“And he’s a worker,” Alderson went on. “You can’t argue about that either. Only last month I was talking to Alex Oldham in New York and he said he honestly didn’t know how Walt did it—what I mean is, that those boys in the sales department are all pulling for Walt. That’s something he has—knowing how to keep people happy and working together—and that’s important, awfully important. With Avery Bullard gone—well, that’s something the company’s going to need.”
Don Walling nodded silently. He couldn’t argue. The things that Alderson was saying were the same things he had said to Mary last night … but still it was wrong! It was like an answer that looked right but wasn’t right. He had to find a flaw somewhere … an error … something that would prove the truth!
Alderson’s voice droned on, piling words on words, but they were only a meaningless buzz in Don Walling’s ear until he heard him say, “Walt has his weaknesses—Jesse and I can both see that—but if it isn’t Walt, then it’s going to be Shaw and when you get down to making that choice, I’d a lot rather have Walt. I think you would, too.”
There was the flaw! His voice leaped at it. “Fred, don’t you see that it would still be Shaw? If Walt’s elected, he’ll make Shaw executive vice-president. Walt will be right under Shaw’s thumb and Shaw will be running the company.”
“Wait a minute,” Alderson smiled. “The president doesn’t pick the executive vice-president. He’s elected by the board, the same as the president is.”
“Oh—” It was the sound of embarrassed deflation.
“I know,” Alderson said sympathetically. “With Mr. Bullard—well, we’ve all gotten into the habit of taking the board for granted.”
“I suppose so,” he mumbled, feeling the finality of his defeat.
Alderson waited for a beat and then quickened the tempo of his voice. “The same votes that elect Walt president will elect you executive vice-president.”
The import of what Alderson had said did not strike immediately. It came like a delayed explosion, time-fused until the fire of the pronoun had sputtered its way into his brain. Don Walling’s lips parted but he tightened them quickly, holding back the meaningless words that were dropping in his mind like the falling debris after a blast.
“Makes more sense now, doesn’t it?” Alderson asked with a thin smile.
There were still no words worth saying.
“Walt’s going to need a lot of help,” Alderson went on. “That’s where you come in. You’re strong where Walt is weak. It will be the two of you. What you might call—well, sort of a partnership management.”
“I—I don’t know what to say, Fred.”
“There’s nothing you have to say. It’s settled. We have our four votes and that’s all we need.” He extended his arm and picked up Walling’s hand from the rim of the steering wheel. “Congratulations, boy.”
Don Walling could not bring himself to tighten his fingers in a grip of acknowledgment. It was all too new, too incredible, too totally unbelievable. “Fred, I—Fred, even if you don’t want the presidency, you could still be executive vice-president.”
There was the break of a long silence while Alderson dropped his hands and slowly spread his fingers over his kneecaps. “I’ll admit that I thought about it—but only for a minute or two. It wouldn’t be the best thing—not the best thing for the company. The man who goes in now as executive vice-president ought to be the man who’ll be the next president of the company. I never would be. I’d retire before long and then the whole thing would be thrown wide open again. God only knows what would happen. There’d be a new board of directors—a new director to take Fitzgerald’s place—another one to replace Jesse—someone in my chair, too. Three new directors and there wouldn’t be a one of them that was ever close enough to Avery Bullard to know—to understand—”
Alderson’s voice suddenly quavered off into silence, choked by the pent-up emotion that had broken through the restraint he had been trying so hard to exercise. It was only partially regained as he went on. “There’s only one thing I want for myself—only one thing. I want to be sure that the company will go on being the kind of a company that Avery Bullard wanted it to be. There’s only one way to do it and that’s to settle it right now—while Jesse and I still have our votes. We’ll get you in there with Walt and—you can do it, Don, I know you can! You can keep the company going the way he wanted it to go.”
