“Sam and I are working out the final details. The seller has agreed to divide the property, and we’re ready to draw up a contract.”
He acknowledged her response with another curt nod and turned in his chair to address the controller, who was seated on his right. “Allen, what do you have to report?”
The controller glanced at the lined yellow pad in front of him. As chief financial officer of the Bancroft Corporation, Allen Stanley was responsible for all things financial, including the store’s credit department. His twenty years of stressful, intellectual combat with Philip Bancroft had, in Meredith’s opinion, probably caused Allen to lose much of his hair as well as making him look sixty-five rather than the fifty-five he was. Controllers and their staffs did not generate income for the store. Neither did the legal or the personnel divisions. As far as Philip was concerned, those three divisions had to be tolerated like a necessary evil, but he regarded them as little more than leeches. Moreover, he despised the fact that the heads of those three divisions were forever giving him reasons why he couldn’t do something instead of telling him how he could do it. Allen Stanley still had five years to go until he could take early retirement, and there were times when Meredith wondered how he was going to make it. When Allen spoke, his voice was carefully precise and noticeably hesitant. “We had a record number of new applications for credit cards last month—almost eight thousand of them.”
“How many did you approve?”
“Roughly sixty-five percent.”
“How in the hell,” Philip spat out furiously, tapping the end of his Waterman pen on the table to emphasize each word, “can you justify rejecting three thousand out of eight thousand applications? We’re trying to attract new cardholders, and you’re rejecting them as fast as the applications come in! I shouldn’t have to tell you how profitable interest on those cards is to our operation. And I’m not even counting the loss of revenue from purchases those three thousand people will not make at Bancroft’s because they can’t shop here on credit!” As if he suddenly recalled his bad heart, Meredith watched him make a visible effort to calm himself.
“The applications we rejected were from people who aren’t credit worthy, Philip,” Allen stated in a firm, reasonable tone. “Deadbeats, as you well know, do not pay for what they purchase or the interest on their accounts. You may think rejecting those applications cost us money, but the way I see it, my staff has saved Bancroft’s a fortune in uncollectible debts. I’ve established basic requirements that must be met before we issue anyone a Bancroft’s card, and the fact is that three thousand people could not meet those requirements.”
“Because the requirements are too damned high,” Gordon Mitchell put in smoothly.
“What makes you say that?” Philip demanded eagerly, always prepared to find fault with the controller.
“I say that,” Mitchell replied with malicious satisfaction, “because my niece told me that Bancroft’s just rejected her application for a credit card.”
“Then she wasn’t credit worthy,” retorted the controller.
“Really?” he drawled. “Then why did Field’s and Macy’s just issue her new cards? According to my niece, who’s a junior in college, her rejection letter said that she had an inadequate credit history. I presume that means you couldn’t find out anything about her, either bad or good.”
The controller nodded, his pale, lined face creased into a glower. “Obviously, if that’s what our letter said, that’s what happened.”
“What about Field’s and Macy’s?” Philip demanded, leaning forward. “They obviously have access to more information than you and your people do.”
“No, they don’t. We all use the same credit bureau for reports. It’s obvious their credit requirements are more lenient than mine.”
“They aren’t yours, dammit, this store is not yours—”
Meredith interceded, knowing that while the controller would adamantly defend his own actions, and his staff’s, he rarely had the spine to point out Philip’s own mistakes to him, including this particular error in judgment, which happened to be Philip’s own. Motivated by an unselfish desire to defend Allen Stanley and a very selfish desire to avoid another lengthy wrangle that the rest of the executives, including herself, would all have to sit through, Meredith interrupted her father’s tirade. “The last time this topic came up,” she told him, managing to sound both courteous and objective, “you felt that history had shown us that college students are often bad credit risks. You instructed Allen to deny credit cards to all college students except in rare instances.”
