Right on the Money

by Emma Lathen

  Claire Todd, Ken Nicolls secretary.

  Burton Claster, the almost retired head of the Sloan Investment Division known as a “knucklehead” throughout the organization, who keeps getting the Sloan into bad investments including National Calculating Corporation among others.

  Mr. Elliman, Head of Sloan travel department seeking to broaden the horizons of Sloan executives business travels by including sightseeing, and usually failing.

  Anthony Melville, from Canada, Head of the International Olympic Committee, the IOC.

  Characters only in Right on the Money

  Conrad Ecker, head of the Ecker Company, maker of small kitchen appliances sold under their brand name headquartered in Bridgeport Connecticut, was the company to be acquired by Aqua Suppliers.

  Virginia Laverdiere, Conrad’s sister, Bob’s mother, and rich widow living in Chicago.

  Alice Ecker, Conrad’s wife and counselor.

  Douglas Ecker, Conrad’s only son, the heir apparent of Ecker, had a heart attack that sidelined him and caused Conrad to sell.

  Alan Frayne, major factor in the company even after he divorced Conrad’s daughter. He stayed in Bridgeport while his ex-wife moved to California.

  Bob Laverdiere, Conrad’s nephew who is the Ecker production manager.

  Tina Laverdiere, Bob’s wife, CPA, and financial watchdog. She knew more about the Ecker business than Conrad and Bob combined.

  Gordon Ives, Aqua Suppliers or ASI as it was called, the acquirer CEO.

  Philip Pepitone, EVP of ASI and the one that chose Ecker to acquire.

  Victor Hunnicut, Chem E and MBA, looking to rise in ASI as it was called as an Assistant Division manager who wanted to run Ecker as a Division Manager.

  Fred Ulrich, Hunnicut’s boss.

  Wiley Quinn, an Assistant Division Manager more likely to become the Ecker Division Manager due to more related skills than Hunnicut.

  Wade Sullivan, ASI auditor.

  Sam Bradley, ASI Research Director.

  Milo Thompson, retired Sloan executive who used to manage the Ecker account before turned over to Ken Nicolls.

  Detective Leonard Giorni, handling the murder investigation.

  Emma Lathen Political Mysteries

  As R. B. Dominic

  31. Murder Sunny Side Up 1968. Agriculture.

  32. Murder in High Place 1969. Overseas Travelers.

  33. There is No Justice 1971. Supreme Court.

  34. Epitaph for a Lobbyist 1974. Lobbyists.

  35. Murder Out of Commission 1976. Nuke Plants.

  36. The Attending Physician 1980. Health Care.

  37. Unexpected Developments 1983. Military.

  Tom Walker Mysteries

  Patricia Highsmith Style

  Deaver Brown, Author

  01. 18. Football, Superbowl & Business

  02. Abduct. Sexual Misconduct.

  03. Body. Planned Eliminations for Money.

  04. Comfortable. Avoiding Consequences.

  05. Death. Wrong Place at the Wrong Time.

  06. Enthusiast. Opportunity Murder.

  07. Fraud. Taking Your Chances.

  08. Greed. Heirs Who Know Better.

  09. Heat. Heir Arrogance.

  10. Island. Startup.

  A similarly popular Simply Media mystery series.

  Financial & Other Facts

  Emma Lathen and Tom Walker

  are about money and emotion.

  Simply Media will be offering Emma Lathen and Tom Walker

  eBook Collections at a discount.

  Thank you for reading our series.

  Enjoy and prosper!

  Deaver Brown, Publisher & Editor.

  www.simplymedia.com

  Chapter 1

  OPENING BID

  Wall Street loves a parade. Marching bands give everybody the opportunity to blow off steam. If the United States ever embraces soccer, all those fine minds in Lower Manhattan will relieve stress and tie up noontime traffic cheering primitives who use their heads to butt balls.

  Weather permitting, a lunchtime parade pulls even program traders outdoors.

  John Putnam Thatcher, senior vice president of the Sloan Guaranty Trust, emerged one mild December day to find himself immobilized against the wall of his own bank. Since surging masses of humanity are not respecters of person, Tom Robichaux, of Robichaux & Devane, was pinned down, too.

