The Lincoln Lords: A Novel Read online

  Hesitating only long enough to observe the propriety of careful consideration, he had agreed to listen to Potter’s proposal, knowing from prior experience that it was quite normal to employ a go-between in negotiations of this sort. Admittedly, Potter was almost perfectly qualified for that role, close enough to the board of regents so that he could speak with an intimate knowledge of college affairs, yet not an officer of the college who might be embarrassed by his inability to side-step commitment.

  Hanging up after the call from Dean Whittaker, he had no more than touched the receiver to the cradle when the telephone rang again. It was Potter asking him to come to his office for a nine-thirty meeting. Under more normal circumstances, he would have forced Potter to come to see him but, since he was no longer living in a Tower suite, he had agreed to go to Potter’s office, contenting himself with the minor face-saving of changing the time to ten o’clock.

  He had left the hotel at nine-thirty, giving himself far more time than was necessary to walk the half-dozen blocks, yet afraid that if he waited any longer Maggie would surely guess that he was expecting far more than he had admitted when he told her that he imagined all that Dean Whittaker had in mind was inducing him to make another speech or two at some other Chesapeake alumni meetings. In order to delay his arrival, he had walked up to Fifty-seventh Street and, still too early, had circled the block twice.

  At ten-five, he had walked into Potter’s office. Twelve minutes later he was out on Madison Avenue again. In retrospect it was possible to believe that he had, perhaps, too favorably interpreted some of Dean Whittaker’s ambiguities, yet he had surely been led to expect something more than an offer to join the roadshow crew that Potter was organizing to send out around the country to stage money-raising rallies for Chesapeake College. Potter could hardly have been more purposely demeaning if he had tried to hire him as a spieler for a carnival side show, an impression made all the more vivid by the recollection that only a year ago young Potter had come to him, hat in hand and groveling, begging him to make a pacesetting corporate contribution to last year’s drive—but then, of course, he had been president of the Chemical Service Corporation.

  Blindly he had walked down the avenue, striding along without purpose or destination, two empty hours ahead of him before he could go to the Greenbank Club, unable to return to the hotel after having told Maggie that his meeting with Potter would probably take the entire forenoon, a prediction that he had confidently expected would be fulfilled. Furthermore, since they had moved out of the Tower suite, he had become acutely conscious of the dangers of too close confinement. Cooped up in one room, it was impossible to escape the feeling, true or not, that Maggie was always wondering why he was not out looking for a job. And so, in these last few weeks, he had spent almost all of his mornings walking the streets.

  Three months ago he might have gone to the government-leased loft building on Thirty-eighth Street where as chairman of the Far East Trade Mission he had been given the use of a small office. Although it had been only a windowless cubicle, sparsely furnished with a battered table-desk and two straight-backed chairs, his tenancy reluctantly granted by the more permanently constituted Federal agency that controlled the building, it had nevertheless provided him with a refuge from the streets. Now, with the final report completed, the last draft unanimously approved by the full task force and sent along to Washington, that one haven was no longer open to him. Unbelievable as it seemed, there was now not a single place in all of this enormous city where, on a cold January morning, he could settle down in reasonable comfort and privacy to outwait the slow crawl of the minute hand around the face of his watch.

  Experimentally, he had tried for several days to use the reading room of the New York Public Library, a trial abandoned after he had overheard a seedy-looking old character tell his chair-side neighbor that he had once been the president of the largest sheet-metal stamping company in Manhattan. After that disturbing incident, all libraries seemed to be principally patronized by shaggy-haired old bums who could too easily be imagined as having once been successful corporation executives.

  Art exhibits, when first discovered as a possible outlet for the wasting of time, had helped him through several days. They had proved to be, however, largely filled with repetitively duplicated nonsense for which he found it difficult to arouse the required show of interest, and since inspection demanded that he remain on his feet, the galleries offered little advantage over the streets. The art auction rooms did not have that disadvantage—an usher always found a seat for him, even if an extra chair had to be brought in—but his trial experiences had revealed that, with the current interest in the purchase of paintings as tax-dodge investments, there was the constant danger of an encounter with some old acquaintance who would insist upon asking him what he was now doing.

