Executive Suite (7 page)

“If you don't reach him, let me know at once,” Erica Martin said sharply, clipping off the subject. Ruth would blabber on endlessly if you gave her half a chance. How Mr. Grimm had managed to put up with Ruth Elkins all of these years was something almost beyond understanding. The only possible explanation was pure pity. That was like Mr. Grimm … his one weakness … demanding perfection from his machines but too quick to excuse the lack of it in his people. It was a fault … Avery recognized it, too … but, as he had once said, if a man had to have a fault there were worse ones to have. Avery liked Jesse Grimm. That was plain. There was a special affection in his voice when he said, “Get old Jesse up here.” The other vice-presidents were almost always referred to by their surnames … “Ask Mr. Alderson to come up for a minute.”

The juxtaposition of the two names in her mind sparked a question. Was that why Avery was delaying? Perhaps he wanted to make Mr. Grimm executive vice-president but was waiting until he could find some way to do it without offending Mr. Alderson … no, she was wrong … Avery never shrank from facing anything that needed to be faced. Personal considerations had never stopped him before … he had the strength to override them … he couldn't hide behind that excuse. There
was
no excuse … he was just being stubborn!

J. Walter Dudley, Vice-President for Sales, and Don Walling, Vice-President for Design and Development, occupied offices that were joined by a connecting door. Dudley's office was empty but she heard his voice through the closed door and opened it. The two men were seated in front of a long side table over which a collection of furniture-design sketches was scattered.

Walt Dudley was on his feet instantly, a broad smile blooming. He was an impressive man—big, broad-shouldered, with prematurely white hair above a strong deep-tanned face—and he was a practiced master of the art of winning quick friendships. “Erica, my dear, you're just what we need—a neutral referee—but with a good eye for a fast-selling number. Don and I can't figure out which of these specials I should take along to the Chicago market tonight.”

Erica Martin smiled in spite of herself. She knew that everything Walt Dudley said was a part of his own highly personal act—like the “Erica, my dear” that no other vice-president could possibly have said—yet he was able now, as he always was, to demand her smile.

“What you'd really like me to tell you,” she said, letting the smile lighten her tone, “is which designs Mr. Bullard will like.”

Dudley tossed his handsome head with an appreciative chuckle directed at Walling. “Don, haven't I always said she was a mind reader?”

Don Walling nodded in the demanded agreement but it was obviously tinged with an undertone of slight embarrassment. “I'm afraid that's putting Miss Martin on a spot—asking her to outguess Mr. Bullard.”

“If I could outguess Mr. Bullard,” she said lightly, “I'd be a vice-president myself.”

Dudley's laughter was instantaneous. “That's not a qualification. If it were, there wouldn't be any vice-presidents.”

She saw the conversation was fast reaching the forbidden ground of personal comment about Mr. Bullard and she cut it off with a quick announcement of the meeting.

For once Walt Dudley was caught off guard. His smile vanished. “But I'm taking the seven o'clock plane to Chicago. The furniture market opens Monday and we're to have a preview showing for the chain and mail order boys tomorrow.” His last words weakened as if the hearing of what he had said destroyed its validity. “Well, I can probably get a later plane.” The smile was back. “Dust off my chair, Erica, I'll be there.”

Walling was facing her, frowning. “I don't see how I can possibly make it, Miss Martin. Everything's set to start our test run on the molding process as soon as the five o'clock shift comes off.”

“Better hold it up,” Dudley advised, the older man to the younger.

“We can't hold it up,” Walling protested. “They've already started reacting the finish resin. It has to come off on schedule or not at all. We've spent a whole month getting things organized for this one weekend. If we miss now it will be a month before we can get things set again for another factory test.”

“Couldn't they go ahead without you?” Erica Martin asked, framing the question so that it was a way of telling him that nothing must stop him from attending the meeting. Don Walling was a new vice-president … it had been less than two years since he had moved up to the Executive Suite … there were still things that he had to be taught.

