Spearfield's Daughter (76 page)

“Thanks to Cleo.”

But she had said it reluctantly. One did not like to learn that something one had always taken for granted as one's own had been commandeered. She set her mind to being the Empress again.

Now she looked down the table at Cleo and said, “The offer stands till Friday afternoon. There'll be another board meeting then at three o'clock.”

“We won't be selling,” said Jerry Kibler before Cleo could reply.

“I think it only fair to warn you,” said Claudine, “that there will be certain changes under the new set-up. You might well be advised to sell.”

Roger, sitting next to his sister, had said nothing so far. He had not been made privy to what Claudine was up to and he resented his exclusion. He had begun to feel lately that his presence on the board was barely tolerated by Claudine, as if she thought he was out of his element out of the army. But now he recognized a small war when he saw one.

“I think we'd all like to know what changes,” he said.

“They'll be announced in due course,” Claudine told him in a voice that implied she was giving him a lesson in tactics.

Jerry said, “Will you be selling, Roger?”

“Not at present,” he said and was pleased to see his sister look at him sharply, as if she suspected treason.

“Your stock is part of the family's holding,” she said.

“But in my name,” he said.

Jerry Kibler turned to the man beside him. “What about you, Bill?”

Bill Warburg was a big, shambling man with a pleasant face and the air of a man who had always found life pleasant. He was another of those whom Cleo thought of as old money. He was an amiable hedonist and he did not like anything that disturbed his routine. He would sell, if it meant avoiding any fighting.

Jerry knew it, too. “Never mind, Bill. Ride downtown with me when this is over.”

Claudine
saw that she had been out-foxed; short of kidnapping Warburg, she could not keep him away from Kibler. Abruptly she closed the meeting, determined to get to Stephen Jensen before the other side could. Strategic points had to be taken.

As the meeting broke up Jerry put a hand on Warburg's arm. “Wait here a moment with me and Cleo.”

Warburg looked reluctant, but he was a polite man and he did not know how to be rude. Cleo, on a nod from Jerry, moved up and sat on the other side of Warburg. The others filed out, Claudine the last to go.

“My offer stands, Cleo. Till Friday afternoon.”

“No, thank you,” said Cleo, though Jerry had not yet told her how much money he had raised to fight the battle. “I've never been for sale, Claudine, despite what you think.”

Claudine whirled and went out. Warburg looked pained and embarrassed; he liked women to be ladies. Jerry smiled appreciatively at Cleo. He liked a fighter, of any sex.

“Things are just starting to warm up.”

“That's what I don't like,” said Warburg.

“You can be out of it, if you like, Bill. Cleo has the money to offer you the same price for your stock as Claudine has been offering.” He glanced at her and nodded: the money was available. “If you don't like the rough water, now's the time to get out.”

Warburg, like Jensen, belonged to the New York Yacht Club; he smiled at the metaphor used by Jerry, the non-sailor. “Sailors don't necessarily always like smooth sailing—it can be dull. But I don't like sailing through muck. Let's talk going downtown.” He took Cleo's hand between his huge paws. “If you want to buy my stock, Cleo, you're welcome to it. But I hope you're not biting off more than you can chew.”

“Jerry is my adviser. I trust him.”

“I wasn't thinking about the money end. If you take control of the
Courier
away from Claudine—well, personally I'd rather be out in a one-man Finn in a force-nine gale than face up to her.”

“They always name hurricanes after women. Maybe it needs a woman to face up to one.”

He smiled, patted her as if she were mentally ill. “Good luck.”

Cleo
went back downstairs to the news floor, arriving late for the afternoon conference. Alain, sitting at the head of the table, looked up as she took her seat, but she gave him no hint of what had gone on upstairs. Instead she asked at once, “How much have we done?”

“It's practically wrapped up,” said Joe Hamlyn. “I'm running the hostage story over on to Page Two. But for the first few days I'm afraid we're going to lose out to the goddam TV wonder boys. All those mobs in the streets are made to order for their cameras.”