  He had always thought of New York as a city filled with endless places to spend time—he and Maggie had often talked, in years gone by, of taking a full week just to do some of the things that there had never been time enough to do before—but now that getting through the endless hours of empty days had become an objective in itself, he had discovered that the metropolis offered much less by way of free diversion than he had imagined. All too often what seemed an opportunity to ease the passage of time turned out to be hedged with an admission charge and a demanded hat-check tip, unpleasant reminders that, for the first time since he had gotten out of college twenty-five years ago, what happened to the odd coins in his pocket was a matter of serious concern. By the process of elimination, Lincoln Lord had discovered that there was little left for him to do but walk.

  Habitually he walked Fifth, Park, Madison and Lexington. This morning a cold north wind was sweeping the length of the avenues, now and then driving a stinging spit of sleetlike snow; and by the time he had exhausted the mind-blanking anger that Brooke Potter had aroused, he was chilled through. Forced to seek warmth, he had slipped into an automobile showroom, a diversion that he had recently denied himself. Earlier experimentation had proved that it was futile. Other men were allowed to walk in and spend an unmolested ten minutes, but for some reason, the moment he stepped inside he was invariably pounced upon by a salesman who refused to believe that he was not a hot prospect. He had found some comfort in knowing that he was still unbranded by visible evidences of his unemployment, yet that minor assurance had never outweighed the discomfiture of pretense that he had any legitimate reason to consider the purchase of anything, let alone a high-priced automobile. This morning, quite without realization until he was inside, he had found himself in a showroom that he had visited before, the scene of an embarrassingly intense solicitation when he had been subjected to the high-pressure tactics of a British-accented salesman who had tried to sell him an Italian-made Pantheon. The moment he had gotten inside the door today, the same salesman had stridden toward him. Then, three steps away, recognizing him, he had turned without a word and walked back to the rear of the showroom.

  Out on the street again, unmindful now of the wind and cold, Lincoln Lord had resumed his blind walking, unaware of making a right turn at Fifth Avenue, consciousness of location regained only when he found himself at the entrance of the building where Sellcox & Lloyd had its offices. Conceivably, this was less accidental than it seemed, perhaps explained by a subconscious urge to talk to Otis Sellcox, repressed for the last month by the fear that appearing at his office might be judged an inexcusable intrusion. The last time he had gone up to see Sellcox, his simple question as to whether or not there had been any new developments had produced nothing but a sharply negative response and an acid warning that he was expecting entirely too much if he thought that Sellcox & Lloyd could place him in another corporation presidency overnight.

  The point was, of course, that it had not been overnight. More than eight months had passed since he had gone to Sellcox, who, reputedly, had found jobs for more fifty-thousand-dollar men than any executive placement specialist in New York. Judging by results in his own case, he was beginning to think Sellcox an overrated fraud, fulfilling expectations only in his disagreeable personality. The man who had told Lincoln Lord the most about Sellcox had said, “You’ll hate the cocky little bastard, but if you can get him to take you on, one way or another he’ll get you on someone’s payroll.” After all these months, Sellcox had not even gotten him an interview. It was true, of course, that he had been away for two months on the Japan trip, but Sellcox had approved his going, agreeing that accepting appointment to the Far East Trade Mission might add to his prestige, characteristically saying, “You never can tell what will sucker somebody into giving a man a job.”

  Back from Japan, it had taken him almost a month to catch Otis Sellcox in his office, the suspicion growing that he was avoiding him. He had finally gotten in to see him, only to have Sellcox lash out, “You might as well face it, Linc—you’re a hard guy to place. When a company’s going outside its own organization to find a new president, what they’re looking for is new blood.” And when he had tried to argue the case for experience and maturity, Sellcox had snapped back, “All right, how old were you when you got the presidency of Union Packing-thirty-eight! And you were only forty-one when you went into Frazer Glass. You’re no boy wonder any more, Linc. You’re only a year or so away from being fifty. I’m doing the best I can for you, Linc, but there’s one thing I can’t do—change your birth date.”

