Tell Them I'll Be There (26 page)

‘Well?' he said, looking quizzically at Dan as he brought the cough under control. ‘Say something.'

Dan spread his hands. He wasn't sure what to say. ‘Was that wise? Sending her back to your place? She might wreck the joint.'

Baker laughed and set off another bout of coughing. ‘No chance,' he said at last. ‘I asked Mrs Heine to be there, see she takes only what's hers and nothing else.'

Dan nodded. Mrs Heine, who took care of his apartment, was a large, formidable lady. She had no time for ‘Mrs' Baker whom she believed was unworthy of her exalted position. Everything, it seemed, was under control.

‘You have a hospital appointment tomorrow,' Dan said. ‘I think I should come with you.'

‘Hold my hand?' Baker said wryly, but he didn't dismiss the idea. ‘Listen, son, I need to talk to you, put you straight on a few things.'

Dan moved up to the chair Barbara had vacated.

‘I want you to understand,' Baker went on, ‘that what we did with O'Hara was not our style. Helping to manipulate the market at the expense of the little guy is not what we do or what we've ever done – except on this one occasion.'

Dan was nodding in approval.

‘Now there are some guys, members of the Exchange, who have no scruples. If they can build up a stock to a phoney level then make a killing, they will. They don't care what harm they do. Well, I reckon the market is overheating, too many little people investing all they have. They are led to believe they can't lose, this crazy boom will go on forever. Well, it can't. We've had good times now for ten years but it's running out of control. It can't go on. It ain't based on anything.

‘What happened with Radio stock was down to these
speculators
. They gang up and form “pools”. They buy together in a big way and everybody else piles in. Then they pull out. They all sell at the same time leaving those who are not in the know taking the loss. They make their killing and run. Well, they got away with it this time with Radio stock, but one day, and soon, the whole goddamn works is going to blow up in their faces.' 

‘So what do we do?' Dan asked.

‘We sell up,' Baker said decisively. ‘We cash in what we've got and put the proceeds into long-term bonds. I'll show you which. It's low returns, yeah, but safe. I reckon there's a stormy period ahead. So I say we get out now. Most of the companies who owe us are doing OK so we call in the debts and we don't lend any more dough for a while.'

‘You want me to sell everything?'

‘Yeah, starting tomorrow morning. Don't talk about what you're doing. They'll think you're crazy. Just do it.'

‘And tomorrow afternoon I take you to the hospital.'

Baker nodded, ‘Sure, if you want to. But there's not much those guys can do for me.'

A
COLD WIND
was blowing up from the Hudson and Tim Dolan was back walking the streets of the parish. He felt at home here. People knew him now. He had just stopped to exchange a few words with Officer Healey the
neighbourhood
cop who knew everybody and was almost as well known as Father Pat. An old man searching the sidewalk for cigarette butts, looked up at him, grinned and said something he couldn't make out. He grinned back at the old man and went on walking.

This was far removed from Dan's world of high rollers and stock market wizards but it was his part of town now and he knew, sadly, he would soon have to make a move. Father Pat hadn't raised the subject but Tim knew he was waiting for the verdict. Had he come through his recent problems or was he going to quit his plans for the priesthood? Trouble was, he didn't know. He was still debating with himself. But soon, he knew, he would have to decide.

Frankie O'Reilly was having trouble raising the back wheels of his buggy out of the gutter and up on to the sidewalk. Tim stopped to help him and together they levelled the cart. Then Tim raised the cover and saw the buggy was piled high with cobs of coal.

He laughed. ‘Better watch out. Officer Healey's about.'

‘Was him told me there'd been a spill,' the boy said.

‘So how are you, Frankie?' Tim asked as they walked along.

‘I'm OK, I guess.'

‘And ma? She OK?' 

Frankie looked at him sideways. ‘Well, y'know. She never will be.'

‘I guess not,' Tim acknowledged. ‘So it's up to you now. Stay out of trouble. Make her proud of you.'

‘You sound like Father Pat.'

Tim smiled. The boy was growing up. He was more
self-possessed
, more confident. ‘Has he been bending your ear?'

