The Carpetbaggers (51 page)

Bernie stared at me. "Where did you get that list?"

"Never mind where I got it."

The old man turned to his nephew. "See, David," he said in a loud voice, "see what a good wife can save from her house money."

If he wasn't such a thief, I'd have laughed. But a look at his nephew's face showed that the boy hadn't known about those particular assets. Something told me David was in for further disillusionment.

The old man turned back to me. "So my wife put away a few dollars. That gives you the right to rob me?"

"During the past six years, while your company was losing about eleven million dollars, it seems strange to me that your wife should be depositing about a million dollars a year in her various accounts."

Bernie's face was flushed. "My wife is very clever with her investments," he said. "I don't spend my time looking over her shoulder."

"Maybe you should," I said. "You'd find out she has deals with practically every major supplier of equipment and services to the Norman Company. You can't tell me you're not aware that she takes a salesman's commission of from five to fifteen per cent on the gross purchases made by this company."

He sank back into his chair. "So what's wrong with that? It's perfectly normal business practice. She's our salesman on such sales, so why shouldn't she collect a commission?"

I'd had enough of his crap. "All right, Mr. Norman," I said. "Let's stop fooling around. I offered you a better than fair price for your stock. Do you want to sell it or don't you?"

"Not for three and a half million dollars, no. Five and I might listen."

"You're in no position to bargain, Mr. Norman," I said. "If you don't accept my offer, I'll put this company into receiver ship. Then we'll see if a Federal referee finds anything criminal in your wife's so-called legitimate transactions. You seem to have forgotten that what you do with the company is a Federal matter, since you sold stock on the open market. It's a little different than when you owned it all yourself. You might even wind up in jail."

"You wouldn't dare."

"No?" I said. I held out my hand. McAllister gave me the Section 722 papers. I threw them over to Bernie. "It’s up to you. If you don't sell, these papers will be in court tomorrow morning."

He looked down at the papers, then back at me. There was a cold hatred in his eyes. "Why do you do this to me?" he cried. "Is it because you hate Jews so much, when all I tried to do was help you?"

That did it. I went around the table, pulled him out of his chair and backed him up against the wall. "Look, you little Jew bastard," I shouted. "I’ve had enough of your bullshit. Every time you offered to help me, you picked my pocket. What's bugging you now is I won't let you do it again."

"Nazi!" he spat at me.

Slowly I let him down and turned to McAllister. "File the papers," I said. "And also bring a criminal suit against Norman and his wife for stealing from the company."

I started for the door.

"Just a minute!" Bernie's voice stopped me. There was a peculiar smile on his face. "There's no need for you to go away mad just because I got a little excited."

I stared at him.

"Come back," he said, sitting down at the table again. "We can settle this whole matter between us in a few minutes. Like gentlemen."

* * *

I stood near the window, watching Bernie sign the stock transfers. There was something incongruous about the way he sat there, the pen scratching across the paper as he signed away his life's work. You don't have to like a guy to feel sorry for him. And in a way that was just how I felt.

He was a selfish, despicable old man. He had no sense of decency, no honor or ethics, he'd sacrifice anyone on the altar of his power, but as the pen moved across each certificate, I had the feeling his life's blood was running out of the golden nib along with the ink.

I turned and looked out the window, thirty stories down into the street. Down there the people were tiny, they had little dreams, minute plans. The next day was Saturday. Their day off. Maybe they'd go to the beach, or the park. If they had the money, perhaps they'd take a drive out into the country. They'd sit on the grass next to their wives and watch the kids having themselves a time feeling the fresh, cool earth under their feet. They were lucky.

They didn't live in a jungle that measured their worth by their ability to live with the wolves. They weren't born to a father who couldn't love his son unless he was cast in his own image. They weren't surrounded by people whose only thought was to align themselves with the source of wealth. When they loved, it was because of how they felt, not because of how much they might benefit.

I felt a sour taste come up into my mouth. That was the way it might be down there but I really didn't know. And I wasn't particularly anxious to find out. I liked it up here.

