Cone takes the card and stands. “All right,” he says, “I’ll give him a call and find out what his problem is. I also want to tell him to put more chicken in his chow mein.”
He shambles back to his office, digs through the mess in his desk (what’s a stale package of Twinkies doing in there?), and finally roots out an old copy of Standard and Poor’s Stock Guide. He looks up White Lotus.
The corporation, listed on the OTC exchange, sells packaged Chinese foods to consumers, restaurants, and institutions. It is capitalized for slightly over two million shares of common stock, no preferred. It has no long-term debt. It has paid a cash dividend every year since 1949. What is of particular interest to Cone is that the price range of the stock for the past fifteen years has varied from 31 to 34, never below, never above.
Similarly, there has been little change in the annual dividend rate. White Lotus stock is currently yielding slightly over 5 percent. Its financial position appears exemplary: high assets, low liabilities, and a hefty bundle of surplus cash and cash equivalents.
All in all, it seems to be a solid, conservative outfit, but maybe a bit stodgy. It sounds like the kind of stock Chinese widows and orphans would love to own: a nice 5-percent return come wars, inflation, or financial foofarows. No one’s going to get rich trading White Lotus, but no one’s going down the drain either. So what could their financial problem be?
“Ah so,” Cone says aloud in a frightful Charlie Chan accent. “It is written that when icicles drip on the mulch bed, the wise man hides his peanut butter.”
He then dials the direct line to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of White Lotus. But when Mr. Chin Tung Lee comes on the phone, he sounds nothing like Charlie Chan. And nothing like an invalid confined to a wheelchair. His voice is strong, vibrant, with good resonance.
He says he will be happy to see Mr. Timothy Cone in an hour, and thanks him for his courtesy. A very polite gent.
Cone plods down Broadway to Exchange Place. It’s a spiffy day with lots of sunshine, washed sky, and a smacking breeze. Streets of the financial district are crowded; everyone scurries, the pursuit of the Great Simoleon continuing with vigor and determination.
But as he well knows, Wall Street is usually a zero-sum game: If someone wins, someone loses. That’s okay; if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And thinking that makes him smile because once, not too long ago, Samantha was bitching about how difficult it was for women to rise to positions of power on the Street. To which Cone replied, “If you can’t stand the heat, go back in the kitchen.” She kicked his shin.
The corporate offices of White Lotus are in a lumpish building that looks in need of steam cleaning. The frowsy lobby is vaguely Art Deco, but the old elevators still have operators-which has become as rare as finding a shoeshine boy or paperboy on the streets of Manhattan.
Timothy, a fast man with a stereotype, figures the offices of any outfit that sells canned chop suey are going to look like a joss house: carved teak furniture, brass statues, and paneled silk screens. But the offices of White Lotus are done in Swedish modern with bright graphics on the walls and, on the floor, a zigzag patterned carpet that bedazzles the eye.
The receptionist-female, Caucasian, young-phones and says Mr. Lee will see Cone in a few minutes. The Wall Street dick spends the time inspecting a lighted showcase in the reception room. It contains packages of all the White Lotus products: noodles, fried rice, chop suey, chow mein, pea pods, water chestnuts, soy sauce, fortune cookies, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots. Cleo would approve.
It really is no more than two minutes before he is ushered into the inner sanctum. Lee’s personal office is a jazzy joint with not a hint of any Oriental influence or even the slightest whiff of incense. It’s all high-tech with splashes of abstract paintings and clumpy bronze sculptures that look like hippopotamus do-do. There’s a mobile hanging from the high ceiling: a school of pregnant pollack in flight.
“You like my office, Mr. Cone?” Chin Tung Lee asks in his boomy voice.
“It’s different.”
Lee laughs. “My wife decorated it,” he says. “I admit it took some time getting used to, but now I like it. My son says it looks like a garage sale.”
He presses buttons on the arms of his electric wheelchair and buzzes out from behind the driftwood desk to offer a tiny hand.
“So pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” he says. “Mr. Trale has told me a great deal about you and what a fine job you did for Dempster-Torrey.”
“That was nice of him,” Cone says, shaking the little paw gently. “You and Trale old friends?”
“Please sit down there. I insisted I have at least one comfortable chair for visitors. As you can see, my chair is mobile, but I must sit on a Manhattan telephone directory to bring me up to desk level.”
He laughs again, and Cone decides this guy is the most scrutable Oriental he’s ever met. Timothy flops down in the leather tub chair, and Lee whizzes around behind his desk again.
“Oh, yes,” he continues, “Simon and I have been friends for many, many years. We play chess together every Friday night.”
“And who wins?”
“I do,” the old man says, grinning. “Always. But Simon keeps trying. That is why I admire him so much. Mr. Cone, I received a phone call from Mr. Jeffreys of Blains, Kibes and Thrush. He informed me that he has negotiated a satisfactory service contract with Haldering and Company, and that you have been assigned to our case. I was delighted to hear it.”
“Thanks,” Cone says. “So what’s your problem?”
“Before I get into that, I’d like to give you a little background on our company.”
“I got all the time in the world,” Cone says. “You’re paying for it.”
“So we are. Well, I’ll try to keep it mercifully brief. I emigrated from Taiwan-called Formosa in those days-in 1938, just before the beginning of the war. I had been waiting several years to get on the quota. At that time it was extremely difficult for Asians to enter the United States legally.”
“I can imagine.”
“However, eventually I did arrive. I came to New York and, with the aid of relatives already here, started a small business on Mott Street. It was really a pushcart operation; I couldn’t afford a store. I sold Chinese fruits and vegetables. Well, one thing led to another, and now I own White Lotus. A typical American success story.”
“You make it sound easy,” Cone says, “but I’ll bet you worked your ass off.”
“Eighteen hours a day,” Lee says, nodding. “In all kinds of weather. Which is probably why I’m now chained to this electric contraption. But the family members I eventually employed worked just as hard. The pushcart became a store, offering poultry and meats as well as vegetables. That one store became four, and we began selling prepared foods. And not only to local residents but to tourists and uptown visitors who came to Chinatown. They wanted mostly chop suey and chow mein in cardboard containers, so that’s what we sold. It was merely a small step from that to the canning process. We went public in 1948.”
“And the rest is history.”
Chin Tung Lee smiles with a faraway look, remembering.
“Do you know, Mr. Cone,” he says, “I miss those early days. The hours we worked were horrendous, but we were young, strong, and willing. And you know, I don’t think any of us doubted that we’d make it. This country offered so much. If you devoted your life to your business, you would succeed. It seemed that simple.”
“Things have changed,” Cone offers.
“Yes,” Lee says, looking down at the spotted backs of his hands. “I try not to be a boring ancient who talks constantly of the ‘good old days,’ but I must admit that things have changed-and not always for the better.”
He pauses, and Cone has a chance to take a close look. The man has got to be Simon Trale’s age or more-well over seventy. And he’s even smaller than Trale, though it’s hard to judge with him sitting in the wheelchair, propped on a telephone book, short legs dangling.