The Seventh Commandment (3 page)

"How so?"

"Crazy. Runs with a rough downtown crowd. But I'll say this for her: She seems to be taking her father's death harder than any of the others."

"What about Clayton's wife?"

"Eleanor? A social butterfly. She's on a zillion committees. Always planning a party for this charity or that. She loves it. Maybe because she can never wear the same dress twice. Listen, I've got to split. Where do you live?" "Hartford." "Going home for the weekend?"

"I doubt it. My husband may come down if he can get away."

"What does he do?"

"He's a dispatcher for a trucking company. Works crazy hours."

"Well, if he doesn't show up, maybe we can get together for a pizza."

She stared at him. "I told you I was happily married."

"And I heard you," the detective said. "What's that got to do with sharing a pizza?"

"Nothing," Dora said. "As long as we keep it on a professional level. Maybe we can compare notes and do each other some good."

"Sure we can," Wenden said. "Here's my card. If I'm not in, you can always leave a message. Thanks for the lunch."

"My pleasure," Dora said and watched him move away, thinking he was an okay guy but he really should get his suit pressed and his shoes shined. She knew he had to deal with a lot of scumbags, but he didn't have to dress like one.

The flagship store of Starrett Fine Jewelry, Inc., was located on Park Avenue just south of 57th Street. It occupied one of the few remaining town houses on the Avenue in midtown Manhattan, surrounded by steel and glass towers. The baroque six-story structure, built in 1896 as the family home of a shipping magnate, was designed by a student of Stanford White, and the exterior had been cited by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The jewelry selling area was on the ground level, with silverware, crystal, and china on the second. The third and fourth floors were designers' studios and shops for engraving and repairs. Executive offices filled the top two stories. Starrett's main workshop for the crafting of exclusive designs was in Brooklyn. The company also purchased quantity items and gold chains from independent suppliers in Taiwan and South Korea.

In addition to New York, Starrett stores were located in Boston, Chicago, Beverly Hills, San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas, Palm Beach, London, Paris, Zurich, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Cancun, Rome, and Brussels. Starrett did not have a mail order catalogue but sometimes sent favored customers drawings of new designs before they were made up and offered to the general public. Many of these were one-of-a-kind pieces: brooches, bracelets, rings, necklaces, tiaras.

Generally, all the Starrett stores, worldwide, offered the same merchandise, although the mix was often varied. The general manager of each shop ordered the items from New York that he thought would sell best in his area. In addition, every Starrett store had its own workshop and was encouraged to produce jewelry on special order for valued clients, usually personalized items designed to the customer's specifications.

During the last year, Clayton Starrett's second as president and chief executive officer, he had replaced the general managers of nine of the sixteen Starrett stores. Some of these men (and one woman) had been with the company for ten, fifteen, twenty years, and their termination had been the cause of the violent disagreement between Clayton and his father.

The late Lewis Starrett claimed they were all experienced, loyal employees who had proved their competence, and firing them was not only an act of ingratitude but, more important, would have an adverse effect on revenues and net profits.

But Clayton was adamant. The veterans would have to go because, he said, they knew little about modern merchandising, advertising, promotion, and public relations. They were content to cater to an aging clientele and made no effort to attract a new generation of Starrett customers.

The argument between father and son became so fierce that it began to affect the morale of personnel in the New York store. It was only resolved when Clayton, white-faced, threatened to resign and move out of his parents' apartment. Thereupon the old man backed down, and the son became the recognized and undisputed boss of Starrett Fine Jewelry, Inc.

The new general managers he hired for the subsidiary stores were mostly hard young men, smartly dressed, with an eye on the bottom line and a brusque manner with subordinates. A few were reputedly MBAs, and several were foreign-born. All seemed possessed of driving ambition and, shortly before his death, Lewis Starrett had to admit that revenues and net profits were increasing spectacularly.

