Death Shall Overcome Page 13

  He rose.

  “Doesn’t know his place,” Caldwell was continuing. “And you know what?”

  Irritably McCullough moved past Thatcher to take the seat indicated for him.

  “What?” he repeated.

  Stanton Carruthers was silently radiating disapproval.

  “Some people are going to do something about it. And I’m going to be with them.”

  “Can’t someone shut him up?” Carruthers whispered to Thatcher.

  “Apparently not,” he replied. “Let’s get out of here.”

  But before they could escape, they were privileged to hear McCullough evenly pointing out the advantages of self-control to Caldwell. The technician woodenly continued beautifying both of them.

  “No, I’m not getting into trouble, Vin. You’ll see.”

  His slyness would have roused suspicion in a man far more obtuse than Vin McCullough.

  “Look, Dean, I’m just trying to give you some good advice. At a time like this, the prudent thing to do is to keep your mouth shut and watch your step.”

  “That’s the trouble with everybody,” said the younger man sullenly. “They’re so busy being prudent, they forget they’re alive.”

  McCullough interrupted impatiently.

  “I know you don’t want to be slow and cautious. You’ve got some crazy idea about strutting down to Lincoln Center Saturday night with your friend Abercrombie and making trouble for Ed Parry.”

  “So you think you know all the ideas in my head, do you?” smiled Caldwell unpleasantly. “Say what you want, Owen Abercrombie is more of a man than anybody else down here. He doesn’t run around licking people’s boots.”

  “He doesn’t have to,” said McCullough dryly. “He’s head of his firm. You’re not.”

  “You’re a fool if you think Owen wouldn’t be man enough to do what he knows is right, whether or not he was a partner.”

  McCullough retreated from his attack on Caldwell’s mentor. “Maybe so, maybe so. God knows he’s crazy enough! But, Dean, let me tell you, starting riots at Lincoln Center is no business for an employee of Schuyler & Schuyler, even if he is the best research man we’ve ever had.”

  Caldwell preened himself in the mirror as the makeup man finished his ministrations. “It may turn out that Schuyler & Schuyler needs me more than I need them. And, anyway, what’s so important about Lincoln Center?”

  “It’s the NAACP benefit. Half the bigwigs in the city will be there. If you start anything there, the networks will play it up all over the country.”

  “It’s time they did,” said Caldwell defiantly. “They’ve been hiding things from people long enough.”

  Vin McCullough brought his fist down on the counter. “For God’s sake, will you listen to sense! And try to talk some into your friend Abercrombie.”

  “Pu-leese!” said the beautician haughtily.

  Caldwell’s reply was lost to Thatcher and Carruthers. “Well, McCullough tried to talk turkey to that boy. But if you ask me, not a word got through,” said Carruthers.

  Thatcher grunted disapprovingly. “I don’t think any word could get through.”

  “You’re right,” said McCullough, catching up with them in the corridor and overhearing. “I suppose it isn’t worth the trouble.”

  “Well, the effort does you credit,” said Thatcher, not mincing matters, “but frankly I didn’t like the way he seized on Lincoln Center.”

  McCullough groaned. “I know, I know. But we can’t tiptoe around watching every word we say, for fear that boy will get himself into trouble. He’s got to get used to the idea we’re going to have a Black partner.”

  “Don’t we look fine!” trebled Willy, darting up to them. “This way . . .”

  Within minutes all chaos was resolved. Thatcher, Carruthers, and the late-arriving Hugh Waymark sat at one side of the long table, facing the staff of Schuyler & Schuyler, including a glowering Dean Caldwell. Nat Schuyler, together with Edward Parry and the interlocutor, who was the forceful and bitter man, sat at the head of the table.

  Upon a signal that transfixed everybody, Edward Parry cleared his throat. Then, in his pleasant resonant baritone, he carefully read his statement. It was, Thatcher decided, about as much as they could have hoped for. Parry first expressed formal confidence in the New York Stock Exchange’s fairness. He was, he continued, opposed to violence and extremism.