“Perhaps we should buy a TV station.”

Cleo had meant it only as a joke, but she saw Alain's head come up as if she were stating a new policy. He made a note on his pad and she determined then that for the next week or two she would be very careful what she said. She was not going to manufacture ammunition for the other side.

When the conference broke up she avoided Alain, then called Joe Hamlyn and Carl Fishburg into her office. “I have a war on upstairs. I'm having to buy more stock to keep my job.”

The two men listened quietly while she told them what had happened so far and what, she guessed, might happen if she lost out.

Then Joe said, “I could talk to the staff, if you like. I don't know how much there is in the pension fund, but it might help. It wouldn't be the first time a newspaper's staff has bought a paper to save its jobs. The
Kansas City Star
did it some time back in the Twenties. I, for one, wouldn't want to work with Alain as the editor. In no time at all he'd have us sounding like that guy Loeb up in New Hampshire, campaigning to have Cal Coolidge raised from the dead.”

“Me, neither,” said Carl. “We'll talk to the guys in finance, see what's in the kitty.”

Cleo shook her head, touched by their loyalty. “No. This is my fight. I don't want you risking your money on me. I have faith in Jerry Kibler, he'll raise everything we need. If he doesn't, then I'll stay on till they kick me out. Which they'll have to do physically.” Which, she remembered, was what they had almost had to do with Jake Lintas.

She went home that night and told Tom what had happened at the board meeting. “One thing I have in my favour, all the staff are behind me.”

“It's some story.” He had started work on the
Times
that day. There had been a certain satisfaction at going to work for what he thought of as the Number 1 paper in the United States, but it was
a
huge organization and he knew he would miss the comparative intimacy of the
Courier.

“You don't use it,” she said as editor and wife, putting both roles in the right order. “That's a rule we'd better lay down right now. I never use anything you tell me about inside stuff at the
Times
and you keep your nose out of the
Courier.

“Okay.” He saw her point, at least for the moment. “But I wish I were back on the
Courier
so I could help you.”

“I'll manage,” she said, and Tom felt himself pushed back a step. But she had gone into the bathroom and didn't notice what she had done.

IV

Over the next two days Jerry Kibler, enjoying himself immensely, was busy. He bought Bill Warburg's stock and rang Cleo. “I think I've also just about persuaded Stephen Jensen to sell to you. That will give you a total of thirty-eight percent.”

“It's not enough.” She had had two sleepless nights and, though she was not prepared to confess it to anyone, not even Tom, she was losing the determination to go on with the battle.

But Jerry was not giving up. “It's not over yet, dammit! We've lost Beaton's and the Hargraves stock—I rang them and they wouldn't listen to me, not even when I offered to raise the price. That leaves us the Galloway four per cent and Roger's ten per cent.”

She felt even more disheartened. “Roger would never sell to me.”

“Despite what he said the other day, the stock is held jointly in his and his wife's name. You might try talking to her, see how she feels. I gather she and Claudine have never got on, not really.”

What was it Claudine had said about there should be nothing personal in business?
“What about the Galloway stock?”

“I think I can swing that. I'll have to raise the ante, but it will be worth it.”

“Jerry—how much am I in for so far?”

“If you manage to buy both Roger's and the Galloway stock, you will be up in total for just over eleven million dollars.”

She was sitting up in bed with the breakfast tray Tom had brought her across her lap; it tilted as
her
body slid down under it. She hadn't fainted, but she felt herself go lightheaded and limp. Tom, hearing the rattle of cup and saucer, came to the door of the bathroom.

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing.” She pulled herself up again. “Jerry—”

“Don't worry, Cleo, don't worry. The assets are there in the company—the
Courier
building, that's prime real estate, the radio station, the paper itself. I haven't raised the cash on thin air.”

“Jerry, how will I ever pay it back?”

