Youngblood hawke, p.53
Youngblood Hawke, page 53
Mrs. Hawke said, "You'd never believe how people will talk and how gossip travels. Do you know that even back in Hovey people have had the nerve to come whispering to Nancy and me about Mrs. Winter, saying God knows what all? They claim they've read it in New York gossip columns. I guess that comes of being well known. The mother of four children, for heaven's sake, and as gray as I am!"
She was looking at him rather keenly, and Hawke said, "Well, I guess I gave them something else to talk about, putting Jeanne up in the General Morgan Hotel for three weeks."
Mrs. Hawke chuckled. "Land, did you ever! People just have nothing better to do, and you know, Art, malice loves a shining mark. 'Course the sooner you find a nice girl and marry her the better off you'll be. If there's a girl somewhere who can hold you. Now, Art, there's all kinds of people been calling these past weeks, you know—newspaper people, radio people, your Hollywood agent, and such like. I never even told you their names. Doctor said I was to keep you quiet."
"If something's urgent they'll call again."
"Do you really know this movie actor Georges Feydal so well? He's called about ten times. It's always dear Arthur this, dear Arthur that. Then there's Scott Hoag."
"Scotty been calling from Lexington? That's nice of him."
Mrs. Hawke said with a sniff, "He's right here in New York, at the Statler. Been calling for a week. Says you told him you needed money and he's got it for you."
"I'll be damned, did Scott come up here just for that? The Statler, you say?"
"Art, you stay in that bed. I'll do the phoning—"
"Rats, mama, I'm okay. All I need is to move around and get my blood stirring."
9
Scotty, genial and sunburned, dressed in his usual horsy clothes, showed up with a leather portfolio and a gigantic roll of blueprints. He was in New York to explore the possibility of building a shopping center in the middle of Long Island, and he was so enthusiastic that he insisted on spreading the plans on the floor beside Hawke's bed almost at once. Mrs. Hawke's face froze in disapproval as Scotty talked, but he addressed her and her son with equal warmth and good humor. "What it is, Miz Hawke, the New York money's been coming down into Kentucky and buying up all the choice situations, you know? And some not so choice. It's a sudden panic in Southern real estate and us poor local boys just don't stand a show. So I figure turn about is fair play, and Ellie's been talking up New York for years anyway, she says the schools here beat ours, not that I go along with her on that. But I tell you something, Art, I swear I think I can do binness here. Just because I got this Letchworth accent, why, everybody here thinks I'm ignorant and stupid. Boy, that's one hell of an advantage if you can hang on to it. You be amazed the lease commitments I got lined up here"—he patted his portfolio—"big New York department stores, big chain stores, and I swear it's because they all think I'm a hillbilly and I'm giving space away, but the way I've got it figured, this the biggest thing yet, we'll beat that Bluegrass job in Louisville ten times over. And you want to know something? Mortgage money is a cinch up here compared to Kentucky. They used to talking money here. Art, this is where the big pot is, and don't ever forget it. All the money in the goddamn world is right here in New York. Ellie's done me a favor chasing me up here."
He talked about the progress of the three construction jobs in which Hawke's money was tied up: the building for doctors and lawyers in Frankfort, a shopping center in the outskirts of the same city, and the Skytop Lodge in Hovey. There had been some difficulties with mortgage money, but all three were coming along well and were going to throw off at least a one hundred percent return in a year or so. He regretted at length not having been able to grant Hawke's request for cash. "Art, I been in binness ten years and I never seen money so tight as it is in Kentucky right now. That's why this Frenchman's Ridge thing is a windfall, for me even more than for you. A builder can never have enough cash. I tell you I'm gasping a little bit right about now. This is the answer for all of us—for you too, I reckon, Miz Hawke. I'm right glad you here in New York, so I can talk to you both. I think you the binness man in this family." Scotty laughed, rasping open his briefcase, and he passed carbon copies of a long letter to Hawke and his mother. "You just look that over."
