“Perhaps, but to the dead riches do not matter.”
“It’s all very well to talk like that, Dax, but the world doesn’t look at things that way. The only important things are money and power.”
“I’m very lucky then.” Dax smiled. “I’ve found a way to get along without either.”
Marcel looked at him for a moment. “That’s a pity, because I was hoping I could interest you in coming in with me. Together we would do very well. I’m not well liked, you know. I have enemies who go out of their way to do me harm. With you in the picture I could gradually merge into the background, and in time they would forget about me. It would be very worth your while.”
Dax looked at him without answering.
“You’re the only person to whom I’d make such an offer,” Marcel added sincerely. “There’s no one else in this world I trust that much.”
Dax took a deep breath. In some odd way he knew that Marcel was telling the truth. There was no one else. The closed-circuit television, the tapped telephones, the microphones under the beds. How long would it be before Marcel used the same things to be sure of him? Because there was no doubt in his mind that eventually he would. Marcel was already too far gone to ever retain his faith in anyone. Dax shook his head slowly.
“Thank you, Marcel, but no. If I thought I could be of any real help to you I might have considered it. But I know better. I’m no businessman; in time I’d become a liability, believe me. But I am flattered at your offer.”
Marcel looked down at his desk. He did not meet Dax’s eyes. “Everyone has turned against me.”
“I haven’t. If I had, it would make it easier to accept such an offer. I could do more harm inside your organization than outside.”
Marcel looked at him. He seemed to be weighing what Dax had said. “That’s true.” He smiled, suddenly cheerful again. “I know you, you old faker. You have an easier way to make money up your sleeve.”
“I have?”
“I’ve heard the talk about you and Sue Ann,” Marcel said knowingly. “In a way I don’t blame you. It’s easier to marry it than work for it.”
Dax smiled. He wasn’t annoyed at Marcel’s assumption. If that was what Marcel chose to believe, let him. He got to his feet.
“I’ll let you out.”
Dax waited until Marcel cut off the alarm system and opened the front door. As usual there were no cabs on the street at that hour of the morning. “Let me call my chauffeur to drive you home.”
Dax looked up at the sky. It was already turning gray over to the east of Park Avenue. “It’s a short walk and I think I could use the fresh air.”
From Fifth Avenue, a few blocks away, a large black car was coming toward them. Marcel glanced at it nervously. “I think I’d better be getting back in. I’m beginning to feel a slight chill.”
“Good night, Marcel.”
“Good night, my friend,” Marcel said through the already closing door, “call me whenever you’re in town. I’ll be here.”
Dax stared at the closed door for a moment. He heard the click of an electric switch and knew that Marcel had turned on the burglar alarm again. He turned and walked down to the street.
If this was the price one had to pay for money and power, he wanted no part of it.
15
Marcel was sitting behind his desk when Schacter came in. “Well?”
Schacter shook his head. “Abidijan says you can go to hell. He wouldn’t even listen to anything I had to say.”
Marcel’s face went pale. “Is that all?”
“Not really. He said a few things.”
“Like what?”
“They weren’t relevant.”
“Tell me.” Marcel’s voice was flat and hard. “I want to know what Amos said.”
The attorney felt uncomfortable. “He said you were sick and that you didn’t know what you were doing. He claimed he would like nothing better than for you to start a proxy fight. The publicity you’ve had before this would be nothing compared to what he’s prepared to give you. After he got through he said there wouldn’t be one stockholder who would go along with you. He also told me that if you tried to vote your children’s stock as trustee he was prepared to go into court and have you certified as incompetent.”
Marcel’s face was almost completely white now. He could scarcely contain his rage. “But he doesn’t expect us to go into court with a stockholder’s action in which he would be the defendant, does he?”
The lawyer shook his head. “No. He hardly anticipates that.”
Marcel smiled thinly. “That’s what we do, then. We have enough on him to force the court to appoint a receiver for the company, maybe even put him in the jail where he put me.”
“But what good would that do? The court would never turn the company over to you.”
“That’s unimportant,” Marcel said. “The main thing would be that Amos won’t have it.”
“But have you thought of your children?” the lawyer asked. “What it might do to their inheritance? The trust fund is made up almost wholly of Abidijan stock. It might be worth nothing under a receiver. For that matter the stock you have probably won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.”
“I don’t care!” Marcel shouted. “I can take care of my children! Go into court!”
The lawyer looked at him steadily. After a moment he shook his head. “No, Marcel, I won’t do it. I went along with you on most things but not this. It serves no purpose at all. You’re simply being destructive.”
“You won’t do it? You say you won’t do it?”
Marcel rose and leaned across his desk. For a moment Schacter thought he was going to strike him. Then words came spilling from Marcel’s mouth. “You’ve sold me out! You sold out to them!”
A look of contempt crossed Schacter’s face. “I won’t even bother answering that one.”
“This is your last chance!” Marcel screamed. “Either go into court or I’ll get another lawyer!”