“We'll find ways. You can sell the building, for one thing, and then lease it back. You're not going to have any money to spare for the next ten or fifteen years maybe, but you're going to own the
Courier
and run it your way.”

“There's something in the constitution that says if the Brissons lose control, they have to sell out completely. What happens then?”

“You can buy
all
the stock—”

“Jerry, I'm giddy as it is. Don't knock my head right off my shoulders.”

“Okay. But don't worry about that right now. I can always find buyers for Claudine's stock if she has to sell. It would give me the greatest of pleasure to do that and then charge her commission.

Cleo hung up and looked up to see Tom standing in his shorts in the bathroom doorway. “What was that all about?”

“Jerry Kibler has just told me I may be in debt to the tune of eleven million dollars by the end of the day.”

He didn't whistle or swear, showed no reaction at all. Instead he said quietly, “Is it worth it?”

“I don't know. What else do I do if I don't want to lose the paper?”

“You could look around for a job running some other paper. There are a lot of papers in trouble—maybe you could try saving one of them. We could do it together,” he added, but his voice was flat and she couldn't tell whether he was enthusiastic or even meant what he said.

“Where? There are no editor's jobs going in New York. It's New York or Washington for me—I don't want to work in any other town. I don't think you do, either.”

“No,” he conceded. “But I don't want to see us eaten up by the
Courier.
”

“
Darling—” She reached out, pulled him down beside her. “Do you think I'd let that happen? If I thought there was any danger of that, I'd sell my stock and let Claudine and Alain have what they want.”

“Just keep your eyes peeled for the danger signal.” He kissed her and stood up. “I'm a newspaperman, but the last thing I'd want would be to lose you to a newspaper.”

He began to dress. She was still getting accustomed to having him here every morning. She had lived alone for so long that to have a man in her bedroom
every
morning was still a novelty. He was untidy but she loved the evidence he left around, since she didn't have to pick it up: the daily maid did that. Yesterday's shirt and shorts were dropped on the floor, his trousers hung from a doorknob; somehow it was all a reminder that he was
permanent.
Lovers, even durable ones like Jack, had somehow never left their mark on her bedroom. She looked at him adoringly, wanting him to strew the room with reminders of himself.

“We'll have to look for a bigger apartment.”

“Sure. Ask Jerry Kibler for another half million.” He kissed her and went off to a dental appointment; the small pains, as well as the large, had to be attended to. She lay in bed a while longer, trying to get her immediate future into focus. She had not contemplated the alternative if she lost the battle against Claudine and Alain; but she now realized the real possibility that very soon she could be back, if only temporarily, where she had been when she had first come to New York six years ago. She would have money in the bank, a lot of it, and some fame, but those meant little to her: all she could recognize would be that she would have to start all over again. And it would not be easy, at least not in the newspaper field: Tom had been right, newspapers in America were in trouble. She could, of course, go into television, but it didn't appeal to her; at heart she was a newspaperwoman. She decided all at once that she could not leave everything to Jerry Kibler.

She got out of bed, took a hot and a cold shower to wake herself up completely, put on a robe and went back to the bedroom. She phoned Roger at Watergate in Washington, hoping to catch him before he flew up for this afternoon's meeting. She was answered by a woman's voice and she thought, he's at it again, what Congresswoman was it this time?

But it was the cleaning woman, making the General's bed instead of occupying it. “The General's up in New York, ma'am. At Sands Point, I think.”

Cleo dialled the number at Sands Point. “Louise, I'm trying to get in touch with Roger—”

“
He'll be here for lunch. Would you care to come out and have it with us?”

“I don't want to intrude—”

Louise laughed. “Don't worry, Cleo. I have everything under control, including him. You won't find any awkwardness. Come early, so you and I can have a talk.”

Cleo ordered a car and half an hour later was being driven out to Long Island. It was a beautiful day, a slight breeze coming in off the Sound, and she made up her mind that she and Tom must buy a getaway place somewhere out of Manhattan. Her optimism was returning, she was going to win the war.