Frankie sat down out of the wind on the bottom step of the block where he lived, his coal buggy drawn up at his feet. ‘More than that. He gave me a lecture about the two sides of the law and which side always wins. I said what about the guys who beat the rap? And you know what he's like. He says they don't win. They get theirs when they go upstairs.'

Tim laughed. ‘He's got an answer for everything.'

‘Yeah,' he said. ‘And now he's got me doing extra
schoolwork
.'

Tim was impressed. ‘I reckon that's no mean feat. Getting you to do extra schoolwork. Getting
any
kid to do extra
schoolwork
.'

‘Yeah well, Father Pat and me, we've got plans. I'm going to be a lawyer, see. Like Dennis.'

‘Dennis Casey?'

‘Yeah. Dennis is a kid from round here like me. Father Pat took me to see him and now he's teaching me stuff about the law. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be a big-shot lawyer like Dennis.'

‘Well, I think that's great, Frankie,' Tim told him. ‘I really do and I wish you all the luck in the world.'

Later that day Tim called into Dennis Casey's office. He wanted to applaud what Casey was doing and thank him.

‘Don't thank me, Tim,' Casey said. ‘It's Father Pat's idea.'

‘Well, it's good for Frankie. Especially after what's happened. I expect he's a long way to go but he's a bright kid. Let's hope he makes it. All the way.'

‘He'll have every chance. He's getting extra tuition already. Father Pat has this guy comes in for a couple of hours two nights a week, help him with his schoolwork.' 

‘That's great,' Tim said. ‘And it's good of the Church to help out.'

Casey shook his head. ‘Nothing to do with the Church. Father Pat pays for it himself.'

‘That so?' Tim was even more impressed. ‘Now that's real good of him. You mean, he pays the man out of his own pocket?'

Casey nodded.

‘Can he afford to do that?'

‘He's done it before,' Casey said.

Tim laughed, shaking his head. This Father Pat never ceased to surprise him. ‘He's done it before?'

‘Several times. Sees a bright kid, boy or girl, and he does what he can to help them.' Casey paused for a moment then he said, ‘It goes back years. At least twenty to my knowledge. My old man was no good. He'd come home now and then when he had nowhere else to go. And he didn't work, never had a real job, so there was never much money at our house.'

‘You mean, he did it for you?'

‘Sure. He saw me all the way through. I've tried to pay him back a number of times but he won't hear of it. He's in a league of his own our Father Pat.'

The consultant came out to where Dan was waiting to take Joe Baker home. He was a grey-haired man in his late fifties, cheerful and friendly and willing to talk whilst Joe was getting dressed.

Dan was hoping for a word, some indication of how Joe was progressing but he had to prompt him to get it. ‘It's bad, Doc?'

The doctor nodded. ‘I guess so,' he said. ‘But, at least, he knows it. He's a tough old guy, been a fighter and a survivor all his life, I'd say. But this is the toughest battle he's ever had to fight, son, and the odds are stacked against him.'

‘How long?' Dan asked.

The doctor was surprised at the directness of Dan's question. He hesitated, then he said, ‘Who can say? Month, maybe two.'

‘A year?' Dan asked hopefully. 

‘I can always tell when people are talking about me,' Baker said as he emerged fixing his tie. ‘No need to look guilty, fellas. I know the score. From where I'm standing I can see the Old Reaper.'

‘Don't say things like that,' Dan said, genuinely concerned.

‘The queue's getting shorter,' Baker insisted.

‘Getting shorter for all of us, Joe,' the doctor said with a smile.

They shook hands and Baker grinned at Dan. ‘He tries to pick my brains, you know. He's always asking me what stocks he should buy.'

The doctor looked at Dan and shook his head in denial.

‘I tell him to get out,' Baker went on, ‘Sell everything. Cash in while he still can. The market's overheating.'

‘Is he right?' the doctor asked Dan.

‘He always has been,' Dan said.

The doctor patted Baker on the back. ‘See you in a couple of weeks, you old rogue,' he said. But he didn't. This was Monday and Joe Baker died during the night the following Friday.

