“He sounds like a monster.”
“On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, he founded an orphanage in New Guinea and a hospital in Bombay, and he gave millions to charity—anonymously. No one ever knew what to expect next.”
“How did he become so wealthy?”
“How’s your Greek mythology?”
“I’m a little rusty.”
“You know the story of Oedipus?”
Steve nodded. “He killed his father to get his mother.”
“Right. Well, that was Harry Stanford. Only he killed his father to get his mother’s vote.”
Steve was staring at him. “What?”
Fitzgerald leaned forward. “In the early thirties, Harry’s father had a grocery store here in Boston. It did so well that he opened a second one, and pretty soon he had a small chain of grocery stores. When Harry finished college, his father brought him into the business as a partner and put him on the board of directors. As I said, Harry was ambitious. He had big dreams. Instead of buying meat from packing houses, he wanted the chain to raise its own livestock. He wanted it to buy land and grow its own vegetables, can its own goods. His father disagreed, and they fought a lot.
“Then Harry had his biggest brainstorm of all. He told his father he wanted the company to build a chain of supermarkets that sold everything from automobiles to furniture to life insurance, at a discount, and charge customers a membership fee. Harry’s father thought he was crazy, and he turned down the idea. But Harry didn’t intend to let anything get in his way. He decided he had to get rid of the old man. He persuaded his father to take a long vacation, and while he was away, Harry went to work charming the board of directors.
“He was a brilliant salesman and he sold them on his concept. He persuaded his aunt and uncle, who were on the board, to vote for him. He romanced the other members of the board. He took them to lunch, went fox hunting with one, golfing with another. He slept with a board member’s wife who had influence over her husband. But it was his mother who held the largest block of stock and had the final vote. Harry persuaded her to give it to him and to vote against her husband.”
“That’s unbelievable!”
“When Harry’s father returned, he learned that his family had voted him out of the company.”
“My God!”
“There’s more. Harry wasn’t satisfied with that. When his father tried to get into his own office, he found that he was barred from the building. And, remember, Harry was only in his thirties then. His nickname around the company was the Iceman. But credit where credit is due, Steve. He single-handedly built Stanford Enterprises into one of the biggest privately held conglomerates in the world. He expanded the company to include timber, chemicals, communications, electronics, and a staggering amount of real estate. And he wound up with all the stock.”
“He must have been an incredible man,” Steve said.
“He was. To men—and to women.”
“Was he married?”
Simon Fitzgerald sat there for a long time, remembering. When he finally spoke, he said, “Harry Stanford was married to one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Emily Temple. They had three children, two boys and a girl. Emily came from a very social family in Hobe Sound, Florida. She adored Harry, and she tried to close her eyes to his cheating, but one day it got to be too much for her. She had a governess for the children, a woman named Rosemary Nelson. Young and attractive. What made her even more attractive to Harry Stanford was the fact that she refused to go to bed with him. It drove him crazy. He wasn’t used to rejection. Well, when Harry Stanford turned on the charm, he was irresistible. He finally got Rosemary into bed. He got her pregnant, and she went to see a doctor. Unfortunately, the doctor’s son-in-law was a columnist, and he got hold of the story and printed it. There was one hell of a scandal. You know Boston. It was all over the newspapers. I still have clippings about it somewhere.”