“And why not? Don’t forget you’ll have me to help you with the kids now,” said Steve encouragingly, so I threw away my Dutch cap with relief and we did our best to bring home a permanent souvenir of our honeymoon.
Nothing happened. It was maddening. However, I was in such a state of bliss that nothing could depress me, and when I eventually returned to the office I found that my attention kept wandering from my work.
“I want to retire to Mallingham and do nothing but knit, give birth and lactate,” I said dreamily to Harriet.
“Darling, are you feeling quite well?” said Harriet concerned. “You don’t sound yourself at all.”
“Where’s all that famous ambition which won Paul’s heart?” Geoffrey asked me later when he came to dinner.
“Resting,” I said serenely. “I feel like England—I’ve won the War, survived the aftermath and now I’m in my pacific stage. All I want to do at present is to lead a quiet, tranquil life and turn my back on all the blood and thunder.”
But unfortunately tranquillity had no part to play in the future that Cornelius Van Zale had planned for me, and the very next day he achieved the bloodiest coup of his singularly bloodthirsty career.
Three
I
I WAS JUST FILING a nail and wondering if I were pregnant when the phone rang. I was in my office above Grafton Street. We had bought the house next door to our original house two years ago, and my office was no longer above the salon, which had now expanded to the upper floors. I had the large front room on the first floor of our new acquisition, and although I had at first found the high Georgian ceiling chilly I had softened the severity of the room’s proportions with a judicious mixture of antiques. In a desperate attempt to escape from the rococo atmosphere of the salon I had acquired a Georgian mahogany pedestal library table which I used as a desk, some Queen Anne hoop-back chairs and a matching pair of walnut bureau bookcases attributed to Coxed and Woster. Cedric said I should have “gone modern,” but I couldn’t abide the new functional designs of the Bauhaus School.
After I had finished signing the letters I had dictated that morning I glanced at the sales figures; I still had my upper-class clientele, but now my products had percolated through to the middle classes and I had just negotiated a distribution agreement with one of the better chains of chemists which covered the suburban market in the south. My current campaign was to launch a line of multicolored lipsticks. Lipsticks had done so well in the three traditional shades of dark, medium and light that I thought the time had come to give the customers more choice, and when my male salesmen argued against the idea at the sales conference I pointed out that of the three types of customer, blond, redhead and brunette, each favored a wardrobe consisting on average of two or three “becoming” colors. Lipstick, I reasoned, should no longer be bought simply to match one’s complexion. It should be considered as an essential part of a woman’s costume. Seven new lipsticks were now in production, and Cedric and I were engaged in a fierce battle to name them. Cedric favored naming them after film stars, but I said this was too vulgar and suggested lush Italian names like Francesca and Venetia. Cedric snorted and the battle continued, with everyone from Harriet to Steve offering names ranging from the exotic to the banal.
I jotted down a note to ask Cedric if the sales representative for the northeast could be falsifying his figures, rearranged one of the roses which Steve had delivered to me daily, and was just toying absent-mindedly with my nail file when the phone jangled, making me jump.
“Your husband, Miss Slade,” said my secretary.
Nobody at the office seemed capable of calling me Mrs. Sullivan. “All right. Hullo?” I said. “Steve?”
“Dinah, how busy are you?” There was a hard tense edge to his voice. “Can you come over to Milk Street right away? There’s something goddamned odd going on at Willow and Wall.”
I was flattered that he had chosen to involve me in his work, but I was also astonished. Although I privately hoped that when he was sole senior partner I might have the opportunity to learn about banking at last, I had told Steve in all sincerity that I was willing to shelve my plans indefinitely. I knew he had to be thoroughly secure before he could accept me working alongside him, and I had also faced the possibility that such a degree of security might never come. The sudden invitation to Milk Street not only took me aback but frightened me with its hint of disrupted plans, disorganized defenses and a brutal bolt from the blue.
Telling him I would leave Grafton Street immediately, I hurried over to the City.
They were expecting me at Van Zale’s. I was shown immediately through the dark Dickensian interior past the clerks to the back room where Steve worked. He had thrown out the heavy Victorian furniture, but the modern cocktail cabinet and functional sofa made me pine for the nineteenth century. On his desk stood photographs of me and the children.
He kissed me and offered me a drink. I knew he had been drinking heavily, because his face was flushed.
“No, I won’t have anything,” I said. I never drank during business hours. “What’s all this about?”
He had telephoned America at four o’clock. It was not one of the days when he had his regular call booked, but that day was the anniversary of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act and Lewis had planned to make a public announcement about the bank’s future and the formation of the new bank, the Van Zale Manhattan Trust. Lewis and Steve had been in detailed correspondence for some months. Everything had been organized and settled.
“So I call One Willow Street,” said Steve. He was drinking his whisky neat. “I want to find out how the press conference went, but all I find out is that Lewis is taking a long vacation in Florida and that no partner is available to speak to me. No one goes to Florida in June. All the partners don’t rush out to lunch or go into purdah at high noon. I raise the roof. I get cut off.” He dumped an empty whisky bottle into the waste-paper basket, pulled another bottle from the cocktail cabinet and refilled his glass. “I place another call. I’m still waiting.”
