Death Shall Overcome Read online

  Unwillingly Thatcher was reminded that the house of Schuyler & Schuyler harbored at least one tipster for Owen Abercrombie. Was that what Nat Schuyler wanted him to think about? Dean Caldwell’s name had been carefully kept out of the conversation, but not his image.

  Ed Parry was not prepared to let the discussion center around personalities. In fact, thought Thatcher with growing amusement, he was much more the Exchange’s beau ideal of a member than Nat Schuyler.

  “In any event, I think we’ve made my point to Mr. Thatcher,” he said. “What violence there has been has stemmed from the opponents of my application. And it has been directed against our brokerage firm, and not the Exchange, or Clovis Greene. Now, you say that the Exchange is concerned about stabilizing the market in the face of these wild rumors. I am concerned about that, too. After all, I have substantial investments myself. Anything that can be done by calming statements, I’m prepared to do. But I am not prepared to agree that the way to stop these slides is to wrap a curtain of silence over the question of Black investments. The sooner people start to think about that, the better. Remember, the big slides have been started by attacks on us. If the market is going to dip every time somebody takes a bead on me, then the thing to do is stop this potshotting. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Thatcher sighed. Everything that Parry said made sense. One more attempt on his life and the market would have to stop trading.

  Gloria Parry came to the support of her husband’s intransigence. “Nor are we prepared to retreat to a cave for the duration. Ed is trying to cooperate with the Police Commissioner, but certain things we have pledged to do and those we’ll go through with. You may as well know that we’re patrons of the NAACP benefit night at Lincoln Center this weekend. And we’re going to it, no matter how anybody feels. It won’t be our people who start a riot there.”

  She looked around the room defiantly.

  Curiously, it was Nat Schuyler who was moved to protest. He even started to ask a question, no doubt to emphasize the desirability of keeping the issue simple. Further examination of his hostess’s resolute countenance persuaded him to remain silent. This silence was broken by the telephone.

  It was for John Thatcher, from Hugh Waymark.

  “You’ve got to get back here right away,” said Waymark tersely. Thatcher hoped that his hoarseness was A.T. &T.’s fault.

  “All hell is breaking loose. The Exchange wants to talk to all three of us.”

  “I’m perfectly willing to talk to them this afternoon. But I can’t leave now. We haven’t even worked out a final draft—”

  “The draft doesn’t matter. This can’t wait!”

  “What can’t?” demanded Thatcher, irritation yielding to curiosity.

  Waymark laughed dementedly. “I can’t explain. Just turn on your TV.”

  After hanging up, Thatcher turned to the others. This was no time to break the news that the Committee of Three was already beginning to crack at the seams.

  “It seems,” he said cautiously, “that something is going on. Could we turn on your TV?”

  Gloria Parry obligingly walked over to a sleek walnut hi-fi arrangement and slid back a panel revealing the screen. “What station do you want?” she asked as she started to twist knobs. But no further information was required. Even before the sound came on, it became apparent that all the networks were carrying the distorted, flickering image of Richard Simpson.

  In the ghostly silence that persisted for several seconds, Simpson threw his arms out and opened his mouth in what must have been a bull-like roar. Clearly he was urging some form of Homeric action. In that brief interval of speculation, Thatcher rejected several possibilities as unduly dramatic. Reality for once surpassed his expectations.

  “. . . Star Chamber proceedings. We demand a fair and open hearing for Edward J. Parry. Let every man stand and be counted! Let there be an open ballot, so that we may know our enemies . . . those consumed by jealousy of the black man must be identified! I call upon you to join CASH in its first show of strength . . . not for us, the sit-in or the wade-in! We are shareholders! Ours is economic power! Use that power! Now is the time for our trade-in . . . each and every one of you must trade-in Vita Cola! Drive that price down! Bear your losses! These are money changers in the Temple!”

  “My God!” said Nat Schuyler, awed by a capacity for freakishness outstripping his own.

  “Why?” asked Parry, bewildered.