The plea reached into Don Walling’s mind and opened again the door that had been so widely opened yesterday, but had been so strangely closed this morning. Once again he felt the full power of the emotional surge and counter-surge that linked his life to Avery Bullard. But now, as if it were a reflected glow, he felt something else, something new, an affection for Frederick Alderson that he had never known before. It was a feeling that rose against odds because, until only minutes ago, he had been thinking of Alderson as a fumbling old man, exposed in all of the weakness that had been so evident when he had crumbled under Shaw’s attack last night. Now Frederick Alderson had shown a self-sacrificing loyalty that transcended weakness and actually rose higher because of it.
Words lifted in Don Walling’s throat and he let his lips say them. “I’ll do the best I can for you, Fred.”
“I know you will, I know you will. But it isn’t for me—it’s for the company.” Alderson started to get out of the car.
“Aren’t you going down to the office?”
“No, I’ll take my own car. I’m meeting Walt’s train. He’s getting in from Chicago on the nine-forty-five. I’d better get to him before Shaw does.”
He remembered that Shaw had mentioned calling Dudley in Chicago. “Fred, unless I miss my guess, Shaw will be meeting that train, too.”
“Don’t think so,” Alderson said with an amused twist to his voice. “Pearson tried to call Shaw last night from Chicago to tell him that Dudley was on his way back. He couldn’t reach Shaw so he called me instead. Of course, I promised to tell Shaw—and I will—but not until after nine-forty-five.”
Alderson finished with a stiff little salute and turned to walk back toward the old stables that now served as a garage. Watching him, Don Walling had a fleeting feeling of strange disillusionment, as if in this last moment he had seen an unsuspected flaw in his new-made image of Frederick Alderson. But it was gone as fast as it came, washed over by his own wonder at the miracle that had made him executive vice-president of the Tredway Corporation.
ABOARD THE SUSQUEHANNA LIMITED
9.05 A.M. EDT
Four waiters stiffened to attention as J. Walter Dudley entered the dining room. The steward, being a very perceptive man, led him to a table served by a waiter who looked as if he had spent most of his long life in the service of a fine old Southern family.
J. Walter Dudley was no more appreciative of his table assignment than all of the waiters whose suppressed smiles he could not see. Since all of their tips were pooled, they were always glad to have old Henry get a customer who would really shell out for the Uncle Tom act. No one could pull it off like old Henry.
“I’ll need a little fast service this morning,” Dudley said in brusque command. “Getting off at Millburgh.”
“Millburgh? Yassuh! Now don’t you worry about that, suh. We gonna get you a mighty fine breakfast that you all is sure ’nough going to enjoy. Yassuh! Now what you sorta hankering for this morning? Maybe a nice piece of the melon I been saving special?”
“Sounds fine,” Dudley said, pleased. “Soft scrambled eggs dry toast and coffee.”
“Yassuh!” Henry exclaimed, making the order sound like an inspired triumph. “You know what else I’se going to bring you? I’se going to bring you some real old Southern biscuits like you all don’t never get up North. You just read your paper now, suh, and right away I’se going to bring you that melon.”
The newspaper was the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. There was a short page-three story on Avery Bullard’s death. It contained only one fact that J. Walter Dudley had not known be
fore—that Avery Bullard’s collapse had been in front of the Chippendale Building in New York. He asked himself what Bullard might have been doing in the Chippendale Building, but before he could contrive an answer the melon was placed in front of him.
“Now, suh, don’t you worry ’bout nothing but enjoying that melon. You all got plenty a time ’fore we get to Millburgh.”
The melon was excellent.
MILLBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
9.12 A.M. EDT
For the last hour, Loren Shaw had been dictating the memorandum that he was preparing for George Caswell. He had listened twice to the playback of every dictated paragraph, the first time to check the figures against the tabulated sheets that covered his desk, the second time to weigh the effect that every word and phrase might have on George Caswell.
He came now to the silence beyond the last word. Every error had been corrected, every mistake had been eliminated. There were no facts that were not completely verified. He was ready. Everything was planned. This time there would be none of the mistakes of impulse that he had made last night.
