Sweet and Low_An Emma Lathen Best Seller Read online

  Craig Phibbs, film director of the cinéma vérité variety, doing a film on the greed of the commodities business.

  Fred & Helen Nagle, Longtime John Thatcher & Sloan customers, Owners of Arrow Jobbers, a leading one for Dreyer.

  Wayne Glasscock, Head of the Cocoa Exchange, and Mrs. Glasscock who got movie director Craig Phibbs in the door of the Exchange.

  Mr. Clemence, the Exchange’s PR leader & guide, who showed Phibbs around.

  Ted Kanelos, Ad Agency head of Bridges, Gray & Kanelos, promoting Old Glory candy bars with a photo shoot in Princeton New Jersey’s ideal candy store, the Princeton Corner Newspaper Store.

  Jack & Ann Soler, owners of the Ideal candy store.

  Emma Lathen Political Mysteries

  As R. B. Dominic

  31. Murder Sunny Side Up 1968. Agriculture.

  32. Murder in High Place 1969. Overseas Travelers.

  33. There is No Justice 1971. Supreme Court.

  34. Epitaph for a Lobbyist 1974. Lobbyists.

  35. Murder Out of Commission 1976. Nuke Plants.

  36. The Attending Physician 1980. Health Care.

  37. Unexpected Developments 1983. Military.

  Tom Walker Mysteries

  Patricia Highsmith Style

  Deaver Brown, Author

  01. 18. Football & Superbowl.

  02. Abduct. Sexual Misconduct.

  03. Body. Planned Eliminations for Money.

  04. Comfortable. Avoiding Consequences.

  05. Death. Wrong Place at the Wrong Time.

  06. Enthusiast. Opportunity Murder.

  07. Fraud. Taking Your Chances.

  08. Greed. Heirs Who Know Better.

  09. Heat. Heir Arrogance.

  A similarly popular Simply Media mystery series.

  Financial & Other Facts

  Emma Lathen is all about the money not the emotion. In that light:

  1. To provide financial incentives for collectors, Simply Media and others savings on groups of 6 eBooks, and the SuperSku (learning from the Star Wars franchise) “all in” collections.

  2. Trust that we have all enjoyed this. But as Willie Nelson, Oscar Wilde, and others have said, we aren’t above the money. Stay well. And thanks from all of us on the Emma Lathen team.

  Deaver Brown, Publisher & Editor.

  www.simplymedia.com

  Chapter 1

  The Dreyer Trust & Taxi Collision

  Men, as well as money, make Wall Street the entrepôt of the whole civilized world. Despite the claims of both friend and foe, these indigenes are not a breed apart. Qualifying as an actuary does not exempt anyone from the human condition. Hedge-fund operators are mortal; letter-stock specialists have been known to bleed.

  True, even the mightiest of them is dwarfed by his awesome surroundings. Of course, so are the inhabitants of Grindelwald, Denver, and Lima. But mountains have a better reputation than other high rises. Say Everest or Jungfrau, and you conjure up men to match them; say World Trade Center, and you evoke automatons mistaking profit for enrichment.

  Nothing could be further from the truth. Passions unconnected with negotiated commissions reverberate up and down Wall Street, as John Putnam Thatcher could attest. Certainly, his own particular monadnock, the Sloan Guaranty Trust, would function more efficiently if its personnel were immune from the frailties of the flesh. But as senior vice-president of the third largest bank in the world, Thatcher had file cabinets bulging with evidence of an incontrovertible truth. Initialing contracts, programming computers, and underwriting pilot programs are occasionally arduous, often inconvenient, and always insufficient to extirpate the Old Ned lurking below.

  In fact, Thatcher had long since decided that Wall Street saw more of the real man than most other locales. With all deference to Sigmund Freud and the animal appetites, Wall Street, and the world it serves, proves that sex is not the only outlet for deep-rooted, life-shaping forces. There are also buying and selling.

  Zero population growth was going to get here a lot sooner than the day the New York Stock Exchange had to close its doors.

  It was Thatcher’s taxi mate, Bartlett Sims, who had prompted these musings. Sims, an octogenarian, had necessarily retired from a good many frays, but not from Waymark-Sims. Come hell, high water, or six inches of snow, Sims hauled himself into the office from Amagansett three days each week. Thatcher did not attribute this tenacity solely to the chauffeured Silver Cloud. Plenty of senior citizens were taking the IRT to get the best tonic in the world, an opportunity to watch the younger generation, Hugh Waymark was in his midfifties, mismanage everything.

