“God, you’re a stubborn pair of bastards!”

“We have to be. And you’d be wise to remember it.”

Wyatt’s eyes flickered when they touched Burgess’. Finally he pulled the chair out and sat down. “Look, can I get bail?”

“If you decide to cooperate, you won’t need any.”

“You bastards make it sound easy, don’t you? You make it sound as if I’d get off free as a bird. The fact is, if I tell you what you want to know, there’s going to be a hell of a lot of mud flying, and a good deal of it will stick on me.”

“You took that chance when you threw in with Villiers,” Burgess said. “Isn’t it a little late to worry about it now? Look, we’re all tired, and if you don’t want to testify, you don’t have to. I offer my personal guarantee you’ll end up making mail sacks in Atlanta, but it’s your choice.”

Wyatt’s jaw muscles stood out like cables. He looked from Burgess to Hastings. His eyes were tired and raw. He lit a cigarette and held it in the manner of an actor preparing to turn toward the audience and deliver the line that would bring down the curtain, and Hastings felt himself tense up. But what Wyatt said was, “I don’t suppose there’d be any way of keeping it from my mother?”

“I won’t kid you,” Burgess said. “It’s going to be the biggest Wall Street news break since Robert Young went after the New York Central. I’m just stating facts, not enjoying it. You understand?”

There were signs stamped in Wyatt’s face that Hastings saw with quick and easy recognition, and a slight contempt. To prime him, Hastings prompted, “You went with Villiers and another man to a board meeting of the NCI directors. Who was the third man with you?”

“Sidney Isher. You must know that if you know I was there.”

“All right. Who’s Isher?”

In the corner, the telephone rang. Burgess went to answer it. Hastings said, “Who’s Isher?”

“He works for Villiers.”

“Doing what?”

“Keeping the flies off him, maybe. I don’t know. He’s a lawyer. He draws up papers, that kind of thing. You’d have to ask him.”

“We will. Now, what about-”

At the phone, Burgess had turned, catching his eye. Hastings went to the phone, crossing paths with Burgess, who said to Wyatt, “Ready to have your statement taken down by a stenographer now?”

“I guess so,” Wyatt said, drained.

Burgess went to the door to call outside; Hastings picked up the telephone.

“Russ? It’s Diane.”

“Hello,” he said, unable to think of anything else to add.

“It’s important, Russ.” She sounded dulled, as if she had taken a drug. “I’ve been trying to find you all weekend-I’ve been on the phone several times with Lewis Downey in Arizona. It doesn’t look as if my father’s going to last the night out, but I’m flying out there now to be with him. I’m at the airport now-I only have a minute. I hope I can get there in time. But I had to reach you-I saw Mason Villiers Friday night. You remember when you asked me about him?”

“Yes, I remember. My God, I’m shocked to hear-he seemed to be holding his own when I saw him…”

“It seems to have hit suddenly. Lewis said the doctors had warned him this could happen almost anytime. But Russ-they’re calling my plane, I must hurry-listen to me. I’ve told my lawyers to try to break off the deal with Mason Villiers, if it isn’t already too late. You were right about him, I should have listened to you. He’s a dangerous megalomaniac. But something he said the other night has been echoing around in my head ever since, and it just came to me how important the implication was. He said-let me see if I can remember the exact words-he said he was going to take my father’s company away from him, and then we argued, and I said my father would never let him do it, and then he said to me-I’m sure these are his words-‘Your father won’t live long enough to stop me.’ Do you understand what I’m saying, Russ?”

“I understand it very well. Diane, tell your father-Oh, hell, what’s the point?”

“You’ve always loved him, Russ, he knows that. I’m glad you went out to see him-Oh, God, I’ve got to run, I’ll miss my plane. I’ll call you from the ranch.”

The line went dead. Hastings hung up and turned. The stenographer was settling in a chair with her notebook; Burgess looked up at him. He said, “Villiers knows Elliot Judd is dying.”

Burgess stared at him. “So that’s it. It makes it all fit, doesn’t it? The slimy bastard, taking advantage of an old man’s sickness.”

Hastings walked over to the interrogation table and put his palms flat on it. Steve Wyatt flinched. Hastings said, “How did he find it out, Steve?”

“Okay-okay. Part of it he got from me. I found one of Judd’s letters in Howard Claiborne’s files. After that, Villiers hired some shady detective agency to burgle Judd’s doctor’s files. I think he’s been suspicious ever since Judd withdrew from public sight last year. You know what it means, of course-NCI’s always been a one-man empire, and in that kind of situation it works the same every time, the death of the tycoon always causes a tidal wave, and Villiers will be ready to buy carload lots of stock certificates when the price hits bottom.”

Burgess looked over Wyatt’s head at Hastings. “What do we do about it?”

“I’ll post a man at a phone inside the Exchange. We’ll have to brief the Exchange officials. If Judd dies and the news hits the wire, I want to be ready to suspend trading in the stock immediately, before Villiers has a chance to touch it.” He sat down on the corner of the table and put his hard glance on Wyatt. “Let’s have it now, from the beginning.”

31. Mason Villiers

Villiers came awake and saw that he had slept alone. He had thrown Ginger out two hours ago; he didn’t like to find women around when he woke up in the morning.

It was Monday morning; he felt keyed up. He rang down for breakfast and performed his morning ablutions with unusual enjoyment, a keen awareness of the roughness of the brush against his teeth, the heat of the shower spray, the scratch of the towel. He juggled plans while he breakfasted and dressed; he was downstairs forty minutes after waking up, climbing into the limousine and telling the driver to get him to Hackman’s office fast.

The English girl gave him a frank appraisal as he crossed the office, but he was preoccupied and did not respond; he walked into Hackman’s office, slammed the door, and let his hooded glance move from Hackman to Sidney Isher. And as soon as he saw Isher’s face he knew something had gone wrong.

He looked at his watch-nine-forty. He said, “What’s the matter with you?”

Isher said, without preliminaries, “The NCI board won’t play ball. I couldn’t reach Cleland-I left a message with his answering service. He’s got a hell of a sense of timing. But I did get hold of Dan Silverstein, and he says there’s been heavy pressure put on them to stand pat and fight.”

“Pressure. From where?”

“Evidently from Howard Claiborne and the SEC and the Justice Department, not necessarily in that order.”

George Hackman said, “There’s indications some stockholders may be filing private suits demanding a full accounting of the directors’ activities. And some of your stockholders in your little companies filing suits against you personally.”

“On what grounds?”

“Charging you’ve misused company assets, that kind of thing.” Hackman didn’t look friendly. His jovial facade had crumbled.

Sidney Isher hawked into a handkerchief and said, “This could be a lot rougher than any of us bargained for. NCI’s going to fight, Mace. No question of it. It’s backfired. I say it’s time to cut our losses and get the hell out. It was a good try, but to hell with it. We’ve still got our skins.”

“If Wyatt keeps his mouth shut,” Hackman growled.

Isher frowned at him. “Why shouldn’t he? They turned him loose, didn’t they? They didn’t have enough on him to hold him.”