The letterhead, recopied by a typist, read, "The William Coffman Development Company," with an address in Wheeling, West Virginia. The gist of the three pages of single-space typewriting was an offer to buy two thousand acres on Frenchman's Ridge owned by Hawke Brothers Coal Company, on a complex basis of cash installments over ten years. Hawke skimmed the foggy arithmetic of the offer and came to this paragraph on the last page:
Our title search showed, finally, that a wedge-shaped parcel within this tract, of some ninety-odd acres, referred to on your map as the White Branch Section, is now the subject of litigation in the Circuit Court of Letchworth County in Kentucky, Sarah Hawke and Arthur Y. Hawke, plaintiffs. You have represented to us that this litigation will shortly be settled. Since it would be much less practicable to develop the tract if this parcel were excluded, since it is the readiest access and roads cannot be run around it due to the added expense, in view of the engineering difficulties of the ravine below, and the vertical cliffs on the north side, our offer is contingent on the settlement of this lawsuit. If this settlement cannot be reached within a 90-day period this offer will be withdrawn since we have other tracts in the same county in mind.
The letter was signed Luther Coffman, President.
Hawke said, "We talked on the phone about this, when I was in Hovey."
"That's right, Art. It looks goddamn good to me, the way it's come along. I think this Coffman Company is just fronting for New York money myself, it's an old land speculation outfit that mostly has stuck to West Virginia before this. I got a credit report on them if you want to look at it, Miz Hawke, they a solid outfit."
The mother said, "I reckon you made sure they're solid. What do they want the land for?"
"Well, what they say is some new processes make all that trashy second and third growth up there commercial for paperboard. Actually, I think they speculating on coal bouncing back, with plastics coming up like they are. Right now you read all these New York binness magazines and they all making a big to-do about coal. It's like a fad."
Mrs. Hawke said wisely, "If it's that valuable to them maybe it's even more valuable to us."
"Ma'am, that could be, but I think I dropped enough money in the coal binness to speak with some authority and I say if these New York people have worked up a sudden sweat on coal, then for sweet Jesus' sake I want to unload all I got before they switch to cement or whale oil or something. They keep running around in circles, these New York monkeys, they wound up so tight they can't stop running, always looking for a new investment idea, and I tell you, Miz Hawke, they loaded. I tell you the money in this city is something unbelievable."
Hawke said, handing him the letter, "What do you want to do, Scott?"
"Art, we dying to sell. That land's just sitting idle eating up taxes like a horse, and we carrying a quarter of a million in red ink against the Frenchman's Ridge mine." He turned to Mrs. Hawke. "You want to know what Glenn said? He said 'Aunt Sarah's got us over a barrel. Ask her what she'll take to settle, and give it to her.' That's from the chairman of the board."
Mrs. Hawke glanced at her son, triumph and suspicion comically mingling on her face. "I just don't know. Art's getting over pneumonia. Maybe he and I ought to talk it over for a week or so."
Hoag said anxiously, "Miz Hawke, even if we agree on a figure today, it'll take weeks for the lawyers to work it all out. We got a ninety-day deadline. I sort of hope we can settle here and now."
"Suppose my price is too high?"
"Ma'am, we ready to go a mile to your inch."
"Well, but suppose it is?"
Hoag sighed heavily, blowing out his cheeks. He rolled up his blueprints in silence, and doubled a thick rubber band on them with a loud snap. "We gonna go to court with you then, Miz Hawke. I tell you that in all honesty. They won't be any more adjournments. I wish you'd show your case to some experienced land lawyers over to Frankfort or Louisville, instead of that young fellow up in Edgefield. We been bending over backwards because of the awkward family situation, but if you cost us the Coffman deal we got to fight you and clean this up. I just hope Art won't allow it, ma'am, it'll cost you a fortune in legal fees. It don't mean nothing to us, it's another loss we can carry forward into a good year."
Mrs. Hawke said, "Well, I reckon I better talk to my lawyer."
Scott reached into his briefcase. "I got a letter here from him." He handed it to Hawke. The mother came and sat beside Hawke on the bed, and they read it together. The lawyer had investigated the Coffman offer, he wrote, and found it bona fide.
"However," he went on, "This does not affect my client's claims in any way, and she is determined to press them. You will find it difficult to reach a settlement with Mrs. Hawke. I am not prepared even to bring this matter to her attention unless you're thinking in serious terms, perhaps ten thousand dollars. I am not authorized to quote even that figure, or any figure I am merely venturing a guess as to her thinking, and she may want considerably more for granting a release."
Mrs. Hawke laughed. "Well, ten thousand's a sight better than one thousand, which was your last offer, Mr. Hoag."
