Establishment (26 page)

“Barbara is making her own bed. She has to sleep in it, Tom.”

He nodded.

“You do understand what I'm driving at?”

“You don't have to convince me. That stupid display in Washington caused me enough grief.”

“That is only the beginning, believe me. These are very interesting times we live in. I don't think there's ever been anything like this before in these United States. But they're not bad times for us.”

Norman Drake was next on the agenda. Tom's secretary called him in Washington, and upon learning that he was due back in Berkeley the following day, wondered whether he might be inclined to come to San Francisco and join Mr. Lavette for dinner. When she told Tom about that, he smiled and shook his head.

“Don't go on. He said that I could damn well come to Berkeley if I desired to see him.”

“Yes,” Janet replied. “How did you know?”

“That little bastard is cock of the walk right now. You told him I'd come?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Suppose we say day after tomorrow for dinner. Call him back and tell him, and be very sweet. And make reservations for three, or four if he wants to bring his wife.”

“In Berkeley? Where?”

“At Frederick's. Where else in Berkeley? Mention his name when you make the reservation and tell them we want a good table.”

Lucy had some second thoughts about Drake. “I don't trust him, and his involvement with Barbara makes it tacky.”

“We're not exactly searching for an honest man,” Tom said.

“He's depressing. Just to look at him is depressing.”

“The point is that he plays the game. Everyone who knows him agrees on that score. He plays the game.”

Tom and Lucy were first at the restaurant. Tom handed the head waiter twenty dollars, impressing him with the charge that Mr. Drake was to be treated as visiting royalty. Lucy's knowledge of Berkeley was hazy. She had never been to Frederick's before, and she smiled dubiously as Tom explained to her that their table, near the front of the restaurant, was one of the three or four most desirable.

“I suppose so,” Lucy agreed, “as such things go. It's a deplorable place.”

The head waiter brought Drake over. He was in his middle thirties, slender and plump at the same time, with a small round paunch and round puffy cheeks. He seated himself dubiously. He had come alone, ignoring the invitation to bring his wife. He was wary; his handshake was without enthusiasm.

“My fiancée,” Tom said, introducing Lucy. Congressman Drake's expression questioned her presence at what was certainly intended as a business meeting. “She is also my associate,” Tom explained. He successfully covered the contempt he felt for this small, foxlike man. Lucy was right about politics. This man, who had a seat in the House of Representatives, was shabby, shabby in his manner and shabby in his pretenses. He had no idea of the relationship between Tom and his sister, and with an ounce of pride or integrity, he would have avoided the meeting. Tom wondered what he was expecting. A payoff? What would it take to buy Barbara out? Or was it too late? Lucy felt it was too late since Congress had already voted the contempt. What then? Respect for money? That certainly was a part of it. He knew the wealth and the power Tom represented, and Tom realized that he himself was only beginning to understand the extent and potency of that wealth and power. Lucy understood it much better.

He felt a surge of possessive pride that Lucy was sitting next to him. To hell with those who didn't think she was attractive! He did. She was a strong woman, and to his way of thinking, a very handsome woman. They had never been to bed, never made physical gestures toward each other; but the thought of such gestures excited him, and no other woman had excited him in a long time.

All this went through his mind as Lucy engaged in chitchat with the congressman. Tom ordered drinks, Scotch and water all around.

“Now let's understand this,” Drake said, flatly and unexpectedly. “There's nothing I can do for your sister now. It's too late. I just want you to know that when the committee subpoenaed her, I didn't know she was your sister. The name was Barbara Cohen. Then I found out who she was. She was insolent and hostile, but that's not to the point. The point is that she can vacate the contempt citation any time she pleases to. All she has to do is to answer the question and name the names we asked for.”

Tom stared at Drake thoughtfully for a long moment before replying. Lucy observed him with interest, wondering just how Tom intended to proceed. Finally he said, “That's up to my sister, isn't it?”

Drake was taken aback. He simply nodded.

