Death Shall Overcome Page 9

  Did Caldwell realize that he was playing Schuyler’s game? Thatcher thought not. But a healthy instinct of self-preservation would have rung an alarm at Schuyler’s next words.

  “Did you, now? That was very thoughtful of you, my boy,” he said, his voice silkier by the second. “Now that you’ve assured our personal safety, was there anything else?”

  Caldwell stood his ground, but it was at Vin McCullough that he looked. “I’ve got those reports on the holdings in Art’s accounts that you wanted. You can look at them now.”

  “I don’t have time now. You’d better send them along to my office,” replied McCullough, pointedly disassociating himself from the departing chief analyst.

  Schuyler was amused by the exchange. “You’ll have to look at those reports some time, Vin. And he’ll make you go to him. So he can sound out your loyalties.”

  “He makes me sick,” said McCullough suddenly.

  “Yes. An object lesson to us all. But a very good analyst. The reports will make nice reading.”

  McCullough relaxed. “They’d better. I got three more cancellations from clients in Biloxi this morning.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Thatcher dryly. “I can scarcely believe that there isn’t a lot of business heading toward Schuyler & Schuyler. I can almost hear it pattering down from Clovis Greene.”

  Vin McCullough grinned. He was hardened to Nat Schuyler’s tactics but he enjoyed watching their effect on outsiders.

  “But those will be Parry’s accounts,” he said.

  “And it is about Ed Parry that we wanted to speak to you. Is he here by the way?”

  “No.” Nat Schuyler shook his head. “Do you want to see him?”

  “Yes. We”—and Thatcher included the rest of the committee in a sweep of his hand—“would like to get a statement from him, urging calm and forbearance on the public scene.”

  “I think we can do better than that,” replied Schuyler, who obviously had the whole statement already planned. “Mind you, I don’t know whether Ed will agree to this. But you could suggest that he say he has every confidence in the integrity and fairness of the Stock Exchange. We filed our application yesterday. In the normal course of events, it will be reviewed by the Department of Membership Firms and then by the Board of Governors. Fortunately, Ed more than meets the personal and financial qualifications involved. That should make approval of the application a certainty, unless he has misjudged the spirit guiding the Exchange. I think he would be willing to say publicly that an imputation of such gross bias and inequality should not be made until the Exchange has had an opportunity to conduct its normal clearance activities.”

  Thatcher drew a breath. “That will do nicely,” he said firmly. “What you’re saying is that all hell will break loose if they don’t give him his seat. Our mission seems to be to keep things calm until the Exchange makes its decision. I am not prepared to cross any additional bridges. Right?”

  Carruthers and Waymark indicated their approval, and an appointment was finally made for a meeting with Parry on Monday morning. On their way out Schuyler smiled diabolically and asked them to convey his regards to Lee Clark if they were stopping by at Clovis Greene.

  “How did he know we were going upstairs?” asked Waymark resentfully.

  “Because he’s an old devil,” said Carruthers, punching the button for the 32nd floor. “And I am very glad I’m in the law business. We steal our clients from each other much more quietly.”

  Clovis Greene had the grace to be slightly abashed when its sins were firmly pointed out.

  “I’m sorry if they made it sound like a riot, Stanton,” said Lee Clark. “We’re all on edge. The fact is, we really do have a near riot in our Harlem office. And when the pickets started to show up here we drought it was going to be the same thing all over.”

  Carruthers had not spent years cross-examining hostile witnesses on disputed wills for nothing.

  “Exactly what is going on at the Harlem office?” he demanded.

  “The police have got 15 men there, and I can tell you that they’re not putting out that kind of man power lightly. There’s a mob in the street that’s forced them to reroute traffic, the pickets are inside the office and there’s been trouble with the help. And if that isn’t enough, there’s a line around the block of customers waiting to close their accounts.” He ran a hand through his hair and suddenly looked very tired. “I don’t know how they expect us to close all their accounts if they frighten the help away.”

