The Longer the Thread

by Emma Lathen

  Ramírez reminded himself that here was something he hoped to use. He became more placatory. “I think you misunderstand me. I have never conceived of an independent state that would discourage American investment. I look forward to full sovereignty—but in the context of a special relationship with the United States which would secure and, indeed, increase the economic benefits you are so attached to. I have never advocated the hostile stance to American business that the radicals propose.” He smiled indulgently. “If you are displeased with my position, señora, you should hear our young friend Prudencio Nadal.”

  “That’s because he’s more of a realist than you are,” Annie retorted, not one whit abashed. “Your independence is some kind of pie in the sky. Full sovereignty, but all sorts of special relationships. Who is going to pay for an army and navy? Who is going to encourage investment and allow a hostile foreign policy? You’re kidding yourself if you think American industry is here for any reason other than getting tax benefits and staying on American soil. This Nadal kid is green, but he knows that two and two are four. And that’s why he can make inroads into your supporters.”

  She had hit a sore point.

  “You should moderate your enthusiasm for Prudencio Nadal, señora. He has as little use for American labor leaders as for American businessmen. And the last two weeks have shown that he has a violent way of expressing his dislikes.”

  Annie’s brusque gesture bordered on the indecent. “That for Nadal! I listened to him for a week. He’s another elitist, just like you. If the workers don’t agree with him, then they have to be educated. If the voters aren’t ready to jettison the commonwealth, it’s because they’ve been hypnotized by the father figure of Muñoz. Bah!” She leaned forward, peering intently at her companion. “Take a good look at me. Do you see anything approaching charisma?”

  It was an awkward question for a man with courtly manners, even in the midst of a heated argument. Complete honesty would have compelled Ramírez to admit that he had rarely seen so unprepossessing a woman.

  “No,” he said.

  “Yet I can swing over ten thousand voters any day. Not because I’ve hypnotized anybody, but because over the long haul I’ve been right more often than I’ve been wrong. And people notice little things like that. You and Nadal should stop talking about education and mesmerism and consider another possibility. Maybe Puerto Ricans are right and you’re wrong!”

  Happily this was something Ramírez could deal with.

  “No stateman,” he said, figuratively wrapping himself in his mantle of greatness, “has ever been led by the people. By the very nature of things, he must lead them.”

  Annie cast her mind back over recent history. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that. From where I sit, it looks an awful lot as if somebody has been leading you and Nadal and the Governor right where he wants to.”

  Chapter 20.

  Notions

  Volumes have been written explaining how to attain success in business as well as in life. They all append simple infallible rules. Build a better mousetrap, give the public what it wants, tighten the chain of command, watch the overhead, prune the deadwood, THINK—the list of precepts is endless. Both life and business have become too complex for anything so primitive as the Ten Commandments.

  John Thatcher was skeptical of most rules of thumb. The supporting evidence was always so scanty. Doctors told him that eating wheat germ improved executive decision-making; business schools told him that charting break-evens guaranteed profits. Everything, of course, is possible but Thatcher had doubts about wheat germ, let alone those charts.

  Nevertheless, the years had given him considerable experience with success, and he had some thoughts of his own on the subject. Success in life and business, as in football, came more often than not to those who kept their eye on the ball. A specific goal, distinctly defined and unwaveringly pursued, went far toward solving all intervening problems.

  Annie Galiano was an illustration. She had blown into Puerto Rico ready to take on all comers. After laying out her plans specifically, did she pause to take breath? She did not. She had charged off to remind Puerto Rico of her political clout and, from what Thatcher heard, to level Francisco Ramírez Rivera in passing. Diverse as these activities might seem, however, they were not detours: all of Annie Galiano’s will and energy at every moment was focused on one unmistakable cause—the health and vigor of the ILGWU.