When Lewis ran the company with iron fist and bellows of rage, he arrived for work each morning at 7:30 and frequently put in a twelve-hour day. Clayton's style of management was considerably more laid-back. He showed up around ten o'clock, took a lengthy lunch and, if he returned from that, was usually out of the office by five.

On this day he stepped from his chauffeured stretch limousine (a presidential perk) and entered the Starrett Fine Jewelry Building a few minutes before ten. He hardly glanced into the selling area, almost devoid of customers. He was not dismayed; Starrett's patrons were not early-morning shoppers; they preferred late afternoon.

A small, elaborately decorated elevator lifted him slowly to his private office on the top floor. His secretary, an English import hired more for her accent than her ability, took his homburg and chesterfield. A few minutes later she returned with a cup of black coffee and a toasted bagel.

This minibreakfast was served on bone china in an exclusive Starrett pattern called Belladonna.

As he gnawed his bagel, he reviewed the day's schedule. There was nothing that seemed to him of monumental importance, and he wondered if, about four or four-thirty that afternoon, he might call Helene Pierce and ask if she was willing to receive him.

He was paying $5,400 a month for her apartment, giving her $1,000 a week walking-around money, and occasionally bringing her small diamonds for her collection. But in spite of this largesse, he had to obey her rules: no unexpected visits, limited phone calls, no questions as to how she spent her time. He accepted these dictates cheerfully because, he admitted to himself, he was obsessed. Helene was half his age, had a body that never failed to arouse him, and was so practiced in the craft of love that he never ceased to wonder how one so young could be so knowing and experienced.

His first task of the morning was to review, on his desktop computer, the previous day's sales at the sixteen Starrett stores. It was then the height of the Christmas shopping season, a period that usually accounted for thirty percent of Starrett's annual revenues. He punched the keys and watched intently as numbers filled the screen.

The computer showed not only current sales but provided comparison with income of the same week during the previous five years. The numbers Clayton studied showed that Starrett's business was essentially flat; the increase was barely enough to cover the inflation rate. He was now more firmly convinced than ever that Starrett could not depend solely on retail sales for continued profits and growth.

He then switched to a software program for which only he possessed the access code. Now the numbers shown on the screen were much more encouraging. Exciting, in fact, and he blessed the day Helene and Turner Pierce had come into his life. Helene had brought joy, and sometimes rapture; Turner had provided financial salvation.

His first meeting was with an in-house designer to go over proposed designs for a new line of sterling silver keyrings in the shapes of mythological beasts. They had a surrealistic discussion as to whether or not the unicorn was a phallic symbol and if so, what effect it might have on sales. Clayton eventually initialed all the sketches except for the centaur, which he deemed too suggestive for public display and sale.

He accepted a phone call from Eleanor and spoke with her for almost fifteen minutes, marveling (not for the first time) how his adulterous affair had made him a better husband, more patient with his wife and amenable to her wishes. She had called to remind him that they were to attend a charity dinner and fashion show at the Metropolitan Museum.

Eleanor was not directly involved, but the Starretts had subscribed ($1,000 a couple) because one of Eleanor's close friends had organized the affair. These endless charity parties were, Clayton knew, a world of mutual back-scratching. He submitted because they kept his wife busy and naPPy› and because they were good public relations. Also, he enjoyed wearing a dinner jacket.

He then met with an interior decorator and went over plans to redecorate his office. The day after his father's funeral, Clayton had moved into his office, the largest in the executive suite. But it was crammed with dark oak furniture, the windows overlooking Park Avenue half-hidden behind dusty velvet drapes, the walls covered with flocked paper. Clayton spent an hour describing exactly what he wanted: stainless steel, glass, Bauhaus-style chairs, bright Warhols on the walls, and perhaps a Biedermeier couch as a conversation piece.

He lunched at a Japanese restaurant, the guest of a Tokyo merchant who wanted Starrett to carry a choice selection of antique inro and netsuke. While they ate sa-shimi and drank hot sake, the exporter displayed a few samples of his exquisitely carved wares. Clayton was fascinated and agreed to accept a small shipment on consignment as a test of the sales potential.

