Institute (7 page)

In addition to all this, I had prepped a bit on the institute, with phone calls to federal departments, for fill-in stuff I needed, to be sharp and have it down pat when I met Mr. Garrett again. The nights I spent with Hortense. She would let herself in and we would lie in the dark, whispering.

When he called, that’s what we were doing. “I dread it,” I confessed to her. “I dread seeing him more than anything I can remember. Know what I dread most of all?”

“Not having me along?”

“That handshake with him that I’ll have to go through with. I feel like the guy in that story, an O. Henry story I guess, who couldn’t drink with the man he—”

“He what?”

“Took advantage of.”

“As you took advantage of me?”

“Okay then I did.”

“The story was ‘Cabbages and Kings,’ and the man couldn’t drink with the man he blackmailed. As you blackmailed me.”

“Lady, you blackmailed yourself.”

“You don’t have to go, Lloyd.”

“Well, I do have to if—”

“Yeah? If?”

“Look, we made a decision, and—”

That’s what was said, pretty gritty if we meant it. Yet ten minutes later there we were holding close, and the next morning I left for Wilmington. Miss Immelman received me as before, ushering me into the same office and saying Mr. Garrett expected me. I walked around, so nervous that I was jittery, still thinking about that handshake. But when he came in, he waved me to a chair with a bandaged right hand, and I knew why right away. He motioned to it with his left, saying: “Jabbed it last night chopping up ice for a friend. I detest cubes, like to serve rocks in lumps; so I freeze water in containers and bang into it with a pick. But sometimes I make a mislick—which I did last night but good.”

But in my secret soul I knew I wasn’t the only one worrying about that handshake, and I knew she and I weren’t fooling anyone.

The seat he waved me to was beside the desk. He took the swivel chair behind it, talking about his trip and how glad he was to be back. But he didn’t quite look at me, only occasionally, when he seemed to be making himself do it. Soon he blurted: “Well, let’s get on. I’d say the first thing is to get it incorporated, this institute we’re starting. Fortunately, Delaware makes a specialty of it, so it should be easy, with no snags. I thought the boys could drive down to Dover tomorrow and get the thing over with. I’d like you to go with them, to familiarize yourself with details and get acquainted with my staff. With incorporation out of the way we can do the actual exchange of securities—from ARMALCO to the H.G. Institute. Malcolm McDavitt is in charge of the securities for ARMALCO, and for the Institute, I’ve asked Sam Dent to come up. He’s chief of my legal staff, but bases in Washington.” I said I was at his disposal, for Dover or any place I might be needed.

He drummed on the desk with his fingers, then went on: “I think you should meet McDavitt, but I have to tell you about him so you don’t think I’m nuts to have him. He’s in charge of all our investments. His desk is piled high with reports. He must do something about them, because he always knows what they say. But all I see him read, and
I ever
see him read, is his belly button. He sits at his desk, his feet up in a chair, studying it, as his father did before him. He was
my
father’s investment chief. This is how it works: His father, back around World War I, did
his
umbilical research and then, suddenly announced: They’re lining it with concrete.’

“Lining what with concrete?’ asked my father.

“ ‘The whole Mississippi Valley. They’ve gone nuts over flood control. We’re buying Portland Cement.’

“So my father bought Portland Cement—plants in California, Indiana, and Illinois—and they made him rich. They’re still making me rich. Mal frightens me a little. He says he bets on my hunches, my knowing a thing from a thing. Well”—waving a hand toward the things on the shelves—“so far it’s worked. But suppose I come up with a dud. Which I
can
do, Dr. Palmer. Which I can do so easy it scares me to death.”

“I’d say, no use borrowing trouble.”

“It’s all you
can
say. Let’s go in and see Mal.”

So we went in there, Garrett first knocking on a door with no name on it; and sure enough, there was a rumpled, potbellied man sitting behind a desk, his feet in a swivel chair, his fingers covering his belly, and his eyes fixed on his navel. He didn’t look up when we came in. Apparently he could see out of the side of his head, as he said to Garrett: “Not ARMALCO. You transfer that stuff yourself.”

“What stuff?” Mr. Garrett asked.

“The securities for this thing you’ve decided to back. It’s not a corporate enterprise—it’s your private project, and you have to endow it yourself.”

