Nat would come home most nights exhausted and sometimes infuriated. He warned Su Ling there was likely to be a showdown when his report was finally presented. And he wasn’t altogether sure that he would still be the bank’s vice-president if the chairman was unable to stomach almost all of the changes he was recommending. Su Ling didn’t complain, although she had just about managed to get the three of them settled in their new house, sell the apartment in New York, find a nursery school for Luke, and prepare to take up her new appointment as professor of statistics at UConn in the fall. The idea of moving back to New York didn’t appeal to her.
In between, she had advised Nat on which computers would be most cost-effective for the bank, supervised their installation and also given night classes to those members of the staff who appreciated there was more to leam than how to press the on button. But Nat’s biggest problem was the bank’s chronic over-staffing. He had already pointed out to the chairman that Russell’s currently employed seventy-one staff and that Bennett’s, the only other independent bank in town, offered the same services with only thirty-nine employees. Nat wrote a separate report on the financial implications of over-staffing, suggesting an early retirement programme that, although it would cut into their profits for the next three years, would be highly beneficial in the long term. This was the sticking point on which Nat was unwilling to budge. Because, as he explained to Tom over dinner with Su ling, if they waited for another couple of years until Mr Russell retired, they would all be joining the ranks of the unemployed.
Once Mr Russell had read Nat’s report, he scheduled a Friday evening at six o’clock for the showdown. When Nat and Tom walked into the chairman’s office they found him at his desk writing a letter. He looked up as they entered the room.
‘I’m sorry to say that I’m unable to go along with your recommendations,’ said Mr Russell even before his two vice-presidents had sat down, ‘because I do not wish to fire employees, some of whom I have known and worked with for the past thirty years.’ Nat tried to smile as he thought about being sacked twice in six months, and wondered if Jason at Chase might still have an opening for him. ‘So I have come to the conclusion,’ continued the chairman, ‘that if this is going to work,’ he placed his hands on the report, as if blessing it, ‘the one person who will have to go is me.’ He scribbled his signature on the bottom of the letter he had been writing, and handed his resignation over to his son.
Bill Russell left the office at 6.12 that evening, and never entered the building again.
‘What are your qualifications to run for public office?’
Fletcher looked down from his place on the stage at the small group of journalists seated in front of him. Harry smiled. It was one of the seventeen questions and answers they had prepared the previous evening.
‘I don’t have a great deal of experience,’ admitted Fletcher, he hoped disarmingly, ‘but I was born, brought up and educated in Connecticut before going to New York to join one of the most prestigious law firms in the country. I’ve come home to put those skills to work for the people of Hartford.’
‘Don’t you feel that twenty-six is a bit young to be telling us how we should be running our lives?’ asked a young lady seated in the second row.
‘Same age as I was,’ said Harry, ‘and your father never complained.’ One or two of the older hacks smiled, but the young woman wasn’t quite so easily put off.
‘But you had just returned from a world war, senator, with three year’s experience as an officer at the front, so may I ask, Mr Davenport, did you burn your draft card during the height of the Vietnam war?’
‘No, I did not,’ said Fletcher, ‘I was not drafted, but had I been, I would have served willingly.’
‘Can you prove that?’ the journalist snapped back.
‘No,’ said Fletcher, ‘but if you were to read my speech at the Yale’s freshman debate, you would be left in no doubt of my feelings on this subject.’
‘If you are elected,’ asked another member of the press, ‘will your father-in-law be pulling the strings?’
Harry glanced across and saw that the question had annoyed Fletcher. ‘Calm down,’ he whispered. ‘He’s only doing his job. Stick to the answer we agreed on.’
‘If I am fortunate enough to be elected,’ said Fletcher, ‘it would be foolish of me not to take advantage of Senator Gates’s wealth of experience, and I will stop listening to him only when I consider he has nothing left to teach me.’
‘What do you feel about the Kendrick Amendment to the finance bill currently being debated in the house?’ The ball came swinging in from left field, and it certainly wasn’t one of the seventeen questions they had prepared for.
‘That’s a bit rough isn’t it, Robin?’ said the senator, ‘after all, Fletcher is...’
‘In so far as the clause affects senior citizens, I believe it discriminates against those who have already retired and are on fixed incomes. Most of us will have to retire at some time, and the only thing I remember Confucius saying was that a civilized society was one that educated its young and took care of its old. If I am elected, when Senator Kendrick’s amendment to the bill comes before the Senate, I will vote against it. Bad laws can be drafted in a legislative session, but then take years to repeal, and I will only ever vote for a bill that I believe can be realistically administered.’
Harry sat back in his chair. ‘Next question,’ he said.
‘In your CV, Mr Davenport, which I must say was most impressive, you claim you resigned from Alexander Dupont and Bell in order to run in this election.’
‘That is correct,’ said Fletcher.
‘Did a colleague of yours, a Mr Logan Fitzgerald, also resign around that time?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘Is there any connection between his resignation and yours?’
‘None whatsoever,’ said Fletcher firmly.
‘What are you getting at?’ asked Harry.
‘Just a call from our New York office which they asked me to follow up,’ replied the journalist.
‘Anonymous, no doubt,’ said Harry.
‘I’m not at liberty to reveal my sources,’ the journalist replied, trying hard not to smirk.
‘Just in case your New York office didn’t tell you who that informant was, I’ll let you know his name just as soon as this press conference is over,’ snapped Fletcher.
‘Well, I think that just about wraps it up,’ said Harry, before anyone could ask a supplementary question. ‘Thank you all for joining us. You’ll get a regular shot at the candidate in his weekly campaign press conferences — which is more than I ever gave you.’
‘That was awful,’ said Fletcher as they walked off the stage. ‘I must learn to control my temper.’
‘You did just fine, my boy,’ said Harry, ‘and by the time I’ve finished with the bastards, the only thing they will remember about this morning was your answer on the Kendrick’s amendment to the finance bill. And frankly, the press are the least of our problems.’ Harry paused ominously. ‘The real battle will begin when we discover who the Republican candidate is.’
29
‘What do you know about her?’ asked Fletcher as they walked down the street together.
There wasn’t a lot Harry didn’t know about Barbara Hunter, as she had been his opponent for the past two elections, and a perpetual thorn in his flesh during the intervening years.
‘She’s forty-eight, born in Hartford, daughter of a farmer, educated in the local school system, and then at the University of Connecticut, married to a successful advertising executive, with three children, all living in the state, and she’s currently a member of the State Congress.’