A Man of Affairs (11 page)

“Yes, I understand.” If, out of ten thousand shares you can clear a third of a million, add on her fifty thousand shares and you can sit back on cloud eighty with two million bucks. Maybe less than that, though, because it might be smart to start dumping it ahead of Mike’s target quotation of fifty-four.

“I talked to Mike and Cam last night. Amparo is going to have the papers ready for Tommy and me to sign this morning. Then tomorrow, Sunday, we’ll go over to Grand Bahama in the morning and Mike’s plane will be waiting. Guy and Elda and that girl will go with us.”

“Her name is Bridget.”

“I know, darling. You don’t have to be so fierce and protective about her. I told you that I’m willing to forget it ever happened. Anyway, we’ll be flying from West Palm Beach to New York to leave them off, and we’ll be home by five or six o’clock tomorrow night.”

“There’s just one little loose end, Louise. This business of the proxies. You decided to go ahead.”

She gave me a round-eyed look. “But darling! Don’t you remember? Oh, good morning, Booty. Toast and hot tea, please.”

“And some more coffee, please,” I said.

“Darling, last night you took Tommy and me out on the veranda and you told us that you’d changed your mind, and you felt it would be a wonderful opportunity for the Harrison Corporation for Mike Dean to take control. You said you’d been mistaken about him.”

Another blackout. In a sense it made it easier. It was something I had wondered about. I had wondered if, when the chips were down, I could force myself to look Louise and Tommy in the eye and tell them to go ahead. And I wondered if subconsciously I had willed myself to get drunk in order to get over that particular hurdle.

And I suddenly heard myself talking glibly, talking myself out of another hole, out of another awkward situation. “I was mistaken about him, Louise. I want you to do me a favor. When I get back I’ve got to keep on working with Dolson and the boys. And I’m afraid they might misinterpret my change of heart. So it will be easier on me if we let them believe that you signed your vote over to Mike in spite of my objections.”

She looked puzzled, but said, “If you say so, darling.”

That made it nice and easy. I could be buddy-buddy with the boys right up until June second when the papers I would sign would take effect. And then it wouldn’t matter. I would be officially one of Mike Dean’s boys and I wouldn’t have to explain a damn thing to them. Why should I owe them an explanation anyway? Any one of them would have jumped at the chance. Boy, I was turning into a real sharp operator.

I’d be a credit to the organization. An ace up every sleeve. And, of course, the reason I felt like vomiting was because of the hangover.

After breakfast, after Louise swam and then stretched her flawless and lovely body out in the morning sun, I wandered away and went to Mike’s room. I could hear voices inside. I knocked and somebody said to come in.

Mike and Bowman and Cam and Amparo were there. Amparo was taking stenographic notes. They smiled at me, but I sensed a faint annoyance at the interruption.

“Sorry to butt in. Louise and Tommy will sign the proxies this morning.”

“It’s all set,” Mike said, “and everything is ready and I’m glad you were able to work it out with them.”

“One other thing. I’d appreciate it if my… other arrangements with you weren’t mentioned to them.” I saw Cam give Amparo a glance of wry amusement and I felt my face get hot.

“We had no intention of mentioning it, Sam,” Mike said. “As far as anybody outside this room knows or will know, we arrived at our agreements on the second day of June, the day after the Board of Directors met for the purpose of electing directors and appointing the officers of the Harrison Corporation. And so long as you’re here, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t sign right now.”

It didn’t take long. There was a little business of witnesses, and a little business with Amparo’s notary seal.

I said, “According to the way this one is notarized, I signed it in New York City.”

“On June second you will be in New York City,” Bowman said.

“Oh. Well… excuse the interruption.”

They started talking again before I had the door completely shut. I heard Cam say, “Wire Charlie to cease all drilling oper…”

I had the feeling that with Harrison in the bag, they were off at a gallop after other game. I had the feeling I was looming a hell of a lot smaller on the Dean horizon. I went out onto the veranda. Little Bundy was there. He cornered me. I couldn’t miss if I’d put a little money into
“Say It Again,”
starring Bonny Carson. It was going to be big. It was going to be the biggest ever. Bonny was singing better than ever. She’d knock them in the aisles. And good old Mike had practically promised to put a heavy piece of money in the show. The choreography would knock them dead. Take like, for example, the second act curtain, where…

“Hold it a minute,” I said.