Schacter got to his feet quietly. “That’s your privilege.”
Marcel came running around the desk still screaming. “I’ll have you disbarred! You can’t walk out on me! You can’t change sides merely because they offered you more money!”
“No one offered me any money,” Schacter said, turning at the door, “they didn’t have to. Besides, how could anyone believe even you would be crazy enough to pull everything down on your own head just to get even with one man?”
Marcel glared at him wildly. “You Jews are all alike! On sale to the highest bidder!”
For the first time since he had been a young man Schacter lost his temper. He had fought too many times, both publicly and privately, over such slurs. He was a big man, over six feet tall, and his hands shot out and grabbed Marcel by the lapels. For a moment it seemed as if he would pick him up bodily and hurl him across the room. Then he regained his self-control and abruptly let Marcel go.
For a moment they stared at each other. Schacter reached around behind him and opened the door.
“Why are you glaring at me like that?”
“I must have been blind,” the attorney said slowly. “Now I believe your father-in-law. You are crazy!”
The next morning Marcel was on the telephone as if nothing had happened. “I’ve been thinking over what you said, and I’ve decided you are right. There’s no point in going into court. Abidijan’s an old man, he won’t live forever. When he’s gone I’ll be able to take it over. I’m still the second largest stockholder.”
“You mean you’re not going into court?”
“Of course not.”
“But yesterday you said—”
“That was yesterday,” Marcel answered quickly, interrupting. “Surely you’re not holding against me what I said in anger? You’re too big a man for that, Schacter. You know the terrible strain I’ve been under.”
At the end of the conversation Schacter found himself once again Marcel’s attorney. But somehow he could never bring himse
lf to feel that things could ever be the same. Something had gone out of the relationship.
***
Schacter could feel the tension mount in the small room. For a moment he could not bear to look at the table with its pile of envelopes and proxies and clicking adding machines. Instead he looked out of the window at downtown Dallas.
Suddenly the room behind him was quiet. The adding machines had stopped, so Schacter knew it was over. Slowly he turned back into the room. He did not have to go over to look at the totals to know who had won. One look at Horgan’s face told him all he needed to know. The Texan was pallid beneath his deep tan.
Slowly the secretary of Caribtex read out the totals in a trembling voice. And well it might tremble, for his job was gone, as were those of most of the other men in the room. Under the cumulative voting laws of the corporation it was either one group or the other. There was no middle ground. For management: 1,100,021. For the opposition group: 1,600,422.
There was a silence in the room as Schacter walked around the table. The secretary made room for him. Schacter looked at him, then at the others. “Thank you, gentlemen.”
The accountants began to gather up the records and put them away in boxes. Schacter glanced at them for a moment. The best idea that Marcel had had was to have the court appoint a special company of accountants for counting the proxies. The company’s accountants would never have given them a fair shake.
“There will be a special meeting of the new board of directors for the purpose of electing new officers tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”
He got up from the table and started toward the door. Marcel would be waiting for his call. Horgan’s voice stopped him. “You tell yoh slimy little friend never to come down this way. ’Cause if’n he does somebody suah as hell will fill him full of lead.”
Schacter nodded gravely and walked on out the door.
***
Marcel was drunk. He had been drinking steadily all afternoon while he waited for the call from Dallas. Now that it was all over the liquor seemed to roar through his body. He could feel himself swelling, his body growing taller until he could almost touch the ceiling. He walked over to the couch where the big-breasted blond sat watching him. He stood in front of her, weaving. “Do you know who I am?”
She sat there silently, looking up at him.
“You don’t know.” He reached for the drink he had left on the table and raised it to his lips. Some of it spilled on his jacket but he paid no attention. He drained the glass and threw it over his shoulder. It crashed against the wall.
“You don’t know,” he repeated, “nobody knows.” His voice lowered and became confidential. “But soon they’ll find out, because they can’t stop me now. I’m the biggest man they ever saw.”
“Man, are you stewed,” she said.
Marcel paid no attention. He was tearing at his clothes, for suddenly they were choking him—too tight, too small. Finally they all lay in a pile on the floor. He climbed up on the couch naked and stood looking down at her. “Am I not the biggest man you ever saw?”
“Better come down from there before you kill yourself,” she said, reaching up a hand to steady him.
Marcel slapped her hand away. “Answer my question.”
Silently she nodded.
A suspicious look came into his face. “As big as Joe Karlo?”
The color drained from her face. “You—you know about Joe?”
He began to laugh wildly. “You stupid cunt!” he screamed. “I know everything about you. I know everything about everybody. I can even tell you what you both said in bed last night!”
“How—how do you know?”
“I know, that’s all that matters.” He laughed wildly. “And I know something else you don’t know.” He leaped from the couch and ran to a cabinet. He opened the doors and took out some photographs, waving them in her face. “You think he’ll marry you, you think he’s been saving all the money you gave him so the two of you can go away together? You stupid fool! You want to know where the money has been going all this time? Look!”
