Green Grow the Dollars

by Emma Lathen

  Sanders shrugged. “All I know is that his mother is the Vandam who’s had six husbands.”

  “And presumably a healthy chunk of company stock,” said Thatcher, disregarding inessentials.

  “Yes,” said Sanders. “But, to tell you the truth, Ingersoll is the best of a pretty bad lot. He was the one who bulldozed the Numero Uno project through, in the teeth of all sorts of opposition. Once it paid off, if it has paid off, everybody climbed aboard, including Dick. But it was Jason who realized that Vandam’s had to do something big, or else sink beneath its own weight. He was surprised when Dick came up with our merger offer, but he saw the possibilities right off.”

  “Yes,” said Thatcher. “He struck me as an ambitious young man.”

  “He sure is,” said Sanders shortly. “Ingersoll plans to be president of Standard Foods someday. Let me tell you, if anything, anything at all, happens to Numero Uno, he’s out on his can, just like the rest of them. Oh, waiter, do you want to top this up for me?”

  O’Hare, Hogarthian nightmare though it was, came as a decided relief. Thatcher shook hands with his traveling companion, who was heading out to Oakbrook.

  “You’re staying downtown at the Hyatt, aren’t you?” Sanders said. “After I’ve touched base with headquarters, I’ll get in contact.”

  “Splendid,” said Thatcher heartily, with every intention of putting tomatoes behind him as soon as possible. Hard goods, not soft goods, were next on his agenda. Unfortunately, in the current economic climate, this did not constitute a marked improvement.

  Charlie Trinkam brought this home to Thatcher when he strolled into the Sloan suite an hour later. “First of all, the price of gas is killing Wenonah. Then, there are mortgage rates. Now, OSHA is suing them because of dangerous levels of asbestos particulates. On top of that, the union wants a 22% across-the-board increase, and a roof has just collapsed at their plant in Benton Harbor. How were things downstate, John?”

  “Standard Foods is no doubt facing a major problem,” said Thatcher. Now that he had taken his own reading of Wisconsin Seedsmen, he could add, “It may be more serious than they realize. As for Vandam’s, my impression is that the outlook is not bright, no matter what happens.”

  Trinkam was not one of the Sloan’s passionate gardeners. ‘Tough,” he said indifferently.

  “Wenonah, I don’t have to tell you, is dead in the water.”

  Wenonah Industries, producer of recreational vehicles, had been a star performer until the heavens fell. Now, despite the best efforts of a highly touted management, the end was in sight.

  “No hope at all?” Thatcher asked.

  Trinkam had been in Chicago for over a week, taking a last hard look.

  “They’re beginning to talk about getting a government guarantee for their bank loans,” said Charlie sadly.

  Doctors are not the only ones faced by the agonizing question of whether or not to pull the plug. Terminating a major credit line is never a pleasure either. With Wenonah Industries it was not even easy. Thatcher’s arrival, which Wenonah should have recognized as the last rites, simply sparked them into prodigies of misdirected effort.

  Two tedious days passed and Charlie Trinkam’s capacity for enjoyment began to wilt. “No,” he said wearily when Thatcher inquired about any after dinner plans, “I’ll just turn in early tonight.”

  He could have been in Peoria.

  He and Thatcher had just survived a marketing session designed to prove that, come April, the American buying public would stampede into showrooms filled with $40,000 vehicles getting five miles to the gallon.

  “And I know what they’ll come up with tomorrow,” said Charlie bleakly. “They’ll be full of plans to convert to defense production. It’s enough to make you want to bomb a business school.”

  Thatcher had a more effective way to deal with lost causes. “Don’t they have a note falling due at Midwestern Trust? I think we should find out what Midwestern proposes to do. God knows, we’ve made the Sloan position clear. One way or another, I’m returning to New York. If, by any chance, Midwestern wants to prolong the agony, you may have to stay on for a day or two.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” said Charlie with a grin. Midwestern Trust was a byword among bankers.

