The LeBaron Secret (11 page)

“I see,” Eric says, put off and annoyed. “You came with the Tobins tonight, right?”

“That's right.”

“Well, you're running with the right crowd now.” He tries to keep his tone pleasant, and yet somehow the remark comes out sounding nasty, snotty. But it is too late to retract it now, and so, smiling slightly, he moves away from Archie McPherson.

“Peeper, darling,” Alix is saying. “You look a little sad tonight. Withdrawn.”

“Sad? Withdrawn? On the contrary, Allie, I feel just great. Good party.”

“Did you come alone, or bring a date?”

“Alone tonight,” he says. “Right now, I'm between dancing partners.”

“Ah, that's sad. You know, I sometimes worry about you, Peeper. With girls, you seem to go from pillar to post.”

“Maybe that's sort of the way I like it, Allie.”

“But wouldn't you like, someday, to have a really lasting, loving relationship with some special someone?”

“Get married, you mean?”

“Well, either that, or …”

He winks at her. “I say, why buy a cow when milk is so cheap?”

“Peeper, don't be common!”

“Is my Italian-immigrant background beginning to show, Allie?”

“No, but I just mean—aren't there times when you're all alone at night, in your apartment on Telegraph Hill, that you feel a little … well, a little lonely and neglected, and would like—”

“Got someone special in mind, Allie?”

“No, of course not, but—”

But a departing guest has cut into their conversation.

“Alix, it was a perfectly lovely party,” the guest says. “You always do things in such a super way …”

And when Alix has turned away from this leave-taking, Peeper has disappeared.

Finding his brother, Peeper nudges Eric into a quiet corner of the living room. “Had a little chat with Mother today,” he says.

“Really, Peep? What about?”

“Well, I was really pleased,” he says. “It looks as though she's finally going to give me some real clout in the company—not just managing the goddamned Sonoma ranch.”

“Really? What's she offering you?”

“She's talking of making me co–marketing director, along with you. Won't that be neat? We'll handle marketing together—as a team. Isn't that a neat idea, Facsi?” Sometimes, in playful moods, the brothers call each other “Facsi,” which is short for “Facsimile.”

But Eric is not in a playful mood now. He is appalled at this news, and he takes a short step backward. He is appalled, and aghast, and stunned, and more hurt than he has ever imagined he could feel, hurt and betrayed. What she is talking about is nothing short of cutting his own job in half. Worse is the fact that she has made not one single mention, not given a single hint, of this proposed change in the directorship of marketing to him. She has gone behind his back, and offered her proposition to his twin without so much as consulting the man whose sole bailiwick marketing of Baronet supposedly is. Eric's head is suddenly so hot with anger and insult and resentment that he cannot speak, and making it even worse is having to look at his twin brother's happy, excited, expectant face. This horse's ass is standing here waiting for me to
congratulate
him, he thinks.
This horse's ass!

“Won't that be neat, Facsi?” Peeper says. “Best thing is, I won't have that goddamned commute to Sonoma every day. I'll be working right downtown with you!”

Still Eric cannot speak. How is it possible that his twin cannot be sensitive enough, intelligent enough, to understand how Eric feels?

From across the room, Alix sees the stunned and stricken look on her husband's face and, touching her father's sleeve, she says, “Daddy, do you think Eric's cheating on me?”

“Why, Buttercup, whatever makes you think a thing like that?” Harry Tillinghast asks.

“I don't know. Just a feeling. Call it woman's intuition, or whatever.”

“Hasn't he been—treating you well, honey?”

“It's not that. It's just—just the way he's been acting lately.”

“Well, honey,” her father says, “I don't think he's cheating on you. If he ever did, he'd need to have his head examined.” Then he says, “But I do know there's another woman in his life.”

“Oh? Who?”

“His mother,” Harry Tillinghast says.

“Oh,” she says, disappointed. “Oh, that.”

“What Eric needs now, more than anything, at this particular point in time, is to be given his head. He needs to take over that company—run it himself.” He squeezes his daughter's arm. “And, Buttercup, your old daddy's gonna help him do it. Wait and see.”