  This morning, going up in the elevator to Sellcox’s fortieth floor suite of luxurious offices, the New York Times story had seemed, if not something worth talking about, at least a chance to prove that he was keeping his name before prospective employers—and that, judging by results, was far more than Otis Sellcox was doing for him.

  In what had first seemed a stroke of good fortune, he
had caught Sellcox in the reception foyer, his coat still on, apparently just arriving for the day, the New York Times in his hand. “Yes, I saw it,” he said, twisting his thin lips. “Too bad you got yourself fouled up with that liberal arts pitch. What businessmen want is more engineers and scientists.” And with that he had disappeared, his office door slammed with the sound of a thrown lock.

  Outside on the street again, he had flipped the Times into a wastepaper hamper, the final deflation of this morning’s delusion, an act that he hoped would help him to face the future realistically. Anger tempted him to drop Sellcox & Lloyd and place himself with some other agency, yet hope had been so completely drained that he could not bring himself to believe that it would do any good.

  He had walked on then, heading downtown, trying to fill the time that still remained before he could go to the Greenbank Club. He had gone all the way down to Fourteenth Street before he turned back, dead-tired then by the fast pace that he felt it necessary to maintain, consciously because of the cold, subconsciously because of his fear that if he slowed down to a wandering gait someone who knew him would see him as a purposeless man with no place to go. And that was not a pointless concern. He was always being recognized by someone who remembered him as president of Luxor Pharmacal—or Frazer Glass—or Union Packing—or even as executive vice-president of Rabson Foods. Only a few days ago he had run into someone who remembered him from the days when he had been Chicago sales manager for Quincy Canning.

  Now, having finally gained the warmth and shelter of the club, he found himself disconcertingly unable to stop the flow of wildly errant thought that streamed through his mind. Instead of finding relief, everything that had happened since he had stepped inside the door reminded him of fears that could not be put down, senseless yet insistent. Had there been a knowing needle in old Tebbett’s voice when he reminded him of the New York Times … had Katherine suspected something … that crack about Maggie running away and leaving him …?

  No, now he was being a fool! He could count on Maggie … she’d always stuck by him, she always would … nothing strange about her not being at the hotel … no, not at all … someone had probably invited her out to lunch … but who?

  He turned on the reading lamp. But the blaze of light did not reach back far enough into the shadowy recesses of his mind to erase the dark fears that gnawed at his consciousness … had Maggie left the hotel because she couldn’t face another confession of failure? No, that couldn’t be true … she hadn’t known what he’d been expecting … at least he’d been wise enough not to tell her. But even if he had … no, she’d never run out on him. She knew that something would turn up one of these days … it always had, it would again. All a man had to do was keep his chin up … keep fighting … never let down … play for the break. There might have been one last night if Maggie had only stopped Ransing …

  Uncontrollably, letting it slip past his weakened guard, Lincoln Lord heard his wife’s voice repeat the joyful exclamation that he had overheard as he walked up to the table where she had been sitting with Anderson Phelps … Oh, I’m so happy that Brick is doing so well! … yes, that’s what she had said … he couldn’t possibly have been mistaken. And then, afterwards, going home in the taxi, so pointedly refusing to talk about Brick … always changing the subject … trying to soft-soap him by telling him how wonderful his speech had been. Why couldn’t she be more honest with him … come right out and say it? Why not? He was willing to admit it … he had admitted it … Chemical Service had been a bad move and Brick had been smart when he had refused to come along with him … yes, smarter than he’d been. All right, Brick had gone off and started his own public relations firm … and he was making a success of it. Was that something that couldn’t be talked about? Why not? Didn’t he know that Brick Mitchell was a good man? Would he have kept him on all those years if he hadn’t been … taking him from one company to another … promotions … raises … assistant to the president? Why shouldn’t Brick make a success of a little public relations outfit … all of the experience that he’d given him?