  Thatcher found himself silently thanking heaven that the Committee’s geographical jurisdiction might reasonably be held to end at Park Row. “That is very unfortunate,” he said as sympathetically as he could. He knew perfectly well that Lee Clark was looking old and tired because he saw his position at Clovis Greene going down the drain. “We all want to prevent an outbreak of that sort here. Particularly the line of customers withdrawing. Now, are you prepared to join Schuyler & Schuyler in a plea for peace in the streets?”

  “Sure, sure.” Clark waved his hand vaguely. “You might also say that we have no racial bias. We just don’t happen to know any Black millionaires we can pull out of our pocket.”

  Thatcher firmly reminded himself that he had already decided not being Owen Abercrombie was enough. Nevertheless the Committee would be wise to expect nothing better than self-pity from Lee Clark in the trying days ahead. He said as much as they drafted hasty bromides on the downward plunge.

  “That’s that,” said Carruthers with satisfaction. “Now all we have to do is read this to those pickets outside. Then I can get back to work.”

  But outside was no longer what it had been. From nowhere had come a fleet of trucks outrigged with booms at the end of which perched large cameras and small men. Yards and yards of cable festooned the street, while young men with deep, unctuous voices roamed up and down, microphone in hand.

  “And this,” said one of them in an oily voice of friendly doom, “is Miss Shirley Glauber from Brooklyn College. Tell our viewers, Shirley, why you have come here to picket Clovis Greene.”

  Miss Glauber tossed her pony tail and proceeded to harangue the network’s listeners in tones destined to carry her far in the League of Women Voters.

  Out of the comer of his eye, Thatcher saw two microphones heading for his nose. Well, he thought bitterly, at least he was not wearing furry headgear for his debut on nationwide television.

  Chapter 8

  Tidings from Afar

  WHILE Sturm und Drang raged on Wall Street, peace and serenity reigned in Katonah, Westchester. That, of course, is why people live there. But Ed Parry, after an hour with the newspapers and mail, looked on his sunlit lawns with patent dissatisfaction. He had just come in from the hall phone.

  “That was the office calling,” he explained to his wife. “Nat’s bringing Thatcher up here. They’re on the way.”

  “We could ask them to stay to lunch.”

  “Yes.” Parry shifted restlessly. Then he burst out: “It doesn’t seem right. Maybe I should have insisted on going in to meet them.”

  “Oh, Ed!”

  Then suddenly Gloria Parry started to laugh.

  Her husband looked up in hurt bewilderment.

  “What have I said that’s so funny?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not what you’re saying, it’s what you’re feeling. For 42 years you’ve been feeling guilty because you haven’t suffered with the problems of most Blacks. You’ve felt like a draft-dodger because money has protected you from most of the nastiness . . . finding a job, or moving into a garden apartment, or getting a decent education for your children. Now somebody’s tried to poison you, you’ve been shot at, and eggs have been thrown at you. And what do you do? Do you stop feeling guilty?” She answered her own question by another gurgle of mirth. “Not a bit of it. You just shift your ground and start feeling guilty because you aren’t suffering the tribulations of all the other brokers down on Wall Street. You are! Admit it!”

  “
It’s not exactly that,” he hedged. “It’s just that I can’t help realizing what I’ve stirred up. After all, I’ve been in the banking business all my life. I know what’s going on at places like Clovis Greene. And all this doesn’t help.” He flicked a derisive finger at the front page featuring beatnik pickets and Richard Simpson outlining plans for his great March. “And then . . .” he halted uncertainly.

  “And then?” challenged Gloria.

  “And then I wonder what good it’s doing. After all, there aren’t thousands of Blacks waiting to buy seats on the Exchange.”

  “There you go again. Of course there aren’t. But you know as well as I do that you can crack an institution much faster from the top than the bottom. It will make a big difference downtown if there’s a prominent Black at the top—a difference in hiring secretaries and customer’s men and research analysts. And, Ed, even you can’t deny that this has dramatized the question of potential Black investment.”