  “I think,” said Thatcher gently, “I think I’d better be getting back to town.”

  Chapter 9

  They Call Us to Deliver

  THE TRIP from Katonah to the Wheatmen’s Mutual Building, where Waymark & Sims had their offices, took Thatcher exactly one hour and thirty-seven minutes to accomplish. It says much for the penetrative qualities of modern communications media that, by the time he arrived, Vita Cola had fallen four points.

  “The boys over at the Exchange are going ape,” announced Waymark, whose conversation these days was heavily salted with service jargon. “They keep saying there must be a law against this sort of thing.”

  Carruthers shook his head. “You mean they think there should be a law against it. What do they want the SEC to do? Prohibit the sale of stock?”

  “No, no!” rejoined Waymark, his instincts as a broker coming to the fore. “How the hell could we make any commissions? But isn’t this some sort of stock manipulation?”

  “Not unless someone is making money out of it. It would be different if these people had sold short. But if they just want to sell their stock at a loss, no one can stop them. I suppose they look on it as a kind of donation to the NAACP.”

  “Well, that’s a hell of a way to treat a portfolio!”

  But the protest was a mere formality. Hugh Waymark regarded himself as a man on the firing line. To do him justice this had invigorated, rather than oppressed, him. The large modern office, with its paneled elegance hinting at a bar, sun lamp, vibrating chair, and all the other amenities necessary to the demanding business of underwriting, seemed to harbor the whiff of grapeshot.

  “. . . what we’ve got to do is map out our strategy,” he continued.

  Before he could start unrolling maps, Thatcher thought it was time to bring some sanity to the issue before them.

  “I admit this Vita Cola move is unnerving,” he remarked, “but surely it’s a little early for Simpson’s supporters to have gotten their sell orders in and effected.”

  “That’s just it,” said Carruthers. “It can’t possibly be them. They’ll hit later today and tomorrow. The brokers and institutions must have started unloading.”

  Both men turned to look reproachfully at Waymark. “Well, naturally, no one on the Street wants to be hit by an avalanche,” he explained glibly.

  Under the circumstances, it was scarcely tactful to query the movements of Waymark & Sims in Vita Cola. Carruthers chose a roundabout approach instead.

  “But that’s just playing Simpson’s game. Has it occurred to you what he’ll do after he’s forced Vita Cola into a real nose dive?”

  Waymark stirred uneasily. “The Exchange was mumbling something about his going on to another stock.”

  His two colleagues nodded soberly.

  “Of course, the whole thing may blow over before that problem arises,” said Waymark halfheartedly.

  “Blow over!” Carruthers sounded harassed. “You’ll think twice about that once the word leaks out that we met here today.”

  Thatcher was curious. “Are you having trouble at your place?” he asked.

  “Pickets!” said Carruthers in tones of loathing. “We have 40 of them carrying placards in and out of the reception room, choking up the elevator, parading through the lobby. It’s a madhouse.”

  Idly Thatcher inquired about the message of the placards which had descended on Carruthers, Broadside & Pettigrew.

  “That’s just it!” said Carruthers with unusual heat. “Most of them simply said ‘Justice.’ And that’s a fine th
ing to be parading around a law office!”

  Gravely Thatcher concurred.

  “. . . naturally we didn’t want to call the police,” Carruthers explained. “But how can anybody work, when there are 20 people singing in the reception room?”

  “I suppose . . .”

  Carruthers shook his head. “No, John, it was not ‘We Shall Overcome.’ It was some new song.”

  Both Hugh Waymark and John Putnam Thatcher were conspicuously not interested in new songs. It was, then, with some surprise that they heard the normally polished Stanton Carruthers pursue the subject.

  “. . . a good strong tune, and some rousing lyrics, too.”

  “Fine,” said Hugh Waymark. “Now, John . . .”

  “I expect it may catch on,” said Carruthers, speaking with his usual meticulous reflectiveness. “Not that I know much about these things, you understand, but my daughter, Fernanda, seems to buy these records in carload lots.”

