"Jonas Cord."
"We might as well forget about it," she said.
"From all I heard around town from some of the girls, he's a real nut."
15.
Irving followed David into the living room as Rosa began to clear the dishes.
"I never saw her looking so good," he said, stretching out in a chair in front of the fire.
David nodded absently. "Yeah."
Irving looked at him.
"You got something on your mind, Davy?"
"The usual things," David said evasively.
"That ain't the way I hear it."
Something in his voice made David tense.
"What do you hear?"
"The word is out they're giving your boy the squeeze," Irving said in a low voice.
"What else do you hear?"
"The new crowd wants to make you top dog if you throw in with them," Irving said.
"They're also saying that Bonner has sold out to them already." David was silent.
He couldn't believe that Jonas didn't know about what was happening.
But it was possible. "You ain't talking, Davy," Irving said quietly.
"You didn't bring me out here for nothing."
"How did you find out?"
Irving shrugged his shoulders.
"We got stock," he said casually. "Some of the boys called up and told me that their brokers were contacted.
They want to know what we should do."
"How much stock?"
"Oh, eighty, ninety thousand shares around the country.
We figured it would be a good deal the way you were running things."
"Have you- " David corrected himself. "Have the boys made up their minds yet which way they're going?"
That stock could be important.
It was over three per cent of the two and a half million shares outstanding.
"No, we're pretty conservative," Irving said.
"We like to go where the money is.
And they been making it sound real pretty. Complete financing, doubling the profits, maybe even splitting the stock in a couple of years."
David nodded. He reached for a cigarette thoughtfully.
It hung in his lips unlit.
Why hadn't Jonas replied to his messages?
Three times he'd tried to locate him and each time there had been no reply.
Surely he must know by now.
The last place he checked had sent word that Jonas was out of the country.
If that was true, the whole thing would be a fait accompli by the time he returned.
"What are you going to do, Davy?" Irving asked softly.
"I don't know," he said. "I don't know what to do."
"You can't ride the fence much longer, chum," Irving said. "There's no way on earth to live with the loser."
"I know." David nodded.
He finally struck a match and held it to his cigarette. "But it's like this. I know Cord doesn't pay much attention to us, maybe sometimes he even holds us back a little.
But I also know he can make a picture, he's got a real feel for this business.
That's why he bought in.
It's not just all cold ass like it is with Sheffield and the others.
Plain banker-and-broker arithmetic and to hell with everything except the profit-and-loss statement and balance sheet."
"But the bankers and brokers hold all the cards," Irving said. "Only a fool bucks the house."