Executive Suite (42 page)

The sharing was important … the point, the purpose, the very essence of her love … but was it of his? She could never be sure. There were so many times when he seemed to want to live within himself … when sharing was a favor so reluctantly given that it was hardly sharing at all.

Why couldn't Don realize that she could help him if he would let her … help him do what he couldn't do without her? No, not for his gratitude, not for his thanks … there was something even more satisfying about helping him without his knowing that he had been helped. Then it was a pure gift of love. Yes, that was love … the giving … but the gift had to be wanted.

I think too much, she thought—and then went on thinking. Her fingers automatically lifted his socks out of the basket, pairing them, rolling them into soft-wound balls that she put across the top drawer of his dresser, placing them in three ruler-straight rows … gray, blue, black … neat, orderly … not like Don at all. But he
could
be like that if he would only let her help him! She could do so much for him … separate his confused thoughts … put them in straight rows … let him think without that awful turmoil … without the confusion … without the doubts and fears. But that was when he always insisted on shutting her away the most completely … when he needed her the worst … like this morning when they had talked about Avery Bullard and who his successor might be.

She had gone farther than she had ever gone before to force him to talk to her, yet even then he hadn't been willing to open his mind and share the fear that she had known was there. If he had only given her the smallest opening … the barest chance! She could have told him that there was no cause to be afraid … he wasn't dependent on Avery Bullard … he had his own strength … so much more strength than he ever seemed to realize. He didn't need Avery Bullard! All that he needed from anyone was what it would be so easy for her to give him.

Mary Walling was closing the drawer when she heard the squeal of tires on the turn into the drive. It was a sound as characteristic as the sound of his footsteps, and she hurried toward the front door. His arm went around her shoulder. Something had happened this morning! She could feel it in the tingling tenseness of his muscles, in the aura of confidence that surrounded him.

“Mrs. Prince call yet?” he asked crisply, his voice suddenly denying the intimacy that the moment before had promised.

“Mrs. Prince?”

“She's wrapping it up with Caswell. Going to call me as soon as she does.”

He had spoken as if she should know what he meant. It was another case where he had forgotten that she couldn't know what he hadn't let her know. “Don, what's happened?”

“Happened?” he asked, his voice edged with surprise, then suddenly flat. “Oh—I'm taking over the presidency.”

“The presidency! Don, not really! I—I can't believe it! I—”

His eyes seemed to twist the words in her mouth.

“Why are you so surprised?” he asked, almost as if it were an accusation.

“Oh, Don, Don, how can I help it. I never imagined that—”

She cut off her voice, knowing now that she had said the wrong thing again, that somehow he was interpreting her surprise as a lack of faith. She threw up her arms, cupping his head in her doubled palms. “Darling, you must let me be a little excited—just because I'm so proud of you. It is what you want—isn't it?”

“It's what I have to do,” he said, so tonelessly that she couldn't be sure what he meant. “I'm hungry.”

While she put on the coffee and made the sandwich that he insisted was all he wanted, she chipped out scraps of information about what had happened during the morning, risking his annoyance by asking questions that had to be answered before she could fit the bits and pieces together into anything like a connected pattern. After she had gone as far as she dared there were still things that she didn't know, but she had explored deeply enough to be able to ask finally, “Then it all depends on Mr. Caswell?”

“Julia will take care of him.”

“Julia?”

“Mrs. Prince,” he said impatiently.

“What's she like, Don?”

“Like? Clever woman—damned clever—mind like a man's.”

She lifted the coffee pot. Mind like a man's … was that what he wanted?

“Don't know when I've enjoyed talking to anyone so much,” he went on, the first time that he had said more than she had demanded. “Stepped right into this thing—feet on the ground—never had any idea she was that kind of a woman. I owe her a lot for the way she's backing me up—watch out!”

The coffee she was pouring had splashed over the edge of his cup and she snatched at a tea towel, dabbing up the spreading brown stain until there was time enough to tell herself that she was being a fool … that she wasn't the kind of a silly wife who did silly things. Then she could say, calm and sure, “You don't owe anything to anyone, Don. You'll be president because it's
you
—because you're wonderful and brilliant and four times a genius and—” In the moment that her voice hung suspended she felt a clawing urge to tear down the curtain that seemed to hang between them, to re-establish their intimacy. “—and because it's going to be something very special to go to bed every night with a real live president.”

She waited—laughter poised on her lips ready to join his—and then came the terrifying realization that he wasn't even going to smile.

1.20 P.M. EDT

The coin that Erica Martin dropped in the telephone had been warming in her palm for the last half-hour. It had not been until the waiter had come to take the dessert orders that she had found a chance to break away from the table.

Dialing, she hoped that it would again be Mr. Walling's voice that answered, It wasn't … but at least it wasn't
hers!

“May I speak to Mr. Walling?” she asked.

“I'm sorry but Mr. Walling is not here. Mr. Walling left—oh, one moment please.”

And now it
was
her voice. “Miss Martin?”

“Yes.”

“This is Mrs. Prince. Have you had trouble?”

“No, I—”

“I'd understood that you were bringing Mr. Caswell here. I've been imagining that you must have had some difficulty with your car.”

There was no way to avoid telling her what had happened. “Mr. Shaw and Mr. Dudley were at the airport when I got there. We're at the Federal Club now, having lunch. I wanted to get in touch with Mr. Walling to tell him—” She felt her voice suddenly blocked by an unanswerable question … why should she be telling Don Walling … what was her reason … her excuse?

“Thank you, Miss Martin, I'll get word to Mr. Walling immediately. By the way, Miss Martin, I do want to see Mr. Caswell myself. How long do you suppose he'll be there at the club?”