Silence descended on the conference room—the eerie, watchful silence that often ensued whenever Meredith opposed her father, but today it was heavier than ever, because everyone was watching for any sign of leniency in Philip’s rigid attitude toward his daughter—a sign that would indicate that she was his choice to succeed him. In truth, her father was no more exacting than his counterparts at Saks or Macy’s or any other large retailer, and Meredith knew it. It was his brusque, autocratic style that she objected to, not the demands he made. The executives gathered around the conference table had chosen retailing as a career, knowing beforehand that it was a frenetic, demanding business where sixty-hour weeks were the norm, not the exception, for anyone who wanted to make it to the top—and stay there. Meredith, like the others, had known that, just as she had known that in her case she would have to work harder, longer, and more effectively than all the others if she was to claim the presidency that would have automatically been hers had she had the foresight to be born a male.
Now she entered into the topic under debate, knowing full well that while she might earn her father’s respect, she would incur a disproportionate amount of his resentment. He sent a disdainful glance her way. “What would you suggest, Meredith?” he asked, neither admitting nor denying that the rule had been his.
“The same thing I suggested last time—that college students with no bad credit information be granted credit cards, but with a low limit—say five hundred dollars—for the first year. At the end of the year, if Allen’s people are satisfied with the payment records, then the cardholder’s maximum can be increased.”
For a moment he simply looked at her, then he turned away and without appearing to have heard her, he continued the meeting. An hour later he closed the deerskin folder with his meeting notes in it and glanced at the executives at the conference table. “I have an inordinately heavy schedule of meetings today, gentlemen—and ladies—” he added in a condescending tone that always made Meredith long to take a poke at him. “We’ll have to omit going over the best sellers for the week. Thank you for coming. The meeting is adjourned. Allen,” he said in an offhand voice, “go ahead and offer charge accounts with a five-hundred-dollar limit to college students so long as they don’t have bad credit.”
That was it. He didn’t give Meredith recognition for the idea, or acknowledge her in any way. He behaved as he most often did when his talented daughter showed excellent judgment: He reluctantly took her suggestions without ever admitting their value, or hers, to the store. But they were valuable, and everyone knew it. Including Philip Bancroft.
Meredith gathered up her notes and left the conference room beside Gordon Mitchell. Of all the candidates for the role of interim president, Mitchell and Meredith were the two most likely to be given the job; Mitchell knew it, and so did Meredith. At thirty-seven, he had more years in retailing than Meredith, and that gave him a slight edge over her, but he’d joined Bancroft’s only three years before. Meredith had been with Bancroft’s seven years, and, more important, she had successfully spearheaded Bancroft’s expansion into other states; she had argued and cajoled and ultimately persuaded her father and then the store’s bankers to finance that expansion. She herself had chosen the locations for the new stores, and she herself remained deeply involved in all the endless details of building and stocking those stores. Because of all that, as well as her prior experience in Bancroft’s oth
er divisions, she had one thing to offer the board of directors that no other candidate for president had, including Gordon Mitchell, and that was versatility. Versatility, and a broader range of understanding of store operations. She stole a sideways glance at Gordon, and saw the calculating expression in his eyes as he looked at her. “Philip told me he’s taking a cruise at the doctor’s orders, when he goes on leave,” Gordon began as they walked down the carpeted hallway past the secretaries posted in cubicles outside the vice presidents’ offices. “Where is he planning—” He broke off as his secretary stood up at her desk and, raising her voice slightly, said, “Mr. Mitchell, you have a call on your private line from Mr. Bender. His secretary says it’s rather urgent.”
“I told you not to answer my private line, Debbie,” he snapped. Excusing himself to Meredith, Mitchell stalked past his secretary into his office, and closed the door. Outside his office, Debbie Novotny bit her lip, watching Meredith Bancroft walk away. Whenever “Mr. Bender’s secretary” called, Gordon got tense and excited, and he always closed the door when they talked. For nearly a year, he’d been promising to divorce his wife so that he could marry Debbie, and now she was suddenly terrified that the reason he’d been stalling was because “Mr. Bender’s secretary” was actually a phony name for a new lover. He’d made other promises he hadn’t kept too, like saying he would promote Debbie to a buyer and give her a raise. Her heart hammering in her throat, Debbie gingerly picked up her phone. Gordon’s voice was low, alarmed: “I told you to stop calling me at the office!”
