Most of the money spent on the refurnishing of Neville House had been Betsy’s.

  Betsy was thirty-five years old. Another secret, known to Angelo and her husband and to no one else, was that Betsy, now the mother of five, had submitted to surgery that made it impossible for her to become pregnant again. She was no longer the playgirl she had been for many years, nor was she yet the incipient matron; she was an impressively handsome woman, ageless in the beauty that promised to remain with her all her life.

  Her elegance did not approach that of Princess Anne Alekhine—she remained too earthy for that—but the Viscountess Neville had been presented to the queen, in spite of the fact that she had an illegitimate son and daughter, and had carried herself off so well that the London tabloids pounced on her and declared her a new celebrity.

  The first course of their lunch was cold borscht. Loren’s third Scotch sat beside his soup plate. He was in a Hardeman mood.

  “Can you really promise your husband that his children are his and not Angelo Perino’s?” he asked.

  “Fuck off, old boy,” Betsy replied. “Can you really promise anyone I’m your daughter? Anne wasn’t your father’s daughter. Am I yours? Or did Number One do it again?”

  Loren flushed deep red. “Damn it, you go too far.”

  Roberta fluttered her hands. “Stop it, you two! Loren … Betsy. Please.”

  Betsy sighed. “In the Hardeman family, nobody knows who is what. How can any of us be sure of anything? I’m sure of one goddamned thing. You’ve got two children, Father, who are really Angelo’s.”

  “Betsy! What the hell?”

  “Two XB Stallions. What’s kept the company alive. Without them—”

  “No one’s going to argue about that,” Roberta interjected. “The man’s an automobile genius.”

  “The man’s a genius thief,” said Loren. “He means to steal everything that’s ours. Everything! Will you ever be able to get it through your heads that Perino’s a mafioso?”

  “Without him, there wouldn’t be anything to steal,” said Betsy calmly. “He bailed out Number One’s ass, and he’s bailed out yours.”

  “You give him too much credit,” said Roberta. “And your father deserves more credit than you give him.”

  “For what?” Betsy sneered.

  “You say there’d be no company without the Stallions. Well, there’d be no Stallions if it hadn’t been for your father. Angelo Perino is an engineer. Without very capable management, there would have been no money to build the cars.”

  “It was Angelo’s name that moved the New York banks to let loose the four hundred and seventy-five million dollars,” said Betsy.

  “Because he meddled,” said Loren. “I could have gotten the money.”

  “Where?”

  “My friend Herbert Froelich could have come up with it.”

  Betsy smiled and nodded. “You’d have had to pledge every share you own and every share the Hardeman Foundation owns. Froelich would have pressed for payment before the Stallion began to make money, and he’d have taken over the company.”

  “What do you suppose Perino plans to do?”

  “He’ll be the next CEO of XB Motors,” said Betsy bluntly.

  “Over my dead body.”

  “That way or any other way.”

  “I’ve got a big surprise for you, slut. When I cash out—”

  Betsy nodded. “I know. There won’t be any XB Motors for Angelo to take away from you. But don’t count on cashing out. It may not work.”

  “I can do it,” said Loren stubbornly. “You just watch me.”

  2

  Angelo and Betsy lay in each other’s arms on a king-size bed in his hotel suite in Tokyo. Angelo was there to talk to Tadashi Komatsu. With her usual perspicacity, Betsy had learned he was going to Japan and where he would be staying. She had somehow managed to convince her husband that she needed to fly to Detroit, which is where he thought she was. In fact, that is where she had changed planes.

  “I had to see you as soon as possible,” she said. “He’s gonna do it. He’s going to sell out.”

  “Well … he has control,” said Angelo quietly.

  “Right. Look, it’s like this … Number One gave my father and Anne each ten percent of the stock in Bethlehem Motors many years ago. My father lost half of his when my mother divorced him, so she owns five percent. Then, under Number One’s will, my father got another twenty-five percent, which made him thirty percent, but he gave five percent to Roberta. I got fifteen percent. Number One handed out three percent to employees he thought were loyal to him. He funded the Hardeman Foundation with thirty-five percent. The foundation will vote its stock whatever way my father says, so that gives him control.”

