The Longer the Thread

by Emma Lathen

  “I’m sorry I missed your bout with young Nadal,” Thatcher said. “I’ve only heard the choice parts that everyone’s quoting.”

  “That chico!” Annie chuckled. “You know, he’s here tonight.”

  “Here?” Olmsted peered around the room.

  Annie grinned broadly. “Not this close to me. He’s got a pitch across from the revivalists.”

  “What the hell is he up to now?” Marten growled.

  “Nothing much. He wants people to signal the uprising against American imperialism by charging the Convento during the banquet tonight. I hear he’s in good form. You ought to take him in.”

  Marten stared down at her. “You call that nothing?”

  “It’s no threat to Slax,” Annie replied single-mindedly. “And speaking of Slax, aren’t you coming to my office to look over the agreement?”

  “I’ll try to drop by your place sometime tomorrow,” Marten said impatiently. “Look, do you think there may be trouble at the Convento?”

  Annie laughed. “Who’s going to waste time tonight disrupting a banquet? There’s too much else to do. Besides, everyone’s having a good time. If you don’t believe me, go and take a look at his audience. Prudencio’s just part of the entertainment tonight.”

  Thatcher realized that Nadal’s performance, whatever else might be said about it, would certainly be boycotted by the Lipperts.

  “Why don’t we take a look, Pete?” he suggested.

  “You two go on by yourselves,” Marten said. “I’m not as broad-minded as you seem to be about that Nadal kid. I’d like to take a good swing at him.”

  When they left, Annie was chaffing Marten about his sensitivity to the New Left, and Marten was urging Annie to come discuss it over a drink.

  Prudencio Nadal was, for once, having to compete for an audience. A small Hyde Park seemed to have sprung up on the green. A whole medley of impassioned orators was in full voice. Religion, politics, and aesthetic standards were being hotly debated in every corner. Thatcher and Olmsted had some difficulty locating their man. When they did, his discourse was, of course, unintelligible to them. But the tenor of his placards was not. More important, neither was the caliber of his listeners. Dedicated political shock troops are not recruited from people with small children, balloons, bottles of beer, ice cream cones and fancy hats.

  “I suppose he might get twenty or thirty of the youngsters to try something,” Pete Olmsted said skeptically.

  “I think that’s a handsome estimate,” Thatcher rejoined. “And even if he did, he’s been alerting the police to his target for some time. He’d need an army to accomplish anything.”

  His opinion seemed to be shared by Prudencio Nadal, who, having reached some kind of climax, now handed over his rostrum to a colleague and came down to be lost in the crowd.

  “He’s very young, isn’t he?” Thatcher remarked.

  “Well, that’s no index of the damage he can cause, John. Just think of the ones back home.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of the destructive trouble he can cause. I was thinking of the positive achievements he might be capable of. You know, Ramírez has high hopes that this kind of thing is going to swell his votes.”

  “Ramírez!” Pete Olmsted had always been a quick learner. “Dudley Humble thinks Ramírez is all wet.”

  “Dudley Humble thinks you shouldn’t be handling the Slax loan,” Thatcher observed dispassionately.

  Olmsted was unabashed. “Dudley knows more about Puerto Rican politics than he does about a garment factory,” he said cheerfully.

  Thatcher should have known that was coming.

  “So you’ve said before.” He dismissed the subject. “Well, it’s been over an hour. I suppose we should head for that plaza with the dancing. There’s a limit to how long we can claim we were held up at the ILGWU.”

  Without pressing themselves unduly, the two bankers started to amble toward their objective. They stopped once, in mute wonder, to contemplate the spectacle of a band of teen-agers strumming guitars, with a large collection bowl bearing the legend “Please help us take our group around the world.”

  They stopped a second time for the drink they felt was necessary before re-exposure to the Lipperts.

  “Honest to God, John,” Olmsted complained, “I don’t know what’s come over these kids. What do you think would happen if you and I sat down on Wall Street with a sign asking people to send us around the world?”

  “We’d probably be in Katmandu before we knew it,” said Thatcher, firmly rising. “Come on, Pete, you can’t stall forever.”

  But the Lipperts posed no immediate threat when the Plaza de Armas was reached. They were both dancing.