“I'm not terribly fond of my sister,” Tom went on, his voice cool and without emotion. “She's a grown woman, and she has never consulted me about any action of hers. I was going to wait until we knew each other a little better, congressman, which two or three drinks might accomplish, but since you have plunged in, I'll swim with you. I didn't ask for this meeting to plead my sister's case. I wish to talk to you about the Lavettes, because it seems to me that when you took this step of subpoenaing my sister, you knew very little about us.”

On the defensive now, Drake again stressed that he had not known Barbara's identity.

“Of course,” Tom said. “That's water under the bridge. But let me make this plain. I am the president and I control the majority stock of the fifth largest corporation in this state. I am not speaking only of the Seldon Bank, but of a conglomerate of interests that reach into every corner of California and a few corners outside it. I don't think I have to say much more than that. You come up for reelection in the fall. I have also heard it bruited about that you'd like to be governor. I doubt that the Republican party could elect a governor in California without our help.”

“I don't know what I could do at this point about your sister,” he said helplessly.

“Nothing, I'm sure. It's unfortunate that my sister stepped into the middle of this. Now suppose we talk about your own plans, Mr. Drake.”

For the next hour, Tom and Lucy listened to the pompous self-importance of Norman Drake. They fed him food and Scotch and praised his acumen and patriotism, and he in turn became wet-eyed in his apologies for his ignorance.

Finally, Tom and Lucy drove him home—he was too drunk to drive himself—to his place in San Pablo; then, too exhausted to face the drive back to Pacific Heights, they registered for the night at a local hotel, registered separately, and took adjoining rooms.

Excited, stimulated by his and Lucy's manipulation of Drake, nervous as a college boy with an illicit date, his exhaustion gone now, bathed and in shirt and trousers—since they had no luggage—Tom nerved himself to go to Lucy's room. She solved his curious struggle by knocking at the door to his room. She carried a handful of magazines.

“Just something to read if you can't sleep.” She stood facing him, regarding him with fond interest.

“You look very beautiful,” he said.

“Thank you—not for the truth but for saying it. I was very impressed with the way you handled that little swine.”

“Come on, Lucy, not so harsh. I think he's our little swine from here on in.”

“And you really don't give a damn about what happens to Barbara?”

“Does that shock you?”

“No. I'm not fond of your sister. To be truthful, I think she's a sentimental ass. But I must say that my opinion of Drake doesn't bear repeating. What an unctuous, dreadful little man he is! Do you really imagine that he's destined for great things?”

“If we help to destine him. That's not really a word, is it, but it fits.”

“Perfectly good word.”

“He'll be very obedient, and I don't think he'll bite the hand that feeds him. He's very guilt-stricken about Barbara at this point, and I can't convince him that I don't actually give a damn. I'm not sure that I want to convince him.”

Lucy sprawled on the bed. “Come over here, Thomas,” she said.

“Oh?” He walked to the bed and stood looking down at her.

“Has a woman ever made love to you?” she asked.

“Lucy, I'm thirty-six years old.”

“Ah, and you've made love to women. That, dear boy, is not what I am talking about. Has a woman ever made love to you?” She reached out and took his hand. “Don't answer that. Take off those ridiculous trousers and lie down here beside me.”

Suddenly, as he tried to undo his pants, his hands were shaking like those of an adolescent confronted with his first sexual opportunity. Lucy was smiling at him, her long, angular face almost pretty. She kicked off her shoes and slipped out of her dress and underthings. It was the first time Tom had ever seen her naked. She had a strong, muscular body, narrow hips, flat breasts. He was shivering with excitement. No woman had ever acted upon him like this before, excited him this way. He finished fumbling with his clothes, and now he was naked.

“Lie here,” she said, moving over and making room for him. “Just lie down here and forget that anything in the world ever troubled you.” He stretched out next to her, and she began to caress him, touch him, stroke him, his body shivering under her hands. When he tried to respond on his own part, she whispered, “No, no, this is mine.”

“Don't you want the lights out?”

“No. Better this way.”

When he touched her, she pushed his hands back down on the bed. In his mind, he was her prisoner, her plaything, her pet, and the thought gave him a wild, erotic pleasure; and when finally she straddled him, her dark hair falling on his face, her small breasts hanging loose from her body, her lips parted in a kind of triumphant grin, he climaxed with a violence that shook his body and left him limp and mindless.