  It was not easy to discover what the marchers were celebrating.

  “I think it’s some freedom fighters,” said a vague young paralegal. “From one of those places in Africa, or South America.”

  Given Tom Robichaux’s low tolerance for discomfort and inconvenience, this should have set him off. Instead, as the last politician-filled convertible inched past, he waxed nostaglic.

  “Parades aren’t the same unless the boys are coming home,” he said, conjuring up the golden past.

  John Thatcher had shared much of that past with Robichaux, starting with their years in Harvard Yard. Knowing his man, he drew a natural conclusion.

  “What’s put you in such a good mood, Tom?” he inquired when they finally reached their table.

  Robichaux defended himself. “Good mood?” he demanded. “Who says I’m in a good mood? For that matter, who in his right mind would be? My God, John, if you only knew what Houlihan is proposing! Francis is fit to be tied. Then there are those bloody Germans.”

  Minor squabbles at those eminently decorous investment bankers, Robichaux & Devane, did not divert Thatcher. Neither did the Bundesbank. When Tom Robichaux ignored the chance to excoriate freedom fighters, he had to be feeling on top of the world.

  “So you’re actually deeply worried by the look of things?” Thatcher said skeptically.

  “Well, no,” Robichaux admitted. As his complex marital history demonstrated, he was at heart an incurable optimist. “Actually, we just got some very good news.”

  “That makes a nice change,” said Thatcher, speaking of things general rather than particular.

  Robichaux scented irony. “Well, it should interest you, too,” he said reproachfully. “You have heard of ASI, haven’t you? You may not know it, but they’re one of our clients.”

  “Splendid,” said Thatcher.

  ASI, as he recalled, was Aqua Supplies, Inc., a large manufacturer of water-related fixtures for the kitchen. They sold only under private label to mail-order houses, contractors, and others. Why ASI should interest him, or the Sloan Guaranty Trust, remained obscure.

  “ASI’s finally made its decision,” said Robichaux. “God knows they spent enough time narrowing the field.”

  “You mean they’re looking for a merger partner?” Thatcher suggested helpfully.

  Robichaux thought he had already explained as much.

  “Exactly,” he said with impatience. “They want to pair up with somebody who’ll help them break into the retail market. When they came to us, they said they’d only consider blue-ribbon outfits. And if I say so myself, we came up with a list of candidates that knocked their eyes out.”

  “I’m sure you did,” said Thatcher, pandering to institutional pride. “Who’s the lucky one?”

  “The Ecker Company,” said Robichaux with a smirk of triumph.

  “I see,” said Thatcher, the light dawning.

  He knew little about the Ecker company, except that it produced a line of small kitchen appliances—and banked at the Sloan Guaranty Trust.

  “Who handles Ecker for the Sloan, John?”

  “Milo Thompson’s done it for years,” said Thatcher. He did not feel obliged to add that Milo Thompson had retired months ago.

  The original Ecker was still at the helm of the Ecker Company. Tradition had it that Conrad Ecker’s hair had been rust-red when, as a new husband, he sat watching his wife scour a coffeepot. It was a matter of record that, before breakfast was over, he had roughed out some sketches. After that came a period of surreptitious tinkering at Bridgeport Engineering, where Ecker enjoyed a steady paycheck, job se
curity and good prospects. Then he handed in his notice and went out on a limb.

  The first self-cleaning Ecker percolator was developed, produced, and peddled from a shoe-string operation in a barely renovated mill. But one success led to another, and the Ecker Company grew into one of Bridgeport’s larger employers.

  Ecker’s hair was grizzled now, but he was still marching to a different drummer.

  “I never expected to have to sell out—oh, all right, they call it merging, but it amounts to the same thing. Still, conditions change and only a damned fool doesn’t change with them.”

  Public speaking, even in his own living room, was not Ecker’s strong point. He fussed with his pipe, then continued, “Now this feeler from ASI might be a possibility. I’m going to have to talk to the Sloan about it, and I’m not rushing into anything. But I’m inclined to treat it seriously.”

