Behind the Bonehouse (4 page)

He stood straight and still as he waited, shorter than average, and military looking, probably in his early fifties, his shoulders back, his reddish blond hair brushed till it gleamed, his shoes polished, his navy blazer, well cut and pressed. He opened the door for the two Americans and said, “Carl. Butch. Thank you for driving all this way.”

Carl Seeger smiled before he said, “Thanks for meeting us on a Saturday.”

Art asked how customs had been in Detroit, as he led them down the hall, and Carl answered while Butch looked uncomfortable and pulled at the sleeves of his sport coat as though he'd been imprisoned in it and wanted to rip it off.

“Would you like coffee, or tea?”

Carl and Butch both said coffee, and Art filled two mugs from the percolator in the corner of his office.

Carl and Art compared and contrasted the large animal vet markets in the U.S. and Canada, while Art brought out sugar and creamer—both of them deliberately talking around what had brought them together, controlling the pacing, sizing up the other, each planning their final approaches, depending on how the conversation developed.

Art, because he was a born salesman with a gift for getting to know people and steering conversations to the kind of connections that helped him close deals. Carl, because he'd learned as a kid, working as a soda jerk, that customers who feel admired leave the biggest tips.

Butch, who looked twenty years younger than the other two, licked his lips and sipped his coffee as though he were having second thoughts about sitting there at all.

“So, Carl.” Art took a sip of coffee and set his cup in its saucer. “Shall we discuss the subject you broached on the phone? I'm not saying I'm interested, but I am willing to listen.”

Carl lit a Lucky with a dented Zippo, and reached for the ashtray on Art's desk. “Yeah, sure, as I said then, the new equine fungicidal shampoos and ointments Equine Pharmaceuticals has brought out this year are selling like hotcakes.”

“I know they've sold tremendously well here. Canadian winters are so cold our horses' coats grow in terribly long and thick, and fungal-type skin infections can be extremely severe. Your products are the only ones that help control the problem.”

“Nothing else on the market can touch Equine's line, and I did the formulations.”

“I thought Alan introduced the active ingredient when he came to Equine, and did the development as well.”

“He brought the active ingredient. He had a relationship with the manufacturer already, and he made an exclusive equine market agreement with them for Equine in the U.S. But I did the formulating.”

Butch looked at Carl as though that had come as a surprise, but he wasn't going to disagree in public.

“I will say the anti-fungal products have made handling the Equine line even more attractive. I represent Pfizer too, of course, when they don't compete with Bob. His vaccine and antibiotic offering is narrower than theirs.”

“Yeah, I'm sure it is.”

“So …”

“So what we're proposing, Art—Butch and me—is that we take advantage of the opportunity we see to use the formulas I've developed, and the production methods Butch has perfected, and set up our own business here in Toronto. I know your brother has a blending operation, and we're proposing to pass on seventy percent of the gross sales here in Canada to you and your brother if you manufacture and sell in Canada. Butch would set up the manufacturing and packaging methods and provide ongoing technical support. I'd provide the formulas and application support, after I work out an exclusive with the fungicide manufacturer for the Canadian equine market. I'd try to get an exclusive for the equine industry in Europe too, because manufacturing here and shipping out the St. Lawrence Seaway offers another substantial market with no one in competition with anything like the performance we can provide.”

“So this would include the formulas for the fungal preventative shampoo, the fungal treatment shampoo, and the topical ointments and powders that Equine Pharmaceuticals makes now?”

“Exactly.” Carl stubbed his Lucky out in the metal ashtray and finished the last of his coffee, then blotted his mustache with a paper napkin, and watched Art with a satisfied smile on his soft pale face.

Art didn't say anything for a minute. He watched Carl watch him while he played with his ballpoint pen. “I take it you don't see any legal difficulties? I wouldn't want to open myself up to any sort of litigation.”

