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Haagenbusch stroked his sideburns and went on: "The situation is this, Mr.
Broadhead. I have advised my client that a contract obtained under duress is
not enforceable.
He therefore no longer has any hope of attaining his purposes through an
agreement with the
Gateway Corporation, or even with your syndicate. So I have received new
instructions: to secure immediate payment of the sum I have mentioned; to
deposit it in untraceable bank accounts in his name; and to turn it over to
him when, and if, he returns."
"Gateway won't like being blackmailed," I said. "Still, they may not have any
choice."
"Indeed they do not," he agreed. "What is wrong with Mr. Herter's plan is that
it won't work. I am sure they will pay over the money. I am also sure that my
communications will be tapped and my offices bugged, and that the justice
departments of every nation involved in the Gateway treaty will be preparing
indictments for Mr. Herter when he returns. I do not want to be named in those
indictments as an accomplice, Mr. Broadhead. I know what will happen. They'll
find the money and take it back. They'll void Mr. Herter's previous contract
on grounds of his own noncompliance.
And they'll put him-him at least-in jail."
"You're in a tough situation, Mr. Haagenbusch," I said.
He chuckled dryly. His eyes were not amused. He stroked his sideburns for a
moment and burst out: "You don't know! Every day, long orders in code! Demand
this, guarantee that, I hold you personally responsible for this other! And
then I send off a reply that takes twenty-five days to get there, by which
time he has sent me fifty days of new orders and his thoughts are somewhere
far beyond and he upbraids me and threatens me! He is not a well man, and he
certainly is not a young one. I do not truly think that he will live to
collect any of this blackmail- But he might."
"Why don't you quit?"
"I would if I could! But if I quit, then what? Then he has no one on his side
at all. Then what would he do, Mr. Broadhead? Also-" he shrugged, "he is a
very old friend, Mr. Broadhead. He was at school with my father. No. I can't
quit. Also I can't do what he asks. But perhaps you can.
Not by handing over a quarter of a billion dollars, no, because you have never
had that kind of money. But you can make him an equal partner with that. I
think he would-no. I think he might accept that."
"But I've already-" I stopped. If Haagenbusch did not know I had already given
half my holdings to Bover, I wasn't going to tell him. "Why wouldn't I void
the contract too?" I asked.
He shrugged. "You might. But I think you would not. You are a symbol to him,
Mr.
Broadhead, and I believe he would trust you. You see, I think I know what it
is he wants from all this. It is to live the way you do, for all that remains
of his life."
He stood up. "I do not expect you to agree to this at once," he said. "I have
perhaps twenty-four hours before I must reply to Mr. Herter. Please think
about this, and I will speak to you in one day."
I shook his hand, and had Harriet order him a taxicart, and stood with him in
the driveway until it rolled up and bore him briskly away into the early
night.
When I came back into my own room Essie was standing by the window, looking
out at the lights on the Tappan Sea. It was suddenly clear to me who her
visitors had been this day. At least one had been her hairdresser; that tawny
Niagara of hair hung true and even to her waist once more, and when she turned
to smile at me it was the same Essie who had left for Arizona, all those long
weeks before.
"You were so very long with that little man," she remarked. "You must be
hungry." She watched me standing there for a moment, and laughed. I suppose
that the questions in my mind were written on my face, because she answered
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them. "One, dinner is ready now. Something light, which we can eat at any
time. Two, it is laid out in our room whenever you care to join me there. And,
three, yes, Robin, I have Wilma's assurance that all of this is quite all
right. Am much more well than you think, Robin dear."
"You surely look about as well as a person can get," I said, and must have
been smiling
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