(1969) The Seven Minutes (6 page)

‘The Global Industries fellow? Aircraft and electronics. Of course. I once read about him in Fortune magazine. There wasn’t much in it about him, only about his holdings and his worth -millions, billions, something like that. I didn’t know he lived out here.’

‘He sure does,’ said Zelkin. ‘Luther Yerkes has a place in Malibu, a thirty-room cottage in Bel-Air, and a pad in Palm Springs. You don’t know all this because Yerkes doesn’t like publicity. He likes money. He likes power. He doesn’t care about fame. Makes sense. Anyway, according to well-founded rumor, Yerkes wants his own senator in Washington - not a senator from California, but a senator from Yerkes. As you know, our incumbent, Senator Walter Nickels, is up for re-election come soon. Our Senator Nickels is in the doghouse with Moneybags Yerkes. Seems that Senator Nickels has been pressing in Congress to head up an investigation of aircraft industries who’ve allegedly conspired to overcharge and otherwise gouge Uncle Sam in cost-plus government contracts. And Luther Yerkes has more government contracts than anyone. And he doesn’t like any snotty legislator giving him trouble. So how to stop such an investigation from getting under way? Cut down its leader, of course. Get rid of him, and serve warning on his cohorts of what can happen to them if they get out of line. So how to get rid of the leader within due process? Simply find someone more attractive, and build that someone up, and have that someone run against Nickels and crush him at the polls. Who’s the someone? You guessed it. Elmo Duncan, boy D.A. of L.A. on the rise. I haven’t got photographs to prove it. I do hear the whispering. And note that our District Attorney has suddenly blossomed as an authority on everything from A to Zygo. These last months, whenever you hear someone making a public speech you can be sure it is Elmo Duncan. In short, Mike, our Elmo Duncan is presently in the business of wanting to be loved by everybody, especially by everybody who is somebody. Your Willard Osborn II is somebody. And Faye Osborn is his daughter. And you are Fay’s fiance. Now you want a small favor from Elmo Duncan. My guess is you’ll get it, so relax.’ ť.

T feel better already,’ said Barrett.

Zelkin had removed his spectacles and was wiping them with his napkin. ‘In one way it’s too bad,’ he muttered, ‘your having to sweep the arrest of Ben Fremont under the rug. If it could only be brought to trial, it would be the perfect case for Barrett and Zelkin to start their partnership with. It’s our meat, Mike, a good cause, a challenge, a publicity natural, everything. But what the heck, we’ll have plenty of other cases coming up.’ Zelkin pulled on his spectacles again, and squinted at Barrett. ‘You are going to quit Thayer and Turner, aren’t you?’

Barrett felt the lump in his throat. He swallowed. ‘I’ve already quit them, Abe. I quit them this morning.’

Zelkin slapped his hands together. ‘Great!’ he exclaimed. ‘My gosh, why did you keep me in suspense? Why didn’t you teil me right away?’

Barrett’s forehead felt warm. He tried not to squirm. ‘Well, Abe, first let me tell you, let me explain -‘

‘Excuse me, gentlemen.’ It was the waiter, rolling the cart with their lunch plates up to their booth. ‘Sorry to be so long. The hamburger steak takes time. It’s all here hot, maybe even the chef’s

salad’s hot.’

Zelkin had tossed aside his napkin and was sliding out of the booth. ‘Hold still, Mike,’ he said exuberantly, ‘Before you tell me about it, let me go to the little boys’ room. Be right back, I want to know everything that happened.’

Unhappily, Barrett watched him go bouncing off toward the bar in the rear.

‘ Miserable, ignoring the water, who was setting down the plates, Barrett sat back against the padded booth, closed his eyes, and tried to review what had happened and assess how it would sound to his friend - or ex-friend.

It had begun with the Osborn account.

Willard Osborn II, president of Osborn Enterprises, Inc., owned or controlled the majority stock in fourteen television and radio stations in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, and elsewhere in the West. His interests in these stations alone, not including additional investments in motion-picture companies, tape-manufacturing firms, amusement centers, hotels, amounted to forty-two million dollars. While Osborn was no Luther Yerkes, no super-tycoon, he was, as the saying goes, comfortable. He was also ambitious. Persisting in his quest for empire, Osborn had become involved in an intricate negotiation over an immense new possible acquisition. His bargaining had been stalemated because the new business presented a complicated tax problem. In an effort to learn whether the problem could be resolved, he had taken on the management company of Thayer and Turner. And Thayer and Turner, as was their custom, had fragmented various aspects of the difficult taxation obstacle, and farmed these parts out to their junior members. To how many, Mike Barrett did not know, except that he was one of those assigned full-time on a crash program to create a tax structure that would make Osborn’s negotiation feasible.

