The Betsy (1971) (37 page)

But then what was it that I had read once. General U. S. Grant used to take a nap just before every big battle. He claimed that and whiskey freshened him up for the fight.

Maybe I couldn’t sleep but the whiskey didn’t seem like a bad idea. I looked at my watch. Five minutes to nine. I started for the bar.

I was on my second shot at exactly nine o’clock when the front doorbell rang. I heard Gianno start for it but I beat him to the door and opened it.

A man stood there in the shadows, his hat pulled down and his coat collar up. I couldn’t see his face. “Mr. Angelo Perino?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“This is for you,” he said, thrusting a large red manila envelope into my hand. “Compliments of the Judge!”

“Thank you,” I said. But he had already gone down the steps and into a car which sped down the driveway.

I closed the door and walked slowly back into the living room, untying the flat ribbon that closed the envelope. Inside were two file folders.

I sank into the couch and opened them. The first was the letter I had asked him to get from Loren’s safe. I read it quickly. It was almost word for word what Bobbie had told me. I put it back into the file and opened the other one.

This was everything I wanted and more. Names, dates, places, everything. Even photostats of the checks he received as well as his disbursements. Simpson had to be a nut for keeping records. It was either that or he had plans for blackmail at some future date. And from what I knew about him so far, it had to be the latter.

Suddenly I looked up. They were all standing there, watching me anxiously. My father, mother and Cindy. Even Gianno was in the doorway looking on.

“Was it what you wanted?” my father asked.

I broke into a smile. Suddenly the heaviness that was in the air all day was gone. I jumped up, kissed my father, kissed Cindy and began to dance my mother around. “Hey, Papa!” I said, looking over my shoulder at him. “Who says Grandfather isn’t watching over us?”

My mother stopped dancing and crossed herself. “He’s up there in heaven with the angels,” she said solemnly. “Looking after his children.”

 Chapter Eleven

It was impossible for me to drive with my ribs still taped, so Cindy dropped me at the administration building at eight thirty in the morning. “Shall I come back for you?” she asked.

I caught my breath. It wasn’t that easy getting out of a Maserati with a couple of broken ribs. “No,” I said. “You go back to the hotel. I’ll grab a cab and pick you up for dinner when I get through.”

“Good enough,” she smiled. She held out her fist in a thumbs-up gesture.

I grinned and gave it back to her and she spun off down the road. I went into the building and directly to my office. My secretary wasn’t in yet, which was just as well. I sat down at her desk, put a sheet of paper in her typewriter and began knocking out a few notes.

I had just finished when she came in at ten to nine. I pulled the last note out of the machine, signed it and stuck it in my inside pocket.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Perino?” she asked. “Better?”

“Much better.”

“We were all so shocked when we heard what happened,” she said.

“No more than I was.” I picked up my attaché case and started for the door. “I’m going to Number One’s office.”

“Don’t forget you have the stockholders’ meeting at nine o’clock.”

“I won’t,” I said, as if I needed the reminder.

Number One had not arrived yet. “He’ll be a little late,” his secretary said. “He had to make one stop before he came in.”

I went back to my office, had a cup of coffee and, exactly at nine o’clock, went down to the board room for the meeting. The room was crowded, they were all there. Except Number One.

Loren III rapped a gavel on the table. The conversation in the room stopped. “I have just been informed that my grandfather will be a few minutes late,” he said. “While we are waiting for him, I will explain briefly a few procedural changes that have been instituted solely for the meetings today of the stockholders and the directors. These changes have been explained to my grandfather and he is in accord with them.”

He paused for a moment, his eyes glancing around the table. I didn’t think he recognized me at first glance because his eyes came back for a flash second look, then went on, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Both stockholders and directors have been invited to attend both meetings,” he said. “At the stockholders’ meeting, those directors who are not stockholders will retire from the table to the seats provided for them around the room. Seated at the table with the direct stockholders will also be those trustees of the Hardeman Foundation who will today vote the stock in the company held by the Foundation. I would like to introduce to the general company those trustees of the Foundation present other than myself.”

He paused for a moment. “My sister, the Princess Anne Elizabeth Alekhine.”

Anne, looking every bit the princess in a chic, tailored Parisian suit, nodded regally, then sat back in her place at her brother’s right hand.

“I might also add,” Loren said, “that my sister will also vote the stock she holds in the company in her own name.”

