Of the ten who had been at the original meeting, eight would be present today, being all but BJ, now hospitalized, and Sterling, staying home today because of Elizabeth’s death. (A lucky break, that, in a way; it would be hard to tell how Sterling would react to the suggestion Wellington was going to make.) The other eleven included William and Walter Wellington and John Bloor, the three family members with the law firm; Sterling’s other son, Edward, here from his diplomatic post in Paris for the funeral; Walter Wellington’s twenty-one-year-old son, Thomas, and his New York stockbroker cousin, Mortimer; Joe Holt’s son Gregory; James Fanshaw, the psychiatrist; John Bloor’s father, a Cleveland banker, Edward Bloor; and another pair of banking Bloors, these from Baltimore, Albert Sr. and Albert Jr. The only reasonably safe location outside Washington for these nineteen men to meet was the motion picture screening room in the twenty-sixth floor offices of Collins, Wellington, Smart.
Now, in apparent response to a phone call from the receptionist, the impressive doors of that law firm opened and out came a short, stocky man of about thirty-five, who introduced himself as John Bloor, shaking hands around and smiling in a muted fashion, as though already in rehearsal for tomorrow’s funeral. He told them that most of the others were already present, and then led them down a series of airy, carpeted halls with off-white walls. Small functional cubicles could be seen through every doorway. From the bareness of the walls, this was one of the firms that maintained an approved list of pictures and other items that might be hung in the cubicles.
The screening room, trapezoid-shaped, was about half full. Wellington and Eugene, both being speakers, moved to the front row, Eugene exchanging half a dozen greetings on the way, Wellington moving more invisibly. The room had gray fabric walls, a pockmarked baffle-filled ceiling that looked like a futuristic city model upside down, and a featureless heavy-looking gray curtain closed over the screen.
Wellington did not sit, but stood in a front corner, considering the men in the room. They were his raw material, and he studied them carefully before starting to deal with them. He had two things to do with them today: first, to organize them into an effective defense for Bradford at the funeral tomorrow, and second, to convince them that his plan for Bradford’s future was not only feasible but the best possible answer. On the latter questions, he would have to do so even though he couldn’t state to them directly that the alternative was Bradford’s death, though he would attempt to make them understand that allusively. Unfortunately, people tend to disbelieve the possibility of violence in their own spheres, and several of these men would not be able to think about much of anything but the drain Wellington was proposing to put on their wallets.
The door opened again, and a final group came in: Howard Lockridge, Robert Pratt, Gregory Holt. Wellington, having done a head count, went over to where Eugene was chatting with Edward Lockridge, and said, “We’re all here, Gene.”
“Are we? Good. I’ll introduce you in just a minute, all right?”
“Fine,” Wellington said, and went to sit down in a corner of the first row.
Gene called the meeting together. He thanked them for coming. If Wellington were a smiling man, he would have smiled; by exerting pressure in one direction, he had stalled this meeting for over a week, and by exerting pressure in the other direction he had brought the meeting into existence in less than a day. He wondered how Howard would react to that, if he knew it. Badly.
Gene spoke briefly. All of them in the room now knew about Bradford, so that explanation didn’t have to be gone through yet again. Gene’s opening remarks were therefore very short, finishing with, “Because he has something important to say to us, I’d like to start by turning the floor over to Wellington Lockridge.”
Wellington got to his feet, and turned with slow reluctance to face the eighteen pairs of eyes out there. He was voluntarily giving up a kind of named anonymity for the first time in his life, and the experience was difficult and unnerving. He was used to creating his effects indirectly, through others, after quiet private conversations, but now a situation had come along that was forcing him to change his style. There wasn’t time to handle this in his usual way; besides, in this case he wouldn’t trust anyone else to carry the ball.
He thought briefly of his superior, in Washington, and of his statement of yesterday: “If it hadn’t been your father, you would have been the first to see the only sensible thing to do was kill him.” Sensible? The man didn’t know the half of it, he didn’t know how Wellington’s secret soul hated the exposure he was bringing on himself now. Sensible? Had it been anyone but Bradford, Wellington would have seen him boiled like a lobster before doing this.
But none of it showed. Wellington, as usual, looked merely stocky, quiet, calm, uninteresting, and slightly rumpled. His voice carried without strength as at last he began to speak:
“I have two things to tell you about today. They both have to do with Bradford. One has to do with a plan for a more permanent way to contain Bradford than the one we’re using now. I’ll explain it to you in a minute, and I hope you’ll agree to it. Unfortunately, we have very little time, and the agreement or disagreement must come now, at this meeting. We can’t go home and think about it for a week. If we’re going to go ahead with this plan, there’s a certain amount of preparation that must be done. There’s also expense involved; I’ve made up a tentative list of what each of us should be able to contribute.”
There was a stir at that, as he’d known there would be. Hit a man’s wife, burn his flag, slap his face, (rape his daughter) but don’t touch his wallet. Wellington didn’t permit the agitation to build, but continued talking into it, saying, “If we’re going to go ahead with this plan, I’ll have to make a phone call today, at the conclusion of the meeting. If we’re not, I hope someone out there has another plan to suggest, because time is getting short and we desperately need a realistic method for keeping Bradford contained. Very soon, we aren’t going to be able to hold him any more with the methods we’re using now.”
Mortimer Wellington, stockbroker from New York, forty-three, distinguished-looking, raised a hand and said, “What methods are you using now?”
It was a digression, but Wellington was willing to take a little time if it meant building their interest. “Primarily,” he said, “Bradford’s granddaughter, Evelyn Canby, whom he asked to go with him, has agreed to go, so that he’ll keep her aware of his plans. He has been in direct contact with the Communist Chinese, who were maintaining a small base in the woods near his Eustace estate. We have replaced those men with Orientals in our employ, who so far have managed to keep Bradford reasonably content with a series of delays.”
Howard Lockridge said, “He’s losing patience now. He’s getting very annoyed.”
“That’s part of why we’re running out of time,” Wellington said. “Another reason is that the Chinese, upset at having lost direct contact with Bradford, mean to kidnap him tomorrow during Elizabeth Lockridge’s funeral.”
That got the reaction he’d expected, and he stood back now and watched them grow excited and gradually absorb what he’d told them. And as he watched, it seemed to him impossible to turn this group into an effectively functioning counter-operation arm by tomorrow. It was true there were nineteen of them, including himself, but of the nineteen only six were under thirty-five: John Bloor, thirty-four; Robert Pratt and George Holt, thirty-one; Albert Bloor, Jr., twenty-eight; Thomas Wellington, twenty-five; and Gregory Holt, twenty-three. Though most of the nineteen had gone through some sort of military training, only Thomas Wellington and Gregory Holt had done so recently enough for it to matter. They were not, after all, among the most promising of material.