  “I suppose so,” he said gloomily. “But at the price of bringing discomfort to a lot of people.”

  Gloria’s tone grew brisker. “There’s always discomfort when you change things. Particularly to the people who don’t want a change. And even to innocent bystanders. But so long as it’s nothing worse than discomfort, the job you’re doing is worth it. And, I hope you aren’t wasting any of this sympathy on Nat Schuyler.”

  Suddenly her husband grinned. “No, I haven’t lost my mind completely. He’s having a grand time. He knew exactly what he was taking on. The whole thing was his idea, and he’s going to make a lot of money out of it.” The momentary gaiety faded from his voice. “That seems like a hell of a motive for something like this.”

  “It’s the motive for most financial moves,” said Gloria dryly.

  “You don’t like Nat, do you?”

  “It’s not a question of liking him. I feel profoundly grateful to him.”

  “How’s that?”

  “He’s the only thing that makes it all possible. You couldn’t stand this if you had to deal with a burning zealot. You’d have to worry about him all the time. But with Nat, you’re completely safe. If they dynamite Schuyler & Schuyler tomorrow, Nat will be dug out of the shambles chortling over how he can use the bombing in his next maneuver.”

  “I don’t have to worry about anybody at Schuyler & Schuyler. Even Vin McCullough is going to make a pretty penny out of this, too, in the long run.”

  “And Dean Caldwell?” asked Gloria slyly.

  Her husband frowned. “I may be soft,” he replied, “but I’m not crazy. Dean Caldwell can take care of himself!”

  “Good! Believe it or not, so can the Governors of the New York Stock Exchange. If you could only realize that they can live through the experience of having to make a lot of statements, and even walk through a picket line, you’d be much more comfortable about the whole thing.”

  Not for the first time, Ed Parry realized that his wife’s armor was thicker than his. Gloria’s father had been one of the first Blacks to be elevated to the federal bench. But she had grown up the daughter of a struggling colored lawyer without the protection of a healthy bank balance. The rewards that had come into the Cole family’s life had come late enough to be the rewards of endeavor. Gloria Cole Parry bore no burden of guilt, and she had considerable experience with racial problems which her husband had been spared.

  “I don’t know that I have any right to be comfortable,” he concluded glumly. “And I suppose I’m not being truthful with myself, or I’d admit that one of the things that bothers me is the loss of our privacy. I hate the idea of being a professional Black man of distinction. For years I’ve gone out of my way not to have articles in the magazines or let myself be exploited by the State Department—and now, this!”

  Gloria grinned. “Yes, there’s been no nonsense about get the feel of the water. you dived in all the way.”

  She smiled at him with great affection.

  Almost grudgingly, he started to return her smile,

  “Yes. And I know what you’re thinking–even if you don’t say it. If I don’t have the right to be comfortable, what makes me think I’ve got the right to be private? And if I get that seat, I will be doing some good.”

  “When,” corrected Gloria firmly.

  The smile broadened, “When I get that seat,” he agreed. “And for somebody who was lukewarm about this whole affair, you certainly are turning into an activist.”

  “Oh, you’ll see me marching with a banner yet.” She did not bother to explain that her motive for activism was the support and comfort of Ed Parry. That would probably make him feel guilty, too. Instead she nodded toward the window overlooking the drive. “That must be your visitors.”

  Two minutes later, Thatcher was being introduced to his hostess. Ed Parry started off by apologizing for making them drive to Katonah.

  “It’s the Police Commissioner,” he explained. “There was a little trouble Friday night. He wants to give me an escort when I go into the city.”

  Everybody contemplated the spectacle of a potential member of the Exchange moving through New York under heavy police guard.

  “You didn’t go into any details about the trouble, Ed, when you called,” said Nat Schuyler bluntly. “Was it another shooting?”

  No, it hadn’t been anything like that. There had been a crowd of hecklers waiting for his taxi when he got to Grand Central. There had been shoving and a few rotten eggs thrown. The police had broken it up.