He gestured with his hand. “Seated on her right is Dr. James Randolph, executive director of the Foundation, and on his right, Professor William Mueller, administrative director of the Foundation. Stockholders will also be entitled to have legal counsel seated next to them at the table if they should so desire. Such counsel will not have the right to address any stockholder directly other than his own client or clients.”

He paused again for a moment. “For the board of directors’ meeting, the exact opposite will hold. That is, those stockholders who are not directors of the company will retire from the table so that the directors may proceed without delay and interference to the business of the company for which the meeting has been called.

“If the nonstockholding directors will now retire from the table, we will be able to proceed with the stockholders’ meeting as soon as my grandfather arrives.”

A shuffling sound rose in the room as the crowd rearranged themselves. When it died down, there were only five of us left at the table: Loren III, Anne, the two Foundation trustees and myself.

I sat alone at the opposite end of the table from them. Loren looked at me but didn’t speak. There were a thousand yards of open battlefield between us. A low hum rose from the other seats around the room. I couldn’t help but feel that we were like gladiators in an ancient Roman arena.

Silence fell abruptly across the room as the door began to open. Number One came through first, his arms pushing the wheelchair over the threshold vigorously. Behind him came Alicia, a tall, gray-haired, striking woman whom I did not know, and Artie Roberts.

Number One paused for a second, looking around the room, then propelled his chair to the table. Artie pulled a chair away so that the wheelchair would have a place. Number One gestured to the women and they took seats at the table next to him. Artie sat down in the chair directly behind Number One.

Loren III’s face was pale as he stared angrily at his grandfather. Anne got to her feet quickly and came down the table toward Number One. Reluctantly, Loren followed her.

Anne stopped at the gray-haired woman and kissed her warmly on the cheek. The surprise was clear in her voice. “Mother! I didn’t expect to see you. You should have let us know you were coming!”

Now I knew who the striking lady was. Admiral Hugh Scott’s wife. No wonder Loren III was so angry at his grandfather. Bringing to the meeting both his mother and his ex-wife.

Anne greeted Alicia with a peck on the cheek and a “Nice to see you again,” pecked Number One on the cheek silently, then made her way back to her seat.

Loren was much more reserved. He kissed his mother’s cheek politely, nodded silently to Alicia, ignored his grandfather and went back to his seat.

He picked up the gavel and rapped smartly on the table. “The meeting of the stockholders of the Bethlehem Motors Company, Incorporated, is hereby called to order.” He glanced down at his grandfather. “Before we commence the business before this meeting, the chair questions the right and propriety of the seating of Mrs. Scott and the former Mrs. Hardeman at this meeting. It is the contention of the chair that they have no interest, proprietary or otherwise, in this company that would permit their seating, since the chair already holds the proxy of Mrs. Hardeman to vote at its discretion and Mrs. Scott has no interest whatsoever in this company that the chair is aware of.”

Artie leaned forward, putting a paper in Alicia’s hand and whispering in her ear. She nodded and rose to her feet. “Mr. Chairman!”

“Yes, Mrs. Hardeman,” Loren answered formally.

With Artie whispering behind her, Alicia spoke in a thin, clear voice. “I beg to submit, for the consideration of the chair, this notice of revocation by me of the proxy previously given it and the return to me of the voting privileges contained therein.” She placed the paper on the table, pushing it toward her former husband, and sat down.

Loren picked up the paper and looked at it. He turned and handed it to Dan Weyman, sitting behind him, who passed it on in turn to the company counsel. Loren began to speak without waiting. “It seems to me that this revocation is illegal and contrary to a contracted agreement and is therefore invalid at this meeting.”

Artie leaned forward and whispered rapidly into Alicia’s ear. Alicia leaned forward; this time she did not get up. “This stockholder is willing to agree to an adjournment of this meeting until the question is settled in court. It would seem to me that the rights of this stockholder to vote her own stock are no less valid than the right claimed by the chair for the Foundation under similar circumstances on which a judgment has already been rendered and accepted by all parties concerned.”

Loren turned in his chair and whispered to the company counsel. After a moment, he turned back. He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. It was only five percent. He still held a clear majority, with the inclusion of the Foundation stock. Fifty-four percent. “The chair will concede the revocation,” he said. “But the chair still objects to the presence of Mrs. Scott.”

