Sins of the Fathers

by Susan Howatch

  “Fine, but don’t make too much fuss. Teresa’s like the girl next door. She’s no Eastern Seaboard princess.”

  My mother, on the verge of expiring with excitement, somehow managed to bid me good-bye.

  After concluding the call, I did not immediately return to my work but sat thinking in my chair. I knew my mother had always hoped I would marry someone high-class, but I knew too she would feel far more at ease with Teresa than with some expensive product of the Anglo-Saxon Protestant aristocracy. It was unfortunate that Teresa was Polish, but once my mother was presented with grandchildren, she would soon forget her prejudices, and although I suspected Teresa might be ambivalent about the prospect of maternity, I felt sure she would want children once she realized they need not interfere with her painting. I intended to hire a live-in nurse so that she could paint whenever she liked. I knew how much her painting meant to her, and besides, I thought it was a good thing for a woman to have a hobby in addition to her domestic duties. Cornelius had remarked lately that since her two boys had grown up, Alicia often had trouble finding ways to occupy her time.

  A warm glow enveloped me as I thought of my mother happily spring-cleaning the guest room. I was glad I had made her happy. I was going to make her happier. It was a good feeling.

  With a sigh I turned my thoughts back to the office, and after dictating as many letters as possible in the limited time at my disposal, I left the building and was chauffeured uptown to the Colony to lunch with the president of Hammaco.

  III

  I was satisfied that the lunch had been a success, but my satisfaction was jolted on my return when Scott told me the president had lunched the previous day with the account manager of the rival syndicate.

  “The bastard!” I said. “Trying us both on for size! If he just wants to pick the side he likes the best, why put us through the hoops of this goddamned competitive bidding system? He should either go the fancy-lunch route or else he should have nothing to do with either of us until the sealed bids are delivered. The trouble with clients nowadays is that they think they’re God. It makes me laugh when I see the reports of the current antitrust case and read how prosecuting counsel is bleating about the all-powerful conspiracy of investment bankers that’s terrorizing American big business. Here I am, slugging it out to the death with our rivals, and prosecuting counsel is saying there’s no competition in the investment-banking industry! Sometimes I think it’s too bad the Justice Department didn’t name Van Zale’s in the antitrust suit. I’d have told Judge Medina a thing or two!”

  “I’ll bet you would, Sam,” said Scott, adept as always at the respectful response.

  I abruptly changed the subject.

  IV

  I gave Whitmore the number of my private line and told him to call me immediately his syndicate’s final price meeting finished the following afternoon.

  “Sure, Sam, no problem, no problem at all.” Whitmore looked white but somehow produced a fond smile, and we parted with a long, lingering handshake.

  When I reached home I called Scott. As usual he was working late. “We’re all set for tomorrow,” I said. “Whitmore’ll sing all the details of our rivals’ final bid as sweetly as a canary. Are you working on that final market report?”

  “Of course,” said Scott, ever perfect.

  I hung up.

  V

  I had brought the Hammaco files home with me, and I worked till midnight as I went over the details and calculated the best price we could offer. Then I went to bed and snatched a few hours’ sleep before riding downtown for the final battle. When Scott met me at my office at eight we went through the final market report and updated my pricing.

  The morning meeting of the syndicate’s price committee took place at ten, and the final meeting was scheduled to take place at two. I expected to hear Whitmore’s news at three, which meant I could make any necessary adjustment with the committee before the bid was submitted at four. It was a tight schedule, and my nerves were on edge as I chaired the final price meeting and gave the report on market conditions, the status of recent offerings of similar size and quality, and the extent to which institutional buyers had expressed interest in Hammaco. The next order of business was to decide upon the public offering price of the issue and the price to be paid to the issuer. As the account manager, I put forward the proposal relating to this “cost of money,” and my proposal was discussed for some time by the entire group before several pollings succeeded in fixing our final prices. No one dropped out at the last minute, so there was no panic while shares were reapportioned.