  The Sloan Guaranty Trust, Thatcher was happy to find, inspired in its servants the same single-mindedness—although on a less flamboyant scale. Neither Dudley Humble nor Pete Olmsted was letting outside events distract him. Each was working wholeheartedly for the well-being of the Sloan Guaranty Trust. Even the continuing schism between Commercial Credit and International was not being allowed to rock the boat.

  Of course by now, Thatcher could see, Olmsted was not troubling himself with policy implications; Olmsted was concentrating on the Sloan’s three-million-dollar loan to Slax Unlimited.

  He was growing seriously worried about it.

  “It’s a goddam mess!” he said. “David’s running off to New York has really put the lid on things! Oh, hi, Dud!”

  “John and I are just off to attend that symposium about the free port,” said Dudley Humble, consulting his watch. “We don’t want to be late.” Humble was trying hard to keep Slax and its manifold problems from monopolizing Thatcher during this fortuitous return to Hato Rey. “We’re due at the Caribe Hilton any minute, Pete. This is a steering committee to get the move for the free port organized.”

  “Nobody’s making any decisions,” said Olmsted, still absorbed in his own concerns. “What about next fall’s line? What about reorders? Norma’s just sitting on everything. But she still insists they’re not going to sell.”

  “It’s really inevitable, is it?” Thatcher commented. “That Slax is going to have to sell off the Bayamón plant?”

  Olmsted scowled. “Let me put it this way, John,” he said. “If they don’t sell soon, things are going to stop being bad and start being lousy. The Sloan may find itself owning a pants shop yet!”

  Thatcher recognized hyperbole, but Humble took foreclosures seriously. “Good God, Pete,” he said, “haven’t you explained the situation to Mrs. Lippert?”

  Olmsted took a deep breath. “I’ve explained until I’m blue in the face. So have Marten and Romero. So did David—before he beat it. But there’s a limit to what anyone can say, you know. You can’t tell a woman that the real reason she should sell is that her husband is a dummy.”

  Thatcher recalled another view of Norma and David Lippert. “What about Annie Galiano’s remark? She said Norma wanted to get David out of town.”

  “Oh, there’s no doubt about that,” Olmsted replied. “You heard Cesar and Eric. Norma’s gone crazy. She’s shipped David off to New York. She won’t sell. She won’t listen to reason. She’s stirring up bad feeling wherever she can.”

  Thatcher contemplated this catalogue, then asked, “Has she got any justification for being insane with worry? Do you think she can be genuinely alarmed about David?”

  “She’s genuinely alarmed about something, all right,” Olmsted replied. “It may be just that she’s afraid David will be the logical scapegoat if Nadal is cleared. On the other hand, everybody knows that the last time he saw them Harry had a fight with the Lipperts—even though they both keep trying to play it down.”

  Humble had a contribution. “Maybe Mrs. Lippert remembers something about that Monday morning that makes her suspicious of her husband.”

  Thatcher could see another possibility. “Either that or she’s afraid David will remember something that will make him suspicious.” He noticed Humble’s expression, then added, “Don’t underestimate women. You remember what they say about the female of the species?”

  “You know, you may be right, John.” Olmsted was ready to go one step further. “Norma’s a pretty tough cooky underneath. She doesn’t let much faze her. I’ve always wondered if sh
e really fainted the day we found Domínguez’ body.”

  By now, Humble was horrified. He looked significantly at his watch and started to say something, but Olmsted continued.

  “When I think of how enthusiastic Harry was about opening up in Puerto Rico,” he said, looking sadly into the past. “God, if I had known then what I know now.”

  This innocuous self-indulgence flicked Humble on the raw. He still was not happy at any mention of Harry Zimmerman’s name. It was too apt to remind him of the body he had found.

  Then, too, there was the home-town spirit.

  “Now, just a minute, Pete,” he said. “God knows I sympathize with . . . with you. Slax has been one disaster after another. But Puerto Rico was—and is—a damned smart place to open a garment plant. You know Slax better than I do, and if you say they can’t make a go of it, you’re right. But somebody else will. So don’t blame this on Puerto Rico. Harry Zimmerman could have been run over by a car in New Jersey, you know.”

