‘I draw the line at that kind of song,’ I said after I had been forced to listen to a certain hit record from beginning to
end.
‘OH MOM!’
‘You can shriek all you like, but I’m not going to be soft and dishonest and pretend I think it’s the greatest. You don’t
want me to be a hypocrite, do you?’
‘But Mom, you just don’t know where it’s at—’
‘I know exactly where it’s at. It’s at the point where I draw the line and say this mindless retreat into passive drug-ridden
introspection is just as sick as this mindless escalation of violence at home and overseas. God, I sometimes wonder how we’ll
survive this decadent disastrous decade!’ I exclaimed passionately, and then realized with a shock that I was echoing the
words Jake had used to reject a once cherished culture which was now cracking apart at the seams.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to my children, ‘I don’t mean to sound so hopelessly square, but try to see things for a moment from my
point of view. It’s hard for someone like me, who can remember better times, to stand by with a smile while the country undergoes
this peculiarly unpleasant nervous breakdown. It’s not easy to live through a national trauma without feeling rattled as all
the old familiar landmarks of custom and behaviour fall by the wayside, but perhaps the landmarks are still there after all,
perhaps it’s only on the surface that things have changed, perhaps young people today are in fact much as they’ve always been—’
‘What’s she talking about?’
‘She’s trying to tell us our generation’s nothing unusual. What an insult! Everyone knows we’re the unique product of the
H-Bomb and the Post-Industrial Society – everyone knows there’s never been a generation like us before in the whole history
of mankind!’
‘Mom knows all that – she’s trying to be nice to us! Stop being so mean to her!’
‘I’m not being mean to her! All I’m saying is that it’s impossible for someone as old as she is to realize just how unique
we are—’
‘Stop talking about me as if I’m senile!’ I shouted. ‘And stop being so goddamned arrogant! You’re right – this generation
is
unique! It’s the first one insensitive enough to think good manners are unimportant!’
‘Cool it, Mom. We don’t mind you being old. We love you anyway …’
‘Those kids are driving me nuts,’ I said to my father that night as
we sat down to play chess. ‘The whole younger generation’s driving me nuts. Whenever I see anyone under twenty-five nowadays
I want to scream.’
‘I know how you feel.’ My father looked gloomy. ‘I fired two clerks today for peddling marijuana in the typing pool, but when
I told Harry Morton during our lunch together up at the Trust he just said that a lot of drug-taking was going on in the Wall
Street lower echelons. Imagine that! I was shocked, but Harry just shrugged his shoulders and said it was a sign of the times …’
Harry Morton was the president of the Van Zale Manhattan Trust, Van Zale’s commercial bank, and was fifteen years younger
than my father. My father had once tried to foster a romance between us, but men like Harry Morton, twice divorced, totally
married to his job and interested in nothing outside banking but the jet engine of his new private plane, had no appeal for
me.
‘Can’t you do something to cheer your father up?’ said Harry to me when we met at the end of November at one of my father’s
regular dinner-parties. ‘He talks and acts as if the world’s coming to an end!’
‘Maybe it is,’ I said dryly, and sure enough two days later came the first of a series of moves designed to end the world
my father had controlled for over thirty years. A major article on the front page of the
Wall Street Journal
revealed that Donald Shine’s notorious conglomerate Shine & General was planning to take over not another insurance company
but Harry Morton’s own Van Zale Manhattan Trust, the vital adjunct to my father’s investment bank at Willow and Wall.
[7]
‘But I don’t understand,’ said Eric. He and Paul had by this time returned to Choate after their noisy weekend at home which
had left me with such an antipathy towards the younger generation, but as soon as the article had appeared in the
Wall Street Journal
Eric phoned me from school. ‘How can this be a threat to Grandad? Isn’t the Van Zale Manhattan Trust entirely separate from
Van Zale’s?’
‘Legally yes, but in practice no. In practice it’s as if they were one big bank. The Trust offers the banking services which
Van Zale’s used to offer before the Glass-Steagall Banking Act separated commercial and investment banking back in 1933. The
two Van Zale banks are the two halves of the former single entity, and if one falls by the wayside the other will be in trouble.’
