The web of fresh widowhood entrapped her, and she could not escape.
Honora phoned four times from Los Angeles. Although Crystal recognized her gentle sister’s loving persistence, she could not pull herself together to take the calls. A condolence letter arrived on stationery embossed Mrs. Malcolm Peck. Joscelyn had written a brief yet elegaic paragraph about Gideon during the spring and summer that the three Sylvander sisters had dwelt in his Clay Street house. Crystal’s tears splotched the elegant slants of the engineer’s printing: since she could not decently hand over a note from her own sister to her fussy social secretary for acknowledgment, she dropped it in the wastebasket.
The boys came home each weekend, but even when Alexander was speaking, even when celebrating his birthday, her attention flickered like a worn-out light bulb.
Most afternoons Mitchell would arrive at the house with a fresh sheaf of documents. Mesmerized by his quiet, self-effacing voice, she never grasped his explanations of the significance of each postmortem paper that she must sign. She saw the executive secretary as a benign ghost sent by her dead husband to guide her.
One afternoon in May they sat in the rear drawing room, he explaining, she staring out the window: the sky was murky and leaden, turning the choppy Bay a brownish, elephant-hide gray. She wrote Crystal Sylvander Talbott by his neat exes.
“Mrs. Talbott?”
“Yes, Mitchell?”
Giving a dry, nervous cough, he stacked the signed legalities in his old, carefully polished leather briefcase. “Something’s come to my attention that seems a bit out of the ordinary.”
“Oh, handle it however you think best.” She managed a listless smile. “I have every faith in you.”
Doglike adoration glazed his intelligent eyes. “I don’t like bothering you, not now,” he said gently, “but I think this is important. The board is meeting on Sunday.”
Talbott’s eight-man board of directors, composed of the five division heads plus the presidents of Talbott Construction, Inc., Talbott-Arabian Enterprises and Talbott Engineering, Inc., gathered four times a year around the long oval table of the directors’ room. In January, while readying her to preside in his place, Gideon had made a rare venture into humor: No need to be nervous, dear. My bears are quite tame, they’ll dance to whatever tune you play. Since then she had lumped the board that way. The Bears. Each Bear had made a sympathy call, effusively giving reassurances that Talbott’s was forging ahead, business-as-usual.
“This isn’t the right month,” she said. “And anyway isn’t Sunday a peculiar day for them to meet?”
“Exactly. And no notification’s come for me.” He acted as the recording secretary. “Mrs. Talbott, since Mr. Talbott passed on there’s been an expression of interest in buying Talbott’s.”
She had been leaning back in the pillows. Now her spine, straightened. “I don’t understand. Buy Talbott’s?” She peered at him.
“There’s been feelers.”
“Who is it?” she demanded. “Morrison-Knudsen? Fluor? That damn Ivory?”
“This is all third hand,” he said. “It’s Woodham.”
“Woodham!” Woodham was a large, Illinois-based construction firm with whom Talbott’s had often co-ventured. “Why doesn’t Henry Woodham come to me? Don’t people in the business know that what I don’t own outright is in trust for the boys—and that I control the trust?”
“I’m certain the disposition of Mr. Talbott’s estate is common knowledge.”
“So why’s Henry Woodham been sniffing around my board?”
“I suppose Mr. Woodham believes the directors will make the ultimate decision, and then advise you.”
“Hahh!” Crystal’s eyes glinted a darker blue. For the first time since Gideon’s death her mental processes had regained their normal clarity, precision and immediacy. “Well? And how did they react?”
“I gather with great enthusiasm.”
“The whole thing’s insane! Alexander—and Gid, too—are looking forward to coming into the business.”
“You’d be extremely well recompensed,” he said, adding in deliberate slowness, “and so would each board member.”
“They’re being paid off?”
“They’ll receive stock in Woodham. It’s traded on the American Stock Exchange.”
“I know, I know,” she said impatiently. “How much stock?”
