“But what kind of business could-”

“I don’t want to talk about it now.”

“Why not, darling?”

“I just don’t,” he said. “I haven’t time. I’ll see you later.” He kissed her with feigned passion and left.

He made the drive in his bright cocky Jaguar from New York, by way of the Turnpike and the Raritan Bridge, in just over an hour. Arthur Rademacher’s imposing house was set back from a curving street in Edison amid its own miniature rain forest. Carrying a thin attache case, he walked up to the door, straightened his jacket, made sure his smile was on straight, and rang.

Ethel Rademacher was a stout, elderly woman with blue hair and a Rushmorean countenance; she gave her imperious caw of welcome and admitted him, explaining that the servants had retired for the night. It made him smile slightly; he knew the Rademachers had dismissed the last of their live-in staff some time ago. It was necessary for Mrs. Rademacher to keep up pretenses, and that was both ridiculous and a point in Wyatt’s favor.

Arthur Rademacher was on his feet in the drawing room, an old man whose white hair and eyebrows had the flowing fineness of the formerly blond. Wyatt crossed the room with long masculine strides to shake his hand. “You look good, Arthur.”

The old man gave him a quick, firm handshake, said, “I’ve got a new taxidermist,” and spoke to his wife: “We’ll be in my office.” And showed Wyatt into the private office with a flourish.

By choosing a chair other than the customary one, Wyatt intended to throw the old man off balance. But if the trick had effect, Arthur Rademacher gave no sign of it. He settled into his high leather chair with the slow movements of incipient arthritis, a gaunt antique with eyes gone pale with watery age. He had to swivel his chair to face the younger man, and when he did, he had Steve Wyatt against a lamp in silhouette. Nonetheless, Wyatt veiled his eyes when he said with false geniality, “It was good of you to see me at this hour.”

The old man sucked on his teeth to keep them in place. “Quite all right, Steve boy. I’m so old they don’t trust me with much work anymore-a few papers to push around on the desk, that’s about all. In any event, I’ve always got time for Fran Wyatt’s boy. It’s been too long since I’ve seen you. Well, then, what’s this business matter that’s so urgent it needs discussing on a Saturday evening?”

“Well, sir, you see, I’ve been approached with an offer for an excellent position.”

“Very glad to hear it.”

“But it seems I need your help.”

“My help?” The old man moved a hand in a self-deprecating gesture. “I doubt there’s much I can do any more, you know.”

“The fact is, I’ve been offered a job that doesn’t exist yet. It can come into existence only with your help. Now, I understand you were approached a few days ago by representatives of Nuart Galleries with an offer to-”

“Absurd,” the old man snapped, cutting him off. “The whole thing was absurd. They incorporate their damned firm one day and they want to buy Melbard the next. It’s absurd. Put an old-line company like Melbard in the hands of those Madison Avenue upstarts and it would fall apart overnight. They deal in nothing but sham and pretense, those people-art fashions and fads that change from one minute to the next; what could they know about anything as solid and sturdy as Melbard?”

“Sir, we thought that might be the reason why you turned down the offer. That’s why I’ve come to see you.”

“You? Involved with that pack of Madison Avenue frauds?” The old man shaped his mouth with delicious cruel emphasis around the words “Madison Avenue,” as if they were the foulest epithet in the language.

Wyatt thought, The old fart. He made his voice conciliatory: “Well, sir, after all, it is Elliot Judd’s daughter who owns Nuart. We’re not really talking about a gang of young opportunists without background or breeding, are we? From what I understand, it wouldn’t hurt Melbard Chemical to have an infusion of Judd money. Besides, Elliot Judd is a big stockholder in Melbard-we’d only be keeping it in the family, in a manner of speaking.”

“Then why not keep it in the Melbard family-my family?” The old man snorted. He had a disturbing trick of clicking his false teeth like castanets. Either he hadn’t heard of, or didn’t want to bother with, denture adhesives. He said, “I certainly don’t see what makes Melbard Chemical so desirable to your Madison Avenue friends. It’s hardly in their line.”

“But you’d have to agree it’s a good investment-a sound company. All it needs is an injection of capital to build on.”

“Got capital enough of its own,” the old man said curtly. “How did you get involved in this, anyway?”

“They wanted someone who knew corporate finance,” Wyatt lied. “You see, the job I’ve been offered-it’s the presidency of Melbard, provided, of course, it can be bought by Nuart.”

The old man bridled immediately. His eyes narrowed; his face became hard and shrewd. He yanked open a desk drawer and took out an old meerschaum pipe with a badly chewed stem, and clenched it unlit between his teeth, supporting the bowl with one hand.

Wyatt said, “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“I don’t. I just use it to remind me to keep my mouth shut when I’m confronted by something I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t think it was hard to understand at all, sir.”

“Isn’t it? You tell me if I’m wrong, Steve, boy-it seems unconscionable to me. They’re trying to bulldoze me by using you as a lever against me. They must know it would go against my grain, against my family ties, to stand in your way. But it must have occurred to you that for me to sell out to your friends would go just as much against my grain. After all, if you become president of Melbard, what happens to James Melbard?”

“He moves up to board chairman. He’s ready to retire anyway-he’s said so. Nobody wants to buy all his stock-he’ll keep his seat on the board, and he’ll remain chairman as long as he chooses to.”

“A titular job, of course? You’d be in charge of operations, as president?”

“Well, yes. Of course, sir. Nuart would have a majority of the votes on the board. Naturally they’d be inclined to support me if a dispute came up between me and Mr. Melbard. But I assure you I’d be anxious to cooperate with him-after all, he knows this business better than I do.”

Rademacher closed his mouth around the pipestem; he leaned back in the high-backed leather chair and closed his eyes. Wyatt, after a little while, made an elaborate sweeping arc with his arm, and looked at his watch; finally the old man opened his eyes, straightened his chair up, and said bluntly, “No. I won’t do it. I’m sorry.”

Wyatt nodded slowly. The old man took down his meerschaum and tried to work his teeth into a comfortable position. It was not beyond probability that he would, any minute now, decide to take them out.

Wyatt’s eyes, which the old man could not see against the lamp behind him, expressed their contempt for Rademacher; in a quiet, slow way, his upper-crust voice slurring, Wyatt said, “Under the terms of the proposal I’m authorized to make, you’d receive stock options in the new corporation-you’d be granted the right, for ten years, to buy ten thousand shares of Nuart stock at ten dollars a share. We have every reason to believe it will be three or four times that price within a year, let alone ten years. On a cash investment of a hundred thousand dollars, you’ll be able to show a capital gain of anywhere from one to five hundred thousand within a very few years. And of course, if I’m wrong, if the stock declines in price during the option period, it will have cost you nothing, since you’re not required to exercise your option-you don’t have to buy the stock. Heads you win, tails you don’t lose. The option will be transferable to your heirs, of course.”

The pipe was back in Rademacher’s mouth. Around it, he said softly, “I told you not to bulldoze me. What makes you think I’d accept an underhanded chance to increase my own fortunes that way at my brother-in-law’s expense?”