The work had been almost crushingly difficult, days without hours, weekends without rest, a project both back-breaking and mind-splitting. As much as he had come to detest tax law, Barrett had enjoyed the Osborn project. He had enjoyed it because it brought him close to dissecting the anatomy of power. For once, he could see it up close - so that legal precedents and business figures became translated into stately mansions and royal gardens - and it intrigued him and spurred his creativity. He had been reluctant to give up his papers, his findings, researches, suggestions, and to live among lesser people and problems again, but at last he had turned in his part of the job.

He had not heard another word about the Osborn project until several months later, about four months ago, when old Thayer had announced at a staff meeting that their report had enabled Osborn Enterprises to conclude successfully a history-making multimillion-dollar deal in communications. Now Thayer, on behalf of

himself and Turner, wanted to thank every person in the firm who had participated in this dedicated team effort.

Three days after that meeting, old Thayer had summoned Mike Barrett to his office alone. He had offered Barrett a sherry. Unusual. Then he had said that Willard Osborn wished to meet Barrett briefly that very afternoon. No, not at the Osborn Tower Building, but at Osborn’s residence north of Sunset Boulevard in Holmby Hills. When Barrett had wondered what it was all about, Thayer had hesitated, then replied that Osborn merely wished to meet him. ‘I think you will find it interesting,’ Thayer had added with a pinched smile.

After lunch, Barrett had driven to the Osborn hillside residence. Even though he had been prepared for grandeur, from the reports of colleagues who had been fortunate enough to be invited to the residence, the Spanish hacienda exceeded his expectations. Osborn had remodeled his mansion, Barrett had heard, after the Palacio Liria, the Alba town house near the Plaza de Espana in Madrid. Barrett had seen photographs of the original, and the smaller replica was equally impressive. There were the colorful gardens guarding the rolling driveway, and beneath tile roofing there were adobe facades with Doric columns in front of imposing pilasters.

Awed, Barrett had allowed himself to be led by an immaculately uniformed maid through the vast entrance hall, down a long, wide passage, and into the high-ceilinged library. There, surrounded by Flemish paintings, and with a magnificent Goya oil as his backdrop, waited Willard Osborn II. He was lounging on a sofa near his ornate desk, teasing a friendly wolfhound, when Barrett appeared. Osborn rose immediately - a tall, droopy, aristocratic man with whitish hair, heavy-lidded eyes, angular features - and he shook Barrett’s hand. He signaled Barrett to the sofa, and then sat beside him.

Slowly he turned toward Barrett and studied him. ‘Well, Mr Barrett,’ he said after a pause, ‘you may wonder why I had Thayer send yon around. For one thing, 1 wanted to thank you personally. For another, I wanted to have a look at a young man responsible for making me, in tax savings, two million dollars.’

Barrett’s eyebrows shot upward when he heard the figure. Osborn did not hide his amusement. ‘It’s true, Mr Barrett,’ he went on. ‘Oh, it wasn’t easy to ascertain to whom the credit belonged. Thayer and Turner would have liked to take the credit themselves, or prattle about teamwork but I wouldn’t have that nonsense. I pinned them down. It turned out that, of the many ideas submitted, it was yours that was both the most novel and the most practicable, and it was yours around which they built their proposal.’ He paused. ‘A clever legal device - gimmick, as my television colleagues like to put it - and most imaginative. In a time of mediocrity, it is not often that I have the good fortune to meet a young man like yourself. 1 would be fascinated to know precisely

how you conceived the whole tax structure. But first, will you have a cup of coffee with me?’

During coffee they were joined by a third person. Faye Osborn, the host’s daughter and only offspring, fresh from the tennis court, had put her head into the library to remind her father of some social engagement. She had been introduced to Barrett. Meeting him, being told of his accomplishment, she had asked if she might have coffee with them.

For the next half hour, it had become increasingly difficult for Barrett to keep his mind on tax matters. Faye’s eyes never left him. She seemed to be examining him with the cool objectivity of a horse-woman studying a derby winner soon to be auctioned off for stud. As for Barrett, he found his attention constantly diverted by the glacial beauty of Faye’s face and the perfection of her figure. Her sun-blanched blond hair was drawn tightly backward and caught up by a red ribbon. Her features were fine, flawless, Grecian. Her open-throated white blouse offered glimpses of the slopes of her full breasts. Her gracefully crossed legs were long and shapely. Perhaps twenty-eight years old, Barrett guessed. Finishing school in Switzerland, he guessed. And spoiled, he was sure.