  “Okay, gentlemen,” I said at last. “And now, if you’d all care to wait a few minutes, I’ll check with my sources to see if I can come up with a little inside information.” I turned to my two partners from the sin bin. “You can get the boys in number seven to start wrapping up the paperwork. I don’t anticipate any major adjustments.”

  I sped back to my office. “Get Whitmore on the phone for me,” I said to Scott as soon as the door was closed, but Whitmore was still out of his office. Evidently our rivals’ price meeting was still going on.

  I fixed myself a Beefeater martini, very dry, on the rocks with two olives, and sat drinking it while I waited.

  The red phone rang.

  “Any news?” said Cornelius.

  “Not yet.”

  The white phone rang. It was my private line. I hung up on Cornelius and grabbed the receiver.

  “Sam?” said Whitmore.

  “Go ahead.”

  He gave me the news. I hung up on him too and fixed myself another martini, even drier, straight up. Then I called Scott. “Get in here.” I called the syndicate division at Seven Willow. “Hold everything.” I drank my martini very fast and had just got a cigarette alight by the time Scott arrived on the double.

  “They’ve undercut us.”

  “My God! But how?”

  “They must be really paring down the spread. There’s no way they could come up with that kind of figure and still make a respectable profit.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “See Neil.”

  We ran downstairs. Cornelius was talking to two of his aides, who were immediately dismissed as soon as I appeared in the doorway. As the door closed, Cornelius said sharply, “Well?”

  I gave him the news. Cornelius took it calmly. “Well, there are two possibilities,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Either our illustrious rivals have gone out of their minds, or Whitmore’s lying.”

  “Jesus!” I was appalled. “If he’s been lying to me I’ll—”

  “Of course,” said Cornelius soothingly. “Of course we will. However, meanwhile …”

  “Neil, I doubt if I could get more than half our syndicate to undercut those figures, and if we took up the slack ourselves, it would wipe out our profit.”

  “I think Whitmore’s double-crossing you,” said Cornelius, “but not by choice. He doesn’t have the guts. I think you scared him so shitless that he’s run to his boss and confessed, and now Bonner’s giving him orders. I know I got that firm out of trouble with the SEC the other day because I thought it might be useful to have them in our hip pocket instead of perpetually snarling at our heels, and I know Bonner acts as if he wants to be friendly and grab a piece of the next PPH syndicate, but maybe Bonner still hasn’t forgiven us for screwing Christopherson over the Pan-Pacific Harvester merger back in forty-three; maybe in spite of PPH he just can’t resist this golden chance to screw us back.”

  “That’s possible.”

  We thought about it. I was aware of Scott standing quietly by the door.

  “Bonner knows that if we undercut that kind of bid we’d be cutting off our nose to spite our face,” said Cornelius. “He wants to make us look like fools. Let’s hold fast to what we’ve got, and I’ll bet you we’ll still win the damned bid hands down.”

  “Right.” I turned to Scott. “Give the go-ahead to the boys in Number Seven and tell them to wrap up the paperwor
k right away.”

  “Yes, Sam,” said Scott.

  VI

  The call from the president of Hammaco came through at three minutes after six. I was drinking black coffee and lighting another cigarette.

  “Sam!”

  “Hi, Fred … how was the bid?”

  “Well, Sam, it was a real close call, and I just hate to have to tell you, but …”

  The expression on my face must have altered, although I was unaware of moving a muscle. I looked across the desk at Scott, and as I saw him realize what had happened, I thought with a clarity which shocked me: he’s glad. The knowledge, expressed in words yet somehow beyond verbal expression, radiated powerful emotions which I neither stopped to analyze nor attempted to control.

  I did not speak. After replacing the receiver, I stood up, walked to the window, and stared silently down into the patio.

  At last I heard Scott say, “I’m sorry, Sam. I guess I must feel almost as badly as you do. We all worked so hard.”

  I turned slowly to face him. “Maybe our rivals had a line into our camp,” said my voice, “just as we had a line into theirs. And maybe Whitmore was playing a double game and relaying information in both directions.”