“No, the attorney I've consulted sees no problem whatever. Both of our noncompete agreements with Bob Harrison apply exclusively to the United States. I developed those products, and I have a legitimate right to profit from my own work over and above the paycheck I get for directing the lab. Butch here, he figures out how to get these products made, and he ought to benefit too.” Carl lit another Lucky and shrugged at his own common sense, his cool hazel eyes, under graying sandy hair, watching Art with a look that seemed to say,
I understand you. You're a man like me. The two of us can do business.

“And you came to me as the logical person to partner with you in Canada?”

“You're a very successful independent veterinary supply and pharmaceutical distributor. You know the market extremely well. You represent large prestigious suppliers, and you and I have known each other since I joined Equine Pharmaceuticals. Your brother has a chemical blending business, and you're a sharp guy. I thought you'd be interested.”

“I'll have to think about it. I've known Bob Harrison a long time, and he's always treated me well.”

“He treats himself even better, trust me.”

Art asked, “What about you, Butch? You haven't said anything.”

Butch set his mug on Art's desk and slid a finger inside his shirt collar, before he looked at Art. “Well, I reckon we've got a right to benefit from the work we've done. I've always liked Bob, but things are different now. Alan Munro, he's changin' everything. The fun's goin' out of it, and I don't know how long I can hang on.”

“So this would give you an income if you chose to leave?”

“That's the way I see it.” Butch looked down at Art's desk with his hands set solidly on his knees.

“Well, you've given me a lot to think about. Percentages would have to be reconsidered, based on setup and production cost estimates. I'll have to discuss it with my brother, of course. Then I'll call you, Carl, at your home number.”

Carl said, “Good. I look forward to us doing business together.”

After Art had walked them to Carl's car, he sprinted back to his office and pushed a switch on his Dictaphone, then pulled out two small six-by-eight battery operated reel-to-reel tape recorders from the open drawers in his desk. He pushed the off buttons, inserted the power cords, plugged them into a wall outlet, rewound both, and listened for several seconds. Then he shut them off and placed a person-to-person call to Bob Harrison in Kentucky.

“I got it, Bob. Two tape recorders and a Dictaphone! I'll make copies this afternoon and drive down with them tomorrow. … You don't need to thank me. What you did for me when I was starting up makes this an absolute pleasure. Those two deserve to be throttled! … “I agree, yes, Carl's the motivating force. Butch looks profoundly uneasy, but he's still willing to go along with something he knows is wrong. … Yes, indeed. Tomorrow, late afternoon. … Thank you. I
will
spend the night, if you're sure I won't be imposing on Rachel.”

Tuesday, August 6th, 1963

Booker Franklin had left his office at Blue Grass Horse Vans just before six, and ridden his horse, Buster, at his son Spencer's farm. He'd hosed Buster off, and put grain in his feed bucket, then turned him out in that paddock, and started home with a very hard knot lodged deep in his chest.

As he drove the winding, hazy, soft green hills, past farm after farm of grazing horses, past corn and tobacco and beef cattle too, on his way north from south of Versailles toward his house up in Midway, he thought back to a night when he was young, to the night of an Iowa blizzard, when his daughter Martha had been born.

She'd been so cute. So quick and determined and clever. And she'd been very good, right from the start, at batting her eyelashes and smiling at her daddy till he'd wanted to hug her and give in, even when he'd known better and forced himself to resist.

He hadn't loved her any more than the boys, but he'd tended by nature to be harder on them to help them grow up to be men. He'd found himself wanting to protect Martha from every ill in the outside world, when Alice, her mother, had known better, and had told him what he'd needed to hear when he'd needed to hear it.

Now he found himself in an unlooked for situation, in conflict with Martha that should've been avoided, and the time had come to take a stand before the rift got harder to repair.

He'd been very willing for Martha and her son and daughter to move in with him after her divorce from Hal, when they'd cut her job at the Gibbes Museum in Charleston. The cost of living in Lexington was much less, and moving back made economic sense.