  “But not with each other,” Olmsted whispered portentously. Before he could enlarge on this theme, they were hailed.

  “Mr. Thatcher. I would like to introduce you to my wife,” said Cesar Romero. His wife, Elena, moved forward to his side.

  It was several moments before Thatcher was conscious of anything else.

  Elena Romero had combined the old with the new. She was wearing a contemporary white sheath and high-heeled white sandals. But her abundant dark hair had been piled in intricate coils atop her head, with high tortoise-shell combs supporting a black mantilla. Her plump hands, encased in black lace mitts, toyed with a fan embroidered with brilliants that reflected the sparkle of the single pendant hanging in the deep décolletage of her dress. Her eyes were enormous.

  Once Thatcher recovered, he found himself in the middle of a conventional sentence about the success of the evening. Presumably he had negotiated the formal introduction. Olmsted, he was sorry to see, was still speechless.

  Elena Romero clearly enjoyed the effect she produced. As the conversation proceeded, Thatcher decided that one element of her considerable charm was the unspoken invitation to share her own delight in her performance. Now she had lifted her fan and was peeping over it in open parody of the coquetry of a bygone age. But beneath the parody there was a playful confidence: Anything my grandmother could do, I can do better.

  When she slipped a hand through his arm, Thatcher was delighted to fall in with her suggestion that they stroll up to a vantage point for viewing the fireworks.

  “If we go now, we can get the best spot,” she said.

  Thatcher’s only regret was that Cesar Romero found it necessary to wave at the dancers and indicate their destination. They could so easily have left the Lipperts to their own devices.

  “You know, the fiesta is being sponsored by private groups, not the government,” Elena explained. “But in honor of the evening, the Governor is permitting a firework display from the gardens of La Fortaleza.”

  “I imagine the effect, against the background of the harbor, will be spectacular.” Thatcher was limiting himself to short contributions. Behind him he could hear Cesar Romero and Pete Olmsted making heavy weather of their climb. But Elena, he noticed, seemed to be gliding effortlessly upward, her hand light as a feather on his sleeve, her speech interspersed with light laughter. And all this in those sandals. Women, he reminded himself, are tougher than they look. Norma Lippert could probably do the whole hill without interrupting a marital diatribe.

  “There!” Triumphantly, Elena led him to a spot by the city wall, from which they looked down on the water.

  “And high time,” said her husband, coming up to lean heavily on the rampart.

  Elena ignored this display of masculine frailty. “I hope you had time for some of the sights in the old city, Mr. Thatcher.”

  Thatcher reviewed the evening thus far and said frankly, “I think the two most interesting things we saw we could have seen at Slax. We met Mrs. Galiano and heard young Nadal orating.”

  Neither of the Romeros was surprised to hear of Nadal’s presence, but Elena dismissed him.

  “He can no longer be taken seriously,” she said calmly. “Not after last week. I don’t think there’s anybody we know, Cesar, who isn’t repeating some of the names Annie Galian
o called him.”

  Cesar, cautious as ever, observed that this did not nullify Nadal’s nuisance potential. “Not until after the plebiscite, at least.”

  “Are you still going on about the plebiscite, Cesar?” a new voice called. David Lippert came laboring up out of the murky light. “I thought Annie was supposed to have solved all our problems.” He nodded casually to the rest of the company.

  “I was speaking about Nadal’s over-all influence in Puerto Rico, David, not just about Slax,” Cesar explained.

  “You mean Annie didn’t clean that up, too?” David asked.

  Elena, without moving a finger, rippled smoothly into action. “There are limits, David,” she said archly, “to what one woman can do.”

  David turned away from Cesar. “You can’t really call Annie a woman, not that way,” he protested.

  Elena then made an error. Guided by the social instinct to turn conversation from a danger point, she said, “But where is Harry? I haven’t seen him all evening.” For once she was blind to a signal from her husband, even though it was clear to Thatcher. “He promised to come to our banquet.”

  She might as well have waved a red flag. Her good work was undone in one sentence.

  “No, Harry isn’t coming,” David replied shortly. “He’s left.”

  “Left?” Pete Olmsted was startled into repeating.