‘But Shine could never take over Van Zale’s!’ protested Eric
horrified. ‘Van Zale’s is a partnership still, not a corporation like the Trust! Surely Grandad has the power to exclude Shine
indefinitely from Willow and Wall?’
‘If the Trust falls to Donald Shine, Van Zale’s days are numbered. Your grandfather may be able to hold things together till
he dies or retires, but after that Shine will move in. There’ll be pressure to incorporate, the partners will sell out to
become members of the new board, and then Shine can put his own man in the president’s chair. That’ll give him an investment
bank as well as a commercial bank and an insurance company, and Shine & General will be a conglomerate specializing in a wide
range of financial services, just as Shine’s always planned.’
‘But surely … surely Shine’s not going to succeed?’
‘Well, Grandad seemed confident of winning, but I’m beginning to wonder if he’s just putting up a front. Everyone else seems
to think it’ll be touch and go …’
[8]
‘Eric called,’ I said to my father, ‘and sent you his best wishes for the coming fight. How’s it going? What’s your next move?’
‘We’re figuring out a way we can attack Shine & General’s stock and weaken Shine’s artillery.’
‘But aren’t bear-raids illegal nowadays?’
My father gave me a cynical smile. ‘Of course,’ he said.
By this time I was beginning to have a clearer picture of what was happening. Camouflaging himself by funnelling funds through
a New Jersey bank, Donald Shine had embarked in October on a repeat performance of the take-over which had annihilated the
Stamford-Hartford Reliance Insurance Corporation. Shine & General had begun to buy huge blocks of shares in the Van Zale Manhattan
Trust, but unknown to Donald Shine word had reached my father of his plans and his supposedly secret purchases had been observed
and monitored. Shine and his lieutenants were still putting the finishing touches to their tender – the offer they believed
the bank’s stockholders would find irresistible – and were still continuing to buy the necessary shares when my father, acting
through Harry Morton, forced Shine into the open by leaking the news to the
Wall Street Journal
.
Caught on the wrong foot, Shine made an ambiguous statement which only heightened the publicity, and the day after my father
had
cynically confirmed to me that ‘bear-raids’ were illegal, the stock of Shine & General started to fall.
‘But how are you doing it?’ I said mystified to my father. ‘Rumours of a take-over usually send the stock up, not down!’
‘Shine & General’s not as secure as everyone thinks it is. We’ve been secretly investigating it since early September and
it didn’t take us long to find out that it’s top-heavy and over-extended. Donald Shine may be a bright boy but all the information
indicates he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Youth,’ said my father with a sigh, ‘is so impetuous.’
‘But I still don’t understand how you can make the stock fall!’
My father laughed. ‘It’s a technique known as “multiple flogging”. It’s a new name for the old practice of bear-raiding, and
it’s impossible for the authorities to detect it.’
Two days later, disturbed by the publicity and his falling stock, Shine called Harry Morton and asked for a meeting. Paying
lip-service to the fact that Van Zale’s and the Trust were separate entities, my father stayed away and only listened to the
recording of the brief hostile encounter; Morton told Shine that he was an innocent if he thought he could get away with taking
over an important commercial bank, but Shine insisted that he was well-intentioned and wanted only to improve the nation’s
banking services by making them more democratic.
A strategy meeting was then held at the offices of the Van Zale Manhattan Trust and was attended not only by my father and
the board of the Trust but by all the senior officers of the huge banks who had a stake in opposing Shine.
‘For after all,’ explained my father to me, ‘if Shine succeeds with us, who knows who his next target might be?’
Various strategies were discussed, even the extreme suggestion that the Trust should merge with some other computer leasing
firm; this would have created a situation in which Shine could no longer have acquired the bank without violating the anti-trust
laws. However the strategy which found most favour was one involving the introduction of state and federal legislation to
make such a take-over illegal. Meanwhile Shine & General’s stock had steadied on the Exchange and Shine was summoning his
resources to move forward into the attack.
At this point my father invited Shine to lunch.
Shine accepted and was given a very plain meal (steak, baked potato, salad, no wine) in the partners’ dining-room at Willow
and Wall.