  Thus, the following morning saw them heading for LaSalle Street, a far more congenial milieu than Wenonah Industries. Even Edgar Brown, the presiding genius and resident terror at Midwestern, made a nice change. No one had ever classed him with the nation’s dynamic executives.

  “Bad business, John,” he grunted after Charlie and his local equivalents disappeared to hammer out Wenonah’s fate.

  “In every sense,” Thatcher agreed.

  “I told them they were expanding too fast. That kind of boom never lasts. What goes up has to come down.”

  Brown and this philosophy had been at Midwestern Trust as long as anybody could remember. He had no private personality to speak of, having assumed the coloration of his institution. Brown and his bank believed in self-liquidating loans, God, and the Republican Party.

  “Did you come to Chicago to keep an eye on what Trinkam’s doing?” he asked.

  Employees at Midwestern Trust were spectacularly downtrodden, and Thatcher hastened to dispel any such view of Charlie. “As a matter of fact, I just happened to be passing through.”

  “Passing through from Vandamia?” said Brown craftily.

  “That’s right,” Thatcher reminded himself. “You’re Vandam’s bank, aren’t you?”

  “We sure are,” answered Brown, “and we have been since the old man started out.”

  “Which old man?” asked Thatcher, who knew Brown.

  “Cornelius Vandam,” said Brown, savoring every syllable. “He was a giant, John, a real giant. This crowd couldn’t even begin to fill his shoes. Still, it’s too bad to see them swallowed up by Standard Foods.”

  Cynics would claim that Edgar and Midwestern Trust had cause to regret any move jeopardizing such a substantial account.

  “And I’m damned if I think it was necessary, or desirable,” Brown continued irascibly. “Vandam’s had a nice, stable business, year in and year out. With a very fine cash flow, no matter what those damned Arabs were doing with the price of oil. To tell you the truth, John, I nearly bust a gut advising them to reject Standard Foods’ offer. But it didn’t do any good.”

  “It rarely does,” said Thatcher, as one banker to another.

  “The trouble is that there are too many Vandams,” Brown said. “Most of them care more about money than about tradition. A shame.”

  Thatcher observed a moment of silent respect for this sentiment, then asked about the Vandams still active in the firm. “From what I saw of them,” he commented, “they seem to be reasonably commercial-minded.”

  “Oh, Dick’s got his head screwed on right,” said Brown promptly. “Milton was pretty sensible too. I’m not so sure about young Jason. He’s got a lot of ideas.”

  “Yes,” said Thatcher, who was not unalterably opposed to ideas. “Jason impressed me that way too. But I don’t think I met Milton.”

  Tact prevented his asking outright if Brown was evoking more shades from the heroic past. But Milton, it turned out, was alive and kicking. “You didn’t meet him because they threw him out,” said Brown. “Helluva way to treat him after all the years he put in. Caused quite a rumpus at the time. From what I hear, Jason was behind that too.”

  “At least Standard Foods wasn’t the villain,” said Thatcher.

  “Standard Foods never has been the villain,” Edgar Brown said roundly. “If they’d all pulled together, instead of playing one faction against the other, Vandam’s would never have had to sell out. You know about this new tomato of theirs? Hell, if they’d waited, they could have bought out Standard Foods.”

  Ned Ackerman, Thatcher reflected, was probably thinking along just those lines.

  “Too bad, too bad,” Brown mourned. “And, on top of everything, it’s the first time in God-knows-h
ow-many years that the Vandam catalog hasn’t been in the mail by January first. You know, you look at what’s happened to Vandam’s, and you wonder where the country’s headed.”

  It took 20 minutes for Thatcher and Charlie to taxi from Midwestern Trust back to the Hyatt. During that interval nothing significant happened to Japanese imports, the inflation rate, or U.S. housing starts. Nevertheless, according to Edgar Brown’s admittedly peculiar lights, the Union was safe. The Vandam spring catalog was being distributed to the waiting world.