This time Number One threw a sheet of paper on the table. “In accordance with the right given to me in the articles of incorporation of the Hardeman Foundation whereby I have the right to designate my successor as trustee of the Foundation should I retire from that position, I now do so. You will find on that sheet of paper my formal resignation as trustee of the Foundation and my designation of Mrs. Sally Scott as my successor trustee.”

Loren picked up the paper and handed it to the executive director of the Foundation. The man read it quickly and nodded. Loren turned back to the table. “The Foundation recognizes Mrs. Scott as trustee and the chair welcomes her personally to this table.”

Mrs. Scott smiled. “Thank you, Loren.”

He nodded. After all, it was no skin off his teeth. He still held four of the five trustee votes. “Now, can we proceed to the business at hand?” he asked sarcastically.

Number One nodded pleasantly. “I guess we can do that, son.”

Loren glanced around the table to a chorus of nods until he came to me. I shook my head. He stopped.

“Mr. Chairman,” I said.

“Yes, Mr. Perino,” he replied.

“Before we come to the proper business of this meeting, would it be at all possible to have a private meeting of only those stockholders who have personal equities in the company, and members, past or present, of the Hardeman family?”

Even Number One looked at me curiously now.

Loren was puzzled. “That’s a very strange request, Mr. Perino.”

“In view of certain information I have available, Mr. Chairman,” I said calmly, “I think it is a reasonable one. Since the information I have concerns members of the Hardeman family personally, I see no point in airing it publicly.”

“Would it be possible for the chair to see this so-called information you have so it may better evaluate the propriety of your request?”

“I have no objections,” I said, opening my attaché case. I took out the two file folders and separated the originals from the Xerox copies I had made early that morning. I gave them to him.

He looked down at them for several seconds, his face running the gamut of colors from angry red to deathly pale. Finally, he looked up at me with stricken eyes. “I won’t be blackmailed!” he said hoarsely. “What I did was for the good of the company!”

“Let me see them,” Number One said.

Angrily Loren flung them on the table in front of his grandfather. Number One picked them up and read them. After a few minutes, he looked at me. I saw a tremendous hurting pain in his eyes and I felt sorry for him. It was still his own flesh and blood.

Slowly he looked around the room. “I think we’d better talk this over privately in my office,” he said in a weary voice.

And that was the end of the stockholders’ meeting.

 Chapter Twelve

“I think we’re entitled to know how you came by this information,” Number One asked me in a level voice from behind his desk.

“Last night, at nine o’clock, a man came to my door and asked if I was Angelo Perino. I answered in the affirmative. ‘This is for you,’ he said, putting the papers in my hand, and he disappeared.” It was the truth, not all of it, but enough to answer his question.

“Did you know the man, ever see him before?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

“You say this letter is supposedly a suicide note left by my late son?” His voice held a faint tremor.

“Goddamnit, Grandfather!” Loren III suddenly exploded. “You know damn well it is. You recognize his handwriting! Or maybe because he was writing about you, you don’t want to recognize it?” He took a deep breath. “How Angelo got that letter I don’t know, but for all the years since my father died I kept that copy locked away in my safe! So that the world would never find out that you were son-of-a-bitch enough to drive your son to suicide!”

He began to cry. “Oh, God, how I hated you for it! Every time I thought of my father lying there on the cold library floor, his head blown off, his brains staining the carpet, I hated you more. But even then I couldn’t believe it. I also remembered when I was little how you used to play with us. But then when you started with the Betsy, it all came back. You were acting to me exactly as you had acted toward my father. But I made up my mind. You weren’t going to do to me what you did to him. I would destroy you first!” He sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

“Is that what you believe I did to your father?” Number One asked in a quiet voice.

Loren III had regained control of himself. He looked at his grandfather. “What else is there for me to believe? I know what happened to him. I read the letter in which he accused you in everything but name. And I know how you acted toward me.”

Number One’s voice was still quiet. “Did you ever stop to think that your father might have meant someone else?”

“Who else could it be but you?” Loren charged.

Number One looked across the room at Mrs. Scott. “Truth will out,” he said heavily. “If you live long enough it all catches up with you.”

She looked at him, then at her son, the same warm compassion in her eyes for the two of them. Finally she spoke. “Your grandfather is telling the truth, Loren,” she said. “Your father wasn’t writing about him in that note.”

“You’re only saying that to defend him!” Loren accused. “I’ve heard the stories about you and him, Mother. And I know how you felt about him. I remember that too when I was a little boy.”