“I’m not positive. I believe it’s a different amount for each of them. Certainly as a group the board’ll receive a substantial block. I gather—again third hand—at this meeting they’re going to discuss how to present the Woodham offer to you in its most attractive light.”
“How to wheedle me around,” she said bitterly.
“Mrs. Talbott, they have no realization of how much you’ve contributed to the company. They see only the obvious, your beauty, your charm.”
Her jaw tightened and she stared across the drab Bay at Alcatraz. “What if I refuse to go along? What will they do?”
His narrow shoulders rose in an eloquent shrug. “The obvious move is for them to resign en masse, or at least threaten to.”
“And I’d be out of business.”
“Or maybe they’ll be more subtle, put you in a position where you’ll be forced to go along. We both know how risky construction is. A few large jobs underbid and you’d be in serious financial hot water.”
Her face took on that frightening, superhuman beauty as she visualized each director. After a full minute’s silence she said, “Redelings, Cline, O’Shea and Masters won’t resign or play financial hanky-panky.”
“They might appear loyal, Mrs. Talbott, but I wouldn’t be too sure of them.”
“They’ll try to coerce me, but they don’t want Talbott’s going down the tubes,” she said. “They’re over sixty, they’d never locate another top management job.”
Mitchell nodded slowly, respectfully. “That’s extremely astute reasoning, Mrs. Talbott. You’re right.”
All at once Crystal’s supporting wires of outrage snapped: small and fragile in her widow’s black, she sank back.
“Oh, Mitchell,” she sighed shakily. “What’s the point of even considering who’ll do what? I can’t go up against them.”
He leaned toward her comfortingly. She could smell the Lifebuoy on him. “Mrs. Talbott, don’t underestimate yourself.”
“It’ll be years before the boys’re ready to take over.”
“Mr. Talbott often told me how lucky he was to have a wife with a keen mind. And think of during his illness. He couldn’t have managed without you. You were a tremendous help to him.”
“Help, yes. I ran his errands. But women don’t belong in construction,” she said. “You won’t be sorry for telling me, I’ll see to that.”
The faintest hint of dismayed reproach showed in the cadaverous face. “Mrs. Talbott, that’s not important.”
“You’re a true friend,” she said, floundering about for a nonmercenary reward. With a wan smile, she inquired, “I’m not sure I’ve heard your Christian name?”
He acknowledged his pleasure by reddening. “Padraic.”
“Spelled the Irish way?”
“Yes. My mother’s maiden name was Sullivan,” he said. “I’d be most grateful if you’d call me Padraic, Mrs. Talbott.”
“When we’re alone like this, it’s Crystal.”
“Crystal . . . .”
* * *
The next few hours her mind whirled. She would suddenly find herself in the music room, or at her desk, or in her dressing room with no recollection of when she had moved, or why.
Gideon never would have been coerced. But she, by virtue of her sex, was hostage to the Bears. They could put her out of business.
At eleven thirty she found herself dialing long distance.
She convinced an elderly, southern-accented male of her urgent maternal need to speak to Alexander Talbott. Yet when she had her son on the line, she didn’t know what to say.
“Alexander . . .�
� she faltered. “Alexander, are you really interested in going into Talbott’s?”
“Come on, Mom, you didn’t call after lights out to ask me that.”
“I have to know.”
“It’ll be mine, remember?”
“And Gid’s.”
“Don’t worry, Gid’ll be there, too.”
“Woodham’s interested in buying us out.”
“Tell ’em to go take a flying fuck.”
“Oh, Alexander, be serious.”
“Come on, Mom, all the big companies are licking their chops. But the others are waiting a decent couple of months before they rip at you.”
“I’m not meant to know.”
“Then how do you?”
“Mitchell told me.”
“Good old faithful. What’s the dope?”
She briefly recapitulated the afternoon’s conversation. “And Mitchell says the board’ll stop at nothing to make me sell out.”
