Everything seemed to be running smoothly. Ryan, packed to the eyebrows with new and expensive drugs, walked and talked like a man, though collapse would come, sooner or later. Still, he was happy; and, more important, he was keeping the Lavins under control. Nonna Lavin was even helping, to some small extent; and Don was catching up on his months of quiescence with a protracted bout of hell-raising. Still, he was always on hand when needed; Norma made sure of that.
And the three silent partners—Hubble, Coett, and Nelson— had complimented Mundin on the way he was spending their money. At the last meeting Hubble had been worried by only one thing, he said.
“Speak up, Bliss,” Mundin smiled. “We’ll certainly try to straighten it out.”
“Oh, it’s not your end of it, Charles,” Hubble said slowly. “Actually, it’s ours. We can’t get through to Green, Charles-worth.”
Coett scowled; Hubble turned on him warningly. “Now, Harry, don’t start that again. How can Charles run things intelligently unless we level with him?”
Green, Charlesworth, thought Mundin. Again. “Level with me about what, Bliss?” he asked.
Hubble shrugged. “It’s just some kmd of an abnormal situation, Charles, that’s all. The three of us just don’t seem to be getting through to Green, Charlesworth. Oh, we’re doing business with them. But not, you know, any kind of real communication.”
Mundin thought of Captain Kowalik, unnerved and jittery because Commissioner Sabbatino didn’t talk to him any more. He said: “Do I run into Green, Charlesworth anywhere along the line?”
They smiled politely and said no, that wouldn’t be likely. Green, Charlesworth did nothing on the operating or manufacturing end. They were money men. “But,” Buss Hubble said, trying to appear unconcerned, “if they should show up, Charles, don’t try to handle it yourself. Get hi touch with us.”
Nelson nodded worriedly. “Frankly,” he said, “we don’t know where they stand on this thing, Charles. Bliss and I rather think they wouldn’t give a damn one way or the other. Harry thinks they’d be all for us, not that they vote any G.M.L. stock, you know, but they have, well, moral influence.” He swallowed. “But we can’t get through to them.”
Mundin asked, “Want me to go calling on them?”
They smiled ghastlily and shook their heads. Hubble said abruptly, “My guess is that they’re onto us. That they know every move we make and just haven’t committed themselves. Yet.”
Mundin looked around at the three Titans, wonderingly. He asked, “When you say ‘they,’ who do you mean, exactly?”
A three-cornered wrangle developed. Coett believed that Green, Charlesworth was essentially the top men in the Memphis crowd plus the organic solvents crowd and the New England utilities. He himself was, actually, most of the Southwest crowd and practically all of the inorganic chemicals crowd.
Nelson, who was New England and nonferrous metals, believed that Green, Charlesworth was, essentially, California, coal-oil-steel and mass media.
Hubble, who was mass media and New York, said that couldn’t be. He thought that Green, Charlesworth was essentially money.
On that everybody agreed. Worriedly.
“Look,” said Mundin, “I just want to get this straight in my mind. Would we scuttle this whole project if Green, Charlesworth came out against it?”
They looked at him as though he were a two-year-old. “If we could, boy,” Harry Coett said grimly. “Don’t even talk about it. I doubt it could be done; unscrambling eggs is child’s play compared to stopping a thing like this. At the very least, we’d lose really serious amounts of money. . . . But I’m confident that it’s simply a matter of getting in touch with them. After all, we’re taking a step forward. And Green, Charles-worth has always been on the side of progress.”
“Reaction,” said Nelson.
“Middle-of the-roaders,” Hubble insisted.
Mundin demanded, “But who are they? Where are they? Is there a real man named Green and a real man named Charles-worth?”
Hubble said, “Their offices are in the Empire State Building —the whole building^” He coughed. “I fibbed to you that time we passed the Empire State Building. I apologize. I didn’t know you very well hi those days.”
Mundin’s eyebrows climbed. “But in New York? I thought the whole city was condemned after the bombing.”