A Man of Affairs (3 page)

I held it and looked at it and said, “I like it fine, but what is it?”

“New spear gun. Just came yesterday. And the Bahamas is one of the world’s best places for skin diving. How’s that for timing?”

“That’s just fine, too. Tommy, I just came from Louise’s house. We had a talk about this Mike Dean and what this might mean to the company.”

He took the spear gun from me. “This thing is really built. It’s a pilot model, made in West Germany.”

“Mike Dean will try to swing you and Louise around to his way of thinking, and everything we’ve been working for will go to hell.”

“There isn’t anything on it to corrode. And the balance is perfect. Works on compressed air.”

“I’m going along to make sure Mike Dean’s team doesn’t do a complete snow job on you and Louise.”

“Look at the way they’ve designed this reel attachment, Sam.”

“Tommy! Damn it!”

He gave me a quizzical look. “What’s the trouble?”

“I think it’s a mistake for you and Louise to accept his invitation.”

Something moved behind his eyes, something that, for a moment, belied the usual impression of general uselessness. “What’s the harm in it, Sam? I don’t know why Louise is going. I don’t know why you’re going. But I’m going for the skin diving. Okay?”

And I couldn’t get one inch farther. Back by the pool I refused the offer of a drink and the offer of a swim. I looked back as I left. They were swimming the length of the pool, side by side, in perfect rhythm, and the two fat boxer pups, named Meanie and Moe, were on the pool apron barking their fool heads off.

TWO

WHEN I ARRIVED AT THE PLANT I went directly to Al Dolson’s office. Molly, his secretary, said he had gone over to C Building so I asked her to let me know when he got back.

My secretary for the past three years has been Alice Rice, a six-foot, gaunted redhead of forty something years, loyal, efficient, outspoken and pessimistic. I motioned to her as I went through the outer office and she followed me in, book in hand. She sat at the corner of my desk and told me who had called and when and why and jotted down the order in which I wanted her to get them back on the line for me.

“Ready for some overtime, Alice?”

“Oh, Gawd, what now? Just so long as it isn’t one of those evening conferences. I despise them.”

“By tomorrow night I’ve got to clean off the whole slate. It shouldn’t be too bad. I can dump a lot of stuff on Harry and Andy but I’ll have to leave them some poop on progress up to now.”

“Even the union thing?”

“That’s the only thing we’ll shelve until I get back.”

“You were going to stay put this week. You had to stay put this week. You said so.”

“I know. But I’m going to the Bahamas.” She goggled at me. I couldn’t resist saying in a whisper, “As a guest of Mike Dean.”

It was interesting to watch her changes of expression. Doubt, alarm, suspicion that she was being kidded, and then resignation.

“Don’t take it so hard, Alice.”

“If I thought you’d sell horses in midstream, Sam Glidden…”

I repented and told her why I felt it would be smart to go.

She caught on immediately, and said, “Don’t expect to outsmart anybody down there. In that league you’re a country boy, too.”

“I should take you along.”

She ignored that. “How is the prez taking this?” she asked.

“He doesn’t know yet. I’ll get a call as soon as he gets back to his office. Let’s see how many of those phone calls we can get out of the way before he gets back.”

I had completed one and was in the middle of the second when Al Dolson came into my office and sat down. Al has the look and bearing of thirty years of commanding combat troops. But he hasn’t the assurance to go with it. I hung up and gave it to him between the eyes.

“Mr. and Mrs. Warren Dodge and Mr. and Mrs. Tommy McGann leave Wednesday morning on a private plane to be house guests of Mike Dean in his Bahama hideaway, Al.”

It took him a full ten seconds to take it in. He licked his lips and his forehead started to sweat. “But… Good God, we were all set. Burgeson has their proxies.”

“Which won’t be worth a damn if they sign new ones.”

“They can’t do that to us. They’ve got to be stopped!” His voice was getting shrill.

“Listen, Al. We can’t stop them. I’ve talked to Louise. They’re going.”

He looked ashen and I saw the signs of his starting to crumble, so I added quickly, “But I’m going along with them. By self-invitation. Dean couldn’t refuse because he knows how fishy that would look. I think I can spoil the party.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I talked to Louise for over an hour this morning. She’s ready to jump either way. Whichever way she jumps, Tommy will jump. I think when the chips are down, she’s still on our side.”

I didn’t feel as confident as I sounded. “How… how long will you be gone?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Four or five days, I’d guess.”

“I thought we’d fought him to a standstill, Sam.”