  The points he scored added years to Sims’ life expectancy and, judging from the sound of it, there was a good chance he would live to be a hundred.

  “Three or four years ago,” Sims was saying, mellow with self-congratulation, “I said to Hugh, Hugh, now’s the time for us to move into the Japanese market. Why leave all the gravy to Burnham? Hugh, I said, you’ve got to keep yourself flexible. No use getting stuck in a rut.”

  “Did you?” said Thatcher appreciatively.

  “Well,” said Sims, puffing out mottled cheeks, “you know the rest!”

  Thatcher did indeed. The Japanese stock market was the last-but-one in a long line of Wall Street Loreleis. Like Xerox, conglomerates, and convertible debentures, it had been the legendary pot of gold at the end of some local rainbows. Those happy few blessed with foresight got more than sordid, material gain. They got brief immortality. Going into Japan at the right time was like predicting exactly when Dow-Jones would reach five, or fifteen, hundred. Those less fortunate admired and lamented. Very few lost loves cast an enchantment as enduring as Polaroid.

  Like most winners, Sims was not unduly modest about his coup, but it did not lead him to forget that these days he was conserving his strength.

  “That’s what they all keep after me about,” he said, scornfully lumping together family, associates and medical advisers. “So, I had to give up sitting on the Leonard Dreyer Trust.”

  Thatcher recognized this pruning for what it was. Service to the community and other worthy pursuits were invariably the first to go. “Your term was up, too,” he pointed out.

  Sims accepted the technicality in good part. “Fought tooth and nail, but I got them to build the Dreyer Medical Center,” he reminisced. “Up until then it was all the Dreyer Museum. Or the Dreyer Arboretum. Or the Dreyer Bach Choir, for Christ’s sake. I just hope”—here he bent a bleak eye on Thatcher—“that you can do as well.”

  Thatcher had known Sims too long to be offended, which was fortunate since the old tartar continued: “I’m glad they named you the new trustee, John. I suppose you couldn’t get out of it, no matter how hard you tried?”

  “I’m going up to Dreyer tonight, for my first trustees’ meeting,” said Thatcher repressively. He had not sought out old Sims for a review of the convulsions which had culminated in his appointment as the newest member of the Leonard Dreyer Trust. He had already given the Sloan’s president and the chairman of the board the benefit of his thinking on that subject.

  “Not a bad bunch, on the whole,” said Sims.

  Considering the source, this was an accolade to the 23 distinguished citizens whose responsibility it was to oversee allocation of the large sums available to the Leonard Dreyer Trust.

  “Of course, there are those college presidents and ministers,” Sims said roundly. “Be sure to keep an eye on them. They’ve always got a million good ways to spend money. I’ve argued myself hoarse trying to explain that you can’t spend what you don’t have.” Exasperation darkened his brow. “Honest to God, sometimes they’re as bad as the United Way!”

  Generosity wars with prudence in every charitable organization. But Thatcher’s current interest was how the sides at the Leonard Dreyer Trust lined up. So he sidestepped the United Way and proceeded:

  “With Howard Vandevanter on the trust ex officio, you didn’t have to fight the battle of the balance sheets by yours
elf, Bart. If he can’t tell the trustees the facts of life, nobody can.”

  Even Sims could scarcely claim to be the solitary champion of budgetary restraint at the Leonard Dreyer Trust, but his agreement was ungenerous. “Vandevanter couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag,” he snorted.

  Since Thatcher had heard him say the same of Hugh Waymark and Bartlett Sims, Jr., he was not overly impressed. Whether Howard Vandevanter relished infighting or not, he had to pack a punch at the Leonard Dreyer Trust, because he was president of the Dreyer Chocolate Company. And Leonard Dreyer’s munificent bequest consisted of 1,300,000 shares of common stock and 44,000 shares of preferred stock of the Dreyer Chocolate Company. The trust’s income came from profits made on the sale of the most famous chocolate bar in the world.

  Belatedly, Sims recalled that he was now above the battle. “Still, Vandevanter does the best he can. Then there’s Yeoman. He’s got a pretty good head on his shoulders—for a politician.”

