Executive Suite (34 page)

But there was the memory of Avery Bullard standing where he was standing now, silently looking down over the rooftops. Yes, perhaps there had been words said that had not been remembered because they were then without meaning, as so many things had been without meaning until now.

The image of Avery Bullard moved across the rooftops like the passing of a cloud shadow. Did the people under those roofs know what Avery Bullard had done for them? Did they realize that if it had not been for Avery Bullard there would be no Tredway Corporation … that the Pike Street plant would never have been built … that the Water Street factory would have rotted and rusted away like the steel mill and the tannery and the wagon works … that there would be no Tredway jobs, no Tredway pay checks?

No, they did not know … or, if they knew, they would not acknowledge their belief … or, if they believed, they were not willing to pay the price of gratitude. Had any man ever thanked Avery Bullard for what he had done? No. He had died in the loneliness of the unthanked.

Don Walling accepted his fate. He would expect no thanks … he would live in loneliness … but the Tredway Corporation would go on. There would be jobs and pay checks. There would be no hunger. The belongings of the dispossessed would not stand in the streets. No children would be sent to the orphans' home.

He had been unconscious of time and place, and it was a shock when he finally turned and realized that he was in Dudley's office. It was in the instant of that discovery that he saw the error that his imagination had committed. He had somehow tricked himself into thinking that he would be the man at the top of the Tower. He wouldn't! The president of the Tredway Corporation would be J. Walter Dudley.

He saw the empty chair behind the desk and his mind filled it with the image of the man … the too soft body in its too smooth chrysalis of too perfect tailoring … the too white hair and the too handsome face … the too warm smile … the too friendly voice. Yes, that was J. Walter Dudley … the perpetual beggar of friendship … the man who measured his accomplishment by counting smiles and the men who called him by his first name.

But, in the background, like a chanted warning against revulsion, he heard Alderson's voice saying, “—isn't a man in the furniture business who has more friends than Walt Dudley—important—the right kind of an impression—”

He turned to the window again, to the rooftops and the distant factories and the haze beyond and the all-embracing memory of Avery Bullard. No one had ever said of Avery Bullard what Alderson had said of Walt Dudley—
but it was Avery Bullard who had built the Tredway Corporation!

The thought was a flashing revelation. Now he saw the terrifying error of Alderson's miscalculation, the total opposition of his two completely incompatible objectives. It was impossible to keep the Tredway Corporation what Avery Bullard had wanted and, at the same time, have Walt Dudley as its president.

For a fleeting moment he remembered what Alderson had said about a “partnership management.” A partnership with Dudley? His mind gagged on the thought as his throat would have gagged on a rancid morsel. Alderson was a fumbling old fool … a weakling resorting to what was always the weakling's last resort … compromise. There could be no partnership! That was ridiculous. Couldn't Alderson see that? There was room for only one man at the top of the Tower … one man … one voice … one strong commanding hand!

Then, suddenly, the memory of what Alderson had said broke into his thought stream. “You can do it, Don, I know you can. You can keep the company going the way he wanted it to go.”

The voice repeated itself, echoing and re-echoing, building a thunder of reverberation in the great chamber of his new mind and the sound of thunder was the sound of anger. Alderson had tricked him into accepting Dudley as president! He … not Dudley … was the one who should be president! Alderson had admitted it … “You can do it, Don, you can do it”… Alderson knew it … he'd known it all the time! Yet now, this very minute, the bumbling old fool was ready to destroy the company by offering the presidency to Dudley!

Don Walling's eyes flashed to his watch. There were only minutes left before Dudley's train arrived. Alderson had to be stopped! He threw open the door and ran blindly toward the elevator.

9.37 A.M. EDT

Loren Shaw's call from Pearson in Chicago had finally come through. He was listening now, his face tight with anger, the fingers of his right hand working nervously as they balled the handkerchief into his palm.