There was a silence. “But what could possibly have happened?” I said nervously. His extreme tension had affected me and I was sitting on the edge of my chair. I had never seen him in such a state. He resembled the favorite in a boxing match who bounces confidently into the ring only to find his opponent already poised to knock him cold.
Before he could answer my question the phone rang, and he gestured to the extension which he had had installed when he and Hal Beecher had worked together in that room in 1929.
“Pick that up.”
We both reached for our receivers. Since Steve’s private line was being used, the call did not come through the switchboard, and I heard the murmur of great distance beyond the erratic waves of static.
“Mr. Sam Keller in New York is calling Mr. Steven Sullivan in London.”
“My God,” said Steve to me, “they’ve actually called me back. That means Sam’s been briefed. Sullivan speaking,” he added sharply to the operator.
“Go ahead, Mr. Keller.”
For once the transatlantic telephone reception was clear. I heard a stranger’s voice, deep and charming, saying leisurely, “Hi, Steve! Sorry no one was around to take your call earlier, but—”
“All right, Sam. Cut the crap and give it to me straight. I want the whole story in twenty seconds flat.”
“Sure, Steve, sure. Well, first of all let me say that there’s absolutely no cause for alarm, but there’s been a little rearrangement here. Lewis has decided to take an early retirement. Now, Steve, I can’t go into detail on the phone about Lewis’ problems, but they were kind of substantial, if you follow me, and in the end he was the first to suggest that for the good of the firm he should retire.”
Steve was sweating. I saw his knuckles gleam white as he gripped the phone. “Sam,” he said, “who’s in charge now at One Willow Street?”
“Well, that’s just it, Steve. The Lewis disaster put us all in a difficult spot, and—”
“God damn it, Sam, answer me! Who—”
“Cornelius. He’s decided to stay here, Steve. In the circumstances he felt it was his moral duty.”
There was an absolute silence before Steve said, “Get him. I want to talk to him. Put him on the line.”
“Gee, he’s not here right now, Steve, but he sent you his compliments and—”
“Who’s going to head the new bank?”
“Martin. As a matter of fact it’s all worked out wonderfully well. Cornelius and Martin always got along, and Martin has the stature to head a new commercial bank. He’s taking with him the two partners you and Lewis planned to send with Cornelius, and the other partners are staying here, just as you arranged. Of course, Cornelius will have to appoint some more partners, but—”
“Cornelius can’t do one damn thing without my approval. He’s violating the articles of partnership.”
“Well, of course he wants to work with you, Steve! Of course he does! But actually I think you’ve forgotten the written agreement in which you authorized the hiring in your absence of replacements for the three partners who were to go to the Van Zale Manhattan Trust.”
“That agreement was with Lewis!”
“Lewis assigned his powers under that agreement to Cornelius.”
“That’s illegal!”
“No, Steve. Pardon me, but we checked with Dick Fenton. Because of the wording of the agreement and the scope of the articles of partnership—”
Steve said what the Van Zale lawyer could do with himself. The flush had faded from his face, and he was white. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he emptied the whisky in his glass before he spoke again. “You can tell your pal I’m getting the first ship to New York.”
“That would be great, Steve. We’d sure like to see you. But don’t get too mad just because Cornelius wants to follow in his great-uncle’s footsteps—you know what a mystical feeling he’s always had for Paul. And anyway Cornelius really wants to be friendly with you about all this. In fact, he was saying to me only this morning: ‘Gee, Sam,’ he said, ‘isn’t it wonderful that we’ve got Steve pulling the Milk Street office to its feet again?’ And he’s right, Steve. We’re so lucky to have you there, and now the European economy’s improving maybe we can open a German office at last.”
“If Cornelius wants a German office he can damn well come over here and open one himself. I’ll see you next week, Sam.”
“Wait! Steve, are you still there? Thank God, I thought you’d gone. Uh … Steve …” He stopped.
Steve and I looked at each other. We both knew then that Cornelius had been listening to the entire conversation.
“Steve, I’ve just remembered that Cornelius asked me to tell you that he’s having a big dinner party next weekend for the Morgan partners and their wives. He says he’s not sure how to entertain them after dinner, but he thought that once the ladies had withdrawn the men might like to listen to certain old recordings from the twenties. There was one in particular he had in mind. It was recorded on July the seventeenth, 1928. He said to be sure to mention it to you because he felt it would bring back so many interesting memories.”
Steve was ashen. He did not reply. The whisky stood untested in his glass.
“Well,” said the friendly voice in New York, “we’ll give you a great welcome, Steve, whenever you choose to come back on a visit, but meanwhile I can tell Cornelius, can’t I, that you’ll be staying on to take care of our European interests?”
“You can tell Cornelius that next time I hope he has the guts to talk to me instead of sitting on an extension and letting you do all his dirty work.”
Steve severed the connection. The whisky slopped in the glass as his hand shook.