  Thatcher recalled some of the literature that had already reached his desk. “When you’re a Philadelphia Yeoman and you’ve served one term as governor of Pennsylvania, I believe you’re called a public servant.”

  “Whatever you call him,” Sims ignored distinctions, “Yeoman’s nobody’s fool.” But even this tempered praise went against the grain, so he added: “Although I always said that he isn’t the best man to represent the trust on the company’s board of directors. What you want there is a financial man. And Yeoman doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does. Pressuring Dreyer to raise dividends is all very well sometimes, but not when cocoa prices are skyrocketing. But try telling Yeoman that!”

  He was rudely interrupted. The taxi had stopped for a red light.

  Suddenly, above the prevailing din, there was an ominous squeal, metal crunched against metal, and a rocking thump jolted the cab forward, scattering pedestrians like pigeons.

  Thatcher and Sims were still disentangling themselves when the cabby pushed himself off the steering wheel. “Jesus! You people okay?”

  Before Thatcher could report that all was well in the back seat, the driver had flung himself out of the cab. Sims, meanwhile, angrily retrieved the homburg that had been knocked to the floor.

  “I can’t see what hit us,” Thatcher said after craning to look out the rear window. A solid wall of humanity blanketed them.

  Bartlett Sims did not care. “We’re only a few blocks from my office—and the walk will do me good! Call me anytime you want to talk—”

  With that he liberated himself, disappearing immediately into the crowd.

  Resolutely, Thatcher set aside a temptation to do likewise. He had work demanding his attention at the Sloan and a solemn promise to his secretary to make this a Thursday to remember. Furthermore, those letters and Miss Corsa were even closer to hand than Waymark-Sims.

  But, like Hugh Waymark, for whom he spared a flicker of sympathy, he was not as freewheeling as old Sims. He was not ready to abandon Checker Cab driver Joseph Jerszy (No. 948576k) to his fate. There was also the small matter of the fare. Opening the door, Thatcher plunged toward the second car, which was 15 feet behind its victim, canted to the curb. In front of the crushed radiator, their feet solidly planted in a widening pool of oily green antifreeze, both drivers were bellowing at each other across a large, phlegmatic policeman.

  “. . . just rented the car this morning.” The culprit brandished a sheaf of documents. “I’m a stranger here myself. In Akron . . .”

  “Strangers shouldn’t drive in New York!” Thatcher’s cabby retorted. “How come you got to rent a car? We got subways! We got buses! We got taxis . . .!”

  “What am I supposed to do now? Will the Avis people send me another car?”

  Throughout these simultaneous monologues, the policeman wrote steadily, including Thatcher in his bill of particulars. In time, a tow truck arrived and this vignette of city life dissolved. When last seen, the gentleman from Akron was looking around as if expecting the heavens to open and deliver a four-door sedan with full options.

  Why, Thatcher wondered, did his compatriots regard the automobile as an inalienable right, not a consumer durable? These caustic thoughts carried him to within a block of the Sloan where he was hailed.

  “John, did you catch the docking?”

  Thatcher greeted Charlie Trinkam, his second-in-command at the trust department. Incorrigibly insouciant, Charlie was the only member of the Sloan who could saunter down Exchange Place.

  “Oh, did they finally find each other?” asked Thatcher, without slackening his brisker pace. “I’ve been having lunch with Bartlett Sims. We didn’t see the news.”

  Charlie had the gift of pithy communication. “Yes. It was beginning to look as if NASA and the Russians would never get those space labs together. They’ve been missing connections up there for two days now. You know, for a bunch of high-powered types they seem pretty butterfingered to me. They’re always forgetting to tighten a screw or something.”

  Thanks to his recent experience, Thatcher was inclined to be more charitable. “At least they didn’t run into each other.”

  “Wait until they get more traffic up there,” Charlie said darkly. “They’ll turn it into the New Jersey Turnpike.”

  “Or lower Broadway,” said Thatcher, going on to describe his own vehicular adventure.

  Charlie could take space exploration or leave it. “How was old Bart?” he asked.

  “The same as ever,” Thatcher replied.

  Charlie’s interest in Sims too was minimal but, like everybody at the Sloan, he liked to keep up with Thatcher’s doings.