“Nothing has changed yet.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “Tommy doesn’t need it, of course; but having no dividends coming in pinches Louise. Tom used to make such a ceremony of giving them the checks himself. Sam, maybe at the June first meeting we could… plan to vote say fifty cents a share. You could let her know we plan to do that.”

“Al, I think it would be dead wrong to try to buy her. She’d get twenty-five thousand and it would cost us two hundred and twenty thousand we can’t spare. If we can’t sell our planning on its merits, then it’s no damn good. And that two hundred and twenty thousand might be the difference between eventually getting healthy and never quite making it.”

He sighed again. “You’re right. I know you’re right.” He looked at me with a savage expression. “That man is a devil, Sam. And he always gets just what he wants.”

“Not every time, Al. He misses plenty of times. But his press agents don’t mention those times. They want him to be a symbol of infallibility, so the opposition feels licked before the first round starts. I’m not worried yet, Al.” I hoped my confident smile didn’t look too hollow. I knew that, in one sense, he had more at stake than I did. If Dean plowed up our pea patch, I could find another slot. It wouldn’t be easy for Al. It might be impossible. And if Dean wrecked the operation, there wouldn’t be anything left in the retirement account.

I managed to prop Al Dolson up again, and realized I was getting tired of that particular ritual.

Alice and I worked until midnight Monday night and until after ten on Tuesday night. I took a longer than usual lunch hour on Tuesday and picked up some “play clothes.” I packed a bag Tuesday night and took a cab out to the airport on Wednesday morning. Dean’s ship was in when I got there, parked on the apron a hundred yards from the terminal.

It was a C-46. On the rudder assembly was the CAA number and the name Culver Chemical Corporation. I remembered that several years ago Mike Dean had taken over the small corporation and, through stock transfers and mergers, had built it into a big outfit. He was still on the Board of Directors. A slim young man who looked oriental was standing on a wheeled platform loading the luggage into the compartment high on the ship just behind the cockpit. The McGanns and the Dodges stood in the shadow of the wing, chatting with two young men who were evidently the pilot and co-pilot, or, as they like to call themselves, the captain and the pilot.

I went and handed my bag up to the man doing the loading. He smiled his thanks, dogged the hatch, jumped down lightly and started toward the terminal building, pushing the wheeled cart. Louise greeted me warmly and introduced me to our crew. She had a bright look of holiday about her. Tommy McGann was equally cordial. Puss McGann was elaborately friendly. Warren Dodge gave me a half smile, a remote glance, a slack hand to shake for a half second.

We went aboard. It was outfitted more like a lounge than an airliner. Wall to wall carpeting, wicker armchairs, tables, ash trays, magazines, a little kitchenette and bar. The steward came aboard and the drop door was pulled up and lugged shut.

Moran, the pilot, said, “The weather looks clear and bright all the way, folks. Becky will fix lunch en route. Well make a gas stop at Atlanta, and then stop at West Palm Beach Airport for clearance. From there it will be another half hour to West End on Grand Bahama Island. You’ll go the rest of the way by boat. We should put you down on Grand Bahama at four o’clock, and that means you should be at Dubloon Cay in time for the cocktail hour. In the meanwhile, if you’d like an eye-opener to start the day, Becky will be glad to fix you up.”

Warren Dodge waited until we were airborne before demanding a whisky sour, easy on the sugar, boy. Tom and Puss both thought that sounded fine. Louise said she’d wait a while. I asked if there was cold beer. There was and it was imported and delicious.

I was the guest who had invited himself, and I did not feel at ease. Perhaps, with that quartet, I wouldn’t have felt at ease under the very best of circumstances. I’d come from mill people. Three generations of Gliddens had worked at the Harrison Corporation. I had, in the last seven years, acquired a certain amount of ease and polish, but it was acquired. These people had grown up with the certain knowledge that if they wanted anything badly enough, it would be given to them. Spiritually, I was closer to Mike Dean. If I wanted anything, I had to go get it.

But the stratification wasn’t that simple. It could not be called the case of the noble working man versus the idle and decadent rich. Certainly damn little nobility in the working man at Harrison in the past few years. Not the way work standards were set. I am no bloated capitalistic exploiter, but some of the situations in our shop sickened me. The way standards were set, on some operations, a man could perform in two hours what we had to pay for on the basis of an eight-hour day. They were running bridge tournaments in the employee lounges. They saw all the afternoon ball games on television. And they were getting a wise-guy boot out of using union strength to screw management. It was a cynicism and a “me first” approach to life which was in its way just as empty and destructive as Tommy and Warren’s complete idleness. The low productivity per employee was crippling us. A new union contract was coming up in November. I knew they were going to yelp for more money. I was going to go along with the demand for more money provided the union would play fair on work standards.