  Scott looked blank. “I guess that’s possible, but it seems unlikely. Would our rivals use that kind of tactics? And who on our side would have given Whitmore his information?”

  I knew at once he was innocent. A guilty man would have made a much neater comment to terminate my suspicions, but perversely the very knowledge that my doubts about him remained impossible to justify only pushed me further toward losing my self-control. Before I could stop myself I said bluntly, “Did you talk to Whitmore today?”

  Comprehension burst upon him. His habitual pallor vanished as the color flooded his face. “If you mean what I think you mean by that question, Sam,” he said, somehow keeping his voice level, “I must ask you not only to withdraw the question but also to apologize. Otherwise I shall go to Cornelius and tell him I can no longer work with you.”

  For the first time in my life I saw his father in him. It was as if the curtain had gone up on a performance which long ago I had seen time after time: Steve under pressure, Steve turning the tables, Steve knifing his way out of trouble with a couple of terse sentences which had sent Cornelius and me backing into the nearest corner. I had forgotten until that moment how frightened we had been of Steve Sullivan. I had forgotten the relief which had mingled with the guilt when I had heard of his death. I had taken such care to forget, because those memories were better suppressed, but now they were all coming back to me; now I could remember them far, far too well.

  I took off my glasses and began to polish them with my handkerchief. Amidst my shock—and I was profoundly shocked—I was furious with myself for making the foolish accusation which had laid me wide open to such a successful counterattack. I didn’t see how I could conclude the interview without a loss of face.

  At last I managed to say: “I’m sorry—I’m not myself. Losing that bid was a big disappointment to me.” Cornelius would be furious if he heard I had lashed out at an innocent Scott. He would think me neurotic. Whatever happened, I had to smooth over the incident. “Of course I withdraw the question,” I said rapidly, “and of course I apologize. Thank you for all your hard work on the bid. I appreciate your loyalty and support.”

  He did not move, but I sensed him relax. “Thank you, Sam. That’s okay. I realize you were very upset.”

  “And now, if you’ll excuse me …”

  “Sure.”

  He left the room. I made a great effort to pull myself together quickly, but it took me a full minute before I could face picking up the red phone.

  “Yes?” said Cornelius.

  “We lost.”

  “Come right down.”

  I found him drinking Coca-Cola out of a cut-glass tumbler, but when I entered the room he moved at once to the concealed bar.

  “Want some?” he said, producing a bottle of brandy.

  “That’s a humane and generous gesture in the circumstances. But I don’t want to drink alone.”

  Cornelius produced two glasses the size of thimbles and carefully poured a couple of drops of brandy into each.

  “Well?” he said after I had swallowed my drink in a single gulp.

  “I’m sorry, Neil. What else can I say? Of course I accept full responsibility.”

  “No, the responsibility’s mine. I was the one who said we should ignore Whitmore. We should have adjusted the bid—not as much as Whitmore and Bonner hoped we would, perhaps, but some adjustment should still have been made. … Well, so much for postmortems. Everything’s going wrong at the moment, isn’t it? First Vicky, now Hammaco. I wonder what the next disaster will be. They say trouble always runs in threes. … Sam, you’re looking terrible. You know how much I disapprove of drinking at the office, but I think you’d better have some more brandy.”

  Cornelius was being so nice to me that I began to feel nervous. “No, I won’t drink any more,” I said. “I’m okay. Neil, once again, I can’t apologize sufficiently for not arriving at a winning formula …”

  “Oh, forget the apologies, Sam, and tell me what’s really bothering you! I’m worried. You’re drinking and smoking too much—incidentally, please do me a favor and put out that goddamned cigarette—and now you look as if you’re about to fall apart. What’s your problem? It’s not just Hammaco, is it? Is it this girl you’re so crazy about? Is she at the bottom of it all?”

  “Hell, no! She’s the one bright light on the horizon!”

  “Then what is it? There is something else, isn’t there?”