The receiver felt heavy in her hand … heavy and hard … like a weapon to be hurled. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Prince, but they'll be leaving for the office almost immediately.”

1.22 P.M. EDT

Mary Walling saw her husband glance at his watch again, squinting to make certain that it was still running.

“Don't know why the devil she hasn't called,” he mumbled impatiently, gulping the last swallow of coffee. “Been an hour—over an hour.”

She waited. There was nothing that needed to be said … he hadn't been talking to her … only to himself … not expecting her to answer … only to wait … to wait and to wait and to wait. For what? Was this what the rest of her life would be … waiting … silently waiting while she watched him turn, irretrievably, into the man that these last few minutes had hinted that he might become … not the man that he really was, not the man that she had married, but only another Avery Bullard?

Her terror fanned the belief that it was possible. There
was
something alike about them … yes, she had recognized that for a long time … but she had always thought that it was only the unconscious imitation that grew out of his admiration for Avery Bullard … something that he would lose in the end … a tie that would break … that she had been hoping would be broken by death. Now she saw the mind-stunning possibility that it could be something more … that there might be, within those unfathomable depths of Don's mind, that same capacity for fanatical devotion to the company … that same blind zealot's drive that had made Avery Bullard forget everything else in life … destroyed his marriage … turned him into a bloodless effigy of a man … cold … driven by an insane urge to build and build and build … bigger and bigger and bigger … as if he had been afflicted with some aberration that had made him believe his soul would be measured on a balance sheet where there was no credit for love.

The telephone rang and the way her husband's arm shot out was a frightening confirmation of everything that Mary Walling was struggling so hard not to believe.

She turned away, not wanting to see his face. The sound of his voice made her turn back.

“Yes—yes, I understand—yes—yes, of course.”

The words themselves were meaningless but every shade and intonation of his voice was a language that the years of marriage had taught her to understand. She knew that something highly disappointing had happened. Unexpectedly, he glanced up at her and then said to the telephone, “All right—yes, right away, Mrs. Prince.”

The telephone receiver dropped from his hand. She waited again, determined not to speak until he did, trying not to feel the sympathy that his eyes asked for, afraid that anything she might say or do would let him know that she was hoping that whatever had happened would keep him from becoming the president of the Tredway Corporation.

“Shaw and Dudley got hold of Caswell first,” he said, the words coming hard, forced against reluctance. “Met him at the airport—took him to the club. They've been down there having lunch—Miss Martin, too.”

Did she dare speak … even to ask him what it meant? No. Wait … wait … wait.

“Mrs. Prince has managed some way to get them out to her place. She wants us to come, too.”

“Us?”

“Yes—and I wish you would,” he said slowly.

He was looking at her strangely, his eyes telling her that he saw something that he hadn't seen before, but she was afraid to ask him what it was. It was enough to know that she would be with him … that there would be a sharing … that she would be a party to whatever happened.

“I'll change,” she said quickly, starting down the hall to their bedroom, conscious of the excited anticipation that was growing within her.

1.40 P.M. EDT

“Suppose I ride out with Miss Martin,” George Caswell said. “That is if—”

“No point to that,” Shaw broke in quickly. “No need to take two cars. I'll drop you here on the way back, Miss Martin.” The torture of curiosity had driven him to the point where the thought of anything being said out of hearing was almost unendurable.

“I really would like to have my car with me,” Erica Martin countered.

“Then I'll go with you,” Caswell said. “Where are you parked, Miss Martin?”

“In the lot. Mind walking?”

“Not at all,” Caswell said, calling back over his shoulder as they walked off together, “see you in a few minutes.”

Shaw's eyes followed them, their every footstep adding another question to the thousands that already writhed tortuously through every furrow of his brain. Why did Caswell want to talk to her … why was she so anxious to talk to him … what would they say?

“Well, I'll run along, too,” Dwight Prince's voice said.

Shaw had forgotten that Prince and Dudley were still standing beside him.

“Yes sir, Dwight, you bet. See you in just a minute,” Dudley said heartily.

“Yes—see you,” Dwight Prince said, walking away.

“Not such a bad guy when you get to know him—I mean for that type,” Dudley said after Prince was beyond the range of his voice. “Say, you don't think Julia's got any idea of getting Dwight into the company, do you? Hear that crack he made about how he'd always been interested in furniture?”

Shaw grimaced, trying to block his ears. There were too many questions already and for every one that was asked, his brain spawned a dozen more. Why were they going out to her house … what would happen … did it mean anything that there were four of them … four votes? Did it mean that he had convinced her last night … that she had decided to support him? Would she have invited him if she weren't … invited Dudley and Caswell, too? Why had she insisted on Miss Martin's coming … or was that only Dwight Prince being polite? Could it possibly mean …

Walt Dudley's voice smashed through to his consciousness. “You think it means anything, Loren—George Caswell coming down here today?”

Shaw stiffened. Questions … questions … questions! Was Dudley trying to drive him insane by re-asking the same questions that he had asked himself so many times before? “Why should it mean anything?” he demanded curtly. “There's nothing unusual about it. He was a friend of Mr. Bullard's—he had a plane available—he flew over. That's all there is to it. What makes you think anything else?”

He wished that he hadn't asked that last question. Why open himself to any more torture? He had weighed every word that George Caswell had said during lunch and there hadn't been the slightest indication that there was any purpose whatsoever behind his surprise visit.

“Just a hunch, that's all,” Dudley said.

Uncontrollable curiosity forced Shaw to say, “What's your hunch?”

“You understand this is probably cockeyed, but in the selling game a man learns to pay attention to hunches.”

“Well?”

Dudley's voice dropped to a heavy whisper. “You don't suppose, do you, that George might be thinking of stepping into the company himself?”