The Rat Race by Jay Franklin (book club books txt) 📕

and you'd have to shut down the Exchange because the ticker couldn't keep up with the buying orders. Prices would go higher than the Empire State Building. Hell! They'd hit the stratosphere."

"Is that your opinion, Phil?" I asked.

Cone shook his head. "Only a few suckers would feel like that, Winnie," he told me. "The big-time operators would be shivering in their boots. As long as F.D.R. is in the White House there's no limit to what they can make out of the war. If Roosevelt died now, you'd see the bottom drop out of the market and the damndest wave of labor strikes we've had since 1890."

"Damn it, Phil," I objected. "I wish you and Graham would get together on this one. I can't quite follow all your ideas. Business conditions and war-orders would continue, wouldn't they?"

Cone shook his head again. "No," he insisted. "The business community's got confidence in Roosevelt. Sure he's a tough baby, sure he's got a lot of dumb Harvard men sore at him, sure he's got the labor leaders and the G.I.'s rooting for him. But he's done a good job with the war, he's let people make money and some of his best friends are multi-millionaires, like Astor and Harriman. If he was to die, we'd have this Missouri guy—whatsisname? Truman?—and what can he offer?"

"Got any comment on that, Graham?" I asked.

"The way Phil puts it, it sounds reasonable," Wasson admitted, "but I still say that the first reaction to anything like that would be a buying wave which would send the market way up."

I considered for a couple of minutes. "I can't say I agree with you," I said at last. "The big boys wouldn't let that happen any more than they'd let a peace-scare knock the bottom out of the market. What would labor and the G. I.'s think and do if they read that the Stock Market quotations went over the top at a thing like that."

"Well, Winnie," Cone observed. "It isn't likely to happen."

"That's so," I agreed. "However, I think it would be a good idea to work out a representative list of industrials and go short on the market generally for the next thirty days. We can unload the Fynch portfolio as a starter. We ought to be able to pick up two or three hundred thousand if we work it right."

Cone nodded. "Graham and I will go to work on it now, and we'll have the list ready before start of business tomorrow morning. That will be the tenth, won't it?"

Wasson looked uneasy. "I don't like it so much, Winnie," he said, "but I've never seen you lose money on a hunch yet so I'll string along. Come on, Phil, this is a hell of a big war we're trying to sell short. Let's hope we don't fall flat on our face."

CHAPTER 12

The phone rang. "Mr. Tompkins?" A girl's voice inquired. "Just a moment, Mr. Willamer of the Securities and Exchange Commission will speak to you."

I didn't like that "will." "And who the hell, Arthurjean, is Mr. Willamer of the S.E.C.?" I asked in an aside.

"The woiks," she said.

"Hullo, Tompkins," a clear phonogenic baritone inquired. "This is Harry Willamer. I saw your list of selling-orders this morning and wondered if you would drop in and see me."

"Certainly," I said. "Shall I bring my books?"

"Not necessary. This is entirely informal. As a matter of fact, I have some gentlemen from Washington whom I think you will be interested in meeting. This is entirely unofficial, of course."

"How about meeting me at the Pond Club at one o'clock?"

"That will be grand," Mr. Willamer answered heartily. "The Pond Club at one o'clock it is."

I turned to Arthurjean. "What kind of go-round is this? I start selling and inside an hour the S.E.C. is on my tail. Isn't speculation legal any more?"

"Baby," she remarked, "anything's legal as long as you're in with the right guys. All I can tell you is that Willamer is hot stuff. His aunt is a cousin of Jesse Jones or maybe it's Henry Morgenthau. So you watch yourself and don't do any talking out of turn."

It was Tuesday, the 10th, and I had launched my plan of selling the war short in a determined campaign to unload G.M. and U.S. Steel. I was well covered in case of a rise, but there was already a million dollars of the firm's money in the operation, behind the Fynch million which I had used to break the ice.

The Pond Club was the same as ever. Tammy was polishing the glasses in his little bar and there were no fellow-members in evidence. After all, I decided, they weren't likely to show up much before three o'clock. However, I decided that privacy was called for, especially if Commander Tolan put in an appearance.

"Tammy," I explained, as he produced his usual pick-me-up and waited for me to down it. "I'm expecting some gentlemen to join me in a few minutes. Is there a room where we could have a private conversation and still get something to drink?"

"Well, sir, Mr. Tompkins," the steward said, "I think I could let you use the Minnow Room. That's private and there's a dumbwaiter to the bar. Just push the buzzer and say what you want in the phone and I'll send it right up to you."

"It sounds like perfection," I told him. "I'll go on up to the Minnow Room. The gentleman I'm expecting is named Willamer and he'll have some friends with him. Just send them up when they arrive. How do you get there?"

Tammy looked a trifle startled. "That's where you had your bachelor dinner, sir," he reproved me. "Up the stairs and first door to your left, sir. You'll remember it when you see it, I'm quite sure."

Tammy was right. No one who had ever seen the Pond Club's Minnow Room was likely to forget it. The wall on one side was lined solid with illuminated tanks containing gold-fish making fishy little zeros with their stupid mouths. The other walls were enlivened by frescoes of drunken fish in various hilarious attitudes. Indirect lighting gave a sort of Black Mass or Diabolical Fish-Fry effect to the whole. It was definitely not a room to stay sober in.

"Tompkins?" The door opened and an egg-smooth young man with a baldish head and pale eyebrows stood in the entrance. "I'm Harry Willamer. Meet the rest of the gang. Here's Winston Sales of the War Production Board, Lieutenant-Colonel George Finogan of the Army Quartermaster Corps and Commander Raymond Coonley of the Navy Bureau of Supplies."

