Executive Suite

by Cameron Hawley

  She watched him as he rose from his chair and in the act of standing he seemed a giant breaking shackes that had held him to the earth … shaking loose the ties that had bound him to the blind worship of Avery Bullard. He stood alone now … free.

  “There was one thing that Avery Bullard never understood,” Don Walling went on. “He never realized that other men had to be proud, too—that the force behind a great company had to be more than the pride of one man—that it had to be the pride of thousands of men. A company is like an army—it fights on its pride. You can’t win wars with paychecks. In all the history of the world there’s never been a great army of mercenaries. You can’t pay a man enough to make him lay down his life. He wants more than money. Maybe Avery Bullard knew that once—maybe he’d just forgotten it—but that’s where he made his mistake. He was a little lost these last few years. He’d won his fight to build a great company. The building was over—at least for the time being. There had to be something else to satisfy his pride—bigger sales—more profit—something. That’s when we started doing things like making the sixteen-hundred series.”

  He turned and confronted Dudley. “Are your boys proud when they sell the sixteen-hundred series—when they know that the finish is going to crack and the veneer split off and the legs come loose?”

  “But that’s price merchandise,” Dudley said in fumbling defense. “There’s a need for it. We’re not cheating anyone. At that price the customers know that they can’t get—”

  “How do you suppose the men in the factory feel when they make it?” Don Walling demanded. His eyes shifted from Dudley to Shaw. “What do you imagine they think of a management that’s willing to stoop to selling that kind of junk in order to add a penny a year to the dividend? Do you know that there are men at Pike Street who have refused to work on the sixteen-hundred line—that there are men who have taken a cut of four cents an hour to get transferred to something else?”

  “No, I wasn’t aware of that,” Shaw said—and the weakness of his voice signaled the first thin crack in his armor. “I don’t suppose it would hurt too much if we dropped that line. After all, it’s a small part of our business.”

  A voice in Mary Walling’s mind wanted to shout out at her husband, urging him to drive in for the kill that would clinch his victory. Couldn’t he see that Shaw was defeated … that Caswell was nodding his approval … that Walt Dudley was waiting only to be commanded?

  But Don Walling turned, looking out of the window, and his voice seemed faraway as if it were coming from the top of the distant white shaft of the Tredway Tower. “Yes, we’ll drop that line. We’ll never again ask a man to do anything that will poison his pride in himself. We’ll have a new line of low-priced furniture someday—a different kind of furniture—as different from anything we’re making now as a modern automobile is different from an old Mills wagon. When we get it, then we’ll really start to grow.”

  His voice came back into the room. “We talk about Tredway being a big company now. It isn’t. We’re kidding ourselves. Yes, we’re one of the biggest furniture manufacturers but what does it mean? Nothing! Furniture is close to a two-billion-dollar industry but it’s all split up among thirty-six hundred manufacturers. We have about three per cent of the total—that’s all, just three per cent. Look at other industries—the percentage that the top manufacturer has. What if General Motors had sat back and stopped growing when it had three per cent of the automobile industry? We haven’t even started to grow! Suppose we get fifteen per cent of the total—and why not, it’s been done in a dozen industries? Fifteen per cent and the Tredway Corporation will be five times as big as it is today. All right, I know it hasn’t been done before in the furniture business, but does that mean we can’t do it? No—because that’s exactly what we are going to do!”

  His voice had built to a crescendo, to the moment that demanded the shout of an answering chorus—and then in the instant before the sound could have broken through the shock of silence, Mary Walling saw a tension-breaking smile on her husband’s face. In the split second that it took her eyes to sweep the room, she saw that the smile was mirrored in all the faces that looked up at him … even in the face of Loren Shaw.