"Ma'am," Scott said patiently, "at that time we were trying to settle a mixup which was no fault of ours. This offer is a windfall. It changes the picture. If we don't grab it that land can lie on our books as a liability for another ten or fifty years, and as for you and us, we'll just go to court and wrastle around for years and nobody'll get nothing except lawyers' bills. I'm sure that young fellow of yours is on a contingent fee basis but even so you'll have to give him expense money and you'll be just amazed, Miz Hawke, how that mounts up. You'll get a bill for pretty near a thousand dollars for stenography and printing before you've even started."
Mrs. Hawke said, "Art, what do you think?"
Hawke said, "Well, it sounds like a break for everybody. Let's take twenty thousand, mama."
Scott frowned. "Holy cow, Art, I thought you a friend of mine."
"I'm no friend of Hawke Brothers, Scott."
"That's too rough. They'll let the deal fall through."
"That's their business. I don't care one way or the other. You know I've never been hot on mama's lawsuit, but by Christ I'm beginning to think that the thing to do in this world is just put up the goddamnest scream for anything you think you have the slightest claim to, and then grab hold and hang on until you're dead and for three days after that. Twenty thousand dollars, Scott."
Mrs. Hawke patted her son's hand. "I declare, Art, you're getting real hard-hearted."
Once again Scott fished in his briefcase, and this time brought out documents which he passed to Hawke and his mother. "There's a contract of release I brought, hoping you'd sign it and I could take it back with me. The company took your lawyer's letter at its face value. The price it's willing to pay is fantastic, in view of the fact that you have no case at all and any first-class attorney will tell you as much."
The document was opaque legal gibberish except for one typewritten phrase in the middle of a large white space, coming after a series of "whereases"
Therefore, for the sum of TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS and other good and valuable consideration, to be paid in full upon execution of said proposed contract of sale with the William Coffman Development Company, or ninety days after the execution of this contract, whichever is sooner. . . .
Hawke said almost at once, "Does this mean my mother gets paid whether or not the Coffman sale goes through?"
"The company has got to take that chance, Art," Scott said. "Coffman won't sit down with us unless we show a release on White Branch Section. We gotta figure they gonna go through with it, that's all."
"Scott, what is this printed form? I once signed a printed form and got in a hell of a mess."
Scott laughed. "That's a form all the banks and real estate lawyers in Kentucky use for a release. Call up Lexington First National collect, charged to my account, and read it to any one of the managers over the phone."
Mrs. Hawke said, "This says ten. Art wants twenty thousand."
"Is that the price you asking, ma'am?"
"Well, it's Art's price."
Fencing ensued for perhaps ten minutes. Scott kept trying to pin Mrs. Hawke down and she avoided speaking out her price. At last Hawke said, "Mama, tell Scott how much you want, for Christ's sake, or go ahead and sue him, but stop this foolishness."
"Why Art, I been saying all along that you're the man in the family and if that's your price, who am I to argue?"
Scott looked at his wrist watch and stood. "I got to go to La Guardia airport in an hour. Sorry I didn't manage to see you till today, Art, but your mom's been guarding you like a tiger. What do you say, Mrs. Hawke? Would you take twenty thousand?"
"Are you offering it?"
"Here we go again," Hawke said. "Mama, tell him whether or not you'll take twenty thousand dollars."
Mrs. Hawke hesitated, and at last whined, "Well, it may be a lot for a release, but it's nothing to what your company owes me and you know it, Mr. Hoag. I'm tired of fighting, and I've never been able to find a good lawyer to take my case. All right. Twenty thousand dollars is more than I had any hope for, I guess, without a big court case."
Scott sat, opened his briefcase, took out the folder, carefully crossed out the old figure in all three copies of the release and inked in Twenty thousand dollars.
"Is that legal?" Mrs. Hawke said.
"Yes, ma'am, if all three of us initial it," Scott said with a shade of exasperation.
There was much fuss over initialling and signing of the documents, mainly on the mother's part. She scrawled slowly and painfully, as though she were parting with a substantial fraction of two million dollars with each stroke of the pen. She looked extremely relieved when Scott said she only had to sign one copy, and she did it after long hesitation, saying, "Well, let's hope it's for the best."
