She gets him seated in an armchair, not alongside her desk but facing her. Then she slides into an enormous, high-backed leather swivel chair. It swallows her, makes her look like a cub.
“Do you smoke?” she asks.
“Thanks,” he says gratefully, reaching into his jacket pocket for his pack.
“Please don’t,” she says sharply. “I can’t stand cigarette smoke. Atrocious!”
“Okay,” he says equably, “I can live with that.”
She sits on the edge of her chair, leans forward, elbows on the desk, hands clasped: a position of prayer. Her fingers, Cone notes, are unexpectedly long and slender.
“Did you read the material I left with Mr. Haldering?” she demands.
“Yep.”
“I hope you realize those reports are confidential. I wouldn’t care to have them leaked to the media.”
“I don’t blab,” he tells her.
“And do you have any questions?”
“A lot of them,” he says. “Here’s one for starters: What’s the difference between a Chief Executive Officer-that was Dempster-and a Chief Operating Officer-that’s you?”
“It varies from company to company,” she says. “At Dempster-Torrey, J.J. made the big decisions and I made the small ones. He got the ulcers and I got the headaches.”
“He had ulcers?”
“Of course not. It was just a figure of speech. What I’m trying to say is that he set policy and I carried it out. Expedited things. Found the people he needed and liaised with bankers, attorneys, accountants.”
Cone stares at her. “Made his dreams come true?” he suggests.
“Yes,” she says with that forced smile, “something like that. But the dreams were his.”
“You’ve been with Dempster-Torrey-how long?”
“Almost eight years.”
“Started out as Chief Operating Officer?”
“God, no! I was an MBA fresh out of Harvard. I started in the Planning Section, practically a gofer. I didn’t get to be Operating Officer until three years ago.”
“And then you worked closely with Mr. Dempster?”
“Yes.”
“He made a lot of enemies?”
“Not a lot, but some, certainly. Any man in his position would.”
“Any hot-blooded enemies? The type that’ll say, ‘I’ll get you, you dirty dog. No matter how long it takes, I’ll ruin you’?”
“None like that I know of. You think it’s an old enemy who’s engineering all our trouble?”
“I don’t think much of anything,” Cone says. “I’m just getting started. Trying to collect stuff. Maybe it would help if you could tell me what kind of a man he was.”
“Very strong,” she says promptly. “He couldn’t stand to be denied anything he wanted for the company. Couldn’t endure defeat. A very forceful personality. Goal oriented. An overachiever. He knew what he wanted and went after it.”
“For himself? Or for Dempster-Torrey?”
“Mr. Cone, he was Dempster-Torrey. You cannot separate the man from the company he built. They were one. It wasn’t just an ego trip. He wanted to make us an international conglomerate, bigger than IBM, General Motors, or the Vatican. And if he had lived, he would have done it. Absolutely!”
“Doesn’t sound like the easiest guy in the world to work for.”
She slumps back in her big swivel chair, begins curling a strand of hair around a slim forefinger. Those dark eyes glimmer, and Cone wonders if she’s trying not to cry. For the first time he sees a wad of cotton batting stuck in her right ear.
“Got a bad ear?” he asks, trying to get her mind off Dempster’s death.
She shakes her head impatiently. “A mild infection,” she says. “I think I picked it up in the pool at the health club I go to. It’s getting better. Look, Mr. Cone, I’ve tried to describe J.J.’s business personality. Yes, in his business dealings he was hard, demanding, occasionally even ruthless. He believed that was the way he had to be to build Dempster-Torrey. But away from the office, when he could temporarily forget about takeovers and mergers, he was the kindest, sweetest man who ever lived. He was tender, sympathetic, understanding. That’s the John J. Dempster you never read about in The Wall Street Journal or Fortune. The press was just interested in the tycoon. But the man himself was more than just a money and power-grubber; he was a mensch. You know what a mensch is, Mr. Cone?”
“I know.”
“Well, J.J. was a mensch. In his personal life, a man of honor and integrity. I’m trying to be as cooperative as I can. I’m sure that as you get deeper into this thing and talk to more people, you’ll hear a lot of bad things about Mr. Dempster. I just want to make sure you understand how I felt about him. I thought he was a marvelous man. Marvelous!”
“Uh-huh,” Cone says. “I appreciate that. And how are things going since he died?”
“Lousy,” she says with a short, bitter laugh. “It’s disaster time, folks. You saw what happened to our stock?”
“I saw.”
“All the way down. Because Wall Street knew J.J. was Dempster-Torrey. And with him gone, what’s going to happen? The market hates uncertainty more than anything else, so the heavy investors and big institutions are dumping shares. Can’t say I blame them, but it hurts.”
“Sure,” Cone says, “it would. But you’ve still got the factories, the farms, the warehouses, the railroad, the airline, the work force, the management organization. The assets are still there.”
“But he’s dead,” she says darkly. “He was our biggest asset. And the Street knows it.”
She peers at a man’s digital watch strapped to her wrist.
“Your time’s up,” she announces. “I’ve got Ted Brodsky standing by. You want me to bring him in here?”
“No,” Cone says. “I’ll go to his office.”
“Whatever you want,” she says, shrugging. “I know you’re going to be talking to a lot of people. Just don’t believe everything you hear.”
“I never do,” he assures her. “Thanks for your time. I may be back with more questions.”
“Of course. Whenever you like. Just call first. I’m up to my eyeballs until the Board elects another CEO. But I want to help you any way I can.”
“Sure,” the Wall Street dick says.
Theodore Brodsky’s office is small, cramped, and jumbled with file folders, reports, and manuals. There’s a national map framed on the wall, studded with pushpins. An American flag on a wooden staff is held erect in a cast-iron base. The room reeks of cigar smoke.
The Chief of Security clears off a two-cushion leather couch, and that’s where they sit, half-turned to face each other.
“She wouldn’t let you smoke, would she?” Brodsky says with a knowing grin.
“Eve Bookerman? Nah, but that’s okay; she’s entitled.”
“Go ahead, light up. That’s why I chain-smoke stogies-to keep her out of here. She can’t stand the stink. Says it gets in her hair.”
Cone lights a Camel, watching as the other man puts a kitchen match to what’s left of a half-smoked and chomped cigar.
“I gotta tell you right out,” Brodsky says, “I wasn’t in favor of Dempster bringing in outside people to investigate what’s been happening at our plants. It’s a reflection on me. Right?”
Cone shrugs. “Sometimes it helps to get a fresh angle.”
“I don’t need any fresh angle. When Dempster said he was going to Haldering, I raised holy hell-for all the good it did me. That guy got an idea in his head, you couldn’t blast it out with nitro. Anyway, I checked you out with Neal Davenport, and he says you’re okay, so I guess we can get along.”
“Oh? You and Neal are friends?”
“Haven’t seen much of him lately, but him and me go back a long way. Did a tour together in the Two-one Precinct. Then I took early retirement and got this job. Listen, I don’t figure you’re out to cut my balls off. I mean, you’ve got a job to do; I can understand that.”
“Uh-huh,” Cone says. “And I’m not out to make the evening news on TV.”
“Sure,” Brodsky says. “And if you fall into anything, you’ll let me know first-am I right?”
“Absolutely,” says Timothy, an old hand at skillful lying.