  The fight had gone out of Olmsted. “Yeah,” he said dispiritedly. “Of course, a lot of trouble started before Harry got it. They had that goddam murder, then the fire and all the sabotage. You don’t claim that would have happened in New Jersey, too, do you, Dud?”

  “I understand from what I read,” said Humble, “that doing business in New Jersey is not always a bed of roses.”

  Dudley may have been in Puerto Rico too long, thought Thatcher with some amusement.

  “You can’t believe everything you read, Humble,” he advised kindly. “Even about New Jersey.”

  “Certainly not,” said Humble. “I just wanted to point out that student radicals and violence are not peculiar to Puerto Rico.”

  “No one is claiming they are.”

  Unexpectedly Olmsted said, “You’re right about one thing.”

  “The radicals?” Humble asked, again looking at his watch.

  “Radicals? Oh, them,” said Olmsted, in effect waving them away. “No, you’re right about the real trouble. It started when Harry got killed. After all, before that happened Slax wasn’t in real commercial difficulties. There was no talk about selling.”

  Thatcher prepared to accompany Humble. He had one more question. “What are they doing at Slax now?” he asked.

  “What can they do?” Olmsted asked rhetorically. “On the face of things, everything looks great. All the shifts are running. Cesar’s got everything humming. They’re sending a shipment up to New York next week. Eric’s got that all lined up. Fine and dandy. This way it will take months for David to boot things. He’ll louse up orders, lose customers, decide on the wrong models!”

  “Well, we’d better be going . . .”

  “And how long Cesar and Marten are going to hang around is anybody’s guess. They’re no fools. They can see the handwriting on the wall. Just let either of them walk out and Norma’s really going to find herself in the soup.”

  Thatcher thought back while Humble fidgeted. It was then Thatcher told Pete about his plans to fly back to New York City that evening.

  Feelingly, Olmsted told them both that he wished he were, too.

  Dudley refrained from comment until they were in the taxi. “I know Pete’s under a strain,” he said, “but I don’t think he’s got a balanced picture of Puerto Rico. After all, everything’s just about back to normal now.”

  Idly Thatcher viewed the scenes they were inching past. San Juan presented a crowded, colorful picture. Buses debarked students, shoppers, workers; the honking of automobiles and taxis and trucks filled the air with a cheerful din. On the sidewalks, women sauntered past shop windows. In school yards, children played merrily; vendors peddled fresh fruit at every corner. One of the enduring truths about every great city of the world, thought Thatcher, is that it is strong and resilient—like San Juan. Riots, police, armed Guardsmen, blockades had come; now they were gone. It was as if they never had been.

  Thatcher leaned back and asked Humble if the plebiscite was likely to interrupt this peace.

  “I keep forgetting that you’ve gotten a distorted impression of Puerto Rico, too—thanks to Slax,” said Humble. “The plebiscite will cause about as much excitement as any election at home. Speeches, advertising—that’s it. Puerto Rico doesn’t go in for revolutions. As a matter of fact, all of this excitement has nothing to do with the real Puerto Rico. You’re going to see that now.”

  The gathering at the Caribe Hilton was certainly real. Prosperous businessmen, newspaper editors, government officials—they were supporting the drive to have Vieques declared a free port. They were substantial men, and predominantly middle-aged. It was a far cry from the world of Prudencio Nadal.

  In fact, Thatcher mused, accepting a name tag for his lapel, he could define the distance more exactly: it was precisely the same as that between Wall Street and the world of SDS.

  This distance, of course, was not infinite. For here was the establishment of Puerto Rico. And, of course, only establishments can produce Prudencio Nadals and SDS’s. They are, after all, somebody’s children. And who else can afford them?

  But the real Puerto Rico? Thatcher would only go so far as to say that these well-tailored, hardheaded men were probably a closer and more accurate reflection than was Nadal. Establishments are not all imposed; many are homegrown, with roots that run deep.