“My God,” he said. “My God.” He seemed incapable of further speech, and I was so shocked to see him so shattered that I too could think of nothing to say. At last, realizing that one of us at least had to remain calm, I said carefully, “I think I understood all that. Cornelius knew that you and Lewis together could always overpower him, so he smashes your coalition by forcing Lewis into retirement. Then he tames the discontented Martin by offering him the new bank. With that stroke he succeeds in getting rid of every single partner—except Hal, and you’ve always told me he was too tame to count—who was at the bank when Paul was assassinated. Charley and Walter are dead, Clay’s resigned, Lewis has retired, Martin’s been dispatched elsewhere and you’re in London. That leaves Cornelius with a bunch of new partners—”
“Window dressing,” said Steve. “Solid, mature yes-men, paragons of respectability. Now that Lewis is gone and Martin and I aren’t there they’ll simply follow Cornelius like a bunch of sheep. Then he’ll pack the vacant partnerships with his own men and maneuver himself into a position where he can cut my throat.”
“But how can he possibly do that when you have complete autonomy here?”
“Because Van Zale’s in London isn’t in fact a separate entity from Van Zale’s, New York. It’s true I’m allowed a free rein, but ultimately I’m always answerable to One Willow Street. And I’m vulnerable. All Cornelius has to do is set me up on the brink of a precipice and then kick me over the edge. He’s got me by the balls.”
“But I still don’t understand—” I broke off as I saw he was reaching for the whisky again. “Let’s go home, Steve, and get out of this office. You’ll feel better once you’re away from the scene of the crime.”
On our way home in the car he explained to me how Cornelius could ruin him. He gave only one example but said he could think of others.
“Supposing someone comes to me for a loan to expand their business. Since I’m a banker in London instead of a banker in New York, the situation goes like this. …”
I listened, struggling to concentrate. In England a period of two weeks elapsed between the time the issuing house, such as Van Zale’s, put an issue on the market and the time at which it was required to make payment to the borrowing company. Thus Van Zale’s would normally have between ten and fifteen days during which it could receive money from subscribers to buy stock in the issue. In this period a large part if not all of the money due the borrowers would be collected. This was where British practice differed from the American, for in America the company wouldn’t deliver its securities to the banker until it had received payment for them in full. This was why the American investment banks had to form syndicates and borrow from commercial banks; they had to pay for the securities before they could sell them to the public.
However, in England the borrowing company was more lenient to the issuing house, and Van Zale’s would be allowed not only two weeks to pay for the stock but the use of the incoming subscribers’ money during that time. The one danger was that if the issue didn’t sell, the issuing house had to come up with the balance at the end of the two-week period, and to safeguard themselves against this potentially awkward situation the issuing house would insure the issue so that if it failed to sell within the two weeks the insurance company would provide the money to tide them over until the sale of the issue was completed. Usually there was no problem in getting an issue underwritten, but difficulties could arise.
“For instance,” said Steve, “supposing I agreed to market a South American issue which I thought was safe but which the underwriters distrusted—South American issues have an uncertain reputation. Supposing I found myself unable to insure the sale of the issue and unable to dispose of it in two weeks. It’s not very likely, but it could happen. What would I do? I’ve got to produce this money on the nail and no one here will help me. Well, there’s only one thing I can do. I cable New York for backing, and naturally they give it to me. Except that if Cornelius was in the saddle waiting to stab me in the back, they might not. That would be my final curtain. I wouldn’t be able to produce the money on time and word would get around that my parent house wasn’t backing me up. My reputation would be deader than a dodo in no time flat. I’d be finished.”
The car drew up outside our ho
use, but neither of us made any effort to get out. As the chauffeur opened the door for us Steve said, “Dinah, I’m sorry, but I can’t face the children—can’t face anyone—until I’ve talked this out. Can we go down the road to the Ritz?”
We ended up drinking champagne. “So cheering in times of crisis!” I said firmly, but I wanted to stop him drinking whisky.
“I don’t know what to do,” he was saying, not listening to me. “My best bet is probably to move to another house before he outflanks me, but I hate the thought of quitting Van Zale’s, I hate the thought of being beaten by that snot-nosed little kid and I’m damned if I’m going to let him get away with this.”
“Could you move to another American house in London— Morgan Grenfell, for example?” I was thinking what a relief it would be if he were to settle permanently in England and we were no longer faced with the challenge of dividing our time between two continents. Much as I had been looking forward to opening a salon in New York, I had become increasingly disturbed by the thought of being away from Mallingham for six months of the year, and besides I was by no means certain we wouldn’t spend most of the year in America in order to accommodate Steve. Having by this time foreseen numerous crises arising, I now realized more clearly than ever that it would be better for our marriage if Steve could resign himself to working in Europe, and I even wondered if Cornelius’ midsummer mayhem might not turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
“Not Morgan’s,” said Steve. “I’m too unconventional for them.” His eyes darkened as the name of Morgan was repeated, and I remembered Sam Keller’s velvet-voiced threat on the phone.
The Rich Are Different Page 78