  “He’s left Puerto Rico. He went this afternoon,” Lippert expanded.

  “Are you sure?” Olmsted demanded. “He didn’t say anything to me about leaving, and I saw him this morning.”

  David Lippert became defensive. “Harry made up his mind in a hurry. What’s so surprising about that? He’s been here long enough, hasn’t he?”

  “David.” It was a lecture on prudence in one word from Cesar Romero.

  Lippert jerked his head impatiently. “He’s got an office in New York to run, hasn’t he? He’s got a plant in Georgia to bird-dog, doesn’t he? He’s—”

  He would have gone on cataloguing Harry Zimmerman’s duties, but suddenly there was a heavy thud far below, followed by a long-drawn hiss. Then a thousand pinpoints of color spangled the sky above them. As if by magic, the flag of Puerto Rico appeared emblazoned on the night, to hang lazily aloft for several seconds before expiring into the surrounding blackness.

  “Oh-h-h!” gasped Elena Romero. “How beautiful!”

  But Thatcher thought it sounded like a gasp of relief rather than of appreciation.

  Chapter 12.

  Separates

  The steady explosion of fireworks, plus the arrival of Norma Lippert, effectively squelched David’s snarled comments on Harry Zimmerman. After the display—which ended with a colossal set piece symbolizing art and industry in joyous union—it was time for the banquet.

  El Convento, now a luxury hotel, had originally been built as a seventeenth-century nunnery. When they arrived, Thatcher examined its contours with interest. That windowless façade had been constructed to withstand far more ferocious attacks than anything the Radical Independents were likely to mount. Indeed, unless Prudencio Nadal was planning to parachute into the central courtyard, it was difficult to see what kind of onslaught he had in mind.

  Thatcher found further cause for celebration in the seating plan for the banquet. He and Pete Olmsted had been separated. Thatcher himself had been removed from the orbit of the Lipperts. He was dining with the Martens. Mrs. Marten, a pretty young woman just celebrating her first anniversary, was ready to chatter happily about a variety of topics, ably supported by several other women in the vicinity. Thatcher had only one fault to find: Francisco Ramírez Rivera was sitting on the opposite side of the table and soon discovered from Mrs. Marten’s prattle that an associate in one of his real-estate deals was a relative of hers.

  “That would be Uncle Hector,” she said, pleased with the connection.

  After that, Ramírez was firmly welded into their group. Unfortunately, he overheard when Eric Marten dropped into his chair and apologized for being late, saying softly to Thatcher, “I was just having a look around outside. There’s just a handful of kids there. I don’t see how they can cause any trouble.”

  Ramírez seized the opening. “Ah, you have heard about Nadal’s plans!” His teeth glinted briefly in a predatory smile. “It would be amusing, would it not, if he managed to disrupt this banquet. And the publicity would be prodigious.”

  “I don’t see what would be amusing about it.” Marten tried, not very successfully, to keep his tone light.

  “That is because you do not see the irony so apparent to young Nadal. We have here a banquet heavily patronized by American industry”—a smooth gesture of Ramírez’ hand encompassed the room—“theoretically in support of native Puerto Rican art, the very cultural form being stifled by the presence of American industry.”

  “I see the irony,” Marten replied evenly. “It’s the amusement I don’t follow. What would Nadal accomplish by crashing El Convento tonight?”

  “A display here by determined young Puerto Ricans would contribute far more to a resurgence of cultural energy,” said Ramírez with a fluency suggesting previous use of the same phrases, “than any possible patronization by business interests.”

  Sometimes angels rush in, too.

  “But, Dr. Ramírez,” Mrs. Marten protested sweetly, “aren’t you a businessman, too? You must be, if you work with Uncle Hector.”

  John Thatcher struggled to keep his face straight.

  Dr. Ramírez cast a look of cold dislike across the table. “Indigenous enterprise is something quite different.” The indulgence he extended to the youthful foibles of Prudencio Nadal clearly did not stretch to Margarita Marten. He shifted his ground to answer her husband. “You may be right, Mr. Marten. El Convento may not be a useful locale. After all, Nadal is not a beginner. Many people claim that he masterminded the demonstration at the university last winter. And that, you must admit, was very successfully planned.”

