Джон Макдональд - Area of Suspicion [= My Brother’s Widow]

I stared at Lester. “In the back of the head!”

“It’s such a senseless waste,” he said. “It’s the sort of thing that’s always happening to people you don’t know. You read about it in the papers. You think what a bad break, but it doesn’t touch you, because it never happens to people you know.”

“When is the funeral?”

Lester looked at his watch. “A lot of company people want to attend, of course. And things are so rushed at the plant that it was decided they’d have it today. About three hours from now. Niki is terribly, terribly shocked, as you can well imagine. It shocked the whole city. He had a lot of friends, Gevan.”

“I know.” I sat down. He had a lot of friends because he was a good man. The news changed the look of my world. My livingroom was alien, as if I had wandered into a place where strangers lived. I got up to make myself a drink. I asked Lester if he wanted one. He asked for a light one. I made mine stiff. A prowler with a twisted mind and a finger on a trigger. There would be quite a few stiff drinks, but I knew there wouldn’t be enough of them.

As I brought the drinks, Lester was opening his briefcase. The zipper made a secretive sound. I put the drink beside him and said, “What have you got there?”

His specialized knowledge gave him assurance. He was out of the world of bad tidings, and back in his garden of torts and writs. Assurance brought back his air of patronizing efficiency. “You know I hate to bother you with this sort of thing at a time like this, Gevan. But it’s best to get the details taken care of. I have a plane connection to make. But if you’d rather not, of course, we can—”

“Let’s see what you’ve got.”

He handed me a paper, saying, “I need your signature on this for the probate court. Under the terms of your father’s will, as Ken died without issue, his share of the trust fund reverts to you. Ken’s will, of course, leaves everything to Niki. You can have another lawyer check this, but—”

I read it carefully. He uncapped a pen and handed it to me at precisely the right moment. If he had been handling the personal legal affairs of Ken and Niki, he had acquired a pleasantly profitable account. I signed it and gave it back to him.

He handed me another bit of paper. I saw that it was a standard proxy form. It was made out to Niki, to Mrs. Kendall Dean.

“This will require more explanation,” he said.

“I should think so.” I hadn’t voted my shares since I had left.

He shrugged. “Actually it’s a case of finding someone acceptable to you, Gevan. We didn’t think you’d care to — have me vote it.”

I stared at him and he flushed and looked down and did some unnecessary rearrangement of the papers. I knew that he was remembering, as I was, that day years ago when he had come to me with a choice and tainted little scheme that involved a “friendly” salvage officer and a rigged auction of some army surplus material. He’d presented it as though he were doing me a favor, letting me in on it. He was trying to scrape up enough financial backing to swing the whole purchase. He came to see me on a day when I had no time for soft answers and no patience with such schemes. I had told him in blunt words what I thought of the plan, the salvage officer, and Lester Fitch, until he wheeled with flaming face and ran from my office.

“What’s all this ‘we’ talk, Lester?” I asked him softly.

“We? Oh, I see what you mean. Through Ken I’ve been doing quite a bit of state tax work for the firm, and I’ve been made a member of the board — pro tem — to be confirmed at the next meeting.”

“Niki too, I suppose?”

“She’ll sit in on the emergency meeting a week from tomorrow. An open meeting. Board and shareholders. Notices will go out tomorrow.”

I looked at the proxy form again. “That doesn’t explain why you want this, Lester.”

He gave me a condescending glance, big business talking to a beach boy. “You’ve made it definite that you don’t want to come back, Gevan. It was talked over. We — everyone decided when we couldn’t contact you in time to make the — ceremony, you’d rather have it handled this way than come up and attend the meeting yourself.”

It took a few moments to get my attention back to what he was saying. I had drifted off again into memories of Ken.

I stared at Lester. “I don’t want to seem dull. But the questions I’ve been asking sound reasonably simple to me. Why do you want a proxy form signed? For what purpose?”

He waved a large white hand. “Oh, that’s not something so terribly special, Gevan. It’s one of the usual rows. A minority group trying to clobber management. We need a show of strength.”

“What minority group? What do they want?”

He sighed, patiently. “You’ve been out of touch, Gevan. I’ll have to give you some background on this. If you happened to glance at the annual report you must have—”

“I read it with interest.”

“Good!” he said. “Splendid! That saves time. We’ve just been awarded another twenty-five million’s worth. We have so much government work a Colonel Dolson — a fine officer — has been stationed at the plant with his staff. For some time Colonel Dolson has felt that Ken, quite frankly, wasn’t big enough to handle the new picture. He told me quite confidentially that he had spoken to Ken about stepping down in favor of Stanley Mottling some time ago. Ken had seemed in favor of the suggestion and had said he would think it over.”

“Stanley Mottling? Just who the hell is Stanley Mottling?”

He raised his eyebrows. One of those oh-come-now expressions. “Don’t you know about him? Ken brought him in as executive vice-president. Amazing man. Enormously capable. It’s a credit to Ken that he located him and brought him in. A world of experience, believe me. Exactly the sort of man to put Dean Products on its feet.”

“I wasn’t aware that it had been knocked off its feet.”

“You don’t realize the tremendous problems involved in setting up entirely new production—”

“I’m just a poor cracker-boy.”

He smiled uneasily. “I was about to say, in the quantity that they’ve been loading on us. With Ken gone, Niki and I — and the Colonel, of course — feel that Stanley should take over with the least possible delay. In fact, we’re grateful that he’s available and willing. But Mr. Karch, from the bank, as board chairman, has been rocking the boat. He’s been organizing the other shareholders and putting them squarely behind old Walter Granby to take over.”

“Any firm could do much worse. Walter is shrewd and able.”

Lester shook his head. “He was shrewd and able. He’s failed badly in the four years you’ve been gone. You’d be shocked to see him. But even at his best, Gevan, or — and I say this in complete honesty — at your best, neither of you could measure up to Mottling. We need your shares behind Mottling to confirm Ken’s wishes and keep little people from upsetting the apple cart. I’m pretty certain they won’t go as far as a mismanagement suit. It will be enough just to vote Granby down. A suit like that wouldn’t stand a chance, not when you stack it up against Mottling’s record.

“If this Mottling is so hot, why the opposition?”

“Jealousy. Unwillingness to keep up with the times. Inability to comprehend that Dean Products is in the big time.”

“I seem to remember that Dean Products was in the big time ten years ago.”

He gave me a hush-hush tone of voice, leaning forward. “Gevan, we’ve been entrusted with the production of — some very crucial items. I’m not permitted to say more than that.”

“Why should Walter buck Mottling? Walter is bright.”