  Parry spoke calmly and without embarrassment. Thatcher mentally applauded him. He knew enough of the man to know he must detest this whole performance, almost as much as Dean Caldwell, if for different reasons. But Edward Parry had learned self-discipline.

  When he finished his remarks, the interlocutor asked Nathaniel Schuyler a question. Schuyler was at his best, exuding venerability, wisdom and saintly tolerance.

  “. . . and I would be most interested,” he said with a straight face, “in hearing the opinion of our distinguished representatives from the Stock Exchange.”

  When Stanton Carruthers responded without hesitation, Thatcher thought he discerned a fleeting look of disappointment in Schuyler’s benevolent eye.

  “OK.!” shouted somebody.

  Everybody relaxed.

  “Very, very good,” said Nat Schuyler, rising stiffly. “I think that was excellent, Ed.”

  Turning, John Thatcher happened to catch sight of Dean Caldwell watching the head of his firm congratulate Ed Parry.

  It provided him considerable food for thought.

  Chapter 12

  I Was a Wandering Sheep

  20 MINUTES LATER, Thatcher was returning to the Sloan, a prey to new and unwelcome sensations. Ordinarily devoid of self-consciousness, he now sensed every eye upon him. His ears turned scarlet as a muted giggle broke from two stenographers behind him. Common sense told him they were deep in discussion of their own affairs. But what price common sense, when a man has been subjected to ordeal by television?

  Rising to haunt him were the numbers proudly flaunted by networks in pursuit of sponsors. Our daily news program is watched by 10 million viewers, by 20 million, by 50 million. In fact, by everyone between the ages of 10 and 80. “Good God!” And he almost said it aloud.

  For weeks to come he would be dogged by reminders of the horror so recently undergone. Mrs. Corsa, out in Queens, would have something to say. Charlie Trinkam would be more outspoken. There would be the housekeeper of the Devonshire, the elevator operator, taxicab drivers . . . The list was endless.

  It almost seemed worthwhile to discover important business in Poona.

  Then he remembered the furry hats.

  This is the tragedy of our time, Thatcher thought as he strode along. The illusion of refuge is gone. No comfortable sensations of security rise at the thought of Tahiti, the Himalayas, or Arabia Desert.

  Things have changed. Nowadays, Gauguin’s family in Paris could enliven dull evenings by following the adventures of their gallivanting husband and papa among dusky island beauties. The Grand Lama of Shangri-La would conduct a Sunday morning program of spiritual uplift, and Lawrence of Arabia would be interviewed on camelback about the Cyprus question.

  “Tell me, Monsieur Gauguin, what exactly made you decide to give up banking for painting? And perhaps we could introduce this young lady to our viewers?”

  “Now, the Reverend Grand Lama—do I have that right, sir?—will give us his views on attaining personal serenity.”

  “If you could just hold that dynamite a little higher, Colonel Lawrence, our listeners could see exactly how you go about blowing up a train.”

  There is no sanctuary. A man might as well face it out on Wall Street.

  Thatcher’s spirits began to rise. If there was nothing to be gained by exile to polar snow drifts or glaring deserts, then he might as well enjoy his notoriety in the comfort of New York, where, in addition to central heating and indirect lighting, he had the advantages of rank and position. Millions of people might be dying to tell him what they thought of his television performance, but the combi
ned efforts of Miss Corsa at the Sloan and the entire staff at the Devonshire should insulate him from the more immediate manifestations of this peril.

  Unfortunately, one of the people from whom not even the redoubtable Miss Corsa could protect him was the Sloan’s Chairman of the Board. The message to call George Lancer was marked urgent.

  “What’s this all about, Miss Corsa?” Thatcher asked, frowning down at the memo slip.

  With a monumental lack of interest, Miss Corsa professed ignorance.

  “But Mr. Lancer’s secretary did say it was very important, and would you please call back as soon as you got in.”

  Thatcher sighed.

  For Lancer to be in a flap about something which had escaped Miss Corsa was ominous.

  There was only one way to find out. Grimly he nodded to his handmaiden and within seconds was greeting the Chairman of the Board.

  “John? Thank God!”