  “Under the circumstances,” concluded Parry mildly, “it seemed best to minimize the number of my visits to the city. For everybody’s sake.”

  Thatcher was heartened by this display of self-control. He realized that the Committee, Wall Street and New York could congratulate themselves that they were dealing with sober, responsible adults, not fire-eating young lunatics. Like Gloria Parry, he was beginning to be profoundly thankful that Nat Schuyler, as prime mover of this drama, was so dégagé in his motives. Giving partial expression to these thoughts, he said:

  “That encourages me to feel that you’ll agree to a suggestion made by Mr. Schuyler. It would involve asking the Black community to suspend judgment until the Exchange has had an opportunity to complete its normal review of your application for membership.”

  Now that the participants of the meeting were getting down to business, Gloria Parry made an excuse and started to rise.

  “No, Gloria, don’t go.” Her husband waved her back and turned to the others. “This concerns my wife as much as it concerns me. I’d like to have her consider this, too.”

  The consideration turned out to be protracted, no doubt due to the alarming range of connotations that can be quickened into life by any single sentence in the English language. Happily the group was as one in deploring violence, but . . .

  He was the last man in the world to condone mob rule, said Nat Schuyler blandly, but it was every American’s God-given right to change stockbrokers. Transferring an account from Clovis Greene to Schuyler & Schuyler did not constitute a threat to the community. Particularly if the customer were moved by certain aspects of the whole man.

  “It must be clearly understood that the Exchange is as far above a bribe as a threat,” John Putnam Thatcher found himself saying. Its rarefied deliberations would pursue their stately course unswayed by both abstention from violence and the hideous specter of mobs chanting at the window. There could be no suggestion of a bargain with the Black community.

  The Parrys, not to be outdone, also had difficulties. They would willingly withhold judgment on the Exchange until presented with irrefutable proof of racial bias. In return, the Parry application must be treated as the normal exercise of a millionaire prerogative. Ed Parry was not approaching the New York Stock Exchange by the back door, hat in hand, humbly asking for a favor. And while he was prepared to plead for peace, he would countenance no suggestion that there had been any Black violence.

  “Because there hasn’t been any,” he said firmly. “Look
at what has actually happened. Aside from a few pickets and a few speeches, there has been only one kind of violence.”

  “Exactly,” chimed in Nat Schuyler. “A series of murderous attacks on Art Foote and on Ed. Not to mention a little egg-throwing.”

  Parry intervened. “The egg-throwing is a natural result of the situation, Nat. You can’t hitch it up with the other two.”

  “All the same, it must have stemmed from Wall Street.”

  “Oh?” asked Thatcher.

  “Certainly. Ed, here, isn’t a household face, and his daily agenda isn’t published in the newspapers. That gang must have had some grounds for believing he would be at Grand Central on Friday. Isn’t that right, Ed?”

  But Parry, who had seen where Schuyler’s argument was leading, merely looked acutely uncomfortable.

  “I still don’t see how that ties in with Wall Street.”

  Schuyler leaned back expansively.

  “Because Ed was going to a dinner with some bond dealers; that was common gossip in the luncheon clubs. And there aren’t many trains to Katonah after the rush hour. Anybody could figure out when Ed would be showing up at Grand Central. And, of course, a resident of Katonah would know, without even having to think about it.”

  “Why don’t you say it, Nat?” Parry shook his head angrily. “You think Owen Abercrombie arranged that little reception for me at the station. For that matter, I wouldn’t put it past him. But that doesn’t have anything to do with slipping nicotine into Art Foote’s tomato juice.”

  “You know perfectly well that the police think your Bloody Mary was the target for that nicotine. But I too find it difficult to see Owen fooling around with any sleight of hand with poison packets. He’d be much more likely to spray the room with a machine gun. I do wonder if somebody didn’t tip him off about your movements last Friday. Maybe put him up to creating a disturbance. Because what you have to face is that we do have a murderer around here. And Owen Abercrombie would make a perfect stalking horse for him.”