It was just starting to turn cool and the girls were coming out of their apartments along Park Avenue, dressed in their summer clothes, their fur stoles draped casually over their shoulders.
Over on Sixth Avenue, the girls were coming out, too. But these girls weren't getting into cabs; they were hurrying toward the subways and disappearing into those gaping maws, glad to be done with their day's work.
New York had a curious twisted form of vitality that belied the general air of depression that hung over the country. Building was going on here despite the moans and groans of Wall Street – office buildings and expensive apartments. If all the money was supposed to be gone, how come so many expensive whores were still living in the best places? It wasn't gone. It had just gone into hiding, burrowing into the ground like a mole, only to emerge when risks were less and profits greater.
On Sixth Avenue, the signs hung dejectedly in front of the employment agencies. The blackboards with their white chalk job listings were already beginning to look tired, and the two-dollar chippies were already beginning their dark sky patrol.
One of them, standing on the fringe of the crowd, turned to look at me as I came by. Her eyes were large and tired and weary and wise. I caught her whisper from almost motionless lips. "You'll be the first today, honey. How about starting the day right?"
I grinned at her and she took it for a sign of encouragement. She came toward me. "Just a deuce," she whispered quickly, "and I'll teach you things you never learned in school."
I stopped, still smiling. "I'll bet you would."
Mac and Dan had walked a few steps farther on. Mac turned back to me, an annoyed look on his face. The woman flashed a quick glance at them, then back at me. "Tell your friends I'll make a special price for all of you. Five bucks."
I dug into my pocket and came up with a dollar, which I pressed into her hand. "Some other time. But I don't think my teachers would approve."
She looked down at the dollar. A glint of humor came into her dark, tired eyes. "It's guys like you spoil a girl and make it tough for her to go to work."
She ducked into a cafeteria across the street as we turned into the lobby of the new RCA Building in Rockefeller Center.
I was still smiling when we walked into the board room. Norman sat at the head of the long table, David Woolf on his right and a man whom I had met at the studio – Ernest Hawley, the treasurer – on his left. Down the table sat our nominees, the two brokerage men, a banker and an accountant.
Dan and Mac took seats on opposite sides of the table, leaving the seat at the end open for me. I started to sit down.
Bernie got to his feet. "Just a minute, Cord," he said. "This meeting is for directors only." He glowered at me. "Before I'd sit at the same table with you, I’d leave myself."
I pulled a package of cigarettes from my pocket and lit one. "Then leave," I said quietly. "You won't have anything to do around here after this meeting anyway."
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," McAllister said quickly. "This is no way to conduct an important meeting. We have many grave problems concerning the future of this company to consider. We'll settle none of them in an atmosphere of distrust."
"Distrust!" Bernie yelled. "You expect me to trust him? After the way he stole my company from me behind my own back!"
"The stock was for sale on the open market and I bought it."
"At what price?" he shouted. "First he forces down the market, then he buys up the stock. Below value he gets it. He don't care how bad he makes the company look while he's doing it. Then he comes to me and expects me to sell my stock at the same depressed price he paid the others."
I smiled to myself. The trading was on. The old man figured the best way to get what he wanted was by attacking me. Already, the propriety of my presence at the meeting had been forgotten. "The price I offered was twice what I paid on the open market."
"You made the market."
"I wasn't running the company," I retorted. "You were-and for the last six years, running it at a loss."
He strode around the table. "And you could do better?"
"If I didn't think so, I wouldn't be putting up better than seven million dollars."
His eyes stared into mine angrily for a moment, then he walked back to his chair and sat down. He picked up a pencil and tapped it on the table in front of him. "The regular meeting of the board of directors of the Norman Picture Company, Incorporated, is hereby called to order," he said in a quieter tone of voice. He looked over at his nephew. "David, you will act as secretary until we appoint a new one."
The old man continued. "A quorum is present, and also present by invitation is Mr. Jonas Cord. Make a note of that, David. Mr. Cord is present by invitation of certain of the directors but over the objection of the President."
He stared at me, waiting for me to react to his statement. I sat there impassively.
"We will now proceed to the first order of business, which is the election of officers of the company for the coming year."
I nodded to McAllister. "Mr. President," he said, "may I suggest that we postpone the election of officers until after you and Mr. Cord have completed discussions regarding the sale of your stock?"
"What makes you think I'm interested in selling my stock?" Bernie asked. "My faith in the future of this company remains as strong as ever. I've made plans to insure the successful operation of this company and if you fellows think you can stop me, I'll throw you into a proxy fight like you never saw before."
Even McAllister had to smile at that. What would he fight with? We were voting forty-one per cent of the stock already. "If the President's concern for the future of this company were as sincere as ours," McAllister said politely, "surely he would see the damage that could be done by starting a proxy fight he couldn't possibly win."
A look of cunning came over Bernie's face. "I'm not such a fool as you think," he said. "I've been busy all afternoon. I got pledges from enough stockholders to give me control if I fight. I should live so long as to give up my own company – the company that I built with the sweat of my brow – to Cord so he can donate more money to his friends the Nazis." He slammed his fist dramatically down on the table. "No, not even if he gave me seven million dollars for my stock alone."
I got to my feet, tight-lipped and angry. "I’d like to ask Mr. Norman what he would do with the seven million dollars if I did give it to him. Would he donate it to the Jewish Relief Fund?"
"It's no business of Mr. Cord's what I do with my money," he shouted down the table at me. "I'm not a rich man like he is. All I got is a few shares of my own company."
I smiled. "Mr. Norman, would you like me to read to the board a list of your liquid assets and holdings, both in your name and your wife's?"
Bernie looked confused. "List?" he asked. "What list?"
I looked at McAllister. He handed me a sheet of paper from his brief case. I began to read from it. "Deposits in the name of May Norman: Security National Bank, Boston – one million, four hundred thousand; Bank of Manhattan Company, New York – two million, one hundred thousand; Pioneer National Trust Company, Los Angeles – seven hundred thousand; Lehman Brothers, New York – three million, one hundred and fifty thousand; plus other minor accounts throughout the country amounting to six or seven hundred thousand more. In addition to that, Mrs. Norman owns one thousand acres of prime real estate in Westwood, near Beverly Hills, conservatively valued at two thousand dollars an acre."
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.