Tycoon (57 page)

“What's this got to do with our problem?” Jack asked curtly.

“You ain't heard it all yet,” said Durenberger. “You know where Mary's daughter, Emily, is?”

Jack frowned.

“Doug Humphrey had a talent for keeping stuff out of the newspapers, off television. But his granddaughter”—Cap stopped to grin—“is in the fourth year of a five-to ten-year sentence in a federal slammer. Oh, it's a long story. It has to do with Emily escaping her mother and grandfather, getting hooked on heroin, and turning tricks to get the money to buy fixes.” He lowered his voice and shook his head. “I mean it, guys. That's what I was told in Houston: that Emily went on the street and hustled.”

“Jesus Christ, Cap!”
Diane cried.

“She was rescued,” Cap went on. “By guess who? The Weathermen. They dried her out—as you might say, forced her to go through withdrawal cold turkey—and then recruited her. She became a bomb chemist. It was just luck that none of her bombs ever killed anybody. But she did get nailed eventually, and she's doing five to ten in the federal women's prison out in the boonies in West Virginia. There's a clackety skeleton in Mary Carson's closet.”

Jack pressed his hands together and ran them down his nose, over his mouth, and down his chin. “Cap
. . . So what?”

Cap grinned a little hesitantly, sensing that Jack did not like what he had said and was not going to like the rest of it. “Okay. We've got stockholders with Southern Baptist morals who aren't going to like the Bayou Oaks parties even a little bit. We've got stockholders who believe in law and order who are going to shudder at the word ‘Weatherman'—not to mention the news that their proposed new CEO has a daughter who did hard drugs and now is doing hard time. You don't want to use this?”

Jack shook his head. “I already knew all that,” he said. “Give the lady her due; she told me herself.

“No, Cap,” Jack said in a quiet but dead firm voice. “No. If we lose, we lose, but I promised not to use that.”

1973

O
N
M
ONDAY EVENING,
N
OVEMBER
19,
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE
stockholders meeting, Jack and Diane held a dinner in their suite in the New York Hilton. Joni and David were there. So were Liz and her boyfriend George, Diane's nephew. Little Jack was there, as was Sara. The cheerleader Gloria and Brent Creighton, Sara's friend, were having dinner downstairs, since Jack and Diane had decided they didn't want to talk business in front of them. Similarly, the wives of Herb Morrill, Mickey Sullivan, and Cap Durenberger were dining downstairs, not because they were not trusted to hear the discussion but because they would probably be bored by business talk. Curt and Betsy Frederick had come from Arizona. Sally Allen had come from Los Angeles.

Sitting in the living room of the suite after dinner, the group reviewed the situation and found it gloomy.

From shares owned by himself, his family, and his friends, plus shares he could vote through proxies, Jack could count on 275,000 votes—27.5 percent of the outstanding common stock of LCI. If Billy Bob Cotton and Ray l'Enfant voted with him, he would have 37.5 percent.

“I want to read some names on a few of the proxies,” said Diane, unfolding a list. “Taken together, they don't change the
total much, but they're evidence of some cherished friendships. We have a proxy, fifty shares, from Constance Horan. We have proxies for a hundred shares apiece from Harry Klein and Benjamin Lang, Joni's producer and director on several films. Thank you, Joni. I suspect they bought the shares just so they could vote on this. We have a proxy, one hundred shares, from Mo Morris, Joni's agent and Sara's partner. We have a proxy for five shares from Edward Martin, a farmer in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, who sent along a good-luck letter with his proxy. Rebecca Murphy, a private investigator in Boston, ten shares. Arthur, Earl of Weldon, two hundred shares. Finally”—Diane grinned at Jack—“we have a proxy from Valerie Latham Field, who apparently bought a hundred shares not long ago, for reasons on which we need not speculate.”

That was the last light moment of the evening, Everyone knew perfectly well that 27.5 percent or 37.5 percent was not going to save control of the company.

Diane was livelier and more active than Jack was that evening, moving among the guests, saying a word here, a word there. She wore tight powder-blue stirrup pants and a loose white cable-knit sweater.

Jack sat rather heavily in an armchair in a corner of the living room, wearing one of his signature dark-blue suits, with a white breast-pocket handkerchief folded precisely in two sharp points. He knew people were glancing at him, appraising him, and—God forbid!—pitying him. He knew they were looking at him more closely than they had ever looked at him before, taking special note of the liver spots on his head and hands, his droopy eyes, and his loose jowls. He smiled at each one he caught looking at him, showing them he was preserving his sense of humor.

Suddenly the room was silent, as though everyone had simultaneously run out of things to say. Instinctively, they turned toward him.

“Wouldn't it be funny,” he asked quietly, “if all our worry and anxiety turned out to be for nothing? Remember how in 1948 when H. V. Kaltenborn insisted all night you couldn't really tell how the election was coming out until the farm vote was counted? Well, the farm vote and the shrimp-boat vote haven't been counted. If Billy Bob Cotton and Ray l'Enfant
weigh in with us, we'll have 37.5 percent, which makes it a whole lot closer.”

He didn't raise the spirits of the others.

In a corner of the room, Curt Frederick talked with Cap Durenberger. “I think about the years . . . the things. It's going to be an end of an era. Goddamn, we have to be glad we've retired! I wouldn't want to be at LCI anymore.”

Sara and Liz stood apart from the group. “I wish I'd known him longer and better,” Sara said.

“He's a great man,” Liz said simply. “I don't know if
he
will, but I'm going to drop a letter to your mother, thanking her for buying some stock and giving us her proxy. That's a real vote of confidence, Sara.”

“Maybe I should do that, too.”

Little Jack talked with Diane. “You have any idea how it was with my father and me? He was never around.”