It was like being in the sky with no one around to tell you what you could do or couldn't do. In my world, you made up your own rules. And everybody had to live by them whether they liked it or not. As long as you were on top. I meant to stay on top a long time. Long enough so that when people spoke my name, they knew whose name they spoke. Mine, not my father's.

I turned from the window and walked back to the table. I picked up the certificates and looked at them. They were signed correctly. Bernard B. Norman.

Bernie looked up at me. He attempted a smile. It wasn't very successful. "Years ago, when Bernie Normanovitz opened his first nickelodeon on Fourth Street on the East Side, nobody thought he'd someday sell his company for three and a half million dollars."

Suddenly, I didn't care any more. I no longer felt sorry for him. He had raped and looted a company of more than fifteen million dollars and his only excuse was that he had happened to start it.

"I imagine you'll want this, too," he said, reaching into his inside jacket pocket and taking out a folded sheet of paper.

I took it from him and opened it. It was his letter of resignation as president and chairman of the board. I looked at him in surprise.

"Now, is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No," I said.

"You're wrong, Mr. Cord," he said softly. He crossed to the telephone on the table in the corner. "Operator, this is Mr. Norman. You can put that call for Mr. Cord through now."

He held the phone toward me. "For you," he said expressionlessly. I took the telephone and heard the operator's voice. "I have Mr. Cord on the line now, Los Angeles."

There was a click, then another, as the call went through on the other end. I saw Bernie look at me shrewdly, then walk toward the door. He turned and looked at his nephew. "Coming, David?"

Woolf started to get out of his chair.

"You," I said, covering the mouthpiece with my hand. "Stay."

David looked at Bernie, then shook his head slightly and sank back into his chair. The old man shrugged his shoulders. "Why should I expect any more from my own flesh and blood?" he said. The door closed behind him.

A woman's voice came on in my ear. There was something vaguely familiar about it. "Jonas Cord?"

"Speaking. Who's this?"

"Ilene Gaillard. I've been trying to locate you all afternoon. Rina— Rina— " Her voice broke.

I felt an ominous chill tighten around my heart. "Yes, Miss Gaillard," I asked, "what about Rina?"

"She's dying, Mr. Cord," she sobbed into the telephone. "And she wants to see you."

"Dying?" I repeated. I couldn't believe it. Not Rina. She was indestructible.

"Yes, Mr. Cord. Encephalitis. And you'd better hurry. The doctors don't know how long she can last. She's at the Colton Sanitarium in Santa Monica. Can I tell her you're coming?"

"Tell her I'm on my way!" I said, putting down the phone.

I turned to look at David Woolf. He was watching me with a strange expression on his face. "You knew," I said.

He nodded, getting to his feet. "I knew."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"How could I?" he asked. "My uncle was afraid if you found out, you wouldn't want his stock."

A strange silence came into the room as I picked up the telephone again. I gave the operator Morrissey's number at Roosevelt Field.

"Do you want me to leave now?" Woolf asked.

I shook my head. I had been neatly suckered into buying a worthless company, shorn like a baby lamb, but I had no right to complain. I'd known all the rules.

But now even that didn't matter. Nothing mattered. The only thing that did was Rina. I swore impatiently, waiting for Morrissey to pick up the phone.

The only chance I had of getting to Rina in time was to fly out there in the CA-4.

The brightly lit hangar was a frenzy of activity.

The welders were up on the wings, their masks down, their torches burning with a hot blue flame as they fused the reserve fuel tanks to the wings. The pile of junk beside the plane was growing as the mechanics stripped her of everything that added weight and yet was not absolutely essential to flight.

I checked my watch as Morrissey came toward me. It was almost twelve o'clock. That made it near nine in California. "How long now?" I asked.

"Not too long." He looked down at the sheet of paper in his hand. "With everything stripped off her, we're still fourteen hundred pounds over lift capacity."