  This was scarcely reassuring.

  “What seems to be the matter, George?” asked Thatcher, already displaying that tendency to belittle trouble that comes to the best of us, when faced with strong displays of anxiety.

  “It’s that damned lunatic, Withers. We ought to keep him locked up.”

  There was a moment of appalled silence. Thatcher knew perfectly well that only extreme provocation could have sparked this trenchant candor.

  “What’s he done this time?” he asked, treading warily.

  “You know about the tour for UN junior staff?”

  Thatcher did. An annual event arranged for the benefit of UN financial types new to New York, the tour included important and historic spots in the Wall Street district. Among them, naturally, was the Sloan, where Bradford Withers was in the habit of making a short ceremonial speech of welcome. It was the kind of thing he enjoyed doing, and did well.

  “But what can have gone wrong?” demanded Thatcher. “He does it every year.”

  “Well, this year he had some extra time on his hands, and he insisted on escorting them up to see the new employees’ dining room. You know,” Lancer added in bitter parenthesis, “how loony Brad is about that dining room. We never should have let him pick out the murals himself. Anyway, as soon as they got there, somebody from Tanzania asked him about segregated eating facilities.”

  “Oh, God! What did he say?”

  “I gather that part wasn’t so bad,” Lancer admitted grudgingly. “He made some stately remark about the Sloan not tolerating that sort of thing and this wasn’t Mississippi. In fact, the whole thing would have blown over except that some little twerp from the Congo insisted that the colored dining room was being hidden from the tour, and finally it dawned on Brad that the guy was calling him a liar.”

  “And then?” asked Thatcher with sinking heart.

  “Then he blew up and said Wall Street didn’t want outsiders telling it how to run things, particularly outsiders with plenty of riots themselves. That got picked up by every wire service in the country. Wait a minute . . . I’ve got the damned thing here somewhere . . . I’ll read it to you.”

  There was a pause while George Lancer could he heard shuffling the papers on his desk and adjusting his glasses. His voice had a savage bite as he continued:

  “ ‘Wall Street wants no outsiders,’ declared the President of the Sloan Guaranty Trust today in discussing racial tensions in the financial community with a delegation from the United Nations. Bradford Withers went on to deplore violence among groups seeking admission to the select downtown community’ . . . and so on . . . and so on. Got the picture?”

  So much for distracting attention from the Sloan by not holding meetings of the Committee of Three on its premises. Thatcher could already hear the guitar-strummers beating at the front door.

  “Yes,” he said wearily, “I’ve got the picture.”

  “So naturally we’ve got a press conference scheduled. To try to correct the impression that’s gone out—”

  “You’re not going to let Brad talk to them?” Thatcher made no attempt to conceal his alarm.

  “Of course not. You and I are taking them on. It won’t do any good,” said Lancer with defeatist realism, “but it’s the least we can do.”

  Three hours later, with Bradford Withers safely packed off to start a long weekend on his estate in Connecticut, Thatcher found himself giving guarded answers to a young man from Tass. No doubt the interview would enliven the front page of tomorrow’s edition of Pravda. The young man asked long, involved questions to which there was no innocent answer. Thatcher delivered elaborate statements which were totally unresponsive to any question in the world. Lancer had already performed yeoman service in a more acrimonious exchange with a representative from the official organ of the Rhodesian Association for National Union.

  Under Thatcher’s right hand rested a hastily compiled file setting forth statistics about the original hiring, subsequent promotion, present salary and future prospects of every Black employee of the Sloan, as well as past public statements, union clauses, and internal memoranda on the subject. Curiously enough the chief emotion exercising Thatcher at the moment was pure, undiluted chivalry. He was prepared to go down fighting in defense of the privacy of a woman he had never met. Her name was Mrs. Joyce Morse, and she was the only Black teller employed in the main office of the Sloan. Should her existence ever be revealed, she would spend the rest of her life being hauled in front of television cameras, while unctuous young people asked offensive questions about what it was really like in the ladies’ room.

