And thinking about it, she thought immediately of her employer. As Howard Claiborne’s private secretary, she was bound to him by a devotion that was more than personal; it was partly a symbiotic sense of power, a devotion that came from being part of the exciting world of Howard Claiborne’s empire. Shorthand, typing, office chores-these were duties she took for granted, paying them no more attention than she paid her morning tooth-brushing. It was her own power that moved her-the power to keep callers at bay, to lie about her employer’s whereabouts, to browbeat lesser men’s secretaries on the telephone, to demand information in Howard Claiborne’s name, to sort calls and mail with dutiful care and know it was Within her power to bring each call or letter to his attention or withhold it. Howard Claiborne had allowed her an ever-increasing share of responsibility and her devotion to him had increased along with it. Now, with realization crystallizing in her, she knew what she must do; first thing in the morning she would tell him the whole story-well, perhaps not all of it. But he had to know the manipulations Steve had performed behind his back. The more she thought of it, the surer she was that Steve was involved in something shady, unpleasant, and deleterious to Howard Claiborne’s interests. If she was being vindictive, seeking revenge against Steve, then so be it; he had asked for it. In the morning, she would tell Howard Claiborne.
27. Mason Villiers
A limousine, sealed against the heat, prowled southward through heavy traffic on Park Avenue. Wyatt sat with his back to the chauffeur on the flip-top jump seat, facing Sidney Isher, who crouched in the corner, resembling a middleweight boxer waiting tensely for the gong. Mason Villiers sat back with his lean legs stretched out, looking entirely at his ease, a chilled self-contained smile playing on his mouth while he talked in his resonant baritone. The face he turned to his companions had been molded by years of deliberate calculation-the face of a man who could not be frightened, appealed to, or reasoned with on a basis of personalities; a cool face, primitive, unfeelingly logical, as pragmatic in design as a steel bayonet.
He carried a briefcase, according to habit, in which was hidden a demagnetizing jammer designed to ensure that no conversation in its range could be miked or tape-recorded. It was manufactured by a subsidiary of NCI and sold to the public for $289.50-legal, commonplace, and by now a fact of life in business.
Sidney Isher wheezed and snorted, and said, “I don’t want to be a nuisance, but I keep wandering if-”
“People who don’t want to be nuisances,” Villiers snapped, “seldom succeed.”
“Your point is well taken. I’ll withdraw the preamble. The question is, will Cleland show up at this meeting? If he doesn’t, we’re wasting a morning.”
“Cleland,” Villiers murmured, “is as likely not to show up as a corpse at its own funeral.”
Steve Wyatt agreed: “What choice has he got? We’ve got him by the balls.”
Isher remarked to Wyatt, “No need to smack your lips so loud.”
Ignoring the byplay, Villiers said, “Cleland’s angry but that may be good-an angry man can make mistakes. He’ll show up. Cleland and I understand each other, I think,”
“Like a pair of sharks smelling the same blood,” Isher observed gloomily. “If Cleland was stupid Elliot Judd wouldn’t have put him in charge of the NCI board of directors.”
“We’ll handle him,” Villiers said, unworried.
Steve Wyatt said, “What about Dan Silverstein? Are you sure you can trust him?”
“I’m not sure I can trust anybody. I don’t expect loyalty from Silverstein, but we’ll get cooperation. He knows what to expect if he backs out.”
The limousine pulled up at the curb; the three men got out and walked across the sidewalk into the air-conditioned lobby of the fifty-story building that housed NCI’s executive offices.
The reception room on the forty-eighth floor was carpeted wall to wall, discreetly and indirectly lighted, furnished in cool Danish modern. The brunette at the reception desk was precisely groomed and tailored; her smile was impersonal. Wyatt muttered in Sidney Isher’s ear, “You could hang meat in here.”
Isher, disregarding him, identified himself and his companions to the receptionist, and said, “I assume the directors are caucusing now? Do you mind announcing us?”
The girl spoke into a phone, listened, and pointed to a leather-covered door. Isher and Wyatt affixed themselves to Villiers when he stepped toward the indicated door. By the time he reached it, it had swung open.
Cleland was big and lean, tanned, his face not unattractively lined; his hair was still a deep rich brown-dyed, perhaps, for his hands were veined and beginning to show age spots. He looked muscular and trim in a way that bespoke health clubs, steam rooms, barbells, and massages. His handshake, to Villiers and his companions, was perfunctory; perhaps he disliked being touched.
Six men stood in a knot just inside the door, not talking, looking at Villiers the way they might have looked at a prowling panther in the jungle-prepared to admire its grace and predatory strength, yet fearful and hostile lest it spring.
When Villiers strode inside, the group parted like the waters of the Red Sea. He went straight through, marching with a calculated display of arrogance down the length of the room to the head of the conference table. Only then did he turn to stare coolly at the others. The six men had been joined by Cleland, and when Villiers had gone right by them without shaking hands, they had burst into a low-voiced babble of talk. Villiers said, “All right, let’s hold it down.”
They gave him angry glares-all except one, a big apple-cheeked man with thin white hair combed carefully over his scalp-Dan Silverstein. The look that came onto Silverstein’s face when Villiers met his glance was like the sickly smile of a rural bank manager confronted with a surprise visit by the auditor, searching quickly and desperately through his mind for the details of his plan to cover up an embezzlement scheme, refusing to admit to himself that it was too late.
The talk subsided and Villiers made gestures. “My associates, Mr. Sidney Isher and Mr. Stephen Wyatt. I know you, Cleland, and Dan Silverstein. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the rest of you gentlemen?”
The board of directors was, in due course, identified and separated out as to names and faces. They distributed themselves around the table. Ansel Cleland took a pair of glasses out of a leather case, arranged papers before him, pushed his glasses higher on his nose, and said, “You’re the visiting team. You can have the first turn at bat.” He planted his elbows on the table and thrust his jaw forward stubbornly, striking the pose familiar to anyone who had seen him on the cover of Newsweek.
Villiers, on his feet, launched into a clipped speech, the length of which was not out of proportion to what he had to say. He spoke without animation in a hard, mechanical voice; his words, delivered in a pitchless monotone, fell equally, like bricks, as if he were uttering a ritual incantation. Speaking down the length of the conference table from a widespread stance, he took the NCI directors step by step along a carefully planned route. He spoke mainly to Ansel Cleland, because in the absence of the chairman Cleland was NCI’s top man, a Cincinnati-born businessman whose career in banking and corporate law had catapulted him onto the boards of directors of eleven corporations, but whose principal interest had lain with the affairs of NCI ever since he had been hired on in 1946 as Elliot Judd’s corporation counsel. Cleland’s facade-jutting jaw, shrewd eyes, alert seated posture-was no sham.