“Well, yeah, that’s what I meant, of course.”

“You said ARMALCO would do it.”

“Okay, then
I
do it.”

Mr. McDavitt slid a paper across his desk, at last taking his feet down. “There’s the securities I’d think would do it—give this thing, whatever it is, a nicely assorted portfolio with some growth potential and still leave you well assorted. I mean, you’ll kick in with quite a few things, so you’re not left lopsided. There’s a tax angle, of course. Here’s a memo on that.”

Garrett picked up the papers, had a look, folded them, and put them in his pocket. “This is Dr. Palmer,” he said, “who’ll be in charge of our institution from now on.”

Mal paid no attention. He didn’t even look at me. “Okay, then,” Mr. Garrett said after a moment, “is that all?”

Mal didn’t answer, merely hoisting his feet again and going back to his belly button. Mr. Garrett led the way out. “Five minutes from now,” he whispered in the hall, “he’ll call me with what he thinks of you, and I’d better listen, believe me. He didn’t look at you, did he? In a pig’s eye, he didn’t.”

Back in his office we sat down and waited. The phone on his desk tinkled, and he answered. “Thanks, Mal,” he said, “it’s what I wanted to know.”

“He says you’re okay,” he murmured, hanging up.

Several minutes went by, and I realized that Mal’s report and Mal’s assorted memos and admonitions had been very important to Garrett.

“O.K., Dr. Palmer, let’s get started. What’s on
your
mind?”

I said the next step, I thought, once we were incorporated, was our application to I.R.S. for a ruling on our tax-exempt status. “It’s a job for lawyers,” I said. “Even so, I would have to sit in, as the nub of the matter is the supplementary outline, our bound, typewritten booklet setting forth our aims and purposes. It has to be inclusive, covering everything we may conceivably want to do, so later on, if something comes up, we don’t find we’ve booby-trapped ourselves by leaving something out. I’m the one who knows, the only one who knows in detail, what we’ll want to do and how we expect to do it. So, if Mr. Dent is to be in charge as your lawyer, you should instruct him not only to work with me but to let me pass on his booklet before he actually submits it.”

Mr. Garrett made a note. “I get the point,” he said. “What next, after we get our ruling? How long does it take, by the way? Or do you know?”

“No more than a week or two.”

“And then what?”

“There’s the question of where we set up shop. I have some ideas on that, if you’d care to hear them.”

“I’m listening. Go ahead.”

I said that though our headquarters should be convenient to Washington, it needn’t actually be in the city. “I would think, by building a place out in the suburbs, say in Prince Georges County, we could save quite a lot of expenses—if the building were in the style of a colonial mansion, no more than three stories, we wouldn’t need elevators, for example, and at the same time we’d have ample space for books, records, offices, and so on. If we harmonized it with colonial architecture—”

“With a deer park, perhaps?”

“Why not? Those miniature Indian deer would cost very little and be quite a feature, especially for children.”

“Swan lake?”

“In Europe they have them.”

“Box hedges?”

“They give off a beautiful smell.”

“Well, you can take your deer park and swan lake and box hedges and do what you want with them. But don’t ask me to come in. I hate mansions and everything connected with them. Dr. Palmer, there’s more comfort, more safety, more
health,
in a modern apartment building than in all the mansions ever built. I hate swan lakes, especially. They’re nothing but frog ponds, reflecting the light of the moon. Poor old John Charles Thomas. I dropped in on him once before he died, in Apple Valley, California, where he lived the last years of his life. And he was telling me about the Hollywood Bowl and how some genius had the bright idea of putting a fish pond in, between the seats and the shell. ‘Maybe some fish were there,’ John Charles said, ‘but all you could hear was frogs. I’d hate to tell you what they did to
me
one night. That’s nice, isn’t it? You’re singing The Trumpeter, you hold the last verse, and then you start it. You breathe it at them, you’ve got them. You finish, and there comes that moment you pray for, of utter, reverent silence before the applause breaks out. Then a goddam frog goes
glk.’”

“All right, the mansion is out.”

“Why not a couple of floors in the Garrett Building? The one I already have on Massachusetts Avenue—in Washington, I’m talking about.”

“A little slower please. You’re way ahead of me.”