  She had sensed, a few minutes before, that Shaw was defeated, but she had expected a last struggle, a final flare of resistance. It had not come. Instinctively, she understood what had happened. In that last moment, Loren Shaw had suddenly become aware that his brain had been set aflame by a spark from Don Walling’s mind—a spark that he himself could never have supplied. Now he was fired to accomplishments that had been far beyond the limits of his imagination. Mary Walling understood the faintly bewildered quality of Shaw’s smile, because she, too—long ago—had found it mysteriously strange that Don’s mind was so unlike her own.

  George Caswell was standing, extending his hand. “We’re all behind you, Don. I can promise you that.”

  “Yes sir, Don, you bet we are!” Walt Dudley boomed.

  Shaw shook hands silently but it was a gesture that needed no words to make it a pledge of loyalty.

  And now Julia Tredway Prince was standing, too. “I think the occasion calls for a toast. Dwight, would you mind—yes, Nina, what is it?”

  Nina was standing in the doorway. “There’s a telephone call for Mr. Walling. The gentleman says it’s very urgent.”

  Dwight Prince stepped forward. “There’s an extension in the back hall. Come and I’ll show you.”

  Mary saw that Julia was about to speak to her but George Caswell stepped up as an interruption.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to run along. The plane’s waiting and I—well, I have to be back in New York for a wedding at six. I’ll be down on Monday, of course.”

  “And you’ll stay over for the board meeting on Tuesday,” Julia said.

  “As far as I’m concerned, it’s all settled now,” George Caswell said. “But you’re quite right—we do need the formal action of the board.”

  Mary realized that at some missed moment Julia’s hand had found her own and that the world had become an out-of-focus haze filled with drifting faces and floating words … Shaw … Dudley … Erica Martin … all saying the same unsaid thing in a different way … and then, slowly, the consciousness dawned that there was another voice saying something else and the voice seemed to come from the warm, tight-holding grip that held her hand. She was alone with Julia Tredway Prince.

  “You should be very proud, Mary.”

  “I am—but frightened, too.”

  “Because you don’t understand him?”

  She felt her mind go blank with amazement. How could Julia Tredway Prince know … how could anyone know?

  “Don’t worry about it, my dear,” Julia said. “You’ll never understand him completely. Don’t try. You’ll be happier if you don’t. He’ll be happier, too. Not understanding will make you very lonely sometimes, Mary—when he shuts you away behind a closed door—when you think he’s forgotten you—but then the door will open and he’ll come back and you’ll know how fortunate you were to have been his wife.”

  “I know, I know,” she murmured, making no move to wipe away the tears in her own eyes because she saw that there were untouched tears in the eyes of Julia Tredway Prince. It was only after her memory echoed what Julia had said that she realized those last words had been in the past tense. Was it possible that Julia had …?

  There was the interruption of a sound like distant wind chimes.

  Nina stood before them, uncertainly, holding a tray filled with glasses and an opened bottle of champagne. “Mr. Prince said to bring eight glasses, but—”

  “Thank you, Nina.” Julia took the tray from her hands and put it gently on the desk.

  As her hand touched the offered glass, Mary Walling understood, for one fleeting instant, the miracle of her husband’s mind. Now it had happened to her! She knew without knowing why she knew … and as if it were something done in a dream she was raising her glass and saying, “To Avery
Bullard.”

  There was a long moment, a moment that could not be filled with old tears or old wine, but only with the silence of two women who shared a secret that bridged the ending of one world and the beginning of another.

  “Thank you,” Julia said.

  When Don Walling came back into the room they were standing at the window that looked out on the Tredway Tower. It had been a long time since there had been a word between them. There had been no need for words.

  They turned together.

  “Sorry it took so long,” he said. “There was some trouble about the connection. The others go?”

  Julia nodded. “Is Dwight coming back?”

  “I believe he’s still talking to Walt Dudley. I heard their voices in the garden. Loren Shaw is driving George Caswell out to the airport.”

  “That was Fred Alderson on the phone,” Don Walling said. “You know, he did the darndest thing—drove all the way down to Maryland to see Jesse Grimm. Good thing he did—cleared up a misunderstanding—but I can’t imagine why he’d go to all of that trouble for me.”