“You decided to come in?” he asked, his face all lighted up.

“I didn’t decide that. I decided Bonny is a lush. I decided she’s lost her voice and her timing. I decided that maybe Mike has got you two down here for comedy relief. I decided I wouldn’t walk across the street to see your big show that’ll never happen if they paid the customers ten dollars to sit through it.”

And I left him standing there. Two minutes later I was so damned ashamed of myself I wished I could drop dead on the spot. I tried to tell myself that I’d never been the type to pull the wings off flies. It wasn’t like me to be vicious and brutal without cause.

And a few moments later I knew why I had done it. I was ashamed of myself because Mike Dean had maneuvered me through my own greed. I was ashamed of the way I was going to be kicking some pretty nice people in the face. So I had to pull ridiculous little Bundy down to my level. I had to spit on his dreams.

I went back but he was gone. I don’t know what I could have said, or whether it would have done any good. Tommy was down on the dock, sitting cross-legged and working on a spear gun. I went down there because it was somebody to talk to and because I felt uncomfortable being alone.

“The winnah, in one minute and twenty seconds of the first round…”

He looked up and grinned at me. “Damn good thing that boy was muscle-bound.” He stopped grinning. “Puss is so damn naive sometimes. She thinks everybody in the world is just dandy. And she’s so friendly that punks like that Jack Buck can get the wrong idea. He certainly scared hell out of her. He had her stripped to the waist, and it was a lucky thing Bowman heard her yell.”

“This Dubloon Cay seems to bring out the best in everybody,” I said.

He put the spear gun aside and lighted a cigarette. “It’s been reminding me of something and I couldn’t think of what it was, and last night I remembered. It’s a hell of a lot like the wartime deal. I mean it has that same flavor. Like in London. People drinking too much and brawling and concentrating on sex as though it was the last chance they’d ever have. Maybe it’s a funny kind of a tension. Or just being on an island. It’s as if we tossed the rules overboard.”

It was the first time I had ever heard any kind of serious talk from Tommy McGann.

“Maybe the tension comes from people trying to make decisions.”

“I understand my sainted sister has arrived at a decision. About Warren. And she’s elected you.”

“Do you object?”

“No, I don’t object. Hell, you know Warren. I can get along with him when nobody else can. And I don’t want to sound disloyal to Louise, but… Oh, the hell with it.” He picked up the spear gun.

“Wait a minute. I want to know what you think.”

He sighed and put the gun aside again. “First I have to explain about me. I spent a lot of years learning not to give a damn. Our father was a technically honest and emotionally dishonest man. He was that funny kind of hypocrite who can’t admit for one split second that he ever did a wrong thing, ever made any kind of a mistake. And that made him an overbearing, emotionally crippling son of a bitch. It was like trying to live with a righteous avalanche. There just wasn’t room in the house for anybody else’s emotions or ideas. I reacted by not giving a damn. I guess by the time I was fifteen, the habit was set. Maybe it made me a good fighter pilot. Anyway, if I didn’t give a damn, there wasn’t any way he could hurt me. Without the money, I’d probably be a bum. But I inherited money and I married money. So I can play and I like to play, and so does Puss and it’s a nice pleasant grasshopper life and I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it. Now take Louise. She went the other way. She decided to suffer. You can feed on your own suffering, you know. And it becomes just as necessary after a while as the air you breathe. She’s lived with a tragic picture of herself for a long time. And when she got married, which surprised me that she would, she married another peck of trouble. Warren makes her miserable. But that’s just exactly what she has to have. If Warren tried in every way to make her happy, it still wouldn’t work, because then she’d have to invent reasons for suffering. In a funny kind of way, it’s a good marriage. I’m not trying to make her out as some kind of a monster. Our father was the monster. But it’s something you should understand about her. And, if you understand it, maybe you can help her get over it. Maybe you could do it. I wish you all kinds of luck, and I know I’ve talked too damn much.”

“I think I see what you mean.”

“Don’t let it put you off.”

