"Okay," said Bat.
"I've been going over a lot of stuff," Jonas went on. "I see you haven't restructured the business. I wondered if I might come back and find my name wasn't on the letterhead anymore."
"Oh, sure," said Bat.
"You really think we ought to quit making TV sets? You never give up on that, do you?"
"I've given you my reasons."
"Yeah. Well, you've got me by the short hairs. Okay. Phase it out. Your job. Phase us out, so we don't look like we've been beat. Also, you're saying we ought to quit making airplanes."
"You're a pilot," said Bat. "Would you fly a Cord 50?"
"It's a good little plane. For a trainer."
"So's a Piper," said Bat. "So's a Cessna 150. And the Beech. Look at the sales numbers."
"What do you want me to do, give up Intercontinental Airlines, too?"
"Hell, no. Inter-Continental is competitive. It holds its market share very nicely on its routes. It's a prestige property. Maybe someday we'll want to sell it. If we do, we'll get a big piece of cash for it — or a strong position in the stock of the buyer airline."
"Why would you ever want to sell it, for Christ's sake? Am I going to have anything left?"
"The airline business is going the way of automobile manufacturing," said Bat. "The trend is to fewer and fewer companies. Only the really big operators will be able to survive. But that's years down the pike."
"I can hear the wheels going around in your head," said Jonas. "Okay. So no Cord TVs, no Cord airplanes. But phase them out, not too fast. We don't want it to look like we gave up on something or were forced out. What else?"
"I think we ought to consolidate Cord Explosives and Cord Plastics. They're the same kind of business: chemicals. I don't see the point in keeping two sets of management on the payroll, two sets of accountants, two sets of lawyers, and so on."
"I'm damned if you're not telling me I haven't run things very efficiently!"
"I'm not telling you that," said Bat. "It's for you to decide if you have or haven't. I do have another suggestion, though. Cord Explosives. I think there's some disadvantage in calling the parent company of all the other enterprises by the name Explosives. In some quarters it brings a negative reaction. I suggest we give it a new name: Cord Explosives Division of Cord Enterprises. Then Cord Plastics and Cord Productions and Cord Hotels are also divisions of Cord Enterprises."
"You didn't restructure, but you were sure as hell thinking about it," said Jonas ruefully.
"Also," said Bat, "I recommend we call Cord Enterprises CE and design a distinctive company logo for it. General Electric is GE, International Business Machines is IBM, Trans World Airlines is TWA, and so forth."
"My father is spinning in his grave," said Jonas.
"If he were alive, he'd do things like this," said Bat.
"If he were alive he'd be in a rest home," said Jonas.
"They're not such big changes. They don't threaten your control."
"Okay, then," said Jonas. "Make your changes. I'll make you vice president and a director of this CE, which will be the parent company, as you say. I want frequent and detailed reports. I'm going to stay here and run Cord Hotels myself. I'm going to see to it that the Intercontinental Vegas gets built. Also, I'm going to ride herd on that son of a bitch Chandler. He's getting a little independent."
"He keeps bad company," said Bat.
"Doesn't he? Listen, is your lawyer friend Amory coming aboard? We'll need a corporate lawyer to make these changes."
"What about Phil Wallace?"
"Phil Wallace is my personal attorney, though he's handled a lot of company business. Dave Amory will be general counsel to Cord Enterprises. That is, he will if you think he's good enough."
"He's good enough."
"Then that's settled. He should be in New York, which is where you should be. Why'd you take our TV star with you to Havana? She that good a lay?"
"She and I — "
"Yeah. But if she's around too much when things are happening, she'll get to know too much about our business. I don't want her to know anything. From a lifetime's experience, I tell you: Keep your business life and your sex life separate. Okay?"
"What if I told you I might marry her?"
"I'd think you'd lost your mind," Jonas said, total scorn in his voice. "Like your sister. She says she might marry that bum Parrish. I tried to talk her into going into a drying-out clinic, and she won't do it. Hey! I can't cover all these bases. Use the kind of smarts in your personal life that you do in business."
"What Jo-Ann needs is a job," said Bat. "She doesn't want to live on an allowance. She needs responsibility ... and purpose. I'd like to give her a job with Cord Productions, say in advertising or maybe public relations."
"No," said Jonas. "Not if she marries Parrish. Not until she dries out."
Bat shrugged. "You're the boss," he said.
Jonas looked away from Bat for a moment, stared at the window where the telescope still stood on its tripod. "Don't you even think of marrying that bitch," he said. "You've told me not to meddle in your personal life, but a man's judgment about his personal affairs reflects on his judgment in business affairs. Are you telling me you're infatuated with Glenda Grayson?"
"You asked if she's a good lay. I'm gonna tell you, she's a hell of a lay."
"Let me tell you something," said Jonas. "In my time I've humped a lot of women. I've had children by two of them, just two. And let me tell you, neither of them was a woman I'd have had to be ashamed of. Your mother is a fine woman. Monica is, too, in her way. If you married Glenda Grayson, or if she became the mother of a child by you, you'd be ashamed of her sooner or later, embarrassed to have your business associates and your personal friends meet her. She was a goddamned stripteaser, Bat! She's coarse!"
"Okay, okay. You've made your point," Bat muttered resentfully.
"Anyway, how could you do anything like that to the smart, beautiful little girl in Washington? Use your fuckin' brains, Bat!"
2
"You know what he said to me? 'You're the boss.' I just make the boy vice president of the main company, and when he disagrees about something, he just shrugs at me and says, 'You're the boss.'"
"Why does that offend you?" asked Angie. Jonas was supposed to take an hour's rest in the afternoon. The doctor said that meant taking off his clothes and going to bed. Usually, Angie joined him. Usually, she could distract him from the racing thoughts that monopolized his mind and denied him the rest he was supposed to be getting. Right now she lay beside him, gently massaging his penis and scrotum, hoping he might relax and maybe even go to sleep.
"I don't know," he said in a voice that suggested maybe he was beginning to relax. "Damnit, I — I didn't think he'd get hostile if I overruled him on something. My god, I'd accepted all kinds of big changes he wanted to make; and when I said no to one thing, to just one goddamned thing, he shrugged me off, telling me I'm the boss. Of course I'm the boss. What the hell did he think?"