She stared at the photographs. A man stood smiling into the camera, one arm around a pleasant-looking young woman. His other arm was around three smiling children.
“You didn’t know he was married, did you? You weren’t aware the money you gave him last month went to buy them a station wagon?”
She suddenly felt sick. “I’ve got to go.”
Marcel slapped her in the face, and she fell back onto the couch. “I didn’t tell you you could go!”
He reached down with both hands and grabbed the front of her dress. The fabric came away with a rasping, tearing sound. He put his hand inside her brassiere and pulled her breasts up and out. She stared at him, a fear growing deep in her eyes as once more he stood over her. Slowly he lowered himself onto her breasts until he was sitting facing her.
He looked down at her and laughed. “Now, tell me. Examine it carefully. See, am I not the biggest man you ever saw?”
Despite his weight she managed to nod.
“I’m the biggest man in the world!” A glazed look came into his eyes. “Soon I’ll own—” He tried to continue but suddenly he pitched forward, falling heavily across her.
She lay very still for a few moments, afraid to move. After a while she turned slightly, trying to wriggle out from under him. Slowly, almost gently, he slid to the floor and rolled over on his back. His mouth was open and as she watched in fascination he began to snore heavily.
She sat up on the couch. “You son of a bitch!” Then she noticed the photographs lying on the floor beside him and the tears came unexpectedly to her eyes. “All you sons of bitches!” she cried, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
16
From the pool at the far end of the terraced lawn came the happy sound of children’s laughter. The warm Côte d’Azur sun fell languidly upon the blue waters. It was not that long ago, Robert thought, that he and Caroline had shared that same pool with their friends and cousins. Not so long ago, before the war.
“You have a strange look on your face, Robert.”
With an effort he brought his mind back to the present. He smiled at his English cousin. “I was thinking about when you and I were young.”
Mavis made a face. “Don’t remind me, I remember all too well. How you used to tease me because I was skin and bones. And now look at me.”
Robert laughed. That at least was true. Mavis was skin and bones no longer, and neither was her sister. The two of them had settled into the comfortable figures of young British matrons. It was their five children and his son, Henri, who were making all the noise in the pool. “None of us has stayed exactly the same.”
“Except Caroline,” Enid said. “I don’t know how she does it but she looks as young as ever. If anything her figure is even better than ever I remember.”
“Are you talking about me?”
“Mavis would like to know the secret of your eternal youth,” Robert said.
Caroline laughed. “It’s no secret. I diet.”
“I never could,” Mavis said. “The children make me so nervous sometimes, all I can do is eat and eat.”
Robert looked down the table toward his father. The baron looked slim and comfortable despite the weather. He was seventy-two years old but seemed much younger, especially his eyes. They never seemed to age. Right now they were alert and attentive as he listened to Sir Robert.
Sir Robert had put on weight but despite it his face had never quite lost the slightly rapacious look that he had never trusted. If anything the look was more pronounced than ever. Idly he wondered why he had never liked Sir Robert.
John, Mavis’ husband, a tall, blond, athletic-looking Englishman, said, “Robert, it seems a grand day for a sail. How about coming out with us this afternoon?”
Robert looked down at the boat dock off which their English yacht was at anchor. “Not me, I haven’t the energy of you English.” He got to his feet slowly and stret
ched. “The only decent thing to do after a lunch like this is to take a nap.”
He crossed the terrace and went into the house just as Denisonde came out. “Where are you going?”
Robert grinned. “I’m going upstairs to take a nap.”
“Why don’t you stretch out in the sun?” she asked. “You can sleep just as well there, and you’ll get some color in your face. What’s the sense of coming to the Riviera if not for that? You could just as well have stayed at the bank if you’re going to spend all your time indoors.”
Robert stood looking at her indulgently. “Finished?”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m bringing your father his medicine. If I don’t remind him he’ll never take it.”
“Bien. When you’ve done that come upstairs and I will show you why it is always better to take a nap indoors.”
***
It was after midnight and the big villa was silent when Robert made his way down to the library in search of something to read. He opened the door and as he went directly to the bibliothèque, his father’s voice came from directly behind him. “You are awake?”
Robert turned. The baron was seated in one of the deep easy chairs. “I could not sleep,” Robert said. “I expect I slept too much this afternoon. But why are you awake?”
“I am old,” his father replied. “When you are old you don’t need as much sleep.”
Robert smiled and took a book down from the shelf. Idly he glanced through it.
“Our cousin thinks it’s time our banks merged,” the baron said unexpectedly.
Robert looked up from the book. “What do you think?”
“Many years ago it was the ambition of my grandfather—one bank that would blanket all Europe.” The baron looked up at Robert. “It was not such a bad idea then, perhaps it is an even better one now. The American banks grow larger every day, and even the Morgan bank is thinking of a merger. The American banks are our strongest competition. If our resources were pooled we could match them on any deal.”
“I don’t like it,” Robert said suddenly.
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