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and looked toward the house. Louise came down across the lawn. “Tommy, they want us to come sign those proxies now.”

“Okay,” he said and stood up.

“You’re sure you understand this is the best thing to do, like Sam says?” she asked him.

“Sign, schmine,” he said. “A signature you want, a signature you get. I don’t bother my furry little head with the details, sis. All I want to do is get the spear gun fixed.”

“Tommy, do you have to be so… trivial about everything?”

“I’m a trivial-type guy.”

I stood and watched them go up across the graded lawn toward the main house, side by side. I had a feeling that something was slipping away from me. I wanted to go roaring after them and say, “It’s all a big mistake, kids. Honest Sam Glidden is giving you and your children, if any, and your children’s children a classic financial raping. And I get a big payoff. But maybe the only payoff will be in money because all of a sudden little sister doesn’t look quite so good to me. So don’t sign.”

But of course I stood there and watched them out of sight, thinking of how strongly they resembled each other on the surface and how different they were down underneath where it counted.

Then I went back to my room to get more cigarettes. Bridget and Elda Garry and Guy Brainerd were having a conference on the veranda over a typed manuscript. Bridget winked at me without changing the bright-little-girl-in-school expression she was wearing. I liked the roundness of her face and the way her nose was slightly up-tilted. They were in shadow, but her hair looked as though a shaft of the sunlight had found its way down through the veranda roof.

When I came out of my room I met Warren Dodge just coming out of his. His face was improving slightly. The swelling had gone down and his eye was open, though not far, but he wore interesting shades of saffron, blue and purple.

“Welcome to the club,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

“You look like hell. I never expected you to tie one on. I thought all you business wheels kept your guard up night and day. So you wouldn’t spill any trade secrets. Maybe, for Chrissake, you’re human. Anyhow, you’ve got one daisy of a right hand on you. Like being slapped with a cinder block. It was the first time in my life, compadre, that I didn’t get back on my feet when I could have. I didn’t happen to see any particularly bright future in it.”

We walked along together. I said, “I don’t know what was holding me up.”

“Neither do I. I tagged you good. Let’s find John and get a drink made. How does a rum sour sound?”

“Fine, if it’ll stay down.”

We found John and he brought ice and made us a drink at the playroom bar.

“Who was it in your room Thursday afternoon, pal?” he asked.

“No comment.”

“I vote for Murphy. Process of elimination. That’s a very choice bit, Glidden. When the Crowns took off, it screwed up a campaign I was working on. I would have hit pay dirt today. Not the kid. Tessy. So with that dream broken, I think I’ll switch my sights to Murphy. Any objection?”

I was unprepared for anger that was like a half-blinding sheet of flame. “Stay the hell away from her!”

He grinned at me. “I wasn’t sure it was her. So I ran a little check. Thanks for the information. John, this one was a little too sweet.”

I left him there. I went to the pool. I swam ten lengths of the pool before my anger was entirely gone. When I climbed out I discovered I had forgotten to take the cigarettes and matches out of the waistband of my swim trunks. After I got a fresh pack from my room, I saw that Tommy was out beyond the end of the dock in fins, face mask and snorkel. Louise and Puss were sitting on the dock watching him. He did a surface dive and disappeared. He seemed to be gone for a long time. He came up just as I reached the dock. He swam over and clung to the stern of one of the skiffs, breathing hard.

“Pretty good hole out there,” he said. “Lot of stuff in it.”

“Please be careful, honey,” Puss said. She seemed very subdued.

A few minutes later Warren came down to watch, and so did Cam Duncan and Amparo Blakely. The five of us sat in a row on the edge of the dock.

After a few more tries, Tommy swam over to the dock and looked up at us and said, “I’m getting pooped. Anybody want to try? How about you, Sam?”

“I’ve never done it.”

“Nothing to it. I can adjust the fins and mask to fit you. And it’s damn beautiful down there. Clearest water I ever saw.”

I gave him a hand and helped him up.

“There’s about six big ’cuda hanging around, but they won’t bother you. They’re just curious.”

I stared at him and said, “Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m not kidding. Hell, I’ve been in with them before, off the Florida Keys.”