“That’s obvious. But you aren’t going to.”
“What choice do I have? They could easily force me into a corner by threatening to resign. Or by getting me into a financial bind so I’d have to sell—and at much worse terms.”
“I want Talbott’s.” He was enunciating carefully.
“I don’t know how to handle them.” Her voice rose shrilly.
“Let me think,” he said.
She clasped the phone tighter. What could be more idiotic than waiting on pins and needles for the advice of a boy who had just had his fifteenth birthday?
“The thing is to get something on each of them,” he said finally.
“I don’t understand.”
“The dirt,” he said. “Mom, the dirt.”
“Alexander, you know there isn’t any. Your father—” She now spoke the word securely. Her confession to Gideon and his forgiveness had released her from the qualms she had always felt about Alexander being a cuckoo in the Talbott nest. “—wouldn’t have kept them if he’d seen anything underhanded.”
“Ah right—they’re an upstanding bunch. Going behind your back when you’re so shook you can’t think straight,” he said with embittered raillery. “There’s dirt.”
“I just can’t believe your father would have—”
“For openers,” he interrupted, “try going through their offices.”
“Alexander, you sound so hard.”
After the briefest pause, he said, “How should I sound? Those bastards, I could kill them.”
“So could I. With my bare hands.”
“Attagirl, Mom. I’m counting on you and so’s old Gid.”
When she hung up, the force of her headache had eased. Alexander had not relieved any of her doubts and fears, but the conversation had settled her mind. He had pointed out a course of action.
* * *
The next afternoon when Mitchell arrived she asked, “What time is that meeting?”
“Ten thirty. Are you going?”
“I must. The boys are relying on me,” she said. “Do you think I’m being an idiot?”
“No. A brave and courageous lady. I’ll be there with you.”
“Thank you, Padraic,” she said, and touched his knuckle. “Tell me if this sounds melodramatic. What if we wait in Mr. Talbott’s office until they’re beginning their meeting, then walk in? Would that give us an advantage?”
“You’ll shock the life out of them” Mitchell replied, still red about the ears from her feather-light touch.
41
Though Crystal had arranged to meet Mitchell at headquarters at ten, her car pulled up on Maiden Lane at a little before eight—an ungodly early hour for her. Instructing the chauffeur to return to the house, she poised on the steps, a badly outnumbered general surveying her battleground. Talbott’s had long ago acquired the two adjacent buildings, and under her guidance the three had acquired a unified Victorian façade.
Her limited supply of confidence faded immediately once she unlocked the Pompeiian red door. Across from her, on the staircase wall, hung Gideon’s larger than life, full-length portrait. Two narrow windows provided the only light, and the shadows wadding the hall intensified the Rembrandtian chiaroscuro so that the strong, ugly face seemed to jump out at her, a near verbal reminder that whatever influence she might have had on the exterior of Talbott’s ceased at this threshold. She was entering Gideon’s world—a tough, rapaciously competitive masculine world. In her black Chanel suit with its miniskirt exposing the shapely curves of her thighs, she felt a doll. Frivolous. Breakable. Inadequate. Mindless. A good thing she’d sent the Cadillac away or she would have slunk home.
Incapable of facing the claustrophobic, leather-padded confines of the Otis elevator, she climbed the uncarpeted wooden staircase, her footsteps resounding hollowly. On the second and third floors the interior walls of all three buildings had been removed to form an enormous open space. Low barriers marked the cubicles of project managers, but the impression was of an endless battalion of drafting tables each with an armed light fixture above and a metal stool tucked neatly beneath. She stepped to the nearest table, fingering the safelike equipment that adjusted the mechanical drafting machine. “Gideon bought equipment and engineers,” she said. “I can buy them, too.” Her high, female voice was smothered by the silence.
The executive offices were on the fourth, the top, floor. As she reached it, a sudden shadow darted. She gasped aloud, then realized the intrusion came from a bird flying above the skylights.