With a clean handkerchief he wiped away a smudge mark that his thumb had left on the polished chrome of the microphone. Then he reached over and turned the pointer from LISTEN to DICTATE.
“Center headline—summary. As can be seen from the foregoing outline—comma—the Tredway Corporation offers an unusual opportunity for a marked increase in its net earnings—period. While the writer has made substantial progress in that direction—comma—as is evidenced by the two exhibits which are attached—comma—the fact remains that the management attitude hitherto prevailing has prevented the full application of modern methods and techniques—period. As I have pointed out before—comma—the primary need is for a full recognition by the president that his first responsibility is to the stockholders with whose property he has been entrusted—semicolon—and that the measure of his management success must always be the net earnings which the corporation produces—period.”
He turned the pointer, ran back the record, and listened to the repetition of his words.
There was no need for change. No one could argue against those fundamental facts. The truth was the truth.
He took the record from the machine and glanced at his watch. It was still only eight-fifteen in Chicago. Pearson wouldn’t be at the office for a half-hour yet. What in the devil had happened to Dudley? Why wasn’t he registered at the Palmer House?
9.16 A.M. EDT
Dwight Prince came into the library and Julia looked up from the litter of papers on the desk in front of her. She seemed surprised, as if her husband’s existence were something suddenly remembered.
“Did you want to see me?” he asked. “Nina said you were looking for me.”
“Nina? Oh, but I was only asking if you’d had your breakfast. She said you had.”
“Sorry, darling. If I’d known you were—”
“You must have been up at the crack of dawn.”
He shrugged an answer.
“Couldn’t you sleep?” she asked.
“One of those nights.”
“Something worrying you?”
He added a smile to the shrug.
“What is it, dear?” Her voice had the sound of a patient mother soothing a troubled child.
His hesitance made her put down the pencil that she had kept poised over the paper.
“Nothing new,” he said. “Just another attack of the same thing—realizing how damned useless I am.”
She was at his side instantly, as a practiced nurse responds to the symptoms of a familiar illness. “Oh, Dwight darling, you know how you always—”
“I mean it, Julia. I feel sometimes that—”
She administered laughter as if it were a prescription. “All right, darling, if you insist on being useful, check these figures for me.”
He responded like a bribed child, eagerly seating himself at the desk and picking up the pencil she had dropped. She stood behind him, sober-faced as soon as his eyes were safely averted, almost trapped when he twisted his head unexpectedly and looked back.
“Julia, what is all this?”
“I’m trying to check some of the things Mr. Shaw said last night.”
“You didn’t like him, did you?”
“It doesn’t matter whether I like him or not. He might still be the right man to be president.”
“At least there’s no doubt he wants it.”
“No, there was no doubt about that,” she said. “Maybe that’s why I’m so suspicious of him.”
“I wouldn’t be, if I were you. He’s the right type.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s almost a double for Lynch, the man that took over our company after Dad died. I couldn’t help but think of that when he was sitting here last night. They’re out of the same mold—even sound alike.”
“Yes, Lynch has done a good job with your company,” she said, nodding a grudging acknowledgment.
“At least, he’s making me enough money so that I’m no longer a kept man.”
“I don’t like your saying that!” she flashed. “You know that money never—”
“I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t mean—”
She stepped away from his reaching hand. “Then you think Shaw would be the right one?”
“All I know is that he’s the type. It takes a man like Dad or Mr. Bullard to build a big company, but it takes a Shaw or a Lynch to really squeeze the profit out of it.”
She turned, sweeping a nervous arpeggio with her fingernails across a shelf of books. “I don’t know—that’s the whole trouble—I don’t know. I should know, but I don’t. If I’d gone to the directors’ meetings—if I only knew what was going on—
“Couldn’t you talk to some of the others?” he asked. “I mean—well, you could talk to Mr. Alderson or Mr. Grimm. Or if you want me to, I could—”
Her face came alive with a sudden thought. “Dwight, you’ve given me a wonderful idea!”
“I have?”
“Yes, I know now what I want to do.”