  Thatcher sympathized with the fleeting look of bewilderment that he saw on Hugh Waymark’s face. It was gone in a minute; in that minute, Thatcher realized, Hugh Waymark had decided, for reasons known only to himself, that he had let his deep concern over l’affaire Parry or was it l’affaire CASH? Or, l’affaire Vita Cola, for that matter? cause him to commit a social solecism.

  “Ah, yes, Fernanda. She’s coming out next spring, isn’t she?” he said chattily.

  It was Stanton Carruthers’ turn to look bewildered. But legal training gave him the edge when it came to seizing conversational gambits and bending them to his will.

  “Yes, at my mother’s place at Southampton. Now, the reason I mentioned the song is that I want both of you to be prepared.” He waited, satisfied himself that he had their complete attention, and continued: “It’s called ‘The Three Wise Men.’”

  There was a moment of silence.

  Then, with real interest, John Putnam Thatcher said: “Catchy, eh? Tell me, what was the sense of the lyrics?”

  “Confused,” said Stanton Carruthers, repressively.

  Hugh Waymark was manful in the face of adversity. Dismissing folk songs as the least of their current problems, he turned to Thatcher and asked if he had uncovered anything helpful in Katonah.

  Thatcher considered the question, and replied truthfully. “No.”

  He then relented and provided his colleagues with an abbreviated version of his interview with Edward Parry, together with a description of the statement that Parry had promised to issue.

  They listened gloomily. Then, Waymark rose to a height of intelligence that Thatcher had previously felt beyond his reach.

  “The real trouble isn’t Parry. He’s a good man, and he’ll do what he can for us, but . . .” With a short emphatic gesture he indicated the forces now rendering Wall Street hideous. They were indeed bigger than one man, even a man so impressive as Edward Parry. “. . . with open elections,” Waymark continued, launching into a résumé of Richard Simpson’s latest catalog of demands.

  “That man has got the Board of Governors worried.”

  Possibly because of the folk singers, Stanton Carruthers was less imperturbable than usual.

  “Well, I for one am delighted! The three of us are worried. The whole Street is worried. Why the Board should think that it can pretend to be above the struggle has always eluded me.”

  “You’ve made one mistake,” Thatcher pointed out, recalling Katonah. “Nat Schuyler isn’t worried.”

  “Nat Schuyler!” said Carruthers exasperatedly.

  “I don’t blame you,” Thatcher said with a grin.

  Hugh Waymark leaned forward: “Look, Stan, we all agree with you, but we’ve got to try to do something. I can tell you that the Board is very, very worried. Simpson is stirring up trouble right where they live. They’ve got their hands full with this new SEC study.”

  Recalling some of the salvos traded by the SEC and the President of the Exchange recently, Thatcher could well understand their alarm. Both in Congress and in the Commission itself, proponents of increased regulation always become more vociferous when internal policing measures of the Exchange prove inadequate to a crisis.

  And if ever a crisis were running away from the optimists in Exchange Place, this was it.

  Carruthers was thinking along the same lines. He frowned in thought.

  “The Exchange is right to be worried,” he agreed. “You know perfectly well that the SEC doesn’t care what Simpson is doing. But it does care about the reaction downtown. If every member firm panics and dumps whatever stock Simpson mentions, then there’s going to be a lot of talk about the need for government-imposed discipline. I hope to God they can count on the specialists.”

  All three men had professional reasons to remember the SEC investigation sparked by the behavior of one or two floor specialists on the day of the Presidential assassination. The job of the floor specialist is to promote orderly dealing in the stock for which they are responsible. In time of panic, they are expected to firm the market. Most of them do. But it takes only one exception to draw nationwide attention.

  “And the Parry business won’t help,” Thatcher mused aloud. “It hadn’t occurred to me before, but requiring that no seat can be transferred without the approval of the Board does make the Exchange look like a private club, doesn’t it?”

  Carruthers nodded. “Not just the seat. They have to approve any new partner in a member firm.”