“I don't see how. There'll be decisions to make as they go along,” Walling said, “but under the circumstances, I don't suppose there's anything else that can be done except to hold up.”

He was learning, Erica decided, but there was more to learn … he hadn't taught himself to hide his feelings.

“Cheer up, boy,” Dudley broke in with a forced laugh, the good actor covering a fellow player's bad cue. “The meeting might turn out to be a quickie and then you could still get over to the factory in time.”

Erica Martin was tempted. She knew how important the test run was. She had seen the preliminary estimates that had been attached to the appropriation request. If the new molding process worked out it might well become the most important development in years. A month's delay would be serious. If Avery were there he would almost certainly tell Walling to go ahead with the test run and not worry about the meeting. Yet she dared not yield to the temptation to speak for him. That was the frustrating prohibition that hemmed in her whole life. She knew, better than any living person, what Avery Bullard's reaction would be to any given situation, yet she never dared anticipate it. She could only repeat his words, relay his orders, echo his commands. That was all. Anything else was beyond the border line.

Outside the door, Erica Martin groped, as she had groped so many times before, to find some bench mark of reason that would make it easier to orient her thinking and find some justification for the unpleasant situation in which she constantly found herself. She was always in the bufferland between Avery Bullard and his vice-presidents. She had nothing to do with the orders that she relayed, yet she was forced to be the object of the resentment and anger that they aroused. The demand for a six o'clock executive committee meeting was an arbitrary act of dictatorship, issued without consideration of anyone else's plans or desires. She agreed. But it wasn't her fault. Why should they hate her … and they did hate her, all of them! Walling was the only one who had dared to show it, but that was only because he was new, because he hadn't learned yet that a mask was essential equipment for the vice-president's trade. They all had their masks, Dudley's was laughter, Alderson's was his impassivity, Grimm's was the thin blue veil of smoke that drifted up from his black pipe. Shaw's was …

The name was a prod and she hurried around the corner to the door that was lettered: Loren P. Shaw, Vice-President and Comptroller. There was a meeting in progress and she withdrew quickly, intending to leave the message with Shaw's secretary, but she was only a step away from his door when he popped out.

“Something, Miss Martin?”

“I'm sorry I disturbed you, Mr. Shaw.”

“Not at all, Miss Martin. Nothing important, just a little gathering of our section heads. Getting our plans laid for the midyear closing, you know.”

“Mr. Bullard is on his way home from New York. He's called an executive committee meeting for six o'clock.”

Of all the masks, Loren Shaw's was the best. Her eyes were directly on his, yet she saw not the faintest flicker of reaction, nor was there the slightest hint of an unusual tone in his voice as he said, “Apparently there must have been some developments in New York today.”

“Apparently,” she said quickly. Did he know what Avery had been working on in New York … or was he making a guileful attempt to get her to tell him what the meeting was about? In either event there was nothing more to be said. “Thank you, Mr. Shaw.”

“Not at all, Miss Martin. I'll be there.”

She felt his eyes following her down the hall and it was not until she had turned the corner and was starting up the staircase that she heard his door close.

At the top of the staircase she suddenly realized why Shaw had been watching her. He was confirming the fact that he had been the last one that she had told. An unaccountable tremor of fear ran through her. She brushed it aside. Why should she be afraid of anything that Loren Shaw might think? He was only a vice-president. In less than three hours Avery would be here.

She walked through her own office and into Avery Bullard's. She had drawn the shades against the sun and now she closed the door, shutting out all of the light except the soft cathedral glow that came through the stained-glass ports between the heavy oak beams. She walked behind his desk, stopping when she could reach out to touch the back of his chair. Then, slowly, her hands dropped until her fingertips had passed over the hard roughness of the oak and found the soft yielding flesh-touch of the red leather. Her eyes did not follow her hands. She was looking straight ahead. There was no break in the mask of her face.