Scotty shook hands with them, put the folder in his briefcase, and hurried off. Mrs. Hawke sat with her son, folding and refolding the carbon copy of the release which she had kept, saying in a dozen ways that she hoped she had done the right thing, she hoped she hadn't signed away the birthright of her grandchildren the way her grandmother had signed away her own birthright, and so forth. Then she went down to the kitchen. Half an hour later the telephone rang. Hawke heard her answering it. She came into his room in a few moments, saying, "Land sakes, where's my copy of that release?"
"It's in your apron pocket, ma."
"Is it? Well, so it is." She opened the paper, which already looked battered from her constant nervous folding. "I declare, he's right. That's your Mr. Hoag calling from the airport. He says I kept the one copy I signed, and so I did. Now what made me do such a thing?"
Hawke frowned in great annoyance. "Tell him you'll mail it to him, ma."
"Why of course, but I feel like such a fool. I'll mail it later this afternoon when I go shopping. You lie down and sleep Art, you've done too much today."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1
HAWKE came out of the gloomy house after nearly a month of stifling entombment, into the kind of glorious day that New York usually produces just when you are about to despair of that monstrous, racking, abominable and magnificent city; as a peevish pretty woman will turn adorable at the exact moment when she has pushed a man to the verge of kicking her out the door for good. The rain was gone; the mugginess was gone; the dirty haze was gone; miraculously, for the first week of July, the heat was gone. It was a sweet crystalline morning. The sunshine poured white through each gap between the buildings; it blazed along the straight broad north-south avenues. From Central Park a soft breeze carried a morning smell of green dewy leaves. The fumes of the buzzing auto traffic seemed to burn into nothing, almost into perfume, in the clear sunlight. Such was Hawke's impression, anyway. Part of his high spirits no doubt came from the fact that he went straight to the bank with his mother and within a few minutes, just for the signing of his name here and there on half a dozen papers, acquired fifty thousand dollars in his account, a liberal mortgage loan repayable over twenty long years. But there was also the animal pleasure of using his limbs again, of striding along a hard sidewalk in the sunshine, of breathing fresh air, of wearing clothes, of seeing good-looking women swing their hips past in sweetly form-fitting dresses. The main thing was New York itself, the treacherous piercing charm of New York, never stronger than on this day, when he was setting out to arrange to leave it.
His mother returned to the house and he walked into the park. He climbed the big gray outcrop of rock at Sixty-seventh Street and sat on a boulder at the top, feeling his heart pound at his first exertion in a month. He had sat on this rock many a time, in choking summer heat, in the sharp air of autumn, in whirling snowstorms. His thinking walks—that was what he called the long somnambulist strolls during which he invented most of the scenes he wrote off at night—usually took him at last to this perch, where the view of the city was far-reaching. A quarter to eleven. He was alone on the rock. Here he had sat dreaming through the invented dilemmas of his characters, sometimes laughing or weeping aloud like a lunatic, oblivious of the clangorous city around him; and he had sat worrying over the real dilemmas of his own life, too, but then he had been well aware of the towers, the noise, and the weather—hot, cold, stormy, windy, dead gray or clear and perfect like today; nearly always extreme, nearly always given to swift violent change, like the city itself, and like the fortunes of the people in the city.
A few more ends to tie up, and he would be off. He had already reserved his ship passage by telephone, without telling anyone about it. He felt poised for departure; this look at New York was a farewell look. The jagged flat-topped shafts of Fifth Avenue and midtown, and the immense green oblong of the park, remained fair and exciting even now, beyond his boyhood visions. He had read enough books of finance to know that many of the high towers had been the incautious ventures of optimists; that a number of them were monuments to bankruptcy, that the great landmark of them all, the Empire State Building, had for a long time been a half-empty, half-finished ruin like his own house. What did that matter today? The old towers stood, and new towers rose. Some men got rich and others got poor; the talented and the stout-hearted did the work, and the crafty spun the webs of arithmetic; and New York became each year more dazzling, more crowded, more improbable, more lovely, and more spiky with human striving and achievement. Money could not build such a city, he thought, and the people who called New York the city of money were fools. Money was the mere dirty haze that hung over Manhattan, the burned thin residue of the great combustion of human spirit that had raised the towers, and that filled them night and day with blazing light and incomparable work. It was the world's first city, and it could only be American.