“All right, Pearson,” he said with crisp finality. “Apparently there was some slip up on Alderson's part in getting the message to me. What train did you say?—nine-forty-five—yes, I understand—no, that's all for now. Let me know how your meeting goes.”

Three quick steps carried him to the door, but he stopped abruptly as if touching the cold brass of the doorknob had chilled the impulse to confront Alderson. He stood for a moment, frozen in indecision, reluctant to give ground by going to Alderson's office, yet pushed on by the desperate need to confirm the suspicion that was forming in his mind. He had to know!

Slowly, he opened the door, listening. There was no sound of footsteps or voices. He opened the door wider and stepped through. Then he saw Don Walling standing at the elevator. It was too late to escape. Walling had seen him.

“Oh, good morning, Don,” Loren Shaw said with a quick smile, fighting the tremor that threatened his voice. “Just wondering whether Fred was in his office. Do you happen to know whether or not he's coming in?”

“I don't know,” Walling said, turning away to make another impatient stab at the elevator button.

Clawing curiosity forced Shaw to ask, “By the way, did you happen to hear anything about Walt's getting in this morning from Chicago?”

Walling pushed the button again, seeming not to have heard.

Loren Shaw was almost ready to repeat the question, when Walling suddenly said, “He's arriving on the nine-forty-five.” The words were tossed over his shoulder, cold with what seemed like disdain.

Loren Shaw's hand found the door and, before Walling could turn to see him, he slipped back into his office. His fingers gripped the doorknob to silence the closing. When his hand came away it was wet with the cold dampness of perspiration that was like the meltage of ice.

Walling's manner had confirmed everything. Alderson was meeting Dudley at the train … Walling was going somewhere to join them … three votes … Grimm would make the fourth. Unless something could be done in a hurry, Alderson had the four votes he needed to elect himself president!

His brain was weary, fatigued to desperation by the hours of hard-whipped demands. He had to do something … anything … it didn't matter what! Dudley … Dudley … Dudley … he had to hold Dudley! Without Dudley all hope was gone.

9.40 A.M. EDT

Don Walling's impatience had risen to the flare-point of anger. Where in hell was that damned elevator! Only five minutes to train time … the whole world ready to blow up … and all because of a sleepy bastard on the elevator who …

The door slid open.

He plunged through. “Where in hell were you, Luigi?”

“We have a—”

“Hurry, damn it, hurry!”

As the door was closing, he caught a flash glimpse of Erica Martin coming quickly down the stairs and he heard her call his name.

Luigi reached out to open the door again.

“No! Damn it, Luigi, I'm in a hurry.”

They were dropping through space, the lighted floor numbers flashing on the control panel like the tolled backcounted seconds before a catastrophic explosion.

“We have a meeting, all the operators,” Luigi was saying in pleading apology. “We buy flowers for the funeral and I am the one to do it. You understand—it is an election? I cannot help that everybody votes for me to be the one who buys the flowers.”

“All right, Luigi, all right,” he said in crisp forgiveness. The door was starting to open and he reached out, hurrying it with the full strength of his arm.

Plunging ahead, Don Walling was not aware that Luigi had stepped out of the cab and was watching with the wonder-struck awe of a man who has seen a miracle.

9.42 A.M. EDT

The blaring loudspeaker announced that the train from Chicago was arriving on Track 2 and Frederick Alderson took one last look toward the stairway, giving himself the final assurance that Shaw was not going to put in a surprise appearance at the last moment.

He saw that the waiting crowd had edged forward to watch for the approaching train and he picked a path down the opposite side of the platform to avoid the possibility of being intercepted by someone he knew. He needed this last minute to prepare what he would say to Walt Dudley. There had to be a right way to say it … you couldn't just walk up to a man and tell him that he was going to be president of the Tredway Corporation. There had to be a preamble … a leading in … something about Avery Bullard. Yes, something about Avery Bullard would give him a chance to bring in the business about Walling. That was the part that had be be handled most carefully of all … telling Dudley that he had to accept Walling as the executive vice-president. Dudley might not like that … might have to argue with him … tell him that he and Jesse had decided … no, he couldn't bring Jesse into it, not after what Jesse had said on the phone … at least not until he'd talked to him again and explained how it had happened. Jesse would be forced to admit that he had done only what had to be done. They had to have Walling's vote. One more minute and Walling would have gone over to Shaw. Yes, that's what Jesse had to realize … that Walling had been almost lost … that he had caught him in the nick of time.