  Thatcher discovered this happy circumstance in the boldly chromed lobby of the Hyatt where Dick Vandam had stationed himself. Vandam could have been the father of the bride, radiating pleasure, pride and unfocused cordiality. Near him, their arms filled with the precious catalogs, were four young men and behind them stood three dollies, piled high with cardboard cartons.

  Thatcher and Charlie found themselves caught up in the cavalcade.

  “Good to see you, good to see you,” Vandam was saying with a relentless smile. “It’s going to be a great meeting, and Vandam’s wants to be sure you’ve got your copy of the catalog.”

  He and his minions were working the crowd like politicians. “Good to see you here, yes indeed, a great day— oh, it’s you, Thatcher.”

  Charlie was critically studying the 150 pages that had been thrust upon him. From his expression, he was not the man for the sweet pea that adorned the cover.

  “Hello, Vandam,” said Thatcher, conscious of a line forming behind him. “What exactly is going on?”

  “Phil, take over for a minute, will you?” said Vandam, stepping out of the receiving line and joining Thatcher. “Well, I suppose you’ll find it hard to believe after that farce the other day in Vandamia. But there is some progress, thank God. As you see, we have finally got the catalog off the presses.”

  Since this niche of the Hyatt resembled a paperback store, Thatcher could indeed see that the catalog was out. Furthermore, he knew without looking that all reference to Numero Uno had been deleted. It was the rest of the hoopla that eluded him and he said so.

  “Why, it’s the Plant Society meetings. That’s what all these people are checking in for,” said Vandam, pointing to the crowd at the desk. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  “No,” said Thatcher, “I’m in Chicago on other business. I recall your talk about the convention, of course. But I don’t see that the Sloan has anything to gain by attending.”

  For one telling moment, Vandam’s mask of joviality slipped. “I don’t mind saying I think you’re wrong. You mark my words, by the time these meetings are over, we’re going to have this entire Numero Uno situation signed, sealed and delivered.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Thatcher, preparing to detach himself.

  “I know I’m right,” said Vandam, with a resurgence of his old style. “There’s a limit to how long situations like this can hang fire, you know. Sooner or later, somebody has to do something.”

  Chapter 10

  Attract Pests

  THE annual conventions of learned societies are not simple forums for the dissemination of knowledge. Each convention is a beehive buzzing with activity. There are people reporting on research, there are members intriguing for committee appointments, there are publishers’ reps in search of authors, and there is even commerce. Every discipline uses something that somebody else is selling. Suppliers of laboratory equipment, computers, microfiches all rent hospitality suites in which to woo new customers.

  With all these interests converging on even the simplest meeting, it is not surprising that many of them attract satellite functions. For example, when the plant geneticists sat down in McCormick Place, the annual trade show for nursery equipment occupied the mall level of that giant complex, while the Illinois Flower Show was ensconced on the lobby level. The helicopter pad just outside, the taxi ranks to the east, the shuttle buses running from every major hotel in Chicago, were all delivering hordes of people to one or another of these events. Heedless of the icy temperatures reigning outdoors, heedless of Lake Michigan stretching in crystalline splendor under an arctic blue sky, they hurried indoors to the promise of lush, abundant fertility.

  And, in the finest traditions of horticulture, there was a good deal of cross-pollination. Flower growers inspected new sprinklers, greenhouse manufacturers buttonholed passing botanists, and geneticists stole a few moments to take in the new lilies. But even under the pressure of this triangular traffic, it was surprising how many persons found time to add to the swelling rumors about Wisconsin Seedsmen v. Vandam’s.

  Partly this was the result of simple physical circumstance. The flower enthusiasts and the nurserymen were provided with acres and acres of exhibit space. On those floors it was normal for crowds to amble from one booth to another, listening to sales pitches, watching live demonstrations of new equipment, accepting glossy brochures, and even gently inhaling the fragrance of exotic blooms. The plant geneticists, however, were made of sterner stuff. Their activities were conducted in a series of conference rooms, ranging from small cubbyholes to vast amphitheaters. In this antiseptic atmosphere, the only exhibit in evidence was like a splash of primary color in a sea of grey.