  “You and Anne are trustees,” said Angelo, “but you are outnumbered.”

  “Randolph and Mueller are my father’s creatures—not to mention that he’s made Roberta a trustee. Number One was stupid when he let my father appoint Randolph and Mueller trustees. In those years he wasn’t paying enough attention.”

  “So you have fifteen percent, Anne has ten percent, Alicia has five, and I have two.”

  “A few short of a majority,” she said wryly.

  “That thirty-some percent may be more significant than you think. I’ve been talking to Paul Burger. Minority shareholders have rights. I’d talk to Paul if I were you. We might be able to elect a director. Maybe even two.”

  “What difference would it make?”

  “Well, I’m going to confront Loren with a big new proposition. That’s why I’m here in Japan. A new car. A totally new car. For the twenty-first century.”

  Betsy nuzzled his neck. “How often do I get to be with you, my one love?” she whispered. “Fuck cars. We can talk about cars and directors in a London restaurant, with George listening. Goddamnit! I want to make love with you! Why else did I fly all the way to Japan? Two nights … three nights at best. Then I have to go home. Tell me you love me, Angelo Perino! Tell me that, and I’ll reward you. Tell me that and the Viscountess Neville, a chum of the queen, is gonna suck your cock till you can’t come anymore!”

  3

  “When we repay all the loans, Froelich will move again,” said Angelo to Bill Adams. They sat together in the Four Seasons, over a lunch of crab cakes.

  “He wants that state-of-the-art plant you built to manufacture the new Stallion,” said Bill. “He could sell that to—he could sell it to any number of companies. It’s a beautiful piece of engineering. Any one of the Big Three car companies would like to have it. The Japanese would buy it. The Germans. The Russians would buy it if they could find the money. Anyway, he—”

  “All Froelich has to do is quit manufacturing automobiles,” said Angelo. “Kill the Stallion.”

  Bill Adams nodded. “He can sell the plant for what he proposes to pay for the stock. Then he unloads everything else the company owns, as profit.”

  “Betsy says Loren will sell his stock. On top of that, he’ll tell the trustees of the Hardeman Foundation to sell its stock—and since they were Number One’s creatures and are now his, they’ll do what he says. A foundation is better off with a hundred million in cash than—”

  “There’s the key,” said Bill.

  “Key?”

  “‘In cash.’ Suppose Froelich & Green can’t come up with enough cash to buy the Hardeman Foundation’s stock plus Loren’s? Then they’ll offer something besides cash: stock in their own company, warrants, notes, whatever. Loren Hardeman might be fool enough to accept what they offer. But the foundation is subject to Michigan laws that limit the kinds of securities a charitable trust can buy and hold. Blue-sky securities offered by Froelich & Green won’t qualify.”

  “What if they come up with cash?” asked Angelo. “I mean, I suppose they have some financial clout. They’ve raided successfully before. Maybe they can raise enough cash.”

  Bill Adams smiled. “I very much doubt they’ll be able to do that,” he said. “They’re not well thought of on the Street.”

  4

  Angelo relieved Keijo Shigeto of all responsibilities relating to the Stallion. Satisfied that his Japanese partner was an engineering genius, he wanted his undivided attention for a new project.

  They sat in the Perino living room: Angelo and Cindy, Keijo and Toshiko. By now everyone had abandoned the pretense that Keijo was on loan to Angelo. The family had been in the States five years now, and none of them expressed any desire to return to Japan, except of course for filial visits.

  Three aircraft companies were using their epoxy resin material for wings and fuselages, and their license had just been renewed by Shizoka. CINDY, Incorporated, was earning revenue and a profit. In fact, Tadashi Komatsu had acknowledged the value of manufacturing improvements made by CINDY, and the new license was more a partnership agreement than just a license. Shizoka remained committed to the idea that epoxy resin would be used in automobile bodies. Its success in the S Stallion was ample evidence of its practicality.

