The Stallion (1996) (46 page)

Carpenter hung up the telephone. Angelo handed him his Scotch.

Van’s cheeks were wet with tears as he clutched Anna to himself and kissed her on the forehead, the eyes, the cheeks, her mouth, her throat.

“Is a man allowed to be a fool once in his life?” he asked her.

“More than once,” she whispered.

“We will fly to Amsterdam,” he said. “I have the tickets. I have your mother’s consent for you to go with me.”

Anna ran her moist lips over his face. “Why Amsterdam?” she asked softly.

“To see the diamonds,” he said. “With my father’s assistance, we will buy the diamonds for your engagement ring.”

Anna smiled. “Van, you haven’t really proposed.”

“I
am!”
he protested. “Anna, my beautiful, adorable girl, will you marry me?”

She nodded. “Of course,” she said.

“And forgive me for being a complete idiot?”

“A complete victim,” she said. “Your grandfather Hardeman is an ogre, married to a witch. My father is going to destroy them both. Do you accept that, Van? That my father is going to
destroy
your grandfather?”

“I cannot believe my mother came from the loins of that man,” said Van. “She is so kind, so gentle, so incapable of—” He stopped. “Well, Rebecca Mugrage is in Holloway Prison because—”

“Because your mother is an effective woman, who gets what she wants,” said Anna. “My father is an effective man, who gets what he wants.”

Van grinned. “God save us all, then, from little John Hardeman—the son of them both.”

“Let’s let them have it, Van.”

“What?”

“The inheritance. You’re Loren the Fourth. But you don’t have to be. It’s been a curse. Let it pass to little John, the son of my father and your mother. You go on to Harvard Law. Let’s be independent of the inheritance from Number One.”

Van shook his head. “I’ve never assumed I was going to inherit.”

Anna kissed him. “Our secret,” she said. “Let them fight it out. It’s not
our
fight.”

“It is not,” said Van solemnly. “Every one of them will—”

“Not hate us,” said Anna. “Respect us, in the end.”

“But there is going to be a war between our families,” said Van. “It’s gone on, generation after generation, and it is going to be resolved in somebody’s victory and somebody else’s defeat.”

Anna drew up her shoulders and shrugged comfortably. “Nobody defeats my father.”

In August, Angelo doubled the security force around the XB test track. He infuriated Loren and Beacon by denying them access to the track except in his presence. He took them in to see tests of the 000, but he kept all his personnel away from them. His team of young engineers was intensely loyal to Angelo Perino. None of them cared much for XB Motors. They understood that if the 000 failed they would be out of jobs, but they knew also that other jobs would be waiting for any man or woman who had worked on Angelo Perino’s electric car.

The test cars still ran on Stallion chassis, to which it was simple to attach epoxy resin S Stallion bodies. This made the test cars roughly the same weight as the prototype 000 would be. Cindy came to Michigan and drove one of these cars. When Betsy flew in for a board meeting, Angelo took her out to drive one.

“It’s exciting!” Betsy laughed. “Damn, it’s an exciting car!”

Cindy was more analytical. “I’m not comfortable with the braking,” she told Angelo. “It’s like pushing a switch. It does what it’s supposed to do, but you don’t feel any back pressure from it.”

“We’re working on that,” said Angelo. “Actually, when you press hard on the brake pedal you compress a spring that causes a series of switches to close. You do control the amount of braking power you apply, but you don’t feel comfortable when you don’t get the back pressure. We’re going to let the computer generate an artificial back pressure. Future drivers won’t expect back pressure from the brake pedal, but this generation does and won’t feel comfortable without it. One of ten thousand little problems we have to solve.”

“The big question is, how far can you go on a charge?”

“You could drive from New York to Washington without needing a charge, as it stands right now,” said Angelo.

Cindy grinned. “By then you’d have to stop to pee anyway.”

The Amanda Finch nude of Professor Robert Carpenter was put on prominent display in VKP Galleries. Who it belonged to was immaterial; it was not for sale. Before long someone recognized him. Word spread in the art world that the professor was to be seen in the altogether, painted with Finch realism; and shortly visitors began to appear at the gallery, just to see the Finch of Carpenter. None of those visitors had the money to buy, even if the painting had been for sale; they only came to gawk; and academics, somewhat to Cindy’s surprise, turned out to be more than a little narrow minded. Some were scandalized.