“Loren,” Mrs. Scott said. “Your—”

“Sally!” Number One said sharply. “Let me tell him!”

Mrs. Scott ignored him. “Loren, your father was a homosexual. For several years he had an affair with a man who worked for him, Joe Warren. Joe Warren was a sick, terrible, perverted man and after his death we thought it was all buried with him. But it wasn’t.

“It seemed that Warren had made a careful pictorial record of their relationship and it fell into the hands of an equally unscrupulous man. For years this man bled your father until he could no longer stand it. We were as shocked as you were at the news of his suicide and at a loss to understand it.

“But your father’s death did not end the man’s greed. He then came to your grandfather. I remember talking to your grandfather at that time. The only good thing about it, he told me, was that the blackmailer came to him and not to you. This way you would never have to learn about your father.

“Your grandfather saw that the blackmailer went to jail and that all the pictures were destroyed. It cost your grandfather a fortune to keep it quiet. And he did it not so much for himself, but to keep you and your sister from hurt. Despite everything that had happened, you see, he still loved his son and wanted to protect your father’s memory.”

Loren III looked at her, then at his grandfather. “Is that true?”

Number One nodded slowly.

Loren III put his head in his hands. I looked around the room. I was the only outsider. They were all Hardemans, past or present.

The telephone began to ring. Number One ignored it. It continued to ring with demanding persistence. Finally, he picked it up. “Yes?” he snapped impatiently. He listened a moment, then beckoned to Alicia. “It’s for you.”

Alicia, still dabbing the tears with a handkerchief, crossed the room. Standing next to Loren III’s chair, she took the phone from Number One. “Yes,” she said into it. “This is Mrs. Alicia Hardeman.”

An excited voice crackled into the room from the receiver. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes. Give them both my love.” Slowly she put down the telephone.

She turned to Loren III. “Loren,” she said.

He looked up at her with a drawn face. “Yes, Alicia,” he said in a dead voice. “I really made a mess of it. In every way I could.”

“No, Loren,” she said. “That’s not what I’m talking about. That was Max on the telephone.”

“Max?” he repeated dully.

“Yes!” she said, suddenly excited. “Max. Our daughter’s husband. He called from Switzerland. Betsy just had a baby boy! They’re both fine!” A sudden awe came into her voice. “My God, Loren, think of it! We’re grandparents!”

And suddenly too, they were a family again. All kissing and crying and laughing.

I walked out and down the hall to my office. For a moment there, I was becoming convinced the whole world was Italian.

Half an hour later, my office door opened and Number One rolled his chair inside. He pushed the door shut and sat there looking at me.

I watched him.

After a moment, he spoke. “You fucked up,” he said. “You’re fired!”

“I know,” I said. “I knew that coming in this morning.” I took my resignation from my inside pocket and got out of my chair. I walked over and gave it to him.

He opened and read it quickly, then glanced shrewdly at me. “By God, you did know!”

I nodded.

“Do you know why?” he asked.

“I know that too,” I said.

“Tell me.”

“I wasn’t supposed to win,” I said. “I know I was supposed to lose.”

“That’s right,” he said in grim agreement. “I lost a son and I didn’t want to lose Loren. But if you knew you were supposed to let him win, why didn’t you let him?”

“Because there was no way I could do it,” I said. “Even if I tried, I couldn’t give in to him. It was my track all the way.”

“No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings.”

Again he peered up at me. “You didn’t do so bad. That stock you own will be worth twelve million dollars when we go public next year.”

“Sure,” I said. I stuck my hand in my pocket. “I have something of yours.” I put the gold Sundancer cuff links in his hand.

He looked down at them. “You fucked me on the Sundancer too,” he said. “Why did you change the name of the Betsy Jetstar back to Sundancer?”

“Because it was too good a car for too many years to let it go like that.”

He thought for a moment. Then he nodded. “Maybe you’re right.” Carefully he took the cuff links from his shirt and replaced them with the Sundancers. He dropped the others into his jacket. Then he looked up at me again. “Maybe you’re right,” he repeated.

I held the door for him while he pushed his chair through, then I let it shut and went back and began to clean out my desk.

Cindy was at the door when I let myself into the apartment. “I plugged in your portable Jacuzzi and filled the tub with your favorite bubble bath.”

I kissed the tip of her nose. “I can use it.”