  The four had been discussing this over martinis before dinner when Angelo grinned and said, “Of course, that’s not the big change that has to come. The real change is something far more fundamental.”

  Keijo nodded. “The electric car,” he said.

  “I’ve read two business-page stories in the last week saying it can’t be done—worse, that it can never be done,” said Angelo. “Well, by God, I’m convinced it can. More than that, it has to be done. We can’t go on burning fossil fuels. Even if we don’t run out of them, which we will sooner or later, they are expensive, inefficient, and polluting.”

  “Did you see the cartoon?” Cindy asked. “I mean the one showing the car going along pulling a trailer with tons of batteries?”

  “Chemical batteries,” said Angelo. “Lead cells, with acid. Chemical batteries are to the new technology as mechanical typewriters are to computer word processors.”

  “Or worse,” said Keijo. “Like sailing ships to intercontinental jet aircraft.”

  “Fuel cell,” said Toshiko with a bright smile.

  “One possibility,” said Angelo.

  “How are you going to fuel a car with hydrogen?” Cindy asked. “The stuff is dangerous. You could have an explosion like the one that destroyed the Hindenburg. Anyway, how would a filling station handle it?”

  “The most successful experiment right now,” said Angelo, “cooks methanol, which breaks down into carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The hydrogen goes into the fuel cell. The CO2 is discharged into the air. A fuel cell small enough to fit under the hood of a conventional automobile can produce as much power as an eighty-horsepower engine. Of course, there are disadvantages—cost being one.”

  “There are other approaches,” said Keijo. “The flywheel battery is one.”

  “Do you really expect XB Motors to build an electric car?” asked Cindy. “Loren—”

  “To hell with Loren,” said Angelo. “We’re going to build the car, with him or without him.”

  “The difference in with him or without him,” said Cindy, “is that with him you have big manufacturing capacity and a chain of dealers, and without him you’ll have a little company building experimental cars in a garage.”

  “Something like that is how Apple Computers and Microsoft got started,” said Keijo somberly, yet with a measured smile.

  5

  “He’s a handsome kid,” said Amanda quietly to Cindy, nodding toward John, who stood nude on her model platform.

  “I don’t think he’s a virgin anymore,” said Cindy, equally quietly.

  “At fourteen?”

  “If you two are going to stand over there talking about me, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do this,” said John.

  “Sorry, John,” said Cindy. She walked away from Amanda and her easel and sat down on the studio couch.

  “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?” Amanda asked. She was sketching with charcoal on a stretched canvas. “I don’t want a model who’s posing when he doesn’t really want to.”

  “It’s a family tradition,” said John with a faint smile.

  “We discussed it,” said Cindy. “I didn’t want him to think I was pressing him about it.”

  “I’ll be the only guy in my class who was ever painted this way,” said John. “I wouldn’t even think of doing it if you weren’t a genuine and well-known artist. I like the paintings you did of my mother. I like my father’s portrait.”

  “I have to warn you,” said Amanda. “A boy who posed for me several years ago later said he regretted it. It embarrassed him with his classmates to have them see his picture in galleries.”

  “I’m not bashful,” said John simply.

  Cindy and Amanda exchanged amused glances. They were not sure why, but as he stood there holding his pose, his member was not flaccid but stood at a slight angle from his scrotum, in a nascent erection.

  At fourteen he had the musculature and organ of a man. He was angular, no longer soft. His father was a hairy man, and apparently John was going to be too; already he had dark hair on his chest, not just in his armpits and crotch. His self-assurance was impressive.

  Cindy was glad she had chosen to bring the family out from the city to Greenwich and enroll the children in private schools. John’s friends were intelligent, poised, and well mannered, just as he was. So were Anna’s friends. Her only concern was how soon they would be exposed to drugs and alcohol and how early they would become sexually active. Amanda would pay John well for modeling, and Cindy wondered what he intended to do with the money. It would be his own; he would not have to account to her or his father for it. She wondered if that—and not his admiration of Amanda’s artistic talent—were not his chief motive for agreeing to pose.