  Everyone entering the meetings had to stop at the registration desk and then pass through double doors leading to their section of the convention center. In the foyer area directly before the doors Numero Uno stood on a pedestal in solitary splendor. A placard listed the virtues of the plant, but the only reference to origin was the chaste legend: Patent Applied For. The pedestal was flanked by two employees of the Society of Plant Sciences, ostensibly there to provide additional technical information, actually to ensure that Vandam’s and Scott Wenzel abided by their agreement to avoid proprietary claims. There was a constant crowd surrounding the pedestal, continually reinforced by newcomers, and the air rang with their comments, surmises and appreciation.

  In fact, Barbara Gunn was halted in her tracks by the display. It was an eye-opener even for someone who had spent five years on the job.

  “Have you heard about the patent suit?” one spectator called to another. “I wondered why they were washing their dirty linen in public before I saw what’s at stake. But, God, this baby is going to be worth millions. No wonder they’re willing to slug it out.”

  “I hear they’re ready to commit murder over at Standard Foods,” came the reply, so cheerfully given that the speaker had to be a competitor. “They had it all sewed up, and now there’s a good chance it will slip away. They’ll pull every trick in the book to hang on.”

  This invigorating prophecy encouraged more speculation.

  “It’d be like losing the patent on Polaroid,” someone offered. “What do a few warm bodies matter?”

  Barbara was accustomed to Scott Wenzel and Ned Ackerman. This was her first exposure to public opinion.

  “I don’t understand,” she said cautiously to the man who had just apologized for jostling her. “They bring out new tomatoes every year, don’t they? Why should this one be so much more important?”

  He was delighted to explain to a young, pretty girl.

  “All the others have been variations on the same old theme, hybrids that are disease resistant or more productive. But, from an overall point of view, this one is a revolution. Just as an example, canners will be able to operate year-round. And scientifically speaking, it’s a real breakthrough in methods of propagation.”

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “I can see that, but why are you so sure that there’s going to be a big fight about it? Maybe they’ll get together and share it.”

  She remembered saying something like this to Ned Ackerman. This time her listener laughed aloud.

  “Share it!” he hooted. “Good God, would Newton have shared the theory of gravity, would Darwin have shared the origin of species! This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. If it were mine . . .” Words failed him as he searched for the right metaphor. Finally: “Would a mother share her newborn baby?”<
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  His flow of eloquence was more impressive than he realized. Little by little, the bits were falling into place for Barbara. She had started by assuming that genetics was something of no interest to ordinary human beings. When the fireworks began, she attributed them to Scotty’s prickly personality. But here in McCormick Place it was finally coming home to her how much money and prestige was riding on that bush. And for the first time, she made a vital connection. She, Barbara Gunn, was going to be in the thick of it.

  When the lawyers had scheduled her deposition for immediately after the meetings, Ned Ackerman had made light of her apprehension. Why should she be more nervous than a pack of teenagers?

  How alike men were, she thought bitterly. They soothed you and cajoled you, they appealed to loyalty and friendship, while they were playing on your ignorance and misinformation. She might not understand genetics, but she did understand office procedures at Wisconsin Seed. Who else could swear to the day on which Scotty dictated certain lab notes? Who else was going to have to say under oath that there had been no alteration in certain shorthand books? Who else knew the order in which certain charts had been filed?

  She was not going to be lost in the crowd; her ordeal was not going to be confined to giving a deposition.

  “I’m going to be the star witness at the trial,” she thought with a lurching stomach. “Oh, damn them all! They might have told me the truth!”

  The commercial value of Numero Uno came as no surprise to Howard Pendleton. Nor did the rapacious interest of his colleagues. In his experience, the more elevated the academic status, the firmer the attachment to things of this world. But although he was prepared for what he found, he still did not like it. All morning his progress through McCormick Place had brought him face to face with animated knots of gossipers. He had been safe for the last hour and a half, during which period he had been moderating a panel. The furlough was about to end.

  “If there are no further questions from the floor?” he asked, his practiced ear having noted the faltering tempo of the last exchange.