Diane sneered. “Another little boy who resents his father because the old man was out working his ass off to make a living. That's a cliché, LJ—and a pretty wretched one, too.”

“Okay. He gave me the best of everything.”

“Another cliché, but never mind, LJ, your father
built
Lear Communications, Incorporated. Apart from the three major networks, LCI is the biggest communications enterprise in the United States.
He built it,
LJ. And tomorrow he's going to lose it. Do you so much as give a damn?”

“Does
he
really give a damn about what
I've
done?”

“What
have
you done?” Diane asked with an almost Gallic shrug. “You never grew up. You've played a juvenile game all your life. Oh yeah, you've made money at it and won some temporary glory; but when you retire you'll be forgotten very quickly. Your father won't be.”

“Is this what he thinks of me?”

“Ask him, LJ. Your father speaks for himself.”

Mickey Sullivan talked with Herb Morrill. “Jack's old man would be proud of him. In spite of the fact that they clashed hard, Erich thought the world of him.”

“Don't make this sound like a funeral, for Chrissake!” Herb whispered shrilly.

Joni talked quietly with Diane. “I could throttle Mary Carson,” she said. “I love my father
so
much, and to think of her— Diane, this could kill him.”

Diane shook her head. “No, it won't. If anything could have killed him, it would have been Anne's death.”

The buzzer sounded, and Diane went to the door. Billy Bob Cotton was there.

The crowd knew his arrival was a significant development. They stood apart as Jack and Diane led Billy Bob into the suite's master bedroom and closed the door.

“Bourbon?” Jack asked as Billy Bob settled into a chair.

Billy Bob shook his head. “After,” he said.

“You're not here with good news,” said Diane.

“No. Jack . . . Diane . . . You'll probably have my votes in the morning. But not Ray's.”

Jack stiffened. “Not Ray's? I thought—”

“So did I. But then . . . something happened.”

“What?”
Diane asked.

“Ray's got something in his craw.”

“Which is?”

“Emily.”

“What about Emily?”

Billy Bob crossed his legs and, as he sometimes did when he was nervous, rubbed his snakeskin boots with the fingers of his right hand. “You know about a stockbroker named Elsie Sennett?”

Jack shook his head. “The name's on the list. She inherited— I think it's five thousand shares. That's all I know.”

Billy Bob sighed. “She lives in Baton Rouge. Two weeks ago she got a telephone call from Cap Durenberger, whom she'd met some years ago. He asked her to give you her proxy. She was kind of wavering, so Cap said something like ‘Well, you ought to know about Emily Carson' and went on to tell a really wretched story about Mary's daughter.”

“I know about that,” Jack said. “Mary told me, a long time ago.”

Billy Bob went on. “Well—Elsie Sennett called Ray, who's a friend of hers, to report what she supposed was an awful lie about Mary and her daughter. Ray knew all about Emily. He was a much closer friend of Doug Humphrey than I ever was. In fact, he tried to help Doug get the charges reduced. Anyway, Ray called Mary to tell her the story was being used against her. Because it came from Cap Durenberger, both Ray and
Mary supposed it came from you. Mary is furious. She says she spoke to you in confidence about Emily, and—”

“I did not betray her confidence!”
Jack said vehemently. I told Cap nothing about it. He found out for himself. He came to us with the story, and both Diane and I told him not to use it. From the day Mary told me about Emily to the day Cap came to us in Washington with the story, Diane was the only one who heard it from me.”

Billy Bob frowned. “I'll take that bourbon now,” he muttered. “And of course I accept your word and will vote my stock for you.”

“Where
is
Ray?” Diane asked.

“He's got a room at the Plaza,” said Billy Bob.

Jack stood at the bar, pouring three drinks. “We're not calling him, Diane. I won't beg for his vote. When he heard the story, he should have called and checked with me. He accepted the idea that I'd betrayed a confidence and didn't even have the decency to talk to me about it. To hell with him!”

“You could say to hell with me, too, I guess,” said Billy Bob.

“Why? You're here. You faced me with the story, I told you the truth, and you accepted my word.” Jack stomped across the room. “Mary, too. She could have had the goddamned decency to
ask
me if I—”

“The worst thing for Mary is that she figures that any publicity that gets loose about Emily will make it more difficult for Emily to get her parole. She's been in four years, and there's some hope she might get a parole before Christmas.”

“What fuckin' publicity? Why should there be any publicity?”

“Cap—”

Jack strode to the door and jerked it open. “Cap! Come here!” He lowered his voice so only Cap could hear. He jabbed Cap's shoulder with his finger. “Not another fuckin' word to anybody about Emily Carson!
You understand me?
Another word and I'll find a way to cut off your fuckin' pension!”

Leaving Cap Durenberger flushed and gaping, Jack slammed the door in his face.

“I'll talk to Ray,” said Billy Bob. “Also to Mary.”

“Please do,” said Jack. “Now— If you will excuse me, I've got a call to make.”

Billy Bob left the room. Jack faced Diane.

“Grotius?” she asked softly.

Jack shrugged. “Grotius. Why not? Our fallback position.”

“Not exactly.”

“I like it better than the other way.”

Diane's smile was soft and wistful. “He who tries to screw you had better cover ail points of the compass,” she said.

T
HE STOCKHOLDERS MEETING WAS HELD IN A BALLROOM AT
the New York Hilton at ten o'clock the following morning.

Jack and Diane were standing in the corridor outside the ballroom with Joni and LJ shortly after eight. Joni wore a pink mini-dress and looked every inch the glamorous movie star. LJ wore a gold-buttoned blue blazer and gray slacks, also his Super Bowl ring. The tycoon, the congresswoman, the screen star, the football star—they made a formidable team. Each of them was asked for autographs.