”… and old Joe, or Harry, or George, or whoever it was, would always say, “Yes,” because the waiters were a part of the club, too, and as anxious to have an honored past as any of the regular members.
The past! Yes, that was the trouble with the Federal Club crowd … and a hell of a lot of other people, too. They thought the past meant something. It didn’t! The past was done … finished … water over the dam. There was nothing you could do about it. Yesterday didn’t matter. It was today that counted … today and tomorrow and next week and next month. God, but there was a lot to do … get that experimental press rigged and no damned makeshift setup, either … push that work on the highspeed dry kiln to get rid of that honeycombing … and don’t try to tell me it can’t be done because it can … burn the tail off those railroad boys for another siding at Pike Street and keep burning until you get some action because one of these days we’re going to need that warehouse and all hell will break loose if …
“Oh good morning, Mr. Walling.” It was a voice that sounded as if it had been breathed over a lapel carnation. Don Walling turned to recognize the club steward. He had stepped out of the Wagon Room, hastily closing the door as if to guard the room’s secret contents.
Walling was surprised that the steward knew his name because, on the infrequent occasions when he came to the club for lunch, the steward always managed to be fully occupied with the window-tables that were secretly reserved for the members whose ancestry traced to an old North Front family.
“Dear, dear,” the steward said. “So very sad about Mr. Bullard, isn’t it? One of our most valued members. A splendid man, splendid indeed.” He spied a stray scrap of paper on the floor and his arm pecked down for it like the long neck of a feeding bird. “You must excuse us, Mr. Walling. This time of the morning we’re not quite tidied up, you know. It’s rare i
ndeed to have one of our good members put in an appearance before noon.”
“I’m waiting for Mr. Alderson,” Walling said in forced explanation. “He’s meeting me here.”
“Oh, Mr. Alderson? Yes, indeed! Splendid man, isn’t he, splendid, indeed.” A thought seemed to strike him and he raised his hand as if he were holding a teacup. “Perhaps while you’re waiting—there’s Mr. Alderson now.”
“I’m sorry it took so long,” Alderson said in weary apology. He was breathing hard as if he had been walking rapidly. “I thought the best thing to do was to run him out to his house. Taking him to the office would have meant dumping him into Shaw’s lap.”
Walling found himself nodding in agreement. Alderson’s apologetic manner had already dulled the edge of his annoyance. “Where can we talk?”
“Upstairs in one of the cardrooms?” It was a question, not a statement, and Alderson’s voice seemed resignedly apprehensive.
Climbing the stairs, Don Walling thought for the first time of what he might say to Alderson. The preplanning of conversation was something that he seldom did, but he was aware now of the special difficulty he faced. He couldn’t come right out and say that he—Don Walling—was the man who should be president of the Tredway Corporation. Of course, Alderson had said practically the same thing out there at his house this morning … but he’d have to get Alderson to say it again and then make him see his mistake about Dudley. Yes, that would be the best way to do it … but damn it, he couldn’t fool around too long humoring the old codger … there was work to be done!
The cardroom they entered was one of several cubicles that had been sleeping rooms a hundred years ago when the club had been the Federal Tavern. There was little more space than was needed for a round green-felted table and its circle of chairs. Walling brushed the wall as he edged in and sat down. He saw Alderson hesitate and for an instant he thought it was a sign of subservience, waiting to be asked to sit, but a glance at his face erased that possibility. Alderson’s hesitance was something else and he couldn’t be quite sure what it was.
“Well, what happened?” Walling asked crisply, breaking the silence.
Alderson looked surprised, as if he hadn’t expected the question. “I told you. I drove him out to his house.”
“What did he say?”
“Say? I didn’t tell him anything, so there wasn’t anything for him to say.”
“You must have talked about something.”
There was a rack of poker chips in the center of the table and Alderson reached out and picked a blue chip off the top of the stack. “We—he talked about Avery Bullard.”
Walling leaned forward, his elbows on the table, softening his voice in an uncalculated effort to ease the tenseness. “Fred, I know you must have thought I was crazy, grabbing you at the station like that, but I had to do it. When I got over to the office and started thinking about what the president of the company had to be—the things he’d have to do—damn it, Fred, can’t you see it? Walt Dudley couldn’t swing it. There just isn’t enough there—not enough strength—not enough anything. He can’t do it, that’s all!”
Alderson was methodically stacking blue chips. “I thought he might—with you there to help him.”
There was the opening! It had come easier than he expected, sooner than he had anticipated. “All that means, Fred, is that I’d have to do the job.”
“He’d help you,” Alderson said, but without conviction.
“No. That’s what I could see after I started to think about it. Walt wouldn’t help me. He’d be a hindrance—a millstone around my neck—something that I’d have to push out of the way every time I wanted to get anything done.”