  He followed Humble into the conference room. Fortunately, their timing was perfect. They arrived too late for introductions, in time for the formalities. First came a deputy director from Fomento. He produced reams of statistics about projected costs, benefits and employment to be realized by Puerto Rico if a free port were established.

  “. . . additional construction, with housing starts, utilities and other outlays by the private sector. Not only would this produce revenue, it would stimulate further investment. . . .”

  Fomento was succeeded by the Chamber of Commerce, with several unwieldy cardboard diagrams.

  “. . . Now, here, this red line shows the projected rate of profits. Then . . . this dotted line is our projection of the retail space that would be required. If we plan on four thousand persons per thousand dollars . . .”

  Finally, there was a representative from the Banco Popular. He was a tall, handsome man, who opened his remarks with a graceful reference to his brethren of the American banking community. He then unfurled a building program suggesting that the Banco Popular intended to keep any new gravy to itself.

  Humble leaned forward and listened intently.

  Thatcher did not. Instead, he casually inspected the rest of the audience. The American presence was strong. Besides Humble, there were the other bankers, there were delegates from the airlines, from shipping lines, from government offices. But the Puerto Rican element was not dwarfed. Row on row was filled with local businessmen. There were Puerto Rican banks in Hato Rey as well as New York banks; there were locally owned department stores, restaurants and hotels. There were builders, architects, surveyors who had been born on the island. Like businessmen everywhere in the world, these men were here because of a simple, uncomplicated interest in profits. Enormous sums would be made when—and if—Puerto Rico were granted the right to maintain a free port. A golden stream of tourists could be diverted from the Virgin Islands, bringing a boom of major proportions.

  Plenty of Puerto Ricans, Thatcher could see, were ready to fight for their fair share.

  The Banco Popular yielded to the Governor, who was greeted with a standing ovation.

  Thatcher resettled himself and again withdrew his attention. While Prudencio Nadal and his followers spouted half-digested slogans, while Francisco Ramírez Rivera mouthed fuzzy romantic nonsense about hispanidad, the presumably firm supporters of the status quo sitting here today were the only ones really willing to fight the Americanization of Puerto Rico. Their armories did not include propaganda, let alone bombs and bullets. They were going to risk dollars and cents. But they were on the front line.

  For these men knew that change is inevitable. It cannot
be staved off by wishful thinking. Accepting this, they were ready to venture into the arena of economic competition. Others, including the Governor, might settle the questions of form. Substance rested with Puerto Rico’s merchants, bankers and businessmen.

  “How good are the chances that a free port will be established?” Thatcher asked after the meeting broke up with a stirring peroration from the Governor.

  “Dim,” said Humble. “In fact, I’d guess that it’s very unlikely. We have to attend, of course, to show we’re on the side of the angels. But between you and me, I wouldn’t bet they’ll push it through. And I’ve read literally dozens of reports about it. Everybody’s projecting really tremendous possibilities—but from where I sit, I still think it’s pretty visionary.”

  Thatcher was happy to see that Humble’s boosterism was tempered by realism. This boded well for the Sloan in Hato Rey.

  “That’s one of life’s little problems down here,” Humble confided. “Everybody churns out statistics. They’re all growth-minded. So you have to take everything with a grain of salt.”

  This was a fundamental of the banker’s creed. Glowing balance sheets emanate from companies whose every asset has been looted; impressively large sums are inscribed on checks for which there have never been sufficient funds. Paper camouflages embezzlement, fraud and even worse crimes.

  He should have thought of that before, Thatcher suddenly realized. It was so obvious, in view of some of the things he had been reading. A banker should have seen through one of the anomalies at Slax immediately.

  No doubt the police had—as witness Captain Vallejo’s return to Bayamón.

  But, just as suddenly, two other bankers’ comments returned to him. And he was by no means sure that the police could have anticipated them.