He returned to his office, wondering if Starrett might emulate Gump's of San Francisco and offer imported curios, bibelots, and objets d'art. They could, he reckoned, be sold in the department now handling estate jewelry, and might very well find a market.

He dictated several letters to his secretary and, after she left, called Helene's apartment on his private line. But there was no answer, and he guessed she was out spending money. "Shopping," she had once told him, "is my second favorite pastime."

It was then almost 4:30, and Clayton decided to call his limousine, return home, and take a nap before he dressed for dinner. But then Solomon Guthrie phoned and asked if he could come up immediately. Guthrie was Starrett's chief financial officer, and Clayton knew what he wanted to talk about.

Sol was sixty-three, had worked for Starrett forty years, and called his bosses Mister Lewis and Mister Clayton. He had a horseshoe of frazzled white hair around a bald pate, and was possibly the last office worker in New York to wear celluloid cuff protectors. He had learned, with difficulty, to use computers, but still insisted in keeping a duplicate set of records in his spidery script in giant ledgers that covered half his desk.

He came stomping into Clayton's office carrying a thick roll of computer printout under his arm.

"Mister Clayton," he said aggrievedly, "I don't know what the hell's going on around here."

"I suppose you mean the bullion trades," Clayton said, sighing. "I explained it to you once, but I'll go over it again if you want me to."

"It's the paperwork," the CFO said angrily. "We're getting invoices, canceled checks, bills of lading, warehouse receipts, insurance premium notices-it's a snowfall! Look at this printout-one day's paper!"

"Just temporary," Clayton soothed him. "When our new systems integration goes on-line, the paperwork will be reduced to a minimum I assure you."

"But it never used to be like this," Sol complained. "I used to be able to keep up. All right, so I had to work late some nights-that comes with the territory. But with these bullion trades, I'm lost. I'm falling farther and farther behind."

"What are you telling me, Sol-that you need more people?"

"No, I don't need more people. By the time I tell them what to do, I could do it myself. What I want to know is the reason for all this. For years we were a jewelry store. Now suddenly we're gold dealers-a whole different business entirely."

"Not necessarily," Clayton said. "There's money to be made buying and selling bullion. Why should we let the dealers skim the cream? With our contacts we can buy in bulk and sell to independent jewelers at a price they can't match anywhere else."

"But where are we buying the gold? I get the invoices, but I never heard of some of these suppliers."

"All legitimate," Clayton told him. "You get the warehouse receipts, don't you? That's proof they're delivering, and the gold is going in our vaults."

"And the customers-who are they?"

"First of all, I plan to make all our stores autonomous. They'll be more subsidiaries than branches. I want them to do more designing and manufacturing on their own. New York will sell them the raw materials: gold, silver, gemstones, and so forth. At a markup, of course. In turn, the subsidiaries can sell to small jewelers in their area."

Guthrie shook his head. "It sounds meshugenah to me. And right now we got too much invested in bullion. What if Russia or South Africa dumps, and the market price takes a nosedive. Then we're dead."

Clayton smiled. "We're hedged," he said. "There's no way we can be hurt. Sol, you see the bottom line. Are we losing money on our gold deals?"

"No," the CFO admitted.

"We're making money, aren't we? Lots of money."

Sol nodded. "I just don't understand it," he said fretfully. "I don't understand how you figure to unload so much gold. I think our inventory is much, much too heavy. And your father, God rest his soul, if he was alive today, believe me he'd be telling you the same thing."

Clayton took a cigar from a handsome mahogany humidor on his desk. It was a much better brand than his father had smoked. But he didn't light the cigar immediately. Just rolled it gently between his fingers.

"Sol," he said, "you're sixty-three-right?"

"Yes."

"Retirement in two years. I'll bet you're looking forward to it."

"I haven't thought about it."