The train came into view around the jutting cliff beyond Joyland Park, the electric horn moaning like the cry of a wounded beast, the bells at the crossing ringing out a frightening warning.

Frederick Alderson took a deep breath and with the rising of his chest he saw a thread of lint on the almost black suit that Edith had selected for him to wear today. Carefully, he picked off the thread, squared his shoulders, and then stiffened his body against the rush of the train.

J. Walter Dudley was the first man out of the roomette car, nodding to the beaming porter, smiling his acknowledgment of the running arrival of Lester who was the one redcap still on duty at the Millburgh station.

Alderson saw the quick change of Dudley's expression as he recognized him, the fast flipping of masks that traded the smile for funereal sobriety. It was a momentary backstage glimpse of the actor caught unaware and, although he had seen Dudley make the same quick change many times before, it had a strangely disturbing effect now. As Dudley walked toward him, he could not remember what it was that he had intended to say first.

“Fred, I appreciate this more than I can tell you,” Dudley said, his voice hushed with a house-of-grief tone.

“Thought I'd meet you,” Alderson mumbled.

“I can't believe he's gone, Fred. I just can't believe it.”

Lester was waiting with his bags. “Taxi, Mr. Dudley, or you got your car?”

Dudley started to speak but Alderson interrupted. “You'd better have them checked, Walt. We're going over to the club for a few minutes—have a little talk.”

There was an instant of hesitation, another flashing mask change, and then Dudley said respectfully, “You bet, Fred, whatever you say. Get that, Lester—check 'em?”

Lester pocketed the dollar bill and hurried ahead of them.

Alderson started to follow but Dudley's arm stopped him. They stood facing each other.

“Fred, I don't know how to say this but—well, I just want you to know that you can count on me—one hundred per cent. But you know that without my saying it, don't you, Fred?”

Alderson felt the embarrassment of letting Dudley think what was obviously in his mind.

“I'm not taking the presidency, Walt.”

Dudley was caught between masks. “You're not?”

“No.”

“Oh—well, I'm sorry to hear that, Fred, darned sorry. I thought of course that—”

“Let's go over to the club. We can talk there without being disturbed.”

As they walked up the stairs there was silence between them and Alderson was conscious of its strangeness. Silence was a mask that he had never before known Walt Dudley to wear.

At the head of the stairs, habitually glancing at the front door as he had done so many times in the minutes before the train arrived, Frederick Alderson saw Don Walling's hurried entrance. He was clearly the anxious pursuer as he stopped, alert and head high, his eyes sweeping the waiting room.

It was only by the barest chance that Dudley missed seeing Walling. In the instant when he might have seen him, Dudley turned toward the bank of checking lockers to pick up the keys from Lester, and then had been stopped by old Dr. Deever from the Seminary.

The flip of Walling's hand toward the men's room was an obvious signal. Alderson, after an anxious backward glance to make certain that Dudley's back was still safely turned, walked hurriedly to the washroom entrance.

Walling was waiting inside the vestibule. “Have you said anything to him yet?”

“No, I'm taking him over to the club to talk—”

“Don't do it. It's off.”

“But we—”

“I can't go through with it.”

“But you said—”

“No, damn it, no! Get rid of him—stall—anything—but don't say a word, not a word!”

“I'll meet you at the club as soon as I can,” Alderson said, automatically, the words completely involuntary, the response of motor centers that, after thirty years, had taught themselves to act on the sound of Avery Bullard's voice even before there was a nerve-sent signal from his own brain.

9.50 A.M. EDT