The Midwest was completely locked in by storms, according to our weather checks. If I wanted to get through, I'd have to fly south around them. Morrissey had figured we'd need forty-three per cent more fuel just for the flight itself and at least seven per cent more for a safety margin.

"Why don't you hold off until morning?" Morrissey asked. "Maybe the weather will lift and you can go straight through."

"No."

"For Christ's sake," he snapped. "You'll never even get her off the ground. If you're that anxious to get yourself killed, why don't you use a gun!"

I turned and looked over at the pile of junk beside the plane. "How much does the radio weigh?"

"Five hundred and ten pounds," he answered quickly. Then he stared at me. "You can't dump that! How the hell will you know where you are or what the weather is like up ahead?"

"Same way I did before they put radios in planes. Dump it!"

He started to walk back to the plane, shaking his head. I had another idea. "The oxygen-pressure system for the cockpit?"

"Six hundred and seventy pounds, including the tanks."

"Dump that, too," I said. "I’ll fly low."

"You'll need oxygen to get over the Rockies."

"Put a portable tank in the cockpit next to me."

I went into the office and called Buzz Dalton at the Intercontinental office in Los Angeles. He'd already left so they transferred the call to his home. "Buzz, this is Jonas."

"I was wondering when I'd hear from you."

"I want you to do me a favor."

"Sure," he said quickly. "What?"

"I'm flying out to the Coast tonight," I said. "And I want you to have weather signals up for me at every ICA hangar across the country."

"What's the matter with your radio?"

"I'm taking the CA-4 out nonstop. And I can't drag the weight."

He whistled. "You'll never make it, buddy boy."

"I'll make it," I said. "Use the searchlight blinkers at night, paint the rooftops during the day."

"Will do," he said. "What's your flight pattern?"

"I haven't decided the pattern yet. Just have all the fields covered."

"Will do," he said. "Good luck."

I put down the telephone. That's what I liked about Buzz. He was dependable. He didn't waste time with foolish questions like why, when or where. He did as he was told. The only thing he cared about was the airline. That was why ICA was rapidly becoming the largest commercial airline in the country.

I took the bottle of bourbon out of the desk and took a long pull off it. Then I went over to the couch and stretched out. My legs hung over the edge but I didn't care. I could grab a little rest while the mechanics were finishing up. I closed my eyes.

I sensed Morrissey standing near me and opened my eyes. "Ready?" I asked, looking up at him.

He nodded.

I swung my feet down from the couch and sat up. I looked out at the hangar. It was empty. "Where is she?"

"Outside," he said. "I’m having her warmed up."

"Good," I said. I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes past three. He followed me into the john. "You're tired," he said, watching while I splashed cold water on my face. "Do you really think you should go?"

"I have to."

"I put six roast-beef sandwiches and two quart Thermos bottles of black coffee in the plane for you."

"Thanks," I said, starting out.

His hand stopped me. He held out a small white bottle. "I called my doctor," he said, "and he brought these out for you."

"What are they?"

"A new pill. Benzedrine. Take one if you get sleepy. It'll wake you up. But be careful with them. Don't take too many or you'll go through the roof."

We started out for the plane. "Don't open your reserve fuel tanks until you're down to a quarter tank. The gravity feed won't pull if she registers more than that and it might even lock."

"How will I know if the reserve tanks are working?" I asked.

He looked at me. "You won't until you run out of gas. And if she locks, the air pressure will keep your gauge at a quarter even if the tank is dry."

I shot a quick look at him but didn't speak. We kept on walking. I climbed up on the wing and turned toward the cockpit. A hand pulled at my trouser leg. I turned around.

Forrester was looking up at me with a shocked look on his face. "What are you doing with the plane?"

"Going to California."

"But what about the tests tomorrow?" he shouted. "I even got Steve Randall out here tonight to look at her."

"Sorry," I said. "Call it off."

"But the General," he yelled. "How'll I explain to him? He'll blow his stack!"

I climbed into the cockpit and looked down at him. "That's not my headache any more, it's yours."

"But what if something happens to the plane?"