My father talked about the detriment to the bank of a hostile take-over, pointed out that the top management would certainly
resign, and forecast that the leading clients would take their business elsewhere. Shine protested that he had no intention
of making a hostile take-over and repeated that all he wanted was to improve the bank by making it more responsive to its
stockholders and enlarging the range of services available to its customers. My father suggested kindly that he was an ignorant
young man who would be incapable of running a bank. Shine suggested that it was time the old guard moved over to make room
for new blood. My father said he would offer him one last chance to withdraw gracefully before that new blood was splattered
from one end of Wall Street to the other.
But Donald Shine just laughed and said: ‘That’ll be the day!’
That same afternoon he began to receive calls from the leading investment banks, including Reischman’s, to say that under
no circumstances would they participate in any Shine & General tender for the Van Zale Manhattan Trust, and two days later
Shine was informed that the Trust had retained the two leading proxy-soliciting firms to deny their services to his corporation.
Shine & General’s stock began to fall again. It was now down to 120 and in full retreat, and in early December the Van Zale
lawyers began to draft laws which could be passed by the Assembly in Albany to prevent the take-over of banks such as the
Trust by conglomerates such as Shine & General. Meanwhile in Washington the Department of Justice had written to Shine to
say that although the anti-trust laws were not apparently violated by his plans, the proposed merger did raise certain questions
which they felt they should discuss with him.
Shine & General’s stock slipped to 115.
When Shine went to Washington he found not only the members of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee but also the majority
of the Federal Reserve Board were adamantly opposed to the take-over; he also found himself regarded as a pirate, and realizing
at last that both big business and government were firmly set against him he decided he had no choice but to surrender.
For the last time Shine and his lieutenants met Harry Morton and the task force of the Van Zale Manhattan Trust. Shine said
he planned to issue a statement of withdrawal, and once his opponents had finished wringing one another’s hands in an ecstasy
of relief, the first man Harry called was my father at Willow and Wall.
[9]
‘Now that it’s all over,’ said Harry to me the next day at my father’s champagne reception, ‘I can admit it was a very close
call. God only knows what would have happened if we hadn’t had the time to investigate Shine & General thoroughly and force
them into the open before they were fully prepared to launch their attack.’
A passing footman refilled my glass. ‘You mean,’ I said, struggling to concentrate amidst the roar of a hundred guests in
a celebration mood, ‘that you were damn lucky to have prior knowledge of Shine’s plans. But Harry—’ I had to raise my voice
as a group behind me burst out laughing at yet another anti-Shine wisecrack ‘—Harry, who tipped you off? Did one of Shine’s
lieutenants double-cross him?’
‘My God, didn’t your father tell you? It was Jake who tipped us off, Vicky! Jake Reischman!’
The room seemed to empty itself of noise. I was aware of the crowds around me but now they were mere moving shadows and I
was alone with Harry Morton on a bare chilling stage.
‘You’re kidding,’ I said.
Harry laughed. He was tall, almost as tall as Scott, and he had that brand of distinguished good looks which are so often
found in the corporation boardrooms where an impressive appearance is so useful in disguising less attractive behaviour. He
had dark hair, well-silvered in the right places, frank blue eyes and remarkably even teeth which were displayed whenever
he smiled. They gave him a predatory look which his charm could never quite manage to annul. Sebastian had once described
him as a barracuda.
‘No, it’s true, I promise you!’ He laughed again. ‘Ironic, isn’t it? Jake had Shine’s full confidence because Shine looked
up to him – respected him as the cream of American Jewry. But of course Jake detested him. Jake was a snob, one of the old
school. Don’t forget that when the Russian Jews streamed into New York at the turn of the century, it wasn’t the gentiles
who flung up their hands in horror – it was the German Jews uptown.’
I saw the tennis court drawn on my father’s blotter, and in my memory I heard Jake talking wryly of the Bar Harbor Brotherhood.
I tried to speak but Harry’s arm was already steering me into a quieter corner of my father’s long living-room and Harry’s
voice was already saying idly: ‘That’s better – now we can hear ourselves think. Are you truly so surprised about Jake? Cornelius
said Jake used you as an intermediary.’