More guests are departing now, and there are more thank-yous and farewells and see-you-at-the-clubs. Standing beside Alix, sharing the hostly duties of accepting thanks for their hospitality, Eric says to her, almost absently, “By the way, I have to go to New York tomorrow.”

“Really? Why?”

“Business.”

“May I go with you?”

He shrugs. “Sure, if you'd like. It'll only be a couple of days. I'll be in meetings most of the time, but you can shop, I guess, or—”

“Well,” she says, almost petulantly, “as a matter of fact I
can't
go with you. Sally Carrington is having a bridge luncheon at the club, and I accepted a month ago.”

“Well, then—”

“Not that you care a bit whether I go with you or not!”

Looking sadly, not at her, but at some point in the distance over her left shoulder, Eric says, “Aw, honey …”

By nine o'clock, all the guests have gone, or nearly all. Alix LeBaron has stalked upstairs without saying good night, the help is in the kitchen cleaning up, and the girls are in the den watching television. Harry Tillinghast, who lives just down the road—actually
in
Burlingame, in fact—has stayed on, and he finds his son-in-law in the library, alone, hunched in one of the big leather chairs, nursing a brandy.

“Mind if I join you for a nightcap, Eric?”

“Sure, Pop.” He gestures toward the bar.

Harry Tillinghast goes to the bar, fills a glass with ice, splashes in a healthy dollop of Scotch, and fills the glass with soda from the silver siphon. Then he takes a seat in a chair opposite his son-in-law. “Well, son,” he says, “that was a real nice party.”

“Thank you, Pop. Glad you could be here.”

“I thought my little Buttercup looked beautiful, and your two little angels are turning into regular little ladies.”

“Yes.”

“My. How time goes by. I can remember bouncing those two little angels on my knee.”

“Yes.”

“You've been a good father, Eric, and a good husband to my little girl. It's been a good marriage, hasn't it? Everything is—good between you, isn't it?”

“I hope so,” Eric says.

“Good,” Harry Tillinghast says. “Good. Glad to hear it.” The two men sit in silence for a few moments. Then, “How are things at Baronet?” Harry asks.

“Business is—okay,” Eric says.

“Good,” Harry says. “I hear by the grapevine—no pun intended—that Pepsi-Cola is after Baronet again.”

Eric shrugs. “They've been after us for years.”

“So I understand,” he says, and chuckles. “Now that I'm one of your stockholders, they've even sent out some feelers in my direction. I told them I was just small potatoes in Baronet, very small potatoes.” He pauses, and then, “I don't suppose you'd ever think of selling.”

“No way.”

Harry Tillinghast extracts a long cigar from his jacket pocket, and carefully trims it with a gold cigar clipper, then places the cigar in his mouth and lights it with a matching gold lighter. The flash of gold is everywhere about Harry's person—his cuff links, his big signet ring, even a gold belt buckle. “Assaria wouldn't stand for it, I suppose,” he says around the cigar.

“That's right.”

“How are you and your mother getting along these days, son?”

“Oh, about the same as usual,” Eric says. “We have our ups and downs.” She is now trying to strip me of half my job responsibilities, he thinks. But he cannot bring himself to tell his father-in-law this. The insult is too fresh, the humiliation too new.

“Mustn't let her shove you around, boy,” Harry says. “I know your mother, and I know she has a tendency to shove people around.”

Eric says nothing.

Puffing on his cigar, Harry says, “You know, I've been thinking quite a bit lately about Baronet—about the future of Baronet. It's not just because I've recently become a stockholder. I've been thinking about
your
future. What's going to happen to the company, Eric, when you mother goes? She's not young, Eric, and none of us are getting any younger.”

“Mother is immortal.” He is feeling a little drunk.

“Well, nobody is immortal, boy,” Harry says. “And when your mother goes, with all that stock she owns, her estate could be in for some very heavy taxes.
Very
heavy. Which her heirs would have to pay. Why, you could lose the company just like
that
,” and he snaps his fingers.

