He picked it up and got to his feet. "I'll file it and have my girl send you copies." He stood there hesitantly, as if trying to make up his mind as to whether he should offer some expression of sympathy. Evidently, he decided against it, for he went out the door without another word.
Then Denby came in again. "What about those people outside? Shall I send them away?"
I shook my head. They'd only come back again. "Send them in."
They came in the door, the girl's father and mother, their faces wearing a fixed expression that was a strange mixture of grief and sympathy.
Her father looked at me. "I'm sorry we couldn't meet under happier circumstances, Mr. Cord."
I looked at him. The man's face was honest. I believe he really meant it. "I am, too," I said.
His wife immediately broke into sobs. "It's terrible, terrible," she wailed, looking at my father's covered body on the couch.
I looked at her. Her daughter had resembled her but the resemblance stopped at the surface. The kid had had a refreshing honesty about her; this woman was a born harpy.
"What are you crying about?" I asked. "You never even knew him before today. And only then to ask him for money."
She stared at me in shock. Her voice grew shrill. "How can you say such a thing? Your own father lying there on the couch and after what you did to my daughter."
I got to my feet. The one thing I can't stand is a phony. "After what I did to your daughter?" I shouted. "I didn't do anything to your daughter that she didn't want me to. Maybe if you hadn't told her to stop at nothing to catch me, she'd be alive today. But no, you told her to get Jonas Cord, Jr, at any cost. She told me you were already planning the wedding!"
Her husband turned to her. His voice was trembling. "You mean to tell me you knew she was pregnant?"
She looked at him, frightened. "No, Henry, no. I didn't know. I only said to her it would be nice if she could marry him, that's all I said."
His lips tightened, and for a second I thought he was about to strike her. But he didn't. Instead, he turned back to me. "I'm sorry, Mr. Cord. We won't trouble you any more."
He started proudly for the door. His wife hurried after him. "But, Henry," she cried. "Henry."
"Shut up!" he snapped, opening the door and almost pushing her through it in front of him. "Haven't you said enough already?"
The door closed behind them and I turned to McAllister. "I'm not in the clear yet, am I?"
He shook his head.
I thought for a moment. "Better go down to see him tomorrow at his place of business. I think he'll give you a release now. He seems like an honest man."
McAllister smiled slowly. "And that's how you figure an honest man will act?"
"That's one thing I learned from my father." Involuntarily I glanced at the couch. "He used to say every man has his price. For some it's money, for some it's women, for others glory. But the honest man you don't have to buy – he winds up costing you nothing."
"Your father was a practical man," McAllister said.
I stared at the lawyer. "My father was a selfish, greedy son of a bitch who wanted to grab everything in the world," I said. "I only hope I'm man enough to fill his shoes."
McAllister rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You'll do all right."
I gestured toward the couch. "I won't always have him there to help me."
McAllister didn't speak. I glanced over at Nevada. He had been leaning against the wall silently all the time. His eyes flickered under the veiled lids. He took out a pack of makin's and began to roll a cigarette. I turned back to McAllister.
"I'm going to need a lot of help," I said.
McAllister showed his interest with his eyes. He didn't speak.
"I’ll need an adviser, a consultant and a lawyer," I continued. "Are you available?"
He spoke slowly. "I don't know whether I can find the time, Jonas," he said. "I've got a pretty heavy practice."
"How heavy?"
"I gross about sixty thousand a year."
"Would a hundred thousand move you to Nevada?"
His answer came quick. "If you let me draw the contract."
I took out a pack of cigarettes and offered him one. He took it and I stuck one in my mouth. I struck a match and held it for him. "O.K.," I said.
He stopped in the middle of the light. He looked at me quizzically. "How do you know you can afford to pay me that kind of money?"
I lit my own cigarette and smiled. "I didn't know until you took the job. Then I was sure."
A returning smile flashed across his face and vanished. Then he was all business. "The first thing we have to do is call a meeting of the board of directors and have you officially elected president of the company. Do you think there might be any trouble on that score?"
I shook my head. "I don't think so. My father didn't believe in sharing. He kept ninety per cent of the stock in his own name and according to his will, it comes to me on his death."
"Do you have a copy of the will?"
"No," I answered. "But Denby must. He has a record of everything my father ever did."
I hit the buzzer and Denby came in.
"Get me a copy of my father's will," I ordered.
A moment later, it was on the desk – all official, with a blue lawyer's binding. I pushed it over to McAllister. He flipped through it quickly.
"It's in order," he said. "The stock is yours all right. We better get it probated right away."
I turned to Denby questioningly. Denby couldn't wait to answer. The words came tumbling out. "Judge Haskell in Reno has it on file."
"Call him and tell him to move on it right away," I said. Denby started out. I stopped him. "And when you get through with him, call the directors and tell him I'm having a special meeting of the board at breakfast tomorrow. At my house."
Denby went out and I turned back to McAllister. "Is there anything else I ought to do, Mac?"
He shook his head slowly. "No, not right now. There's only the German contract. I don't know too much about it but I heard your father say it was a great opportunity. It's got something to do with a new kind of product. Plastics, I think he called it."
I ground out my cigarette in the ash tray on the desk. "Have Denby give you the file on it. You look at it tonight and give me a breakdown tomorrow morning before the board meeting. I’ll be up at five o'clock."
A strange look began to come over McAllister's face. For a moment, I didn't know what it was, then I recognized it. Respect. "I'll be there at five, Jonas."
He got up and started for the door. I called to him before he reached it, "While you're at it, Mac, have Denby give you a list of the other stockholders in the company. I think I ought to know their names before the meeting."
The look of respect on his face grew deeper. "Yes, Jonas," he said, going out the door.
I swung around to Nevada and looked up at him. "What do you think?" I asked.
He waited a long moment before he answered. Then he spit away a piece of cigarette paper that clung to his lip. "I think your old man is resting real easy."
That reminded me. I had almost forgotten. I got up from the chair and walked around the desk and over to the couch. I picked up the blanket and looked down at him.
His eyes were closed and his mouth was grim. There was a slightly blue stain under the skin of his right temple, going on up into the hairline. That must be the embolism, I thought.
Somehow, deep inside of me, I wanted some tears to come out for him. But there weren't any. He had abandoned me too long ago – that day on the porch when he threw me to Nevada.
I heard the door behind me open and I dropped the blanket back and turned around. Denby was standing in the doorway.
"Jake Platt wants to see you, sir."
Jake was the plant manager. He kept the wheels turning. He also listened to the wind and by now the word must be racing all over the plant.