Except for the uniforms, they might have been cousins—they were all fattish, baldish and blondish. They were all egg-like men, middle-aged, all hearty in manner and all seemed to have no particular reason for existing.

"Well, gentlemen," I asked, "what will you have to drink?"

"Scotch-and-soda," said Willamer. "Hell, let's make it Scotch for everyone and save trouble."

"I'd like a whiskey sour," objected Commander Coonley. "I've got butterflies in my stomach after working with those hot-shots from Detroit last night."

"Okay," Willamer accepted the amendment. "One whiskey sour. Any other changes?"

There were none, so I signaled to Tammy and our order was filled.

"Tompkins," Willamer remarked. "You'll excuse this short notice but when I spotted your selling-orders in the market this morning I knew we had to move fast. First of all, I'd like to know why you are selling, when everybody else is buying."

"Mr. Willamer," I explained, "it's none of the S.E.C.'s goddamned business what or why I sell so long as I follow the regulations."

Willamer laughed. "Who said anything about the S.E.C.?" he demanded. "Oh, I get it. You thought this was an informal investigation by the Commission. Right? My fault. Should have told you that this has nothing to do with your firm's market-position or the S.E.C."

I took a reflective swallow of Scotch. "Then what the hell is this?" I asked.

Harry Willamer drew himself up, "We," he explained, "are the Inter-Alia Trading Corporation. Your selling orders suggest that you don't expect the war to last much longer."

"I don't," I told him.

"Neither do we," Willamer continued. "That's why we've been busy organizing Inter-Alia. It's a neat set-up. Sales here, on the War Production Board, is in a position to advise us of all cut-backs in war-contracts and keep in touch with the whole contract-termination program. Colonel Finogan is in the Quartermaster Corps and is the only man in the Army—"

"In the world, Harry," Finogan corrected him.

"Right you are, George, in the world—who knows where all the surplus war-stocks are located. His office routes them to the depots. That in itself is worth a million dollars to the company. Anything from jeeps to nylons, Colonel Finogan knows where they are and what price will buy them. Commander Coonley is in the same position on Navy Supplies. Between him and Finogan there isn't an ounce of anything from parachute-silk to bull-dozers which we can't locate. As for me, I watch the way money and markets move here in Wall Street."

I finished my drink. "That sounds wonderful, Mr. Willamer, but what has it got to do with me? You have the makings of a ten million dollar corporation between the four of you."

Willamer raised a soft, white, well-manicured hand in a traffic-stopping gesture. "All but one thing, Tompkins," he said. "We haven't got working capital to exploit this set-up. That's where you come in. Tompkins, Wasson & Cone controls between three and five million dollars and are smart operators. So long as you stuck to conservative methods, no dice for Inter-Alia, but when I saw you gambling on the early end of the war, I said to myself, this is where we can do business with Tompkins."

"How much do you need?" I asked.

"Three hundred thousand would be enough to start with," Willamer reckoned.

"Half a million," Finogan amended.

"Say you need half a million to start with and I put it up, what do I get out of it?" I demanded.

Willamer looked a little secretive. "Well, Tompkins," he admitted. "You'll get good security for your money, of course, and a share in what we make. Say a fifth, since there are four of us in it already."

"That sounds reasonable," I agreed, "assuming you have a sure thing. What's your first operation, once you get the money in Inter-Alia to finance it?"

Willamer looked still more secretive. "That is a firm secret, Tompkins," he told me. "If you decide to come in with us, I'll let you in on our plans, but this thing is too big to talk about until we see the color of your money."

I stood up. "Well, then, gentlemen," I announced, "will you have one more round of drinks and then kindly get the hell out of here? I'm delighted to have met you personally but I don't see the point of wasting our time unless I know what I am putting my money into."

"Tell him, Harry," Sales urged. "We can trust Tompkins not to take advantage of our plans. The way we're set up we could block him easy if he tried to double-cross us."

"That's right," I said. "It's your plan and you have the inside track."

"Well, then," Willamer explained, "here's our first operation. The Army and Navy have huge stocks of atabrine and quinine—left over from Africa and the South-west Pacific. As soon as the fighting stops, Colonel Finogan and Commander Coonley will declare these stocks surplus to be sold at spot-sales where they are. We will be the only bidders and we get a world-corner on malaria. The whole world needs that stuff and if we move fast, during the confusion after victory, we can sew it up and make the world pay our price. We ought to double our money in three months."

"Double!" snorted Sales. "We ought to quintuple it like Papa Dionne. South America is just lousy with dollars and here's a way to get 'em back home. Malaria's a big item down there. No quinine, no oil."

"Well, gentlemen," I told the Inter-Alia boys, "I'll have to think it over. As Mr. Willamer knows, I'm pretty heavily committed in the present market. Get in touch with me about the end of the month and I might be able to put—say, twenty thousand dollars—into your proposition."

Willamer smiled unpleasantly. "Come, Tompkins," he said, "you can do much better than that. Perhaps you don't realize that the S.E.C. might just decide to investigate your firm's market-position. You can afford to put in at least $100,000 now and, when you get out of your present operation, make up the balance of that half million."

I went to the dumbwaiter and pushed the buzzer. "Tammy," I spoke into the phone, "will you come up here and show these gentlemen out of the club. We've finished our talk."

"Nothing doing," I said to the others. "I don't shake down well."

Willamer blinked his watery