“Deep black thoughts?” Louise asked over the sound of the airplane.

“World on my shoulders,” I said, grinning at her.

Warren Dodge had taken the chair on the other side of me just in time to hear the last remark. “You like to give the impression of being all burdened down with big deals, don’t you, Glidden?”

I turned and looked at the puffy, sullen and arrogant face. Warren Dodge is a big man. I think he is two years older than I am, but I like to believe he looks ten years older. His blond hair is thin. Liquor has puffed the big body, ravaged the school-boy face. But there is still a curiously collegiate flavor about him, the forlorn echoes of a valiant goal-line stand in the mud of a November afternoon. His people had been enormously wealthy, and had been almost completely wiped out in 1934 when Warren was about nine years old. There was one little trust fund that the creditors couldn’t get at. It put Warren through Choate and Princeton, and then there was nothing left. For a few years between preparatory school and Princeton, I believe, he was an enlisted marine, and received a medical discharge. After Princeton he played amateur tennis that was so close to being top flight he was able to live off it.

Louise met him when she was twenty-four at a house party when she went to visit, in Philadelphia, the girl who had been her roommate at Wellesley. Tom McGann, her father, was violently opposed to her marrying a tennis bum. He’d given up hope of Tommy ever coming into the firm, and he had hoped she would marry somebody whom he could take in. But she was twenty-four and she had an income, mostly from Harrison dividends, of about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. It had made a nice soft berth for Warren because his drinking had begun to soften his tennis game. And he was nearly thirty. She had married him the second week she knew him, and they had been in Italy three months on their honeymoon when Tom’s death called them back. And it had turned out not to be such a soft berth for Warren. She couldn’t support him in the way he expected to be supported.

Warren Dodge was spoiling for a quarrel. Even though alcohol had softened him up, I wasn’t anxious to go around and around with him. He’d had some police trouble in Portston. He was known as a fast, vicious and merciless brawler.

“A big deal every day, Warren,” I said.

He took a gulp of his drink. “Tell Mike Dean about all your big deals. Don’t try to tell me. Maybe Mike will tell you what a big deal is.”

“Don’t be tiresome, dear,” Louise said.

“Tiresome! Ho, ho! Glidden is the tiresome one, honey. He’s been taking you in with all this crap about backing up the dear old family corporation. So you say: okay, no dividends. So they give each other unlimited expense accounts and pay raises and God knows what all. I’m sick of your being a sucker, honey.”

“Knock it off, knock it off!” Tommy McGann said, standing and swaying with the slight movement of the plane, grinning down at Warren out of his broken face. “What the hell do you know about big finance? I wouldn’t let you make change of a dollar, you Princeton phony.”

All the marks of anger went out of Warren’s face and he beamed up at Tommy. “Just a crazy flyboy,” he said. I have never been able to understand why the two brothers-in-law get along so well. It could be their mutual idleness, but that does not have the same flavor. Tommy makes a brisk business of doing nothing. And there is something sour and destructive about Warren Dodge’s inertia.

Tommy had said only a few words to Warren, but they had taken the edge of his belligerence away.

“Be good,” Tommy said. “Be good to our Sam Glidden. He is a member of the family. I shall now go forward and trade lies with my fellow intrepid bird-men and beg a chance to hand-fly this raunchy old craft.”

After Tommy had gone forward, Warren turned back toward me, and I could guess from his expression that he was going to be sincere and earnest.

“It’s like this, Sam. I figure this is our chance for Harrison to go big time. If we get under Mike Dean’s wing, it’s going to help us a lot. If we go big time, we could have an executive airplane like this one.”

“And that would be handy, I suppose.”

“Certainly. Louise and I have a big enough block of stock so I don’t understand, Sam, why I haven’t been put on the Board. I don’t see why Walt Burgeson should be voting our stock.”

His childish picture of himself was all too vivid. Warren Dodge, member of the Board of Directors of the Harrison Corporation, flew to Chicago yesterday to attend an industry conference.

But it was a little too late for Warren Dodge.

It was too late for him by the time he got out of Princeton, because by then he had learned what he could procure with nothing but a boyish grin and the bulge of tennis muscles.

“It might be a good idea for you to be on the Board, Warren,” I said. “Al Dolson and I are responsible to the Board, and so are the other corporate officers. We like to have people on the Board who understand the special problems we’re facing. When we get back I’d be glad to arrange it so that you can come in and work in the various divisions of the company and get the whole picture.”

He gave me an uneasy glance. “What kind of work?”

“Start you off as a stock chaser. That’s the fastest way to learn. In about eighteen months you’d have a pretty good background.”