Afterward, Lucy said to him, “I think we will be good for each other, Thomas, but I shall not play the jealous wife and you will not play the jealous husband. I think we make an interesting match.”

Three days later, they were married in San Francisco at her father's house. Since it was a second marriage for each of them, the wedding party was very small, restricted to members of both families—Alvin Sommers, the bride's father, very old and withered, an aunt and uncle of the bride, Dan and Jean Lavette, and Barbara. It was understood that Joe, Tom's half brother, would be left out of the festivities. In actual fact, he and Tom had never met each other. Alvin Sommers, who had taken over the presidency of the Seldon Bank after Jean's resignation, was smugly delighted at the match, chuckling with geriatric glee that his family would once again control the swelling Seldon fortune. But aside from the old man's financial joy, the little wedding party was curiously cold and subdued, kisses confined to small, polite pecks. It broke up early, Dan and Jean taking Barbara home with them for a drink and a few minutes of relaxation.

Just the week before, Barbara had hired Anna Gomez, the nineteen-year-old daughter of Francis Gomez, the mechanic who had taken over Bernie's garage. Anna would live in at the house on Green Street, do the housekeeping, and take care of Sam when Barbara had to be away. She was a pleasant, honest young woman, and Barbara liked and trusted her; now, as her recognition of Bernie's death passed from grief into an accepted and permanent reality, Barbara realized that she must have more time, not only for her work but for the necessary business of living as a single woman.

“We are a strange family indeed,” Barbara said to Jean. “What a loveless, cheerless occasion! I don't think I could love Tom, but I do pity him, and mostly during his moments of exultation.”

Dan brought them brandy, and they sat in front of the fire in the living room of the house on Russian Hill.

“I would hardly call it a moment of exultation,” Jean said. “But I suppose it's no worse than most marriages.”

“The woman's a barracuda,” Dan said. “Not that Tom doesn't have piranha qualities of his own—”

Barbara burst out laughing. “What a beautiful piscatorial equation! You will always be my own very dear fisherman, daddy.”

“I'm afraid I agree with Bobby,” Jean said. “I feel sorry for Tom.”

“He'll hold his own. You haven't heard about John Whittier?”

“No. What about John?”

“Tom dumped him. Came in with the voting rights to Al Sommers' stock and threw John out on his ear. Old Grant Whittier must be turning over in his grave.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Jean asked.

“Just what I said. John Whittier has been tossed out of Great Cal Shipping, which is now the GCS Corporation. Tom's the new president.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Word gets around.”

“But Tom was his protégé. John adored him.”

“I don't think John Whittier ever adored anyone but John Whittier,” Barbara said.

“I know you disliked him, Bobby, but he was fond of Tom. It was his notion to combine the bank with his own company. Why on earth would Tom do it? John is old and sick.”

“And Tom is impatient,” Dan said. “I wouldn't weep for John Whittier. He still has his minority holdings and enough millions to live in luxury.”

“Do you think it was Lucy's idea?”

“Possibly. She got him the voting rights. But don't sell our boy short, Jeanie. He's quite an operator on his own.”

***

Playing with her son one day in Huntington Park, trying to get him to realize the potential in tossing a large, soft ball, catching it, and tossing it back, Barbara found herself giggling with delight in the simple joy of the game.

It had happened. The wave of guilt that followed soon passed.
There is no sin in laughing
, she told herself, feeling nevertheless that there was a deeper sin in being so joyously and completely alive. But it had happened, and she was not the type who could consciously plunge back into depression. What might have been her condition without the presence of Sam, she did not know, but just the thought of something happening to him filled her with terror. Sam represented the only sanity, the only reason, the only validity that remained in her world. She knew now that she would never have another child. She was approaching her thirty-fifth birthday, and even if her childbearing years could be extended, even if she could bring herself to face a second Caesarean section, she could not cope with the thought of a second marriage. Jean had tried, very gently, to open the subject, but Barbara refused to discuss it.