Carpenter disappeared for a few weeks. He was in fact at Yale New Haven Hospital, where he had his nose repaired. Angelo Perino paid for the surgery, on the condition that Carpenter continue to telephone Loren and Roberta, reciting disinformation supplied by Angelo.

For two full weeks in September a Michigan circuit court heard evidence and argument on the question of whether the Hardeman Foundation should diversify its investment portfolio. The attorney general argued that the
foundation exposed itself and its charitable works to an unnecessary risk by investing its entire capital in the stock of one corporation—and that one a family corporation with almost no stockholders outside the family. Sixty percent of the stock was held by just five members of the Hardeman family: Mr. and Mrs. Loren Hardeman; Elizabeth Hardeman, Viscountess Neville; Anne Elizabeth Hardeman, Princess Alekhine; and Alicia Hardeman. Family ownership of XB Motors made the stock an even more risky investment. Added to that was the fact that XB Motors had committed itself heavily to the development of an experimental automobile, which might fail.

Angelo Perino, president of XB Motors, was a witness on Wednesday morning of the second week.

“Are you yourself an investor in XB stock, Mr. Perino?”

“I am.”

“What percentage of the stock do you own?”

“I own two percent.”

“What percentage of your personal net worth does that represent, Mr. Perino?”

“I am not certain. I’d guess roughly ten percent.”

“So, if the company fails, it will not bankrupt
you?

“That is correct.”

“During the years you have been associated with the company in one way or another, how many radically new cars has it tried to produce?”

“Depending on how you define the term ‘radically new,’ I’d say four.”

“And they are…?”

“The car we called the Betsy, one that we called the Stallion, the one that we called the S Stallion, or Super Stallion, and the car currently in development, called the Zero-Zero-Zero or the E Stallion, meaning Electric Stallion.”

“Of those four cars, how many can you call successes?”

“Just one. The Stallion has been a complete success. The Betsy and the S Stallion, no. How the Zero-Zero-Zero will do remains to be seen.”

“If the new car fails, how will that impact the value of the stock in XB Motors, Incorporated?”

“It will have a very serious negative impact.”

On Friday, October 1, the court issued an order requiring the Hardeman Foundation to reduce its holdings in XB Motors stock by 75 percent and to invest the proceeds in diversified securities lawful for fiduciary investment under Michigan law.

There was no market in XB Motors stock. It had always traded privately, among the very few people who owned any. A Detroit bank and a New York bank agreed to make a market for it. Before the court ordered a forced sale, the few shares that were sold by the estates of deceased employees were going for $775 to $800 a share. By the time the banks were ready to offer it, the bids varied from $550 to $600. To bolster the stock and to express confidence in it, Angelo bid $600 and bought $1,200,000 worth of it, so doubling his holdings. In two weeks the price rose to $675, and the stock began to sell, in dribs and drabs. By the end of the year the stock sold for $750 a share. The holdings of the Hardeman Foundation were down to 14 percent. Six percent more had to be sold to meet the requirement of the court order.

There were 518 stockholders. One of them, with one hundred shares, was Tom Mason. Twenty-eight other stockholders were XB dealers.

Two families and their guests gathered for Christmas Eve, in two homes in Greenwich, overspilling into the nearby Hyatt Regency Hotel. The Christmas Eve dinner was at the Perino house, cooked and served by a catering team that set up six extra tables.

Angelo and Cindy were host and hostess—he in black tie, she in a glittering white cocktail dress—receiving their guests before a twelve-foot Christmas tree.

All of their children were there. John, who was twenty, had long since broken up with Buffy Mead but had invited Deirdre Logan, who was eighteen and conspicuously infatuated with him. Anna and Van were never apart. Morris was sixteen and anxious to show that he could drink champagne and not get giddy. Valerie was fourteen and as beautiful as Anna. Mary was just ten and a little overwhelmed by the party.

The Viscount and Viscountess Neville flew in from London with all their children. Sally, from Betsy’s psychiatrist, was twelve and a shy little girl who wore eyeglasses. She remained slight and moved with the grace of the ballerina she was determined to become. John, the son Betsy shared with Angelo, was ten and knew he was handsome. Charlotte and George, Betsy’s Neville children, were seven and eight years old and determined not to go to bed before the party ended.

