Kane & Abel (1979) (53 page)

‘I’m sorry that you’ll be leaving us, William. Lester’s may well be two or three times the size of Kane and Cabot, but it will be very hard to replace you. I hope you’ll consider very carefully before accepting the offer.’

William was surprised by Tony’s response.

‘Frankly, Tony, I would have thought you’d be only too happy to see the back of me.’

‘William, when will you accept that my first interest has always been the bank? There has never been any doubt in my mind that you are one of the shrewdest investment advisors in America today. If you leave Kane and Cabot now, many of the bank’s most important clients will want to follow you.’

‘I wouldn’t even transfer my own trust funds to Lester’s,’ said William, ‘let alone expect any of the bank’s clients to move their accounts because I’d left.’

‘Of course you wouldn’t solicit them to join you, William, that’s not your style, but some of them will want you to continue managing their portfolios. Like your father and Charles Lester, they believe quite rightly that banking is about people and reputations.’

William and Kate spent a tense weekend awaiting a call from Peter Parfitt following the result of the board meeting in New York. William sat nervously in his office the whole of Monday morning, answering every telephone call personally, but he had still heard nothing as the morning dragged into the afternoon. He didn’t even leave the office for lunch. Parfitt finally called a little after five.

‘I’m afraid there’s been an unexpected development, Bill,’ were his opening words.

William’s heart sank.

‘Nothing for you to worry about, but the board wants the right to oppose your nomination and put up their own candidate. One of them has produced legal opinions suggesting that the relevant clause in the will has no validity. I’ve been given the unpleasant task of asking if you would be willing to fight an election against the board’s candidate.’

‘Who would be the board’s candidate?’ asked William.

‘No names have been mentioned yet, but I imagine it will be Ted Leach. No one else has shown any interest in running against you.’

‘I’d like a little time to think about it,’ William replied. ‘When will the next board meeting be?’

‘A week from today. But don’t go and get yourself all worked up about Ted Leach; I’m still confident you’ll win easily. I’ll keep you informed of any further developments.’

‘Do you want me to come down to New York, Peter?’

‘No, not for the moment. I don’t think that would help matters.’

William thanked him and put the phone down, then packed his old leather briefcase and left the office, feeling more than a little depressed. Tony Simmons, lugging a suitcase, caught up with him in the directors’ parking lot.

‘I didn’t know you were going out of town, Tony.’

‘It’s only one of those monthly bankers’ dinners in New York. I’ll be back by tomorrow afternoon. I think I can safely leave Kane and Cabot for twenty-four hours in the capable hands of the next chairman of Lester’s.’

William laughed. ‘I may already be the ex-chairman,’ he said, and explained the latest development. Once again he was surprised by Simmons’s reaction.

‘It’s true that Ted Leach has always hoped to be the next chairman of Lester’s,’ he said. ‘That’s common knowledge in financial circles. But he’s a loyal servant of the bank, and I can’t believe he would oppose Charles Lester’s express wishes.’

‘I didn’t realize you knew him,’ said William.

‘I don’t know him all that well,’ said Tony. ‘He was a class ahead of me at Yale, and I occasionally come across him at these infernal dinners, which you’ll have to attend once you’re a chairman. He’s bound to be there tonight. I’ll have a word with him if you like.’

‘Yes, please do, but do be careful, won’t you?’ said William.

‘My dear William, you’ve spent the past ten years of your life telling me I’m far too careful.’

‘I’m sorry, Tony. Funny how one’s judgement is influenced when facing a personal problem, however sound it might be considered when dealing with other people’s. I’ll put myself in your hands, and do whatever you advise.’

‘Good. Leave it to me. I’ll see what Leach has to say for himself, and call you first thing in the morning.’

Tony Simmons called from New York a few minutes after midnight, waking William from a fitful sleep.

‘Have I woken you, William?’

‘Yes, but it doesn’t matter, Tony.’

William switched on the light by the bed and looked at his alarm clock. ‘Well, you did say you’d call first thing in the morning.’

Simmons laughed. ‘I’m afraid what I have to tell you won’t seem quite as amusing. The man opposing you for the chairmanship of Lester’s is Peter Parfitt.’

‘What?’
said William, suddenly wide awake.

‘He’s been trying to steamroller the board into supporting him behind your back. Ted Leach, as I expected, is in favour of your appointment as chairman. However, the board is split down the middle.’

‘Damn. First, thank you, Tony, and second, what the hell do I do?’

‘If you want to be the next chairman of Lester’s, you’d better get yourself down here pretty fast. Some of the members of the board are asking why you’ve been hiding away in Boston.’

‘Hiding away?’

‘That’s what Parfitt’s been telling them for the past few days.’

‘The bastard.’

‘Now that you mention the subject, I’m unable to vouch for his parentage,’ said Simmons.

William laughed.

‘Come and stay at the Yale Club. We can talk the whole thing over first thing in the morning.’

‘I’ll get there as quickly as I can.’

He put the phone down and looked across at the sleeping Kate, blissfully unaware of his latest problem. How he wished he could manage that. A curtain only had to flutter in the breeze and he would wake up. She would probably sleep through the Second Coming. He scribbled a few lines of explanation and put the note on her bedside table; then he dressed, packed - this time including a dinner jacket - and set off for New York.