He'd understood that the move home was temporary, but Martha had made no attempt to find a house, and she and the kids had been with him six weeks, and the turmoil was wearing him down. He was accustomed to living alone. Now. Since Alice had been killed. And he needed peace and quiet.

He had to have time to concentrate on what he was trying to accomplish at work, and how to do it without Alice. He still wasn't used to living without her, and it eased the loss and the sense of displacement when he could think about their years together quietly on his own. How they'd courted. And raised the children in Iowa. And what it'd been like to risk everything they'd hoped to have to move back to Lexington and start Blue Grass Horse Vans together.

He had to make plans for the future too, now, with what he was facing, without the quarreling and interruptions from a nine year old and a seven year old, and all their comings and goings. He felt like a squatter in his own home. And he didn't have the energy to live like that much longer.

He'd taken his boots off on the back porch, and washed his hands in the kitchen sink, and he was walking barefoot across the heart pine floor when he heard Martha call him from the dining room next door.

Booker stood in the kitchen doorway and watched her measuring and making notes, as she talked about converting the dining room to a playroom when she rearranged the downstairs.

Booker made himself wait before he spoke in a carefully quiet voice. “I don't think that's a good idea, honey. And there're a couple of other matters too I reckon we need to discuss.”

“What?” She was making a note on a notepad, bending over Alice's grandmother's long walnut table, and she didn't stop as she spoke.

“I was wonderin' if you've given any thought to getting a job at the art museum at the University of Kentucky. Being a curator's what you love, though the art department would suit you too, if you—”

“No, I can't say I have.”

“I've also been meaning to tell you I've got a very good friend in real estate here, and he and I can help you look for a house to rent. There're lots of places in town, and out—in Lexington, or here in Woodford, County—that might suit you real well.”

Martha looked surprised, and maybe half-amused, when she glanced at him over her shoulder as she said she thought she'd live with him, and was thinking of working at Blue Grass Horse Vans, once she and the kids got settled. “My furniture's coming next week, and I'll have to find a place to put it into storage temporarily, till I have a chance to rethink the house. After that I'll be ready to start. Maybe I could store it at Blue Grass, somewhere back in the plant?”

That was not what Booker had expected to hear, and he paused a second and swallowed. “You don't have any business experience. You don't. Not one minute anywhere. You have no interest in horses whatsoever. Why would you want to work for a horse van and trailer manufacturer?”

“I thought I could just work part-time, and set my own schedule around the children's school. You know I can't afford a nanny the way I could in Charleston before the divorce.” Martha didn't look at Booker while she talked. She measured the outside wall in the dining room, then made a note on her scratchpad. She set one hand on a broad hip, her back turned to Booker, and considered the archway into the living room as though she didn't approve.

Booker said, “That's not the way it works, honey. The family has to set the example. We have to work harder than anyone else, and be the most professional. You don't have any kind of background or experience, and it would not be viewed well by the people who've been there a long time and are really dedicated and good at what they do.”

Martha turned around and looked at Booker for the first time, her blue eyes steely, her pointed chin set. “Mom didn't have any experience either, and she became the personnel director and did all the public relations.”

“She started the business with me. She didn't do the engineering, and the trailer and van design I did, like Spencer does with me now, but she was the only other employee when we started out. She did all the accounting and the orders. She learned every bit of it from the ground up, just the way I had to. We worked with every lawyer and accountant together. We negotiated with the banks together. She developed and administered the office procedures much better than I do. And it's way bigger than that now, and much more complicated. When we had enough employees that there was such a thing as personnel, she took courses, and read a great deal, and worked with experts in the field to develop the way she needed to.”

“I thought you'd
want
me in the company, taking Mom's place!”

“I'm sorry, Martha, but it's not a good idea.” Booker's arms were crossed across what there was of his stomach as he leaned against the kitchen doorway, and smiled a sad gentle looking smile while he said what she didn't want to hear.