Alicia was there with Bill Adams. Van was staying with her, as were Betsy’s children Sally and John.

Max van Ludwige had flown over from Amsterdam with his wife, Gretchen.

Amanda was there, as was Marcus Lincicombe and Dietz von Keyserling.

Keijo Shigeto and Toshiko and their children were also taking part in the festivities.

Jenny Perino was not able to travel up from Florida that Christmas.

Alicia had invited Loren and Roberta, but they had sent their regrets. She had also invited Princess Anne and Prince Igor Alekhine, who had sent gifts but were not able to attend.

The party was immensely confusing to the children, as it was to most of the adults.

“I will be at your stockholders meeting,” Bill Adams said to Angelo. “I bought a few XB shares myself, recommended it to others, and will have their proxies. I have no doubt you will take over XB, lock, stock, and barrel. All you need is a successful car, and I have no doubt you’ll be able to deliver that.”

“I have two months to get the last kinks out,” said Angelo.

Not all the tables could be set up in one room. Just before everyone went scurrying around looking at place cards and trying to find his or her seat, Angelo and Cindy invited their guests to assemble in the living room. The caterers made sure everyone had champagne, even the youngest child.

Angelo did not rap on a glass to ask for everyone’s attention. He had a small gong, which he pounded. “I am going to ask Anna and Van to join Cindy and me here by the
tree,” he said. “Also Betsy and George and Max and Gretchen. Before we go to our places for dinner, I want to make a happy announcement.”

The crowd fell silent. “Friends, Cindy and I are happy, very happy, to be able to announce the engagement of Cindy’s and my daughter Anna and Betsy and Max’s son, Loren. They make a handsome couple, don’t they?”

Everyone applauded.

“Now Loren—we all know him as Van—will place the engagement ring on Anna’s finger. I’ve seen that diamond. It’s big enough to anchor a boat.”

Van’s hand shook as he slipped the ring on Anna’s finger. Her cheeks gleamed with tears.

“A toast,” said Angelo, “to their happiness. And to this union of our families—Perino, Hardeman, van Ludwige. I could not be prouder.”

That night Van and Anna shared a room—and a bed—at the Hyatt. The families had agreed they were mature enough for it and deserved it, with the blessing of their parents. They would still defer their marriage, while he studied law at Harvard and she continued her studies at Radcliffe.

He kissed her warmly and said, “We don’t have to do it tonight. If you’re not ready, we—”

Anna shook her head. “I’m ready, Van. I’ve been ready a long time.”

“Then—”

“I take the pill. I’m ready.”

He blinked tears from his eyes. “Can you even
imagine
how much I love you?” he asked.

“The hook behind my dress,” she whispered. “Unhook it, then pull the zipper down.”

He had seen her undress before, but never in the anticipation of their immediately coupling. Everything was new, an adventure. He had taken off her bra before and had kissed her nipples, but never like this. He knelt before her to pull down her panties and to take off her garter belt and stockings.

When she was naked, he was still entirely dressed. She pulled down his zipper, took out his penis, and held it gently in her hand, caressing it, as he undid his tie and unbuttoned his shirt.

They lay down together. Anna was inexperienced but had a sure instinct. She knew what he was going to do, and she welcomed it. She had thought of it. She had dreamed of it. She had not talked about it to other girls. She’d not read sex manuals. She just knew. She turned on her back and spread herself for him. He entered her, and it was just what she’d expected.

Loren was drunk. Roberta was drunk. They had left home and flown to West Palm Beach that morning. In a suite in a Marriott motel where no one could find them, they laughed as they thought how the telephones would ring and ring in the house, and no one would answer. Then reporters would come to the door, and no one would answer.

In the privacy of this suite, which they had rented under the name Smith, Roberta had costumed herself for her role as sadist to his masochist. She wore black patent-leather shoes with spike heels, mesh stockings held up by a black garter belt, sheer and crotchless black panties, and a sheer black bra with holes cut out to bare her nipples. Last week, she’d had her hair cut even shorter than usual: almost a butch haircut.