She followed me through the apartment into the bathroom and stood there taking my clothes from me while I undressed. “It was on the radio beginning with the noontime news,” she said.

“This is the place. Automobile news travels fast.”

I put my hands on the wall to brace myself. Getting down in the tub wasn’t going to be easy with my ribs all taped up. “You better help me,” I said.

She put an arm under my shoulders and I started to ease myself down into the water.

“You got some calls,” she said.

“Anything important?” I asked, my ass just about touching the surface of the water.

“Nope,” she said nonchalantly. “Just Iacocca of Ford, Cole of General Motors—”

“You’re full of shit,” I said, looking up at her.

“I am not!” she said indignantly. She pulled her arm out from behind my shoulders.

I went the rest of the way with a jarring thump. “Oh, Christ!” I yelled.

She was out of the bathroom and back in a moment with a batch of telephone messages for me. “See! I was telling the truth. Also Chrysler, also American Motors. Even one from Fiat in Italy!”

I switched on the Jacuzzi. The water began to churn and sing its soothing song. I leaned my head back against the wall behind the tub and sighed. It felt good.

“What do you want me to do with these?” she asked, waving the fistful of messages at me.

“Leave them on the table. I’m not that crazy about going back to work in a hurry. It interferes with my being rich.”

The doorbell rang.

“Go see who’s there,” I said.

She left tossing her head and was back in a moment, slightly subdued. “It’s Number One to see you.”

I looked at her. “Send him in.”

“Here?” she asked.

“Where else?” I retorted. “You don’t think I can make it out of this tub in less than a half an hour, do you?”

She left the bathroom and came back, pushing him through the door. Then she walked away again.

“Jesus, it’s hot in here,” he said, looking after her. “Who’s the doxie?”

“Cindy.” I saw the blank expression on his face. “You know, the test driver.”

“I didn’t recognize her,” he said. “She looks different somehow.”

“I think she just discovered dresses,” I said.

“For Christ’s sake, do you have to keep that damn thing on?” he shouted. “I’m busting my lungs yelling over it.”

I flicked off the switch. The sound faded. “That better?”

“Much better.” He peered at me. “You look different too.”

I smiled. “I got my own face back.”

“I was on my way to the airport when I remembered I had something of yours,” he said. “So I stopped off to give it to you.”

“Yeah?” I couldn’t think of anything of mine that he might possibly have.

He stuck his hand in his pocket and came out with a small jewelry box. He opened it and gave it to me.

They were platinum cuff links. The Betsy Silver Sprite. I stared at them. Whoever had made them hadn’t missed a single detail of the car. They were beautiful. And I never wear cuff links. I pushed them back toward him. “They’re not mine, they’re yours.”

He didn’t take them. “They’re ours,” he said. “But they’re more yours than mine. You keep them!”

He pulled the chair back through the doorway and turned it around. “Young lady!” he yelled. “Help me get out of here!”

Still looking at the tiny Silver Sprites I turned the Jacuzzi back on. They were beautiful. Now I would have to buy some shirts with French cuffs to go with them.

I came out of the tub, wrapping the towel around my waist, still looking at the Silver Sprite cuff links. “Cindy, look at these.”

“They’re beautiful,” she said. She looked at me. “You’re beautiful too. You know, I never really liked your other face.”

“I didn’t either,” I said.

“How are you feeling?” She had that familiar, lovely look in her eyes.

“Horny as hell,” I said, taking her hand. “Come on into the bedroom and let’s fuck.”

“Okay,” she said.

We walked into the bedroom. I looked around. “Something’s different,” I said, as she wiggled out of her dress. Then I had it. “Where’d you hide the stereo, under the bed?”

“I threw it out,” she said, walking naked into my arms. “Everybody, even a girl, has to grow up sometime.”

“Isn’t it kind of sudden?” I asked, chewing on the lobe of her ear.

“Not really,” she answered. “I’m twenty-four.”

“That’s pretty old,” I said, beginning to work on her neck.

“That’s just right,” she said. Abruptly she turned her head and looked into my eyes. “Besides you don’t really need stereo.”

“Sure?” I asked, kissing her lightly on the lips.

She caught my face in her hands. Her eyes were large and dark. “Absolutely sure,” she said. “I love you.”

I was very still for a moment, then I knew it too. “And I love you.”

Then we kissed. She was absolutely right. We didn’t need the stereo.

We both heard the music.