“Mother says if she ever sells, it'll only be for cash. And she says there's not enough cash in the world to make her sell.”

“Very foolish of her, isn't it,” Harry says. “Very foolish. All the cash she gets will just be gobbled up by taxes—you know that.”

“Try explaining that to Mother.”

“Any woman in her position would—if she were well advised—sell Baronet for stock. Either to Pepsi, or to someone else. If she were well advised.”

“No one gives advice to my mother.”

“Or, if she were forced to sell, by a majority of other stockholders.”

“Ha!” Eric says. “No way!”

“Now, don't be so defeatist, Eric. There's always a way—that's my motto. Where there's a will, there's a way.”

“Not with Mother.”

“Don't be too sure, Eric,” Harry says. He takes a deep puff on his cigar and exhales a series of perfectly formed smoke rings. Staring at the ceiling and the dissolving rings, he says, “What would you say, Eric, if I told you that I was interested in taking over Baronet?”

“I'd say you were crazy.”

“Maybe so, maybe no. It's a damned good company, and what I'm saying is that I—and by I, I mean Kern-McKittrick—am interested in taking over Baronet. And by I, I also mean you and I. I'll need your help.”

“Pop, there's just no way to do it.”

“Because my object in doing this would be to put you in the driver's seat. Completely. Baronet would become a division of Kern-McKittrick, and you'd be head of it. Completely. You'd be at the helm, and she'd be out. What would you say to that?”

Eric shakes his head. “I dunno, Pop. I just dunno.”

“She's not the majority stockholder, you know. There's yourself, your brother, your sister, your aunt Joanna, your cousin Lance—and me. With enough votes on our side, we could get her out. And you in.”

He shakes his head again. “Pop, I just don't think we could ever pull it off.”

“Look at it this way, son. Your mother owns thirty-five percent of the outstanding shares, correct?”

“Correct.”

“And your aunt Joanna owns another thirty-five percent—correct?”

“That's right.”

“And, together, you and I own five percent. Melissa owns another five, and Peeper another five. Would Peeper and Melissa go along with us?”

“I wouldn't count on Peeper for too much at this point,” Eric says.

“Then there's your cousin Lance. Somehow, he got fifteen percent under your daddy's will.”

“The will was meant to be fair—fifteen percent for his kids, and fifteen percent for his sister's kids. What happened was that Joanna only had one child.”

“I understand that. My question to you is this: If it came to a vote, would Lance vote with his mother, or against her?”

“With her, I guess.”

“Yes, that would be my guess, too. He's never shown any interest in Baronet beyond collecting dividends, has he?”

“It's been at least five years since he's even come to California.”

“So you see, Joanna is our key. With her votes and Lance's plus yours and mine, we have a clear majority—fifty-five percent.”

Eric considers this for a moment. “Yeah,” he says at last, “but Joanna, besides being my aunt, is also my mother's oldest and dearest friend.”

“Somehow, son, when big money is involved, friendship turns out not to count for much—even the oldest, dearest kind. Sounds cynical to say so, but that's what I've found in business. Money talks, and the bigger it is the louder.”

“But suppose Mother threatened to take our ad account away from Joanna's agency unless Joanna agreed to go along with her? How would that look in the press? ‘LeBaron and Murdock lose family account.' Pretty humiliating.”

“If Joanna's worried about that, she must know your mother isn't such an old and dear friend,” Harry says.

“No, but that's just the sort of thing Mother might—”

“So all we do is make that part of the deal. If Joanna will go along with us, we agree to keep the business with her agency—hell, for twenty, twenty-five years, whatever she wants.
And
we sweeten the deal by agreeing to pay her full commission, which she isn't getting now.”

Eric studies his father-in-law's face. “You know,” he says. “I'm beginning to think it might work.”

“Plus, I understand that this morning your mother turned down a new ad campaign that Joanna's people had worked up. And turned it down in not a very ladylike way, or a very friendly way. Joanna won't be too happy about that, will she?”

“How,” Eric asks slowly, “did you hear about that?”