3

NEW YORK CITY

4.52 P.M. EDT

As is often the case with many another a public servant, Frank Gross was a harsh critic of the human shortcoming that accounted for the means of his livelihood. If, as he frequently suggested, every citizen were required by federal law to be indelibly tattooed with his name and Social Security number, the necessity for his employment would have been largely eliminated. That fact had no effect upon his caustic railing against all persons who were stupid enough to allow themselves to fall dead in a public place without suitable identification on their persons.

The eventual solution of the identification riddles that were placed on Frank Gross' desk gave him little satisfaction. From his viewpoint, he was wasting his effort and his ingenuity on something that should never have been necessary in the first place.

He opened the file that lay in front of him with particular distaste, recalling that MacIntosh had said when he brought it in, “Make this a special, Frankie. Looks like it might be someone important.” Frank Gross had no love for important people. If it weren't for his nineteen years of seniority … and that was something a guy with a wife and four kids couldn't forget … he would have told MacIntosh what he could do. MacIntosh was a pain in the tail. An ordinary guy drops dead, it's nothing but routine, but let a case turn up that looks maybe like it's got a couple of votes behind it and right away MacIntosh has got to make it “special”… yah, and at twenty to five just so it would make him miss his train.

Frank Gross replaced his glasses, blinked his eyes into focus, and examined the flimsy carbon of the report form. WALLET … no. PAPERS … none. LAUNDRY MARKS … none … there ought to be a federal law about laundry marks … initials A.B. on shirtsleeves. SUIT … medium brown with faint red overplaid … custom-tailored by D. Andruzzi, Palm Beach, Florida … no customer label. Coat … 44 long. Trousers … 40 waist, 35 inseam. HAT … Dobbs, 6⅞, initials A.B. CONTENTS OF POCKETS … small coins, total $1.57, bus token from Canton, Ohio, Camel cigarettes, Dunhill lighter with initials A.B.

Frank vented an impatient snort at the imbecile who had made out the report, mumbling aloud, “I know his initials are A.B. How many times you got to keep telling me?”

With a resigned sigh, he opened the upper right-hand drawer of his desk and took out a pad of message blanks. He wrote two telegrams. One was addressed to
CHIEF POLICE
,
PALM BEACH
,
FLA
., the other to
CHIEF POLICE
,
CANTON
,
OHIO
. On out-of-the-city cases, Frank never addressed a message to an individual of lesser status than Chief Police. If they didn't like it, so what? Served them right for allowing their citizens to make a nuisance of themselves to the City of New York.

The message written, Frank Gross walked to his locker, took out his hat, and started for home. MacIntosh had said to make it special … Okay, it was special. What more could he do?

5.02 P.M. EDT

George Caswell, breasting the five o'clock human tide that roared down Wall Street toward the subway entrance, finally managed to make the appointed corner. The traffic officer recognized him, grinned a polite salute and flipped his hand to indicate the Cadillac that was idling in the No Parking zone halfway up the block.

Neil Finch was already in the back seat and the chauffeur had the car moving the moment that Caswell was inside. The two men were friends of long standing, a relationship so secure that it had withstood both competition and proximity. They were the heads of two rival stock-brokerage houses—Caswell & Co. and Slade & Finch—and for the last nine years they had lived in adjoining Long Island estates. During the summer months they rode back and forth together, using their cars on alternate days.

“Hope it wasn't too inconvenient, Neil, my holding you up like this,” Caswell said.

“No. Good thing. Gave me a chance to clear a few things off my desk.”

They rode in silence until the car stopped, blocked by a traffic snarl.

“I hear your friend was in town today,” Finch said.

“Who's that?”

“Avery Bullard. Wingate happened to see him coming out of your office.”

“Oh. Yes, Bullard was in. As a matter of fact that's one thing that held me up, waiting for him to call me.”

“Found himself an executive vice-president yet?”

“That's what he was to call me about. He was having lunch with Bruce Pilcher.”

“Bruce Pilcher?”

“You know him, don't you?”

“Of course.” There was a pointed pause. “You say Pilcher had lunch with Avery Bullard?”