  Julia’s eyes twinkled with taunting amusement. “Of course it’s possible that he didn’t do it for you—he might have done it for the company.”

  His face slowly softened into a boyish grin and, even without understanding, Mary Walling’s heart raced exultantly when she heard him laugh and say, “All right, I’ll learn. Just give me a little time.”

  He hadn’t changed! He would never change … she must never think that he would. Julia was right … don’t try to understand him … yes, that had always been her trouble. It was only when she had tried to understand him that she had been afraid. She would never be afraid again … never!

  3.20 P.M. EDT

  Slowly, the on-edge platter of the earth fell back to a sensible horizontal and George Caswell eased back into his seat. The plane, he reasoned, had taken a long climbing turn into the southwest wind and now they were passing over Millburgh again, heading east. They were only a few hundred feet above the earth—perhaps as much as a thousand now—but the city had taken on a very different look, dwarfed to inconsequence by the widening rim of the horizon. The Tredway Tower, which his eyes sought out as the center point of orientation, had become startlingly insignificant. In truth, as he now saw, it was not a tower at all.

  The brown band of the muddy river slipped past the edge of the porthole and the earth, rising to the high land beyond the cliff edge, lifted the airport into the sharp focus of his eyes. The plane that he had noticed beside the runway before their take-off was now a yellow insect feeding on the green earth … and the black bug that crawled toward the thin gray line of the highway was Loren Shaw’s car.

  A smile began to form on George Caswell’s face, wavering and indeterminate, undecided between amusement and compassion. There was, as always, the temptation to smile at these very earnest young men like Loren Shaw who took life so seriously, yet you couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for them, too. There were so many things they didn’t understand … why Don was so different … different because of something that you couldn’t reason into credibility … something that was beyond explaining with words … as a Beethoven Symphony was beyond explaining with the rules of harmony, or a Cezanne painting with a recital of the theory of composition.

  It was discouraging, of course, when you were young and ambitious to be forced to recognize that you were not one of those chosen few … but when you were older and wiser it was a great comfort to know that there were still men like that being born, that the cult of mediocrity had not yet sterilized the womb of the earth … that it never would … that there would always be men like Avery Bullard and Don Walling and all the others who were the builders of great companies and great institutions and great nations. No, all of the men who sat at the tops of all of the towers were not men of that stripe … there weren’t enough to go around … so there were the fakirs and the charlatans, too … the hangers-on, the jackals and the vultures … the Bruce Pilchers.

  George Caswell’s smile hardened with grim satisfaction as he thought of how shocked Shaw had been when he had told him about what Pilcher had done. He had been right to tell him … yes, that was a part of Shaw’s education … learning that there were men like that … the money-mad and the greed-crazed … not as many as the public thought there were, but still enough so that a man had to be taught to be on his guard … not, of course, that Shaw needed that kind of teaching but still it was a lesson that it didn’t hurt anyone to learn.

  Yes, Shaw was a good man … but a little naive, too … worrying that Walling might have gotten the wrong impression because he had pushed so hard for recognition of the importance of financial management. No need to worry … a president expected his vice-presidents to push their specialties … and Shaw had been right … the financial side of the business was important … required a lot of attention. They would never be able to finance those ideas of Walling’s out of earnings alone. There would have to be a lot of securities sold … a debenture issue this fall … probably another next year … common as soon as the market looked right for it.

  Unconsciously, George Caswell’s habit-trained fingers had reached for his notebook and slipped out the little gold pencil that was tucked in its pin-seal cover. He flipped a page and the blank paper suggested a note. He wrote it—a reminder to speak to Kitty about inviting the Wallings to come over for a weekend … sometime soon … but not this next weekend or the one after … wait until the Whaler’s Cup races were out of the way.

  3.32 P.M. EDT

  Stealthily, like an invader in his own home, J. Walter Dudley tiptoed across the dining room and opened the kitchen door, opening it only wide enough at first to make certain that he was alone. Then, assured, he stood and stared into the coldly gleaming room, waiting for its reflected whiteness to burn the black shadows out of his mind.