He waited patiently, watching her eyes as they reflected the flashing of her mind.
“Dwight, dear, would you do me a favor?”
“Of course.”
“Would you mind terribly having lunch today at the Federal Club?”
He blinked.
She forced a smile. “To be perfectly blunt, I’d like to invite someone here to lunch and I want to be alone with her.”
“Her?”
“Erica Martin.”
He looked blank.
“She’s Mr. Bullard’s secretary.”
“Oh—yes, I suppose she would know what’s been going on, wouldn’t she?”
She gave his cheek a quick kiss. “Now don’t ever say that you aren’t an enormous help.”
He dropped the pencil and, acting on the unworded dismissal in the tone of her voice, moved toward the door. “If you want me, Julia, I’ll be out in the studio.”
She was already dialing the number. When she had half dialed she cut it off, waiting out a new thought, testing it in her mind, finally nodding her approval. Yes, this way would be better—if it were an invitation to lunch Erica Martin might refuse. This way she would have to come. Lunch could be an afterthought … casual … or maybe it wouldn’t take that long to know. No, it wouldn’t! One look would be enough … If there had been anything between that Martin woman and Avery Bullard …
“Stop it!”
No, that wasn’t why she was asking Erica Martin to come. She hadn’t thought that … it wasn’t a thought … only the memory of a thought … or the memory of a memory.
She dialed again and this time there was no stopping.
“I’d like to speak to Miss Martin,” she said and her voice was strong and sure.
9.19 A.M. EDT
Don Walling entered his office, relishing the release from impatience that came to him with the closing of the door. One person after another had blocked
his attempt to hurry from the parking lot to his office. They had all wanted to talk about Avery Bullard’s death, repeating the time-worn phrases of a litany that had long since been squeezed dry of meaning, demanding the same threadbare replies that came harder to the tongue with every repetition.
A part of the urge that had made him want to hurry to his office had been the hope that this most familiar of all surroundings would restore his ability to think clearly, something that he hadn’t been able to do since the moment of his realization that he would be the executive vice-president of the Tredway Corporation.
Glancing about the office he found no fulfillment of his unconscious hope. The room seemed totally strange, something detached from experience, as if he had recently been reborn without memory and was now thinking with a new mind and seeing with new eyes.
The connecting door of Dudley’s office stood open and he walked through it, drawn by the pin-marked map of the United States that hung on the wall—yellow-headed pins for the factories, orange for lumber mills and subsidiaries, blue for warehouses, red for district offices, green for distributors and sales agencies. He stared at the pinpoints of color so long that they remained as an afterimage in his eyes when he finally turned to the window and looked down at the city lying below him. Far away on the rise of the hill he saw the wide-spreading expanse of the Pike Street factory. At the foot of the hill were the old buildings that made up the Water Street plant. They were scattered along the river edge, ivy-covered stone at the turn of Front Street, red corrugated metal on the dry-kiln sheds beyond, the lumber storage yard so distant that it was almost lost in the blue river haze. And then, fading in out of the haze, his mind saw what his eyes could not see, and heard what his ears could not hear, and there were the montaged images and sounds of other Tredway factories … the steel-mill clatter and clang of the pipe-bending shop in the Pittsburgh factory … the fresh-paint newness of Houston … the biting saw-whine that came so strangely from under the Connecticut elms … the metallic screaming of the cutoff saws … the angry drone of the planers … the endlessly pulsating hiss of the sanding rooms … the air rush of the finishing lines where man-made tornadoes tried to roar down the snorting animal sounds of the spray guns—and there was a man for every sound … the man at the saw with the powder of sawdust like yellow frost on his eyebrows … the man on the finishing line with a grotesque inhalator mask for a face … a man on the lumber crane with eyes that said he could lift the earth itself if he touched the right levers … an ancient whose hand stopped trembling only when it touched a carving chisel … a youth who spewed unthought curses at the machine that did his work … a ladle-man swilling his mouth with salted water in the foundry … men, men, men.
Executive Suite Page 25