  “No,” he said, sadly shaking his head at the man from Tass as if the necessity for denial were a personal grief. “I am afraid it is against our policy to release a branch-by-branch breakdown of our figures. I can tell you that 132 Blacks are employed in the capacities you have mentioned. That is for the bank as a whole, of course.”

  The man from Tass then asked a long question designed to show that, even though the Sloan’s dining facilities were not segregated, things were as bad as though they were.

  Thatcher countered with an equally lengthy reply challenging the Soviet Union to produce one black bank president, and implying that, if the Sloan knew of a qualified candidate, they would rush out and hire him at once. As he mouthed this inanity, he reflected that they could scarcely do worse than with the president they already had. With the honors about even, Lancer rose to take on Reuters. In many ways these innings with the foreigners were a warm-up, centering as they did on facts and situations. The domestic press, Thatcher feared, would be much more interested in personalities.

  He was right. After the London Economist, Le Matin and Der Spiegel had had their sessions, and after the man from a Bombay daily had made it clear that, in India, John Putnam Thatcher was a household name, there was a muted hush of expectancy. Then the dam burst.

  Where was Withers? Was he hiding? Had the NAACP communicated with the Sloan? Had Thatcher heard what Richard Simpson said about Withers’ statement, and did he care to comment? Was it true that Lancer was making a personal apology to Edward Parry? Was the Sloan supporting Owen Abercrombie’s attempt to blackball Nathaniel Schuyler from two luncheon clubs? Was City Hall declaring the Sloan off-limits to the UN? Had all the Black employees of the Sloan been given two weeks’ vacation, a bonus and orders to go to Las Vegas? Had the Stock Exchange demanded Thatcher’s resignation from the Committee of Three? Did Edward Parry and Bradford Withers belong to the same yacht club? Was the Secretary of State closeted with the Sloan’s Board of Directors?

  And on, and on, and on. When the last journalist had been ushered out by the still feebly smiling representatives of the Sloan, a great silence seemed to fall on the room.

  Lancer’s first action was to summon brandy. Then he looked at his associate.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “I am past thought,” said Thatcher acidly. “All I can rely on now is my will to survive.”

  Lancer poured two healthy snifters before mopping his brow. “We’re going to have to produc
e Withers,” he said unhappily.

  “Yes. But in our own time, and in our own way. That’s all we could hope to gain.”

  “I suppose so. If we could just prevent questions . . .”

  Thatcher pondered. He was reminded of Nat Schuyler’s trafficking with CASH. A little of the same kind of duplicity seemed indicated. Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Board was dispiritedly reviewing the possibilities within the Sloan’s staff.

  “It’s useless to think we’ll get any help from the public relations people. They’re the ones who organized this massacre.” He stared around the recently vacated room balefully.

  “I don’t think that’s the right line to pursue,” said Thatcher slowly.

  Lancer looked at him hopefully. “You’ve thought of something.”

  “Yes,” admitted Thatcher. “You may think this is crazy. But the man who could help us is Edward Parry.”

  Soundlessly the chairman whistled. “Well, it’s a different approach all right. What exactly were you thinking of?”

  “We could get Parry and Withers together on a platform somewhere, with Brad more or less appearing under Parry’s egis. Ed Parry would understand the kind of occasion we want. Something where Brad can do a public mea culpa in sympathetic surroundings. God knows Parry must have occasions by the handful right now.”

  “Would he do it?” asked Lancer doubtfully.

  “I don’t know. He might. This isn’t the kind of publicity he wants, any more than we do. And,” concluded Thatcher in the tones of one summarizing the 39 Articles of Faith, “he is a banker.”

  The chairman brightened. “Then I’ll leave it to you. If you can find the right way to approach him, it will have to be done delicately, you know, then go ahead. But, if it’s going to do us any good, it’ll have to be done pretty fast.”

  One thing Thatcher was learning from this whole mess: every horror can be outstripped by some subsequent outrage. For the past week his life had consisted of events, any one of which should have been a climax of discomfort to be recovered from at leisure, lingering in the memory as an eminence towering above its surroundings. But at the pace he was now living, recollection could barely stretch back for two hours.