  “Well …”

  “Come on, Sam, remember the old days. When one of us made a mistake or got into trouble, the other came to the rescue; we had to operate that way in order to ensure we both survived here. Now you’ve obviously got problems, and if you fall apart there’ll be a big mess, so you’ve damn well got to talk to me. It’s your moral duty as a Van Zale partner.”

  I knew better than to argue with Cornelius once he started talking about moral duty. This was obviously the moment when I should tell him I wanted to go to Germany to work for the ECA, but although Cornelius seemed to be in an exceptionally sympathetic mood, I couldn’t help thinking the moment was hopelessly wrong. To reject his daughter, lose the Hammaco bid, and then ask for a prolonged leave of absence would surely be begging for trouble … or would it? On reflection it occurred to me that perhaps the reverse was true, and now was the perfect time to ease myself away from the wreck of the battlefield. I decided to take the chance and confide in him.

  “Well, Neil, I’ve been feeling kind of screwed up about everything lately. When I was in Germany—”

  “Oh, Christ,” said Cornelius. He returned to the liquor cabinet, took out two large glasses, and poured us both double brandies. “I wish to God you’d stay away from Europe,” he said. “You know how it always upsets you. I can’t think why you had to go back to Germany last month. If I didn’t know you so well, I’d say you had masochistic tendencies.”

  I had a moment of acute loneliness. I realized then how isolated I was, unable to communicate my most private feelings to those around me. I wanted to talk about Germany, to unburden myself of the memories of my recent visit—even to confess every detail of the ordeal of growing up German-American during and after World War I—but no one wanted to listen. Cornelius became exasperated every time I mentioned the word Germany; Jake had long since turned his back on me; Kevin was a stranger. Even Teresa, the one person I most wanted to confide in, had inexplicably distanced herself from me by retreating behind her work.

  I groped for the words which would communicate my feelings without alienating him further. “Germany means something very special to me, Neil,” I said with difficulty at last, “just as America means something very special to you. Do you remember how upset you got in the Depression when you found out people were living in caves in Central Park? Well, people ar
e living in air-raid bunkers in Germany. The port of Hamburg’s closed and thirty thousand men are unemployed. And all through the Ruhr—”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” said Cornelius. “It’s terrible, of course it’s terrible, but we’ll fix all that. The Americans will patch up Europe as usual, and maybe we’ll have a few years of peace and quiet before World War III—”

  I saw my opportunity and grasped it. “That’s exactly the point I want to make, Neil. The Americans are going to rebuild Europe, and I want to be a part of that. In fact, I’ve got to be a part of it—it’s my moral duty, if I may use your own favorite phrase against you.”

  “Trash,” said Cornelius, who was much shrewder than his fondness for ingenuous moral platitudes would suggest. “It’s not your moral duty. It’s your guilt.”

  “Okay, it’s my guilt! That doesn’t make my desire to take a leave of absence from Van Zale’s in order to work for the ECA any the less real! Don’t you see, Neil? Can’t you understand? This is a very special opportunity for me to work in a just, meaningful cause, and if I let it pass me by—”

  “Christ, you’re talking like some idealistic kid of eighteen!”

  “I wasn’t allowed to be an idealistic kid of eighteen,” I said. “Maybe it would have been better if I had been. Maybe it would have been better if I’d never met Paul, never come to work here, never got involved in a life where I spend my time blackmailing and cheating and lying—no, don’t interrupt me! You asked me to tell you what was bothering me, so let me have my say! This Hammaco bid simply underlines everything that’s wrong with my life, Neil. Twisting Whitmore’s arm, trying to screw our rivals, being counterscrewęd by them in return—and all for what? So that Van Zale’s can bank another million bucks! So that Hammaco can go into the armaments business and step up the cold war! Can’t you see how wrong it all is? Can’t you see it’s empty? And what the hell does it all mean anyway? Don’t you ever ask yourself that sort of question? And don’t you ever have that kind of doubt?”