“Calm down, this won’t take long,” Bender said. “I’ve still got a shitload of those silk blouses you bought left over, and a mountain of that costume jewelry. I’ll give you twice your usual cut if you’ll take the stuff off my hands.” It was a man’s voice, and Debbie was so relieved that she started to hang up when it struck her that what Bender was talking about sounded like bribery.
“I can’t,” Gordon snapped. “I’ve seen that last batch of blouses and the jewelry you shipped in here, and it’s mediocre crap! We’ve gotten away with our arrangement this long only because your stuff had some quality. If someone around here gets a close look at that last batch of stuff, they’re going to demand to know who bought it and why. When they do, my merchandise managers are going to point the finger straight at me and say I told them to buy from you.”
“If you’re worried about it,” Bender said, “fire both of them, then they won’t be around to point the finger.”
“I’ll have to, but that doesn’t change anything. Look, Bender,” Gordon said with cold finality, “our relationship has been profitable for both of us, but it’s over. It’s too risky. Secondly, I think I’m going to be offered the interim presidency here. When that happens, I’ll be completely out of the merchandising end of things.”
Bender’s voice turned menacing. “Listen to me very closely, you schmuck, because I’m only going to lay this out for you one time: You and I have had a very good thing going, and your ambitions are no concern of mine. I paid you a hundred thousand bucks last year—”
“I said the deal’s over.”
“It’s not over until I say it is, and it’s a long way from over. Cross me, and I’ll make a phone call to old man Bancroft—”
“And tell him what?” Gordon jeered. “That I refused your bribe to buy your crap?”
“No, I’ll tell him about how I’m an honest businessman, and you’ve been bleeding me for kickbacks before you’ll let your people buy my excellent merchandise. That’s not bribery, that’s extortion.” He paused a minute to let that sink in, then he added, “And there’s always the IRS to worry about, isn’t there? If they were to get an anonymous phone call and start checking you out, I’ll bet they’d find out that you’ve got an extra hundred thousand bucks somewhere that you didn’t declare. Income tax evasion is fraud, sweetheart. Extortion and fraud.”
In the midst of Gordon’s growing panic, he heard a sound on the telephone—a strange, muffled sound of a file cabinet being closed. “Hold on a minute,” he said quickly, “I need to get something out of my briefcase.” Ignoring his briefcase which was lying on his desk where he’d left it, he put the phone down, then he walked over to his office door and silently turned the knob, opening it a crack: His secretary was seated at her desk, a telephone receiver to her ear, her hand over the mouthpiece—and only one phone line was lit up on her telephone. White-faced with fury and panic, he closed the door and returned to his desk. “We’ll have to finish our discussion tonight,” he snapped. “Call me at home.”
“I’m warning you—”
“All right, all right! Call me at home. We’ll work something out.”
Somewhat appeased, Bender said, “That’s better. I’m not completely unreasonable. Since you have to turn down Bancroft’s job, I’ll raise your cut.”
Gordon hung up the phone and punched the button on the intercom. “Debbie, will you come in here?” he said, then he released the button and added, “Stupid, meddling bitch!”
A moment later Debbie opened the door, her stomach in knots, her illusions about him all but shattered, terrified that her face would betray her guilty knowledge.
“Close the door and lock it,” Gordon said, forcing a husky note into his voice as he came around his desk and walked over to the sofa. “Come here,” he added.
Confused by the sensual note in his voice and the contrasting coldness in his eyes, Debbie approached him warily, then stifled a cry of panicked surprise when he yanked her into his arms. “I know you were listening in on my phone call,” Gordon said, forcing himself to ignore the impulse to put his hands around her throat. “I’m doing it for us, Debbie. When my wife is finished with me after the divorce, I’ll be cleaned out. I need money for us—to give you the things you should have. You understand, don’t you, sweetheart?”