Dan was with him when he died. He was at home in his smart apartment and his breathing was so bad Dan refused to leave. At times he seemed to be in pain but the nurse on watch gave him enough of what Dan guessed was morphine to help him sleep. Before she left she said she would be back early the next morning. Joe was sleeping peacefully, but the nurse warned Dan that he might not wake up. Around midnight, sitting at the bedside, Dan fell asleep.

It was just after two o'clock when he suddenly came awake and realized where he was. Joe was still asleep. The heating had gone off and it was cold. Dan touched Baker's hand but it felt warm enough. Then, still half asleep, he drew an armchair nearer to the bed, found his overcoat, drew it over himself and fell asleep again.

The second time he awoke it was just after six. He sat up straight. The room was still and so was Joe. Dan had the strange feeling it was the silence, the absolute stillness that woke him. And he knew at once that Joe was dead. 

He called the nurse who said she would come right over. She would ‘take care of things', she said. Dan was thankful for that because he had no idea what he should do. Would he stay there? was all she asked. A doctor would be called, she told him, to certify that Mr Baker had passed away.

Dan stood at the bedside, looking down. He felt that he knew Joe well and that he didn't know him at all. He had come into Dan's life some five years ago and in many ways he had become like a father to him. Few people seemed to get along with Joe Baker but Dan liked him from the start. There was something tough, unpretentious and – what was the word? –
indomitable
about him. But even after seeing him and working with him nearly every day since he joined the company Dan felt he still knew very little about him.

He wandered down the wide hallway to the room Baker used as an office. Big desk. A bookcase. A dark-green filing cabinet. On one wall a print of a small town with minarets, a tall spire and a line of cyrillic letters across the bottom like a travel poster. But there were no other pictures. Dan sat at the desk and picked up a slim white envelope. It was addressed in Baker's scrawling handwriting to Dan Dolan with the instruction: Not to be opened by anyone else.

Dan picked up the shiny gold-plated NYSE letter opener and sliced open the envelope.

Dan smiled. That was Pops. Still giving instructions. He looked at the single sheet attached. It was a brief account of Baker's life from Ellis Island to Park Avenue. His name was Josef Bakke. He had come to America with his mother and his little sister from the Ukraine. There was an address in Shevchenko Street in Kiev. On Ellis Island he had sailed through all the health and other checks but his sister had a problem. She had developed an eye infection and on the voyage over it had
worsened
. Baker wrote:

The note went on to say he had worked at a variety of jobs and he eventually realized he was a good salesman. His best move was when he joined the NY Curb Exchange. This was a job selling stock on the sidewalk in Broad Street. He never stopped working and saving and when he had enough hard cash he bought his seat on the much more prestigious NY Stock Exchange.

The funeral was a strange affair. Baker had left instructions with his lawyer that he didn't want anyone from the Exchange or from his trade association. He just wanted Dan Dolan, Harry and Lois from the office, his housekeeper Mrs Heine, the lawyer Jim Paley and Mrs Paley and that was all. For a man so widely known in business circles it seemed to Dan a very odd send-off, but his last letter to Paley was adamant – just his closest friends and associates.

Joe had specified he wanted a non-religious ceremony yet he had joked in his last letter about meeting up in Heaven. Dan thought about the first day he walked into the office on Madison, his cloth cap, collarless shirt, worn jacket, work pants, heavy boots. He was scared of Joe Baker then but he needed a job and he was willing to do anything, anything legal anyway. The way things turned out could not have been better.

‘What I want is a Mark Antony not a Brutus,' Joe had told him. Dan had read the play, seen it in an off Broadway
production
and he wondered now why an uneducated kid from the Ukraine would be familiar with
Julius Caesar
. Well today, he thought as the plain wooden box passed by, ‘I come to bury Caesar
and
to praise him'.

Dan had power of attorney over Baker's affairs and the first 
thing he did was close the office as a mark of respect and give Harry and Lois a week's paid leave. Dan and Jim Paley paid their tributes and that was it. Brief and without fuss as Joe had wanted. Then, as they came away, Paley drew Dan aside and told him they must meet as soon as possible. He had some very important news for him. Dan agreed to call at his office the following day.