  Another valued subordinate was bolder. “I hope you and Sims had a fruitful discussion about the Dreyer Trust,” said Everett Gabler, when they encountered him at the elevator. Unlike Charlie, Everett was the embodiment of public and private virtue.

  “That’s right,” said Charlie, snapping his fingers. “You’re the new trustee, aren’t you, John? Well, better you than me.”

  At no time did Everett approve of Charlie. When it came to such solid and substantial philanthropies as the Leonard Dreyer Trust, they were miles apart. But, being no fool, he did not try to melt stone with a recital of good works. Instead, he said: “I understand the trust distributes between eight and ten million dollars every year. I’m sure you’ll agree that John’s advice will be a significant contribution—”

  Innate perversity led Charlie to remonstrate. “Oh sure, sure,” he said, infuriatingly. “But don’t claim dealing with the Dreyer Chocolate Company is going to be anything but a pain in the neck. I like conservative management as well as the next guy—but they’re carrying things too far. Somebody should tell them that World War II is over.”

  Fortunately, Billings, the elevator operator, had delivered them to the sixth floor so Thatcher was able to escape. Irreconcilable disagreements between Charlie and Everett were neither new nor alarming. But before Thatcher emplaned for Dreyer this afternoon, he had better ways of spending his time, such as placating Miss Corsa.

  Could he legitimately plead a traffic accident?

  Before he had completely made up his mind, he was in Miss Corsa’s office.

  “Mr. Vandevanter called,” she reported composedly. “Dreyer will have a car waiting for you at the Albany airport. You have a reservation at the Royal Dutch Motel.”

  Thatcher received these instructions meekly and decided to forgo explanations and apologies.

  They were, he should have known, unnecessary.

  “And the Checker Cab company called,” Miss Corsa added. “It seems that you owe a Mr. Jerszy three dollars and seventy-five cents.”

  As intended, this caught him on the wing.

  “Shall I send a check?”

  “Please do,” said Thatcher politely. Then, from motives that were not altogether admirable, he added: “And, Miss Corsa, let’s not be stingy when it comes to the tip.”

  Chapter 2

  Trustee Meeting & Troublesome Undercurrents

>   Over 80 years ago, a youthful Leonard Dreyer had ignored prudent advice and decided to sink every penny of his savings into a small factory in his home town of Roosendaal, New York. His venture succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The Dreyer Chocolate Company grew from small beginnings to global fame. There were countries where the familiar gold bar had been more than a few ounces of chocolate; it had been a medium of exchange. At home no American reached the age of ten without having established a lifelong preference for the plain bar, the pecan bar, or the raisin bar. Soda fountains from Bangor to Buena Vista boasted pumps for Dreyer syrup and vats for Dreyer hot fudge. In millions of kitchens, hot chocolate was made with Dreyer cocoa, cookies were baked with Dreyer Tastibits, and layer cakes were enriched with Dreyer cooking chocolate.

  By the time he died, full of years and honor, Leonard Dreyer had created his own monuments. First and foremost was the Dreyer Chocolate Company, itself, part industrial giant and part national landmark. Then there was the Leonard Dreyer Trust, to whose two-day meetings John Thatcher and others were hurrying. Finally there was Roosendaal, which duly recognized a fait accompli and became Dreyer, New York, “The Chocolate Capital of the World.”

  Like most of Wall Street, Thatcher had long been familiar with the company. It had a reputation for being financially sound and conservative to the point of stodginess. The 35 mile drive west from the Albany airport explained why it had nevertheless prospered. The rolling countryside was mellow with lush and abundant pasturage. At intervals signs for Amsterdam and Rotterdam Junction, for Canajoharie and Utica, testified to earlier inhabitants of this corner of upstate New York. In the land of James Fenimore Cooper, the Thruway along which they were speeding paralleled the old Mohawk Trail.

  Finally they reached the Chocolate City itself. Everything was clean, neat, and prosperous. Far from being a grimy company town, Dreyer boasted a superabundance of parks, fountains, and playing fields. All these amenities, Thatcher feared, were about to become his responsibility. But there was no time to brood. He had barely deposited his belongings in the Royal Dutch Motel before the printed schedule demanded his presence in the Rembrandt Room for a business meeting of the Leonard Dreyer Trust.