  “And why not?” demanded Waymark. “You sound like this Simpson fellow. He’s talking about public accommodations and demanding a right of appeal to the courts.” A delicate shudder passed over his frame. “By God, you can see where that sort of thing might lead!”

  Neither Thatcher nor Carruthers was prepared to stray down this tempting bypath. Instead they wanted to know what Hugh Waymark proposed.

  “I’ve already put an idea of mine to the Board,” he admitted. “If they’re willing to go along, we could get cracking right away.” In the face of a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, he felt the need to quote precedent. “Remember! Surprise is the essence of attack!”

  This stirring battle cry evoked a profound silence which remained unbroken until Waymark’s secretary opened the door to announce the arrival of the Exchange’s emissary.

  His jauntiness unimpaired, in walked Tom Robichaux. “Don’t know why it is,” he rumbled in greeting, “but all I do these days is run errands for Francis.”

  Waymark brushed the complaint aside. “What did the Board say?”

  “They say you’re to open negotiations with Simpson immediately,” said Robichaux, carefully repeating his message. “Francis has every confidence that you will soon have the situation under control.” He looked around the room, examining its occupants, and relaxed his official manner. “Don’t know where he gets that idea, but there it is. This fellow Simpson is nothing but a damned troublemaker.”

  With a start of alarm, Stanton Carruthers said, “I certainly hope you’re not making public statements to that effect.”

  “For God’s sake!” said Robichaux indignantly. “That’s fine thanks for the running around I’m doing. You don’t think I enjoy it, do you? Why I could be—”

  Before Robichaux could get well launched on an enumeration of the alternate activities available and preferable to him, Thatcher intervened with a soothing flow of palliatives. At a moment like this, handling Tom required the infinite patience of a tugboat captain piloting the “Queen Mary,” which in many ways he resembled.

  “. . . very inconvenient, I’m sure. But what I don’t understand is what we’re supposed to negotiate about. It is customary to have something to give, in order to get something.”

  Before his eyes, Hugh Waymark ceased to be a Leader of Men and became a cunning guerrilla chieftain.

  “It depends how you work it,” he said, rubbing his chin craftily.

  Stanton Carruthers drew a deep breath, preparatory, Thatcher guessed, to an explanation that a man who had seized on the Parry crisis with the avidity
of a Richard Simpson could not lightly be detached from television cameras, public protest meetings and the leadership of parades. He was forestalled.

  “We’re not going alone,” said Waymark triumphantly. “We’re going to have Nat Schuyler at the meeting.”

  Thatcher closed his eyes briefly.

  But it was too late for the voice of sanity to make itself heard. By going to the Board first, Waymark had made a neat end play. Nothing remained but to view the debacle.

  The debacle started inauspiciously. By five o’clock the next day, Vita Cola was down eighteen points, and people were playing guitars in the halls of Waymark & Sims. Nat Schuyler, benevolently satanic, received the news calmly as he ushered the Committee of Three into a suite at the St. Regis.

  “Yes, bourbon and branch,” said Waymark, rubbing his hands together. “Been quite a day, quite a day. All hell is breaking loose over at our place.” He chortled in high good humor.

  Really, the man was wasted in underwriting when catastrophe so clearly brought out the best in him.

  “. . . Berman’s making a statement for the TV boys. I thought that was a smart public relations move. Now, before the others get here, we ought to clear up a few points. Just the five of us.” He waved to include Vin McCullough by the bar.

  “By others, you mean CASH?” Schuyler demanded with a cackle.

  “Naturally.”

  Just then, the chimes sounded.

  “And here they are,” said Schuyler with gusto.

  Waymark looked confused. Under cover of the opening door, he hissed at Thatcher, “I thought they weren’t supposed to get here until five-thirty.”

  Thatcher sighed impatiently as they stood up.

  The well-known novelist Richard Simpson and aides accompanied their host into the room. Simpson performed introductions. There was Dr. Matthew Ford, “the well-known sociologist,” and Mrs. Mary Crane. Mrs. Crane, it developed, was well known in connection with hostilities recently directed against the Board of Education.