When the coffee and conversation had ended, it was Faye Osborn who saw him to the door. At the door she said, ‘I’m having some interesting people in Saturday night for a buffet dinner. I’d love to have you come.’

‘I’d be delighted.’

‘I’m pleased.’ She stared at him. ‘Is there someone you want to bring?’

‘Not especially.’

‘Then bring yourself alone. I’ll cancel my date. Do you mind being my partner?’

‘I was hoping that was it.’

And that was it. In the next two months, Mike Barrett had become a regular at the Osborn mansion, always Faye’s partner. One evening, as they were returning to Holmby Hills from the Philharmonic Auditorium, Faye asked to see his apartment. After two drinks, curled up against him, she said that she loved him. He admitted that he loved her.

‘Why haven’t you shown it ?’ she whispered.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve never invited me up here before. And I still haven’t seen the bedroom.’

‘I’ve been afraid to. You have too much money. It puts me down.’

‘What if I were a shopgirl or somebody’s secretary?’

‘I’d have undressed you on the first date.’

Her hand caressed his thigh. ‘Mike, you inverted snob, please undress me.’

After that evening, he had begun seeing Faye four and five times a week. Sometimes Willard Osborn II was present, and Barrett

often felt that the elder Osborn was taking his measure. Frequently, in the monotony of his legal work, Barrett caught himself daydreaming about what might be possible. It was this daydreaming, alone, that made him hesitate when Abe Zelkin had called him a month ago. Zelkin had wanted to know whether he had made up his mind yet about their partnership. Earlier Barrett had made up his mind to quit the rat race and join up with Zelkin. Now he had hesitated. Perhaps he was merely another one of Fay’s indulgences, and perhaps he misread the elder Osborn’s interest in him. Yet the daydreams continued. He had told Zelkin that he was overloaded at the office. Also, there was some prospect of a raise, and he wasn’t certain yet whether he should leave. Could Abe give him a little more time? Zelkin had said, ‘A little more, but not too much, Mike. For myself, I can’t wait. I’ve given my notice to the ACLU. I’m quitting and setting up my own office. I can’t carry it by myself. I’ve got several good guys who want to go in with me, but none of them is you, Mike. Look, I’ll carry the load alone for a month and keep your desk ready and waiting. I’m expecting you to say yes by then. I’ll wait for you to call.’

Barrett had continued putting off that call. But three days ago he had almost decided that, while his relationship with Faye was the real thing, his hope about her father was something else and quite unreal, and that he should telephone Zelkin and agree to their partnership. Then, two days ago, Faye had telephoned. Her father wanted to see him that evening, after dinner, on business.

On business. His hope danced, until he grabbed it and locked it out of sight.

There they were, that evening, in the library once more, he and Willard Osborn II.

‘Michael,’ Osborn had said. ‘I think you’re shrewd enough to know I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to bring this up. Now the timing is right, and I’ve made up my mind. I’m sure you’ve heard me discuss that Midwest television network that was coming on the market. 1 can have it, if certain tax details can be worked out. I need the right man to negotiate this. I’ve had the choice of promoting one of my older men or taking on someone new. I’ve decided on someone new. There’s only one condition. The new man would have to be available to take over by early next week. Michael, how would you like to be a vice-president of Osbom Enterprises starting at seventy-five thousand a year?’

The jackpot, at long last.

There had been an excited sleepless night. His mind had been a happy Mardi Gras, except for one very real demon. He was on a project that mi ght take weeks to resolve, and he had an understanding with his employers that he would not abandon a project without their consent. Yesterday morning he had been in the office early, awaiting Thayer’s arrival. He had gone in to see Thayer, and he had blurted out Osborn’s fantastic proposal. Sniffing, Thayer had listened. As he finished, Barrett felt that he could expect resistance. But old Thayer had merely sat up and said, ‘I’ll send Magill in to see you. Brief him on your project, and he’ll take over. You can terminate tomorrow morning. Good luck. It’s our policy never to stand in anyone’s way.’ By the emphasis Thayer put on ‘anyone’s way’ Barrett knew that the old man did not mean Barrett’s way, but Osborn’s way. And this morning he was free.