Back Bay (14 page)

Fallon stepped into the Green Shoppe and heard music, but it was Mozart. He smelled the aroma of damp earth and new growth. He stood surrounded by Boston ferns, coleii, wandering Jew, and all manner of plants. His cynicism fell away. Like a hothouse in springtime, the Green Shoppe enveloped Fallon and absorbed him.

“Can I help you?” The voice sounded familiar, but softer, more relaxed than the day before. Evangeline appeared from behind a pot of Swedish ivy. She was wearing French-cut jeans and a blue T-shirt beneath a loose smock. Her hair was pinned up on top of her head, giving her face a warmth and openness that hadn’t been there in the fog at Searidge.

Fallon smiled. “Do you remember me?”

It took her a moment. “I hope you’re here to talk about your bad luck with spider plants, because plants are the only thing I’m interested in discussing right now.”

“The family tree is a plant.” He winced as he spoke. He was beginning to wonder why he said something stupid every time he talked to her.

She turned back to the Swedish ivy.

“I’m really sorry to bother you.”

“Then don’t,” she said evenly.

“I’d just like a few guidelines for dealing with the Pratts and Carringtons,” he pleaded. “The other day, I guess I overstepped whatever boundaries your family sets for visitors.”

“Apparently, so did I.”

Fallon sensed an opening. “Right. They haul me out of the attic. They throw you out of the house when you defend your grandmother’s rights. Why are they so damn secretive about everything?”

“Why are you so damn nosy?” Evangeline was losing patience quickly.

“It’s part of my work,” he said, trying to sound as professional
as possible. “Your uncle heads one of the oldest corporations in America that is still run by direct descendants. I’m trying to establish the beginnings of that corporation in order to—”

“He’s not my uncle,” corrected Evangeline. “He’s my father’s cousin, which makes him my first cousin once removed. However, since he’s twenty-two years older than I, I call him ‘uncle’ on those rare occasions when I call him anything at all.”

However useless it might be, she was giving him information. “It sounds to me as if you don’t like him.”

“I loathe him. He’s rich, patronizing, ostentatious, immoral, and, judging from the current status of Pratt Industries, incompetent. When we had a war in Asia and Pratt Chemicals Division was making fifty percent of the defoliants we used, my uncle was a business giant. But the myth of Pratt genius disappeared right along with the ones about American military superiority and moral rectitude.”

Fallon looked around at the jungle encroaching on all sides. “Did you start hating him before or after he started producing chemical defoliants?”

She didn’t laugh. A customer entered, distracting both of them from his remark.

Fallon watched her wait on a middle-aged businessman who didn’t know anything about plants. He could plainly see her love for the work reflected in her smile and enthusiasm, both of which were as genuine as the displeasure she was showing him. She sold a Boston fern for $11.95 and told the man to come back if he had any problems with his plant. Then she disappeared behind a partition in the corner of the store. Fallon heard her dial the phone and speak briefly.

When she emerged, she was holding piece of paper. “I do not, as a rule, act as a personal secretary for anyone. However, you seem to need help in budgeting your time, and as you are wasting mine along with your own, I thought I’d do you this favor.” She handed him the slip of paper. “Meet my brother at La Crêperie in half an hour.” Her French pronunciation was flawless. “I’ve written it down so you don’t forget it.”

Fallon had not planned on this. Before seeing Christopher Carrington, he wanted to read everything he could find about the
Golden Eagle Tea Set. Certainly there were descriptions of it, speculations on its disappearance and ultimate fate, things he should know about before he started asking questions. If he didn’t have all the facts that were available, he might look to Christopher Carrington like a bad historian, and Peter Fallon hated looking bad at anything. “Do you think he’d mind if we did it tomorrow? I have a rather full schedule today.”

“My brother’s is full all month, or so he tells me. Frankly, I don’t care whether you see him or not, but I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

Another customer wandered in.

“There’s nothing more I can do for you,” said Evangeline. “Come back when you’d like a good deal on a rubber plant.” Evangeline headed for the customer and Fallon for La Crêperie.

Christopher Carrington replaced the receiver and swung his feet onto the desk. His windows on the fifteenth floor of the John Hancock building overlooked the South End; he stared instead at the large print of the Boston Tea Party that hung on his wall. He was disgusted.

Two years earlier, he had rejected an associateship at Hoover and Howell, a Wall Street law firm whose clients included two of the largest banks in the country and whose important cases seemed always to establish precedents in the field of corporate finance. Instead, he had accepted a position in the family law practice.

Pratt, Pratt, and Carrington was a small but prestigious firm established in 1870 specifically to protect the interests of Pratt Shