The Stallion (1996) (39 page)

“We needn’t necessarily wait until we graduate,” said Van. “After you finish your second year at Radcliffe, we could marry.”

“We have three years to think about it,” said Anna.

“We are lucky,” he said. “Our fathers and mothers offer no obstacles to our marrying.”

“I want to meet your father.”

“I don’t see him very often,” said Van. “There was an arrangement, you know. He and my mother married and were divorced, and then he remarried his first wife. You’ve been told of this?”

“Yes.” She paused and looked into his eyes, smiling broadly. “Our families have their own ways of doing things. Your mother and my father, for example. And there are other … anomalies.”

“We’re lucky,” Van affirmed. “Though my grandfather is going to be disagreeable. He won’t approve of us.”

“I don’t hear very nice things about him,” Anna said flatly.

“Neither do 1.1 have to wonder if there’s another side to the story. After all, we hear about him from people who distinctly dislike him.”

“You ought to go see him.”

“No. I met him once. He wasn’t very friendly.”

“Well, he will be furious when he learns about us,” said Anna.

“My grandfather’s opinion is a matter of complete indifference to me,” said Van. “I’ve learned the American way of saying it: I don’t give a damn.”

Angelo had never given up his New York office. He still had some interests independent of XB Motors—most prominently CINDY, Incorporated, which had the license to manufacture the epoxy resin material and had developed a market for it. Keijo Shigeto, who had never met anything but hostility and scorn in Detroit, was vice president of CINDY, Incorporated. Three models of corporate jets now flying had epoxy resin skins. Four cars in the 1992 Indianapolis 500 would have epoxy resin bodies. The material had replaced fiberglass in fifteen unlimited-class hydroplane racing boats. NASA was giving careful consideration to using epoxy resin for the under-tiles skin of the Ramparts-class space shuttles.

Often, Angelo spent Monday or Friday in New York. Much of XB’s business involved financing and recruiting, and he could do both of those things better in New York than in Detroit. He was in his New York office on Friday when two telephone calls came, almost simultaneously.

The first was from Tom Mason in Louisville.

“You read this morning’s
Wall Street Journal?”

“You’re the first to call, Tom. I expect to hear from others.”

“I don’t believe a word of it. But, shit, man!”

“Do I need to suggest where the story originated, Tom? Do I need to tell you who’s at work?”

“You figure the man’d do that?”

“That and more.”

“Gotta do somethin’ about it, though, Angelo. Can’t let that kind of word stand.”

“I’ll be doing something about it, Tom. Don’t worry.”

The next call was from Betsy.

“Goddamn my father!” she yelled into the phone. “Goddamn him!”

“You feel sure he’s the source?”

“Who the hell else?”

“Well, I mean to do something about it.”

“Tell me something, Angelo. How much damage can he do?”

Angelo paused while he drew a deep breath. “XB Motors depends on bank financing. This kind of shit doesn’t make it easier.”

“Well, what the Christ can you do?”

“There are several things I can do. Loren should know by now that we are not defenseless.”

“Talk to Tom Mason.”

“I have. He called just before you.”

A moment of silence followed. “Van called,” she said. “Anna suggested he go to Detroit and confront his grandfather. I mean, with his intention to marry her. I said no, not now.”

“She’s seventeen, Betsy. She’s not marrying anybody soon. We’ll cope with whatever problems go with that when the time comes.”

Betsy sighed loudly. “Kill the son of a bitch, Angelo!”

“Figuratively, maybe,” he said.

The story in that morning’s
Wall Street Journal
read—

Playboy Exec at XB Motors?

CORPORATE AUDITORS SUGGEST IMPROPRIETIES,

CARELESS USE OF CORPORATE FUNDS

Special to
The Wall Street Journal

By Wilma Worth

Bennet & Pringle, a Detroit accounting firm that acts as auditors for XB Motors, Inc., have suggested that company president Angelo Perino may be guilty of gross misuse of company money, using corporate funds to promote his personal business interests. Mason Pringle, a senior partner in the firm of CPAs, offered such an opinion in an interview with this reporter last Thursday.