Debbie looked up at his handsome face and saw the endearing pleading in his eyes, and she understood. She believed. His hands were unzipping her dress, pulling it down, and when his fingers shoved into her bra and bikini pants, she pressed against him, offering him her body. Her love. Her silence.
Meredith was just picking up the telephone when her secretary passed her office door. “I was at the copy machine,” Phyllis explained, walking into the office. At twenty-seven, Phyllis Tilsher was intelligent, intuitive, and completely sensible in every way except one: She was irresistibly attracted to irresponsible, unreliable men. It was a weakness that she had laughingly discussed with Meredith during the years that they had worked together. “Jerry Keaton in personnel called while you were gone,” Phyllis continued, and with her usual smiling efficiency she began to report the calls she’d taken for Meredith. “He said there’s a possibility one of our clerks is going to file a discrimination suit.”
“Has he talked to the legal department?”
“Yes, but he wants to talk to you too.”
“I have to go back to the architect’s office to finish looking over the plans for the Houston store,” Meredith said. “Tell Jerry I can see him first thing Monday morning.”
“Okay. Mr. Savage also called.” She broke off as Sam Green knocked politely on the door frame. “Excuse me,” he said to them both, and then he added, “Meredith, can you spare me a few minutes?”
Meredith nodded. “What’s up?”
“I just got off the phone with Ivan Thorp,” he said, frowning as he walked up to her desk. “There may be a hitch in the deal for the Houston land.”
Meredith had spent more than a month in Houston looking for suitable sites on which Bancroft’s could build not only a new store, but an entire shopping center. She’d finally located an absolutely ideal spot within sight of The Galleria, and they’d been negotiating with Thorp Development, who owned the property, for months. “What sort of a hitch?”
“When I told him we’re ready to write a contract, he said he may already have a buyer for all their properties, including that one.”
Thorp Development was a Housto
n holding company that owned several office buildings and shopping centers as well as undeveloped land, and it was no secret that the Thorp brothers wanted to sell the entire company; that had been in the Wall Street Journal. “Do you believe they really have a buyer? Or is he trying to get us to make a higher opening offer for the land?”
“The latter probably, but I wanted you to know there could be some competition we didn’t anticipate.”
“Then we’ll have to work it out, Sam. I want to build our next store on that piece of property more than I’ve ever wanted to build any other store anywhere else. The site is perfect. Houston is starting to recover from its slump, but building prices are still nice and low. By the time we’re ready to open, their economy will be booming.”
Meredith glanced at her watch and stood up. It was three o’clock on a Friday afternoon which meant traffic would already be getting heavy. “I have to run,” she said with an apologetic smile. “See if your friend in Houston can find out anything about Thorp having another buyer.”
“I’ve already called him. He’s checking around.”
16
Matt’s limousine barged through the Friday afternoon downtown traffic, bullying its way swiftly toward the sixty-story high-rise that was Haskell Electronics’ national headquarters. In the backseat, Matt glanced up from the report he was reading just as Joe O’Hara swung the limo around a cab, ran a red light, and, hammering repeatedly on the car’s horn, bluffed a group of intrepid Chicago pedestrians into getting out of his way. Less than ten feet from Haskell’s underground parking garage, Joe slammed on the brakes and swung the car into the entrance. “Sorry, Matt,” he said with a wry grin, glancing up and noticing Matt’s scowl in the rearview mirror.
“One of these days,” Matt replied shortly, exasperated, “I’d like you to explain what makes you want to turn pedestrians into hood ornaments.” His voice was drowned out as the nose of the long car dipped down, tires screeching endlessly as they wound around and around, descending to the parking level reserved for chief executives, avoiding the wall beside them by scant inches. No matter how elegant or expensive the car was, O’Hara still drove it like a fearless teenager in a souped-up Chevy with a blonde in his lap and a six-pack of beer on the seat. If his reflexes weren’t still as quick as any teenager’s, he’d have lost his driver’s license and probably his life years before.
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