The roads were clear at one in the morning, and the run in the Daimler seemed the quickest he had ever managed. He arrived in New York accompanied by cleaners, mailmen, newsboys and the morning sun, and checked in at the Yale Club as the hall clock chimed once. It was six-fifteen. He unpacked and decided to rest for an hour before waking Tony Simmons, but the next thing he heard was an insistent tapping on his door. Sleepily, he got up to open it, to find Simmons standing in the corridor.

‘Nice dressing gown, William,’ he said, grinning.

‘I must have fallen asleep. If you can wait a minute I’ll be right with you,’ said William.

‘No, no, I have to catch a train back to Boston. Someone has to run the office. You take a shower and get dressed while we talk.’

William went into the bathroom and left the door open.

‘Now your main problem—’ started Simmons.

William put his head around the bathroom door. ‘I can’t hear you while the water’s running.’

Simmons waited for it to stop. ‘Peter Parfitt is your main problem. He assumed he was going to be the next chairman, and that his would be the name that was read out in Charles Lester’s will. Since then he’s been playing boardroom politics and trying to turn the directors against you. Ted Leach would like you to join him for lunch today at the Metropolitan Club when he’ll fill you in on the finer points. He may bring two or three other board members with him on whom you can rely. The board, by the way, still seems to be split right down the middle.’

William nicked himself with his razor. ‘Damn. Which club did you say?’

‘The Metropolitan, just off Fifth Avenue on East Sixtieth Street.’

‘Why there, and not somewhere on Wall Street?’

‘William, when you’re dealing with the Peter Parfitts of this world, you don’t telegraph your intentions. Keep your wits about you, and play the whole thing very coolly. From what Leach tells me, he thinks you can still win.’

William came back into the bedroom with a towel around his waist. ‘I’ll try,’ he said. ‘To be cool, that is.’

Simmons smiled. ‘Now I must get back to Boston. My train leaves Grand Central in ten minutes.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Damn, six minutes.’ He paused at the bedroom door. ‘You know, your father never trusted Peter Parfitt. A little too smooth, he always used to say. Never anything more, just “a little too smooth”. Good luck, William.’

‘How can I begin to thank you, Tony?’

‘You can’t. Just put it down to my trying to atone for the lousy way I treated Matthew. But frankly, for Kane and Cabot’s sake, I hope you lose.’

William smiled as he watched the door close. As he put in his collar stud, he reflected on how curious it was that he had spent years working closely with Tony Simmons without ever really getting to know him, but that after a few days of personal crisis he found himself liking and trusting the man. He went down to the dining room and had a typical club breakfast: a hard boiled egg, one piece of burnt toast, butter and English marmalade from someone else’s table. The porter handed him a copy of
The Wall Street Journal
, which hinted on an inside page that everything was not running smoothly at Lester’s following the nomination of William Kane as its next chairman. At least the
Journal
didn’t seem to know who his rival was.

William returned to his room and asked the operator for a number in Boston. He was kept waiting for a few minutes before he was put through.

‘I do apologize, Mr Kane. I had no idea it was you on the line. May I congratulate you on your appointment as chairman of Lester’s. I hope this means our New York office will be seeing a lot more of you in the future.’

‘That may well depend on you, Mr Cohen.’

‘I’m not sure I understand,’ the lawyer replied.

William explained what had happened over the past few days, and read out the relevant clause of Charles Lester’s will. ‘Do you think his wishes would stand up in court?’ he asked finally.

‘Who knows? I can’t think of a precedent for such a situation. A nineteenth-century Member of Parliament once bequeathed his constituency in a will and no one objected, and the beneficiary went on to become Prime Minister. But that was over a hundred years ago - and in England. Now, in this case, if the board decided to contest Mr Lester’s will and you took them to court, I wouldn’t care to predict which way the judge might jump. Lord Melbourne didn’t have to contend with a surrogate of New York County. Nevertheless, a nice legal conundrum, Mr Kane.’

‘What do you advise?’

‘I am a Jew, Mr Kane. I came to this country on a ship from Germany at the turn of the century, and I’ve always had to fight for anything I’ve wanted. How badly do you want to be chairman of Lester’s?’

‘Very badly, Mr Cohen.’

‘Then you should listen to an old man who has, over the years, come to view you with great respect and, if I may say so, with some affection. I’ll tell you exactly what I’d do if I were faced with your predicament.’

An hour later William put the phone down and, having some time to kill, strolled up Park Avenue thinking about Cohen’s sage advice. On the way to the Metropolitan Club he passed a site on which a huge building was under construction. A large billboard announced: ‘The next Baron hotel will be in New York. When the Baron has been your host, you’ll never want to stay anywhere else.’ He smiled, and walked with a lighter step towards his lunch appointment.

Ted Leach, a short, dapper man with dark brown hair and a lighter moustache, was standing in the foyer waiting for him, and shook him warmly by the hand. William admired the Renaissance style of the club, which Leach told him had been built by Otto Kuhn and Stanford White in 1891. J. P. Morgan had founded it when one of his closest friends was blackballed at the Union League, Leach told him as they strolled into the bar.

‘An extravagant gesture even for a very close friend,’ William suggested, trying to make conversation.

‘Indeed,’ said Leach. ‘Now, what will you have to drink, Mr Kane?’

‘A dry sherry, please,’ said William.

A boy in a smart blue uniform returned a few moments later with a dry sherry and a scotch and water; he hadn’t needed to ask Mr Leach for his order.