  Maybe that’s what he ought to do, too … start his own company … Lincoln Lord Associates—Management Consultants. Why not? He had the background, didn’t he? Where was there another man who had as wide a range of management experience in as many different types of business? Every one of the big fields … food … drugs … cosmetics … chemicals … Specializing in the Marketing of Packaged Products …

  The forward rush of free thought carried him beyond the solid ground of reason. Abruptly recognizing what had happened, he beat a hasty retreat. It would take money … a lot of it … rent, salaries … everything going out and nothing coming in … probably be a year before he could get it on a paying basis. Everything would be different, of course, if he only had enough capital to …

  His guard was down and the stylus of his mind slipped into a groove deeply cut by repetition, compelling him to yield again to the fascination of what had lately become an obsessive riddle. Uncounted times, walking the streets, he had added up all of the money he had made during the last twelve years. Despite the difficulty of doing mental arithmetic while walking, he always came to the same total—four hundred thousand dollars!

  But that was not the answer to the riddle. It was easy enough to add up his earnings. What he couldn’t figure out was what in the world had happened to all of that money! Of course, there’d been income tax … yes, that had taken a lot of it … but still there had been thousands and thousands of dollars that simply couldn’t be accounted for … yes, the trip to Japan … Maggie’s mink … Cadillacs … Nassau … but what else could he have done? When you were the president of a corporation, you had a position to maintain. That was why they paid you a big salary … contributions … entertaining … living at the Waldorf Towers … sending your son to Forgehill … yes, one of these days he’d have to do something about Kip’s tuition for the second quarter …

  Had he been wrong in turning down Brooke Potter? He had said something about an honorarium … even a few hundred dollars right now would … no! A man didn’t dare let himself slip. He had to keep up his standards … hang on. If you lost faith in yourself, other people would lose faith too. You had to keep your chin up … let the world know that you weren’t licked … keep fighting …

  He closed his eyes against the glare of the reading lamp. A moment later, Fortune slipped from his relaxing fingers. Lincoln Lord was asleep.

  2

  Maggie Lord stood on the steps of Old Main, looking out across the campus of Forgehill Academy, warned by the campanile chimes that it was too early to cross to the cottage where Kip lived. She had told her son when she had called him yesterday that she would surely not arrive at Hawthorne Cottage earlier than twelve-thirty, a prediction turned into a promise by the memory of how Kip, even as a young child, had always shown a flare of angry resistance when, unthinkingly, she would enter his bedroom without a warning knock.

  The ten minutes that now had to be wasted were the result of miscalculation. She had expected that it would take at least an hour to convince Dr. Summerfield that Kip be allowed to remain at Forgehill even though his tuition remained temporarily unpaid, an anticipation based upon her recollection of the long and difficult fifty minutes that it had taken last spring to convince the headmaster that her son be permitted to enter Forgehill for the last quarter, a touch-and-go battle finally won, not by any argument that she had advanced but rather by the headmaster’s being suddenly and unaccountably impressed by the irrelevant fact that Kip’s father was Lincoln Lord, the president of the Chemical Service Corporation.

  She had been prepared for trouble this morning, so fearful of failure that she had not told her husband what she was attempting. On the train coming up from New York, she had rehearsed every argument that she could invent, every possible rebuttal of the objections that Dr. Summerfield could logically be expected to raise. Her worry and concern had proved pointless. All that was needed had been supplied by fortunate coincidence. Dr. Summerfield had already seen this morning’s New York Times, the newspaper on his desk as she had entered his office, the headmaster saying soon afterward, “Oh, it does mean so much to us, you know, to be entrusted with the education of the sons of famous men like Mr. Lord.” Afterwards, more cunningly, he had asked, “Do you suppose that your handsome husband might possibly be induced to honor us by addressing our old grads—the kickoff of our endowment fund campaign, you know?” Her only promise had been that she would relay the invitation. That was all that had been needed to make the headmaster gush, “Oh, how really kind of you, my dear Mrs. Lord—and do tell your husband that the tuition may be paid whenever it’s most convenient.”