He saw Alderson’s trembling hand touch the stack of chips and they fell with a slithering clatter. Why didn’t Alderson say something? All right, let him keep quiet … Alderson didn’t matter, anyway! Where had he gotten this crazy idea that it was Alderson who would decide … that the presidency was something that Alderson could hand out? Who the hell did Alderson think he was … he’d never been anything but a clerk … nothing but a …
“I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you this,” Alderson said, his voice so low that Walling had to relisten to the echoed memory of the words before he could be sure that he had heard them.
“Tell me what?”
Alderson restacked the chips. “I didn’t want to tell you this because—because there wasn’t anything that could be done about it and—well, I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about Jesse.”
“Jesse?”
“When I called him this morning—”
He saw Alderson’s face slacken, as if the words that had come to his lips were too heavy to speak. What was he going to pull now … another one of those cock and bull stories to excuse himself … like that business this morning about his wife not wanting him to …
Alderson took a deep breath and his rising shoulders lifted his head. “When I talked to Jesse this morning, it was my idea to make you the new president—but Jesse wouldn’t go along.”
The mainspring snapped. “Jesse wouldn’t—what do you mean?”
“I’ve told you that much—suppose I might as well tell you the rest,” Alderson said wearily, his forefinger slowly tapping the top of the chip stack. “Jesse said that he’d vote with me—for whoever I decided—as long as it wasn’t either Shaw or you.”
“Shaw or—Fred, I—I can’t believe that—Jesse and I have always been friends—worked together—I can’t believe that he feels that way about me.”
“Don’t ask me why.”
“I am asking you why.”
“I don’t know.”
“What else did he say?”
“Nothing. I tried to talk to him—but you know how Jesse is.”
Alderson looked at him and there was the misery of compassion in his eyes. “That’s one thing you learn when you get to be an old man—the thing I said this morning—I was thinking about this then—you never really know what’s in any man’s mind. You think you do, but you don’t. Sometimes you don’t even know what’s in your own mind until something comes along and forces you into finding out.”
“I guess that’s right,” Don Walling mumbled, staring down at the bull’s-eye of a gray ring that someone’s highball glass had left on the green felt. “Fred, I owe you an apology. At least—well, I want to thank you for the way you felt about me.”
“Don’t feel too badly about Jesse. He’s a strange man—always has been.”
The admonition was a reminder, a catalyst that suddenly transformed disappointment into anger. “It’s a damned good thing he is retiring! A two-faced bastard that would—”
“Wait!” Alderson said with unexpected sharpness. “There’s no reason to—”
“How would you feel if a man you’d trusted stabbed you in the back?”
“That’s happened,” Alderson said with disarming mildness.
“I know, but—”
“There’s no reason why this has to change anything,” Alderson said. “I’m sorry I had to tell you—I knew how you’d feel—but, at least, you realize now that making Dudley president wasn’t just an old man’s crazy idea. You’ll be executive vice-president and that will put you in a spot where—”
“If Jesse wouldn’t vote for me for president, why will he vote for me as executive vice-president?”
Alderson picked up the chips and let them click through the cage of his fingers. “Because there isn’t anything else that he can do. It has to be either you or Shaw and—well, I think I can make Jesse see that it ought to be you.”
The chair fell as Walling stood up, crashing into the silence. He made no move to pick it up. “In that case, Jesse can go to hell and you can tell him so with my compliments.”
He kicked the chair out of the way, pushing toward the door.
Another chair fell as Alderson blocked the way. “Don’t take it this way, Don. We need you—the company needs you—”
“But
I don’t need the company,” he flashed. He didn’t! No! To hell with it! If that was all he was … a bad second choice for Shaw …
Blindly, he shoved through the door and started down the hall. Alderson’s following footsteps were only the pursuit of something that had to be escaped.
10.50 A.M. EDT
Julia Tredway Prince stepped into the closet, her fingertips playing over the hangers. She was trying to decide what dress she would wear. It was a difficult decision to make because she felt impelled to reject what she liked best. It was important not to be too well dressed. That Martin woman would probably turn up in something dull and secretaryish and there would be barrier enough between them without adding the additional block of making her feel self-conscious about her clothes. She had to put her at ease, get her talking. That was why she had told Nina that they would have lunch in the breakfast room … if she decided to have her stay for lunch … and the lunch would be nothing but what a secretary would normally eat, consommé and a chicken salad sandwich.
She pulled out an old black crepe and decided that it would do if she took off the rhinestone clips.
10.54 A.M. EDT
The dregs of anger can be either a sedative or a stimulant, depending upon the mind in which they settle. To Don Walling, as he entered the lobby of the Tredway Tower, they were both in alternation. A dozen times in the last five minutes his emotions had swung the cycle from depression to determination.
He had escaped Alderson with the excuse that he would rather walk than ride, but there was no escape from the memory of Jesse Grimm’s treachery. He had coldly and maliciously robbed him of his destiny … destroying the whole point and purpose of his existence … and there was no way to stop him.
Don Walling slumped again with the listlessness of hopeless despair—but then came the quick counterreaction, the surge of fighting spirit that was so close to the basic urge for self-preservation that it took on the same blindly desperate quality. He wouldn’t be licked! He couldn’t be!
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