  The Ecker Company, which was family-run as well as family-owned, did not boast a boardroom. When anything resembling a conference was unavoidable, it took place in Conrad Ecker’s old Victorian house, a few blocks from the plant. Today the homey surroundings were adding to his difficulties.

  “Now I could have told you all separately. But,” he justified himself, “I thought it would be better to break the news like this.”

  His audience of three remained tongue-tied.

  “Well, it isn’t such a big surprise, is it?” he demanded gruffly.

  Alan Frayne was first to respond. “No. No, it’s not, Conrad. Sure, we won’t like seeing Ecker go. But like you said, time doesn’t stand still. If you don’t act now, you’ll have to later. And later may not be better.”

  “That’s how I see it,” said Ecker, daring anyone to protest. Nobody rose to the bait. Arguing with Conrad when he had dug in his heels was, to say the least, counterproductive.

  But there was another reason for the collective restraint. Although Ecker was surrounded by relatives, his own son and heir was not among them. After a nearly fatal heart attack, Douglas Ecker, aged forty-nine, had been forced into permanent retirement. This tragedy was not mentioned in Conrad’s presence. Similarly, the subject of what would happen to the Ecker Company when Conrad himself was removed from the scene was strictly taboo.

  Alan Frayne was one of the few people who could hold his own against the great man. Frayne had even managed to get through a divorce without hard feelings, even though his ex was Conrad’s daughter. It said much about his value to the company that, after the breakup, it was Betty who left for California. Alan Frayne stayed in Bridgeport, everybody’s strong right arm.

  “ASI could be our best bet,” he said, stroking ruffled feathers.

  Bob Laverdiere finally found his tongue. “I’m not sure you’re right, Alan,” he said. “I mean, what makes it such a necessity to sell? There’s still plenty of talent here at Ecker.”

  “I know that,” Conrad snapped at his nephew.

  There was little family resemblance between them. Bob Laverdiere was slight, whereas Ecker was stocky. Friendly and easygoing, Bob was a boyish forty.

  “It would be a terrible shame to see Ecker going out of the family,” he said earnestly.

  “A shame, sure, but maybe it’s a necessity,” Alan Frayne said sympathetically. “Besides, Bob, merging doesn’t necessarily mean somebody’s going to ride herd on us. We’ve got a beautiful operation here.”

  “You can say that again,” Bob Laverdiere rejoined.

  Conrad Ecker agreed with both of them. “After all, it’s the Ecker name and ideas and profits that they really want. Why would ASI go around making wholesale changes in something that works so well?”

  “Absolutely,” said his nephew.

  Amused, Alan Frayne relaxed and let the two innocent egotists hold the field. Conrad, an eccentric genius of sorts, approached everything idiosyncratically. Bob Laverdiere had less excuse for his self-confidence. Frayne, who suspected Laverdiere’s limitations, could imagine disillusion ahead for him.

  But then, Alan reflected ruefully, he had been foreseeing the worst since Doug Ecker’s departure.

  Mrs. Robert Laverdiere could not afford to share Frayne’s detachment. Tina was not only Bob’s devoted wife and the mother of his two children, she was also the company’s financial watchdog. A cool, handsome woman, she knew more about the business end of the Ecker Company than Conrad and Bob combined.

  “When will you be talking to ASI, Conrad?” she asked without a trace of anxiety.

  “I’ve put in a call to the Sloan,” Ecker told her. “If they don’t have any objections, we’ll try to get together as soon as possible. Say the day after tomorrow.”

  “As soon as that?” Bob Laverdiere exclaimed.

  His uncle ignored him. “That is, we won’t be starting negotiations or anything. But ASI probably wants to send some folks up to look the place over.”

  With a flash of dark eyes, Tina kept Bob from saying more.

  “When something’s got to be done, I’d just as soon get cracking,” said Conrad Ecker decisively. “I don’t believe in letting the grass grow under my feet.”

  On this vintage note, their meeting came to an end.

  Chapter 2

  SOME RISK INVOLVED

  There was nothing at all homey about Aqua Supplies, Inc. A large, impersonal institution, it had a rigidly defined chain of command. At headquarters, in Princeton, New Jersey, news of anything so important as a potential merger was a sacred mystery, to be shared by the chosen few. First among them was Gardner Ives. White-haired and distinguished, he was every inch the corporation president.