  Anyway, the picture he was posing for now would be hers. She had already bought it. He would pose for five. The other four would go on sale at VKP Galleries.

  1988

  6

  John and Buffy went into New York on an afternoon train, on a frigid Saturday in February. He took her to VKP.

  “John! Oh, my God!”

  She had not seen the painting his mother had bought. It hung in the master bedroom, and he had not taken her there again.

  A woman browsing in the gallery recognized John as the model for two of the paintings hanging there in the main room on the first floor and she smiled at him.

  “How about you?” he asked Buffy. “Amanda pays a good fee.”

  “My parents would go ballistic.”

  He shrugged. “Well, my mother owns the gallery. I guess that makes a difference. I mean, our whole family is into art.”

  “I wish I could get my parents to buy one of those,” said Buffy.

  “Uh, I’d just as soon you didn’t,” said John.

  XXVI

  1988

  1

  At 10 A.M. Loren Hardeman the Third rapped on the table with a ballpoint pen and called to order the 1988 meeting of the stockholders of XB Motors, Incorporated. Present were himself, Betsy, Roberta, Angelo, and James Randolph, director of the Hardeman Foundation.

  “The chair takes note,” said Loren with a note of grim sarcasm in his voice, “that Elizabeth, Viscountess Neville, holds proxies for her mother, Alicia Hardeman, and her aunt, Anne, Princess Alekhine. This means that my daughter Betsy will be voting three hundred thousand shares.”

  Betsy glowered at him. “Not exactly,” she said. “During his lifetime my great-grandfather made some small gifts of stock to six employees he considered loyal to him and deserving of his gratitude. Five of those six, or their heirs, have also given me their proxies. The heirs to the sixth will not be voting. In addition, Mr. Perino has given me his proxy. I will be voting three hundred and forty-six thousand, five hundred shares. I hand you those proxies.”

  Loren turned to the corporate attorney, Ned Hogan, who sat uncomfortably behind him. “Can she come in here with additional proxies on the very day of the meeting?”

  The lawyer nodded.

  “Fine,” said Loren, dismissing Betsy with a contemptuous gesture. “So you’re going to vote three hundred thousand whatever. Why would the six employees or their heirs give you their proxies?”

  Betsy smiled. “It could be because I asked them and you ignored them. It could be because they consider me a more worthy heir to Number One than you are.”

  “Fine, fine. So you’re going to vote a little more than a third of the shares,” said Loren impatiently.

  Betsy nodded and now grinned. “The chair has also taken note, I trust, of the written notice filed ten days ago.”

  “It has been reviewed by counsel,” said Loren. “This … ‘notice of intention to vote cumulatively’ means, the lawyers advise me, that a stockholder voting thirty percent of the stock is entitled to elect a member of the board of directors.”

  “Basic corporation law,” said Betsy. “Protection of the rights of minority stockholders. With more than thirty-four percent of the stock, nearly thirty-five percent, the minority is entitled to elect two of the five directors.”

  Loren glared at the attorney, who raised his eyebrows and nodded. He leaned forward and spoke in Loren’s ear. “Maybe not with thirty percent even,” he said. “But with almost thirty-five—”

  Loren turned and faced Betsy, his face flushed with anger. “Well, just which of our directors do you propose to discard? And who do you propose to replace them?”

  “Dump your deadwood,” she said, chuckling. “I’ll leave it to you to decide who they are. My nominees are myself and Angelo Perino.”

  Roberta spoke. “I move,” she said, “that the stockholders meeting be adjourned for one hour.”

  2

  After lunch the newly elected directors gathered around the same table. They were Loren, Roberta, James Randolph, Betsy, and Angelo. Missing were Professor Mueller and Congressman Briley.