When Mr. Perino was elected to the board of directors and then the presidency of XB, it was understood that the onetime racing driver held extensive outside interests, including a consulting business and a controlling interest in CINDY, Incorporated, a company that holds exclusive licensing rights to an epoxy resin material Mr. Perino used in the unsuccessful XB Super Stallion and proposes to use in a new electric-powered car he has committed XB to develop.

Mr. Pringle suggests that should XB use CINDY, Inc.’s, material in the new car, that would involve a conflict of interests in violation of a corporate officer’s fiduciary duty to the stockholders.

The auditors suggest also that Perino uses the XB corporate jet as personal transportation, flying him back and forth between Detroit and Westchester Airport as suits the convenience of his varying business interests. In a typical week, the auditors say, Mr. Perino arrives in Detroit late Monday afternoon or early Tuesday morning and flies back to New York Thursday evening or Friday morning. He rarely spends more than three days a week on corporate business, they say, and spends at least as much time on outside interests and personal matters.

The article went on to suggest that the board of directors was considering calling Angelo Perino on the carpet at its next meeting.

For almost twenty years Angelo had been a guest speaker at least twice a year at a forum for bankers, investment counselors, and corporate executives. These weekly luncheon meetings were sources of information about a variety of industries. The automotive industry was the subject at least ten times a year, and Angelo had a reputation for giving an objective overall view.

His first scheduled appearance after the publication of the article came ten days later, and he drew an unusually large
crowd. Ordinarily, no recording was allowed, but this time he consented to having his talk recorded. He also consented to the presence of a television camera and live coverage of his speech on CNBC.

The chairman of the meeting tapped a spoon on a glass and easily got the audience’s attention. These people had come to hear what Angelo Perino had to say.

Wearing a dark blue suit, a white shirt, and a maroon-and-white striped tie, Angelo was an imposing figure as he stood confidently behind the lectern and adjusted the microphone.

“I am, of course, here to give you my opinions on the state of the automotive industry. You will perhaps forgive me if I take a few minutes to respond to the
Journal
article calling me a playboy executive and suggesting I am guilty of all manner of wrongdoing.

“First, let me say I am pleased to have met Ms. Wilma Worth. I want to congratulate her on her accurate reporting of what Mr. Mason Pringle had to say. I have no objection to what she wrote, with the possible exception that she might have checked with me to learn my viewpoint on the subject. I am confident she will report my statement today with equal accuracy and fairness.”

The audience laughed—even Wilma Worth.

“What issues should I address?” asked Angelo. “In the first place, let’s talk about conflict of interest. That’s a question of integrity. My wife and I do own a controlling interest in CINDY, Incorporated, and I do expect to use its epoxy resin materials in the new cars XB is going to build. Ladies and gentlemen,
every single officer and director of XB Motors
knows who owns CINDY and knows that I will make a reasonable profit selling materials to XB. What is more, at least ninety-five percent of the stockholders know it—and any who don’t know just haven’t taken the time to read their annual reports. Conflict of interest is a sneaky, secret thing. If everybody concerned knows every element of the deal, there is no such thing as conflict of interest. In this matter there has been full disclosure.”

Wilma Worth tapped furiously—and conspicuously—on her laptop computer. She glanced around and saw and
heard a spatter of applause. More than a few in the room had similar deals and had not liked to hear this one called a conflict of interest.

“Why,” Angelo went on, “did I acquire the license for the Japanese process for manufacturing the epoxy resin material? The opportunity was first offered to XB Motors. But XB management at that time was flirting with a corporate raider with which the Japanese company was not willing to do business. Rather than see the opportunity lost, my wife and I invested personal funds in the license. It was maybe the best investment either of our families ever made, and XB is the beneficiary of our commitment of risk capital.”

The applause was louder.

Angelo paused, smiled, and looked down at Wilma Worth. “So I’m a playboy? I commute back and forth between New York and Detroit. Ladies and gentlemen, I also spend time in Tokyo, London, Zurich, Houston, Los Angeles, and Washington. Let us face facts. Detroit is a backwater. We can manufacture cars there, but we can’t finance their manufacture there, we can’t design them there, and we can’t acquire the new technologies manufacturing requires in a city that still thinks it’s the height of modernity and progress to unload ore boats with conveyor belts.