  “Ecker’s a damn good choice of yours, Phil,” he told his executive vice president. “Naturally I knew about their solid reputation, but I never dreamed they had so much brand-name recognition. They’re ideal for our purposes.”

  Philip Pepitone, built like the workhorse that he was, rarely let compliments go to his head. “Robichaux and Devane did the heavy digging,” he said. “But when they came up with Ecker, I jumped. Of course we can’t really tell anything until we get numbers on the table.”

  Ives was torn between caution and enthusiasm.

  “It’s a good sign that Ecker’s willing to let us take a preliminary look. I’d like to get that done as soon as possible, Phil. But on the quiet. The fewer people in on this, the better, in case things don’t pan out.”

  “We’ll play it close to the chest,” Pepitone agreed.

  Having started his life at ASI on a lowlier rung than Gardner Ives, he should have known better. Access codes for computers are just as ineffective as the locked filing cabinets and limited-circulation lists of yesteryear. Gossip still zipped around the ASI grapevine with the speed of sound.

  In a plant a quarter of a mile from headquarters, Victor Hunnicut was already listening avidly.

  “The Ecker Company?” he exclaimed. “I never heard of them.”

  “They’re big in retail,” said his informed source. “All of a sudden, Ives is in a real hurry. It makes sense, that’s where the growth is.”

  “It could really jazz things up here at ASI,” said Hunnicut.

  He was in a hurry himself. Armed with a chemical engineering degree and an M.B.A., he had launched himself on his career with single-minded determination. By the time he arrived at ASI, after three strategic relocations, he was eager to take off.

  And a brand-new division might be just what he needed.

  Of course, there could be risks involved, too, he told himself.

  Fifteen minutes later he had consulted some business directories and was making the first of two telephone calls.

  “Food processors and countertop appliances,” he repeated uneasily. “Doesn’t Ecker do any bigger systems, like ASI?”

  His second contact was also unsettling.

  “Just small electricals? Nothing at all in fixtures?”

  This was enough to make him pause. What was good for ASI might not be good for Victor Hunnicut. Small appliances were a long way from his area of expertise. W
orse still, they might be within the competence of some other assistant division manager. Having one of his contemporaries leapfrog over his head would make his own struggle upward that much trickier.

  Most junior executives would have felt helpless at this juncture. Not Victor Hunnicut. Thinking deeply, he pondered ways to safeguard his position. Before he could do anything, he had to know who was pushing the Ecker merger and who was against it. Lunch in the executive dining room should take care of that.

  At ASI the niceties of mealtime protocol were the same as elsewhere. Subordinates did not suggest lunching with their seniors. A senior, however, could join his underlings when nothing better was available. Accordingly, Hunnicut scanned the room before inserting himself into a table of young accountants. His strategy paid off. When the company auditor arrived ten minutes later he looked vainly for peers, then affably pulled out the chair directly across from Hunnicut.

  The conversation, predictably, centered on the day’s hot topic. Silently eating, Hunnicut listened for the all-important details.

  “Ecker’s kind of an offbeat choice for Phil Pepitone to make,” the auditor commented. “Of course, nothing’s really settled yet.”

  Good! Sullivan was no friend to Phil Pepitone.

  “I thought it was Mr. Ives who was behind the idea of taking ASI into the consumer market,” Hunnicut said.

  The auditor was careful to draw a distinction. “Yes, and it’s high time, too. But it’s Pepitone who pulled Ecker out of nowhere. Now that could be a mistake the way I see it.”

  “They’ve got a pretty good track record, don’t they?” said one of the accountants, deaf to undertones.

  “What’s past is past,” pontificated the auditor. “Conrad Ecker’s an old man now. But maybe Pepitone knows more about the Ecker Company than I do.”

  The auditor declined to say more, but Hunnicut had obtained the information he wanted. There was a pocket of opposition to the Ecker merger. It was not a bad beginning.

  When lunch was over, Hunnicut found himself in the men’s room, scrubbing hands next to one of Phil Pepitone’s cronies.