“My grandfather. Sure.”

“According to the information I’ve put together, this old man used to bounce you on his knee. He still keeps in touch with your mother.”

“You wouldn’t be talking about Arthur Rademacher, by any chance?”

“I was beginning to wonder whether you’d come up with the right name before I had to give it to you.”

“All right, it’s Arthur Rademacher. I know him, he knows me. Where does that get us?”

“How much does he know about your record?”

“I have no idea. Not very much, I imagine. I’ve been discreet.”

“Not discreet enough.”

“You don’t have to remind me. But nobody else but you would have had any reason to sic private detectives on me.”

Villiers said, “Then we’ll assume Rademacher doesn’t know the sordid details.”

“I don’t like your brand of humor very much, Mr. Villiers.”

“You’ll get used to it. Now, Rademacher got out from under the Market crash of twenty-nine by methods which, not to put too fine a point on it, could be described as devious. Questionable. Nothing actionable, of course-it’s too long ago, there’s a statute of limitations, but just the same he’s got a reputation to uphold, and his family has got a reputation to uphold, and in your circles nothing matters much except reputation.”

“How the hell did you find out anything about what an old man did forty years ago?”

“The same way I found out about your activities of five years ago.”

“Okay, okay,” Wyatt said. “Go ahead.”

“I need a lever to move Rademacher. You’re the lever. By now the old man thinks his secret’s safe forever. It will hit him hard when you spring it on him.”

“When I spring it on him?”

“Coming from you, it will hurt more. You’re one of his people, not an outsider. Once he knows you’re onto him, he’ll have to come around. Exposure in his own crowd could ruin him, and he’s too old to start over. I want you to pry him loose from those half-million shares.”

“I take it you made him an offer. Why’d he turn it down?”

“He doesn’t want to see a venerable company like Melbard taken over by an upstart art-gallery chain.”

“Art gallery?”

“The front I’m using. I’ve made him a legitimate offer; when you hang up, call Hackman, he’ll give you all the details.”

“All right,” Wyatt said.

“It’s got to be done fast. I want Rademacher pried loose from control by Sunday at the latest.”

“I’ll go out there tomorrow,” Wyatt said.

“Lean on him,” Villiers told him. “It will be worth your while.”

“How?”

“I’ve got to have a man to put in charge of Melbard once I’ve got control of it-a straw board and an agreeable president. Why not you? You’ve got a respectable society name. I know those people-you’ll be blackmailing Rademacher, but he’d rather be blackmailed by you than by an outsider. He’ll be more willing to come around if he knows you’re going in as the crown prince, ready to become president of the company as soon as the deal goes through.”

“You’re going to hand me the company just like that?”

“With strings. You won’t be free to handle it your way.”

Wyatt grunted. “In the long run, you’ll get done with whatever you wanted it for. Then it’ll be a drag on you. All I have to do is wait you out-you’ll turn it loose sooner or later.”

“Maybe,” Villiers said, smiling again. “At least it’s worth the gamble, from your point of view.”

“Sure it is.”

“Get it done fast,” he said, and hung up. He pulled open the booth door and stood up. Two weeks, he thought. By two weeks from now I’ll have the world in the palm of my hand.

16. Russell Hastings

Shortly after three o’clock Russ Hastings checked NCI’s closing price on the ticker, scribbled the figures at the bottom of a column in his notebook, and buzzed his secretary. “Miss Sprague, ask the Exchange to have Herb Capps call me right away, will you?”

“Yes, sir.”

He flipped back through the notebook and scowled. He had spent three days tracking investors who had recently bought blocks of NCI common. He had been able to reach only a handful; none of them had told him anything useful; by now they shifted together in his mind, as vague as the characters in a Russian novel.

Intercom buzz. “I have Mr. Capps on the line.”

“Thank you… Hello, Herb? I see by today’s close, NCI is up another two points for the week.”

“Still worrying that bone, Mr. Hastings? You won’t find much meat on it.”

“Possibly. It happens I’m calling you about something else.”

“That list of buyers I was going to send you. Look, I’m sorry about that. My secretary’s out sick, I’ve been trying to put it all together myself, evenings. I’m a one-finger, hunt-and-peck typist, it’s gone kind of slow. But I’ll have it up to date and on your desk by Monday morning.”

“All right. Thank you. I hope it’s nothing serious-your secretary?”

“What? Oh, only a summer flu bug. She’ll be back early in the week, I expect.”

When Capps broke the connection, Hastings picked up the notebook and walked out past Miss Sprague’s desk. She looked up. He discovered her neck was ropy, wondered that he’d never noticed it before, and said, “I’m going up to the boss’s office. I need you to handle a small discreet job for me.”

“Yes, sir?”

“See if you can find out if Herb Capps’s secretary has been out sick this week. Don’t let Capps find out you’re inquiring about it.”

“All right, sir.”

He grinned at her and looked at his watch. “Buzz me in the field marshal’s office if you find out about her before I come back.”

He went down the hall to Gordon Quint’s sanctum.

The fat man gave him an amiable glare. “What now?”

“My liege, I come bearing curious tidings.” Hastings sat down without waiting to be asked. “Do you believe in coincidence?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t. Not unless every other possibility has been ruled out.”

“Things are never neat and tidy,” Quint said. “You have a suspicious mind.”

“That’s what I’m paid for, isn’t it?”

“Let’s have it, then.”

Hastings flipped back the cover of his notebook. “There’s been considerable escalation in purchases of NCI common, in blocks, by a large number of investors who don’t want to be traced. Over the past seven weeks, all together one million eight hundred thousand shares of NCI have been traded. Of those shares, about two hundred thousand have been bought in small lots. That leaves a million six. Of which something like five hundred thousand shares have been bought by bona-fide institutional investors-banks, mutual funds, pension funds. Another eighty or a hundred thousand shares I can eliminate from suspicion because I’ve been able to track down the buyers and they’re reputable.”

“Leaving a million shares you haven’t yet accounted for,” Quint said.

“Your math’s good enough. Want to know who bought those one million shares?”

“That’s childish. I don’t enjoy riddles. Get on with it.”

“It’s one riddle I haven’t found the answer to. You can follow those purchases just so far, and then a door slams in your face. Canadian front men. So-called mutual funds that turn out to be nothing more than dummies for unspecified stockholders. Anonymous numbered Swiss bank accounts. Corporations in Liechtenstein that won’t divulge the names of their officers and principal stockholders. I’ve traced a quarter of a million dollars’ worth to a call girl and another quarter of a million to a gangster. The other day you wanted to know if I had anything more than a hunch. Well?”

Quint grunted. He leaned on the leather arm of the chair and dipped his finger into the abalone-shell ashtray to stir candy wrappers as if they were tea leaves in which he expected to find an oracular message. Presently he looked up. “You are not making me a very happy man. I was looking forward to a quiet, untroubled weekend in the country.”