  His heart slowed its beat. He could breathe again. Resolutely, he walked to the far wall and opened the little white-enameled door. His closed hand reached in, the fingers opened and a crumpled wad of yellow paper fell down the black shaft. Almost instantly, there was the quick light of a distant flame as the incinerator consumed the telegram.

  With the flash of the flame there was the flash of regret that he had not read it once more. But there was no need of that. He could remember. He would always remember. He could read it any time he wanted to read it. It would always be in his mind.

  MR J WALTER DUDLEY

  TREDWAY CORPORATION MILLBURGH PA

  MY DEEPEST SYMPATHY FOR THE LOSS THAT THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY HAS SUSTAINED IN THE DEATH OF A GREAT MAN

  EVA HARDING

  MILLBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

  3.43 P.M. EDT

  Erica Martin’s hand burrowed into the drawer, her ringless fingers sliding smoothly down through the slickness of crepe and satin and the woolly warmth of cashmere until, at last, her fingertips found the hard coolness of the glass and the yielding softness of the leather frame.

  Gently, she lifted it from hiding. Avery Bullard had never known that she had kept this picture. It was a print that he had rejected from several that a New York photographer had made. He had studied it the longest of all but in the end he had tossed it across the desk and said, “Better get rid of that one, Miss Martin. Makes me look too damned human. Don’t dare give people the wrong idea, you know.” Then he had laughed and she had laughed and there had been so few times when they had ever laughed together that she remembered all of them, but this time more than the others … remembering it too often and too vividly when the picture had been on the mantel. That was why she had hidden it away months ago.

  Her arms lifted the picture and her inner voice, clearer than her lips could have spoken said, “Don’t be angry with me, Avery, because I guessed that it would be Don Walling. I knew you never wanted me to guess what was in your mind—I don’t know why you wanted it that way but I know you did—but this time I had to admit that I knew. There was no other way. Don’t you s
ee that? And I was right, wasn’t I?”

  He understood. He was human. Why had he been so afraid to admit it? Why had they both been so afraid?

  NEW YORK CITY

  3.50 P.M. EDT

  The crotchety old man in the florist shop looked at the twenty-dollar bill doubtfully, rubbing the water stain with the ball of his thumb, finally deciding that he would take a chance. “That’ll be twelve-sixty all together for everything—the flowers and sending them to this place in Pennsylvania. You want to put in a card, miss, you’ll find one over there at the desk.”

  Anne Finnick looked at all the cards. There was an awful pretty one that was just right … a picture of one of those big boats and seagulls flying and everybody waving like they were saying goodbye … and the printing said BON VOYAGE TO A WONDERFUL FRIEND. Bon Voyage was French. It meant like when somebody was going away. That’s what he was doing, wasn’t it? He’d like it being French. All of those rich people were crazy about French.

  3.55 P.M. EDT

  Luigi Cassoni knew that he was a fortunate man. Not only was he blessed by having most of his prayers answered, but also he was lucky. When a man was not very bright it was a great comfort to know that he was lucky. There seemed to be a connection. If he had been bright it would not have taken him so long to count the money that he had collected for Mr. Bullard’s flowers and to write all of the names on a piece of paper. But if he had been able to do it quickly, he would not have been there to take Mr. Walling and his wife to the twenty-fourth floor. That had been a very important thing to do. When the old Duke had died without a son to take his place, the men who sat by the fountain in the Via Torrenzo had shaken their heads and said that it would be bad. They had been right. That spring the olives had been only half as heavy on the trees as they had been when there was a Duke in the castle—and that was the year when not one of Pietro’s ewes had twin lambs—and when Angelino ran away to marry a Sicilian, and Maria’s burro fell from the cliff and was killed on the rocks at the sea. There was not a man in the village who had lived long enough to remember when there had been so many misfortunes in a single spring.