  This was too much for the matron sitting next to him.

  “Successfully planned!” she shrilled. “With the riot squad called out, with three people dead and almost a hundred students hurt? It was a disgrace!”

  Ramírez did not retreat. “Say rather a tragedy, señora. But my point is that Nadal is not an idiot. Last winter the riot squad was totally unprepared. The university police were helpless. The ROTC riot came as a complete surprise to the authorities.”

  “What does that have to do with tonight?” Margarita Marten was puzzled.

  “It has everything to do with tonight,” Ramírez replied. “Would Prudencio Nadal tip his hand so blatantly? Your husband said there were only a handful of students outside. Perhaps Nadal’s speech in the Parque de las Palomas was a skillful feint.”

  Personally Thatcher believed it was folly to encourage Ramírez. But Eric Marten was still worried.

  “What do you mean by a feint?” he demanded.

  Ramírez shrugged his shoulders eloquently. “It is quite clear, is it not? He speaks violently about a charge at El Convento. The police are alerted. A few students are assigned to give substance to this threat. Then Nadal proceeds to a real coup elsewhere. Later he claims he was at El Convento all the time. Who is there to distinguish one student from another?”

  Marten was frowning. “You mean he’ll launch another one of his attacks against Slax?”

  “You must not be so parochial, Mr. Marten,” Ramírez chided. “There are many other American businesses in Puerto Rico.”

  “It’s time they took some of the knocks,” Marten said promptly.

  Ramírez’ response came smoothly. “But who else has had a foreman murdered in its executive offices?”

  Bravely Mrs. Marten tried to hurdle the conversational paralysis following this remark. In so doing, she encountered the pitfall that gaped for all Slax wives this evening.

  “You will have to entertain me alone, Mr. Thatcher.” She pouted prettily. “These two wish to discuss serious problems. And otherwise, as you se
e, I am deserted.” She indicated the empty place at her side and went on, “Mr. Zimmerman was placed here. But at the last minute he decided not to come.”

  Thatcher supported her efforts. “It’s a shame,” he agreed. “I understand that he has already left Puerto Rico.”

  “That’s right.” Marten steered a welcome course between Cesar Romero’s overabundant caution and David Lippert’s desire to tell the world his troubles. “Harry was out in Bayamón when we opened shop this morning. He said he was planning to catch a plane this afternoon.”

  “Curious,” Thatcher commented. “He said nothing about leaving when he was at the Sloan today. Instead he was talking about clearing up some difficulties.”

  For a moment, Marten looked alarmed. Then he opted for frankness. “Oh, well, I suppose it’s no secret he had a little dust-up with David this morning. He probably thinks David isn’t handling things right. But that happens all the time. You don’t want to take it too seriously. He probably has to rearrange some order shipments out of New York.”

  “That’s Olmsted’s version, not mine,” Thatcher said readily. “I wasn’t there.”

  “Harry can get pretty hot under the collar,” Eric Marten conceded. “You get that all the time in these family companies. But it’ll blow over, you’ll see.”

  This time the entire group united in turning the conversation from the affairs of Slax. Dr. Ramírez and the ladies were conspicuously uninterested in family wrangles. Soon Eric Marten was enthusiastically discussing house hunting with one of the ladies; Dr. Ramírez, rather surprisingly, came forth in the guise of a baseball addict; and Margarita Marten told John Thatcher about the local business community’s hopes for a free port.

  “If Vieques does become a free port, it will be like St. Thomas as a shopping center. All the cruise ships will stop, and the money that goes to the Virgin Islands will be spent here,” she said, one expert to another. It developed that several of her relatives were standing at the ready, waiting only for legislation to capitalize on this golden opportunity.

  The end of the banquet, happily unmarred by lengthy speeches, released the celebrants to sample further amenities at El Convento. There was a floor show in the supper club, there was a gambling casino, there was an outdoor bar by the swimming pool in the courtyard. Olmsted and Thatcher joined forces to withstand certain blandishments by their hosts. It was not easy to explain tactfully to Norma Lippert that the one place a banker prefers not to be seen is at the roulette wheel.