“I have to have this Washington branch on account of the things I sell, or my companies sell. They all involve patents, and patents have to be defended at hearings of various kinds. They also involve legislation, tariffs, authorizations of one kind or another, appropriations, and so on. All that means lawyers, lobbyists, agents, gumshoes, goons, and God-knows-what. They have to have offices with phones, secretaries, and messengers. So I bought this building down there, reserved two floors for them, and rented out the other floors—ten, actually. So, O.K., why can’t you take two? Or three? Or however many you’ll need? I’ll make the building over to you. You’ll rent the other floors out, and the rent you get will be a nice lift for your budget. Is that an idea or not?”

“I’m sorry, but I have to say no.”

He looked very startled and stared at me for some time. After several moments, after he had said, “You quite surprise me” and in other ways betrayed that he had been set back on his heels, he finally asked: “Why do you say that?”

“It’s against the law, Mr. Garrett.”

“It’s
what?”

“You can’t endow a foundation and then rent yourself office space. You could until recently, but they found it was being used as a loophole, some tricky angle on taxes. So Congress closed it.”

“Well! Thanks for warning me.” He leaned back, staring at his desk top. His chair squeaked. He pressed a button. When Miss Immelman came in, he said: “Get on this chair, will you? Have it greased or something.”

“Yes, Mr. Garrett, I will.”

Then to me: “What would be your idea?”

“Why—I have no idea yet. I may get one, though. Give me a little time.”

“Why don’t we break for lunch? I’d invite you to the apartment, but I’m expecting someone there. You’ll find the hotel good—the Du Pont, I mean. Quite good, as a matter of fact. Damned good.”

“The Du Pont is fine. I’ll be staying there.”

After lunch I said: “If you insist on downtown Washington—and though I’m caught by surprise, I have to admit it does make sense—I would say you should buy us a building, let me take two floors, and rent out the rest. I wouldn’t think the right place would be too hard to find.”

“Okay, will you handle it?”

“I’ll do my best and keep you informed.”

What he meant, I wasn’t quite sure of, because if finding a building for him was what he had in mind, I knew no more about buildings than a new-born grasshopper did. But that seemed to be it, and I added: “I think I should give you a weekly progress report, with discussions in between—if, as, and when.”

“Where’d you get that expression—‘if, as, and when’?”

“It’s one my mother was fond of. Why?”

“It’s one bankers use.”

“She was quite a banker herself. I wouldn’t say she was fond of money, but money was fond of her.”

“Money’s no fool.”

He looked at me sharply, and from there on in, I thought his manner toward me changed.

The next day we assembled at his office for the trip down to Dover—Ned Bramwell, his top Delaware lawyer; four or five men from his office who were to sign as incorporators, and Sam Dent, chief lawyer for the entire ARMALCO outfit, who had come up from Washington. He was the pleasantest discovery of the trip. Older than me, around forty-five, I’d say, but tall, well bred and dressed—definitely my kind of guy. We took to each other at once, but from the look on his face when the Institute was mentioned, I knew he had pretty well guessed the relationship between its patron saint and the man who was going to direct it. We drove to Dover in two cars, I in the front seat with Dent in his car, the two youngest men from the office in back, and the rest in Bramwell’s car. The whole process took no more than an hour as we moved from office to office in the capitol, signing and shuffling papers. Once there was a slip I had to sign, which I did. Then we had a late lunch. Bramwell took his gang off, and Dent and I had a long drink and talk. It turned out that he had seen me play football. We drove back to Wilmington and he dropped me off at the Du Pont. I called Mr. Garrett to ask him when he wanted to see me, but he said we were done. “However,” he said, “keep in touch, will you—if, as, and when? And get on that building at once.”

“I shall indeed, sir.”

But my heart was already jumping with the anticipation of seeing her that night.

T
HE SMELL OF ROAST
beef rose in my nose as soon as I unlocked the door. No light was on, but a hand raised up from behind one of the sofas and a voice said huskily: “Well, hello, hello!”

I was hungry for her. My arms ached for her, and hers went around me as I knelt to press her close, inhale her, pat her, and at last kiss her. She whispered: “We’re eating in tonight—roast beef, which won’t be a surprise; as you must be able to smell it. But everything else will be. I promise you, though, it will be just right for what ought to go with it.”