“So I spend two or three days a week in New York or somewhere else besides Detroit. And I fly the corporate jet. Ladies and gentlemen, I get more useful work done in an hour between Detroit and New York than I do in two hours in either city. The phone rarely rings on the airplane—though it can and sometimes does.

“I guess the XB auditors would rather I spend my time sitting around in Detroit Metro Airport or LaGuardia, waiting for a flight. Well, my friends, the auditors can stick that you know where.”

Wilma Worth typed furiously, but she joined the people around her in laughter. Many of them stood to applaud.

Angelo laughed. “How’d you like to be that auditing firm?” he asked. “They’re history. The original Loren Hardeman—the man we called Number One—always believed the automobile company he founded was his personal fiefdom and that he could use its assets as if they were his own. He could lie, cheat, and steal if he wanted to, because
the company was his. He hired people who would not disagree with him. Starting next week, the corporate auditors for XB Motors, Incorporated, will be Deloite and Touche.”

Betsy arrived on the Concorde. She faced Angelo in his office, late that evening. He had not been able to get away from the phones and leave for Greenwich.

“Call Cindy and tell her you have to stay in town. I need to talk with you, Angelo.”

She had a suite in the Waldorf. They arrived there at ten o’clock, and she ordered dinner brought up. She poured Scotch and remained dressed.

“Liar, cheat, and thief! My great-grandfather was a liar, cheat, and thief?”

“He was exactly that,” said Angelo. “An examination of the old records proves it. Besides—”

“Besides, what?”

“Number One did think of the business as a personal fief. He cheated everybody he dealt with, including the government on taxes, because Bethlehem Motors was
his
and he wouldn’t answer to anyone about what he did with it. He was one of the last of the old-time robber barons. Henry Ford was worse.”

Still wearing the off-white linen pants suit she had worn on the flight from London, Betsy gulped her Scotch and strode around the room. “Doesn’t the company’s reputation depend to some degree on Great-grandfather’s reputation? Or rather,
didn’t
it? You destroyed his reputation today. I haven’t seen the evening papers, but I can imagine what they’ll say.”

“Betsy, tell me the truth.”

He had never seen her cry before. Not really. Now Betsy shoved her glass aside and sobbed. “What do you want of me, Angelo? What do you want?”

“Tell me the truth, that’s all.”

“He was going to disinherit me. And my son. I mean Van. He was going to leave everything to my father. I—he had videotapes. Of you and me making love.”

“I think I know what you did, Betsy. But let’s get it out in the open.”

“What the hell do you think I did? You’ve guessed. I killed him. I smothered him with a pillow. While he was struggling, he had a heart attack.”

“I thought so.”

“But I left his fuckin’ reputation—”

“Too long,” said Angelo. “I put an end to that, and that’s the end of Loren Hardeman the First.”

“You wouldn’t—”

“Wouldn’t what?”

“Tell on me…,” she whispered.

“Call my son’s mother a murderer? Betsy! You murdered the man. I murdered his name.”

“We’re partners?” she asked weakly.

“Lovers,” said Angelo.

Wearing his underpants and a T-shirt, Loren scraped dishes and loaded them in the dishwasher. Roberta sat at the kitchen table, smoking a Chesterfield. She still had on the cocktail dress she had worn for the dinner party that had just ended.

“I can’t believe you’ve done this thing,” she said. “What in the name of God did you have in mind?”

Loren struggled to control his voice. “I’m going to have that son of a bitch, one way or another.” He picked up his glass and drank Scotch. “I’m gonna kill him before he kills me!”

“He’s not out to kill you. He’s out to destroy you.”

“There’s a difference?”

“You better believe it. He destroys you, he’ll still be the speaker at luncheon forums in New York. You have him killed, you’ll eat your lunches in a prison cafeteria for the rest of your life. Or you’ll pay heavy blackmail to those two scuzzball ‘private detectives’ as long as you live. We got away with Craddock. We’ll never get away with Perino.”