Straightening her shoulders, drawing a deep, calming breath, she moved to the nearest door. The neatly painted lettering read:
A. DONALD MASTERS
Gideon’s heavy keys dangled in her hand. This building was hers by inheritance, so why should she be inhibited by this sense of trespassing? I’d feel a lot less furtive if I believed the Bears are into corruption. But Gideon was shrewd about people and he never would have kept anyone whose morals were questionable.
Fumbling with the key marked “Masters,” she pushed open the heavy door, hurrying through the secretarial antechamber into the domain of the oldest member of the board.
A. D. Masters, a jovial, ruddy-faced man of sixty-two, had risen from piledriver to this large, luxurious office by dint of night school engineering courses and some fancy footwork with San Francisco’s edgy labor unions. His unstylishly broad-shouldered suits were always rumpled, his dark tie crooked, his shock of graying hair unkempt. His office showed a similar lack of order.
A car—or maybe it was a truck—rattled up Maiden Lane. Crystal ducked into the corner, waiting until the noisy engine faded before going to the cluttered desk.
She picked up the folded financial page of Friday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Blue pencil circled WoCo, the symbol for Woodham Corporation, which had closed at fifty and a quarter. It didn’t take too much brilliance to know that the $100,500 slashed on the margin meant Masters had been offered 2000 shares. No wonder he’s such an eager beaver. Sitting in the deep, black leather indents of Master’s desk chair, she fished gingerly through his top drawer.
Shoved behind diagrams, she found a wad of department store bills. She frowned at them. Why had these been mailed to the office? Why hadn’t they been paid from the big Piedmont house that bony Mrs. Masters kept so immaculate? Crystal laid the receipts in front of her like a fortune-teller’s Tarot deck.
Masters had stocked up on inexpensive jewelry and high-priced lingerie.
Crystal’s mouth curved in a knowing smile, and her hands moved less hesitantly as she went through the messy drawers. Below a fingermarked volume of specifications was an eight-by-ten glossy. A cheaply voluptuous creature in a minimal bikini posed with a hand on her hip. Across the huge breasts was scrawled: With all my Heart to Adorable Andy from Your Lucille. Crystal knew that to everyone, including his prim wife, Masters was A.D.
With a ribald little chuckle, Crystal thought: Andy, Dandy Andy, what a naughty boy. “Alexander, you genius,” she whispered, and laughed aloud.
She
replaced the bills and photographs where she found them.
O’Shea’s office, though identical to Masters’, appeared twice the size because it lacked clutter. In the top drawer of the desk was a manila file typed: Personal Business. Inside was a second notice for $8000 due to Loopman’s Casino in Reno, and a Western Air Lines round-trip ticket to the same city dated for today.
As she meticulously repositioned the file, the burden of the coming confrontation no longer rested like an intolerable albatross on her shoulders.
Cline’s office revealed nothing.
She moved onto Roliu’s larger quarters. The head of the Petrochemical Division had not been in on Friday. Crystal flipped through his mail, weighing a heavyish letter with no return address in her hand. After a few moments she carefully worked open the flap with her fingernail tip. A sheet of plain white paper wrapped five one-hundred-dollar bills. On the take, she decided, and searched the secretary’s desk for glue to reseal the envelope.
LeBaron, at forty-one the youngest director, kept a pair of barbells in the corner. His black datebook lay on the window ledge, opened to this date. The slanted draftsman print was excruciatingly legible. Meeting 10:30. CT discussion. Luxury loving, vain, conceited woman. Fears losing what she has. Responds to me physically. Offer to personally bring her to the right decision.
Rage burned through Crystal and she battled a vengeful desire to dig through LeBaron’s drawers and cabinets until she came up with evidence of a jailable crime—swindling or liaisons with small boys—however the digital desk clock jumped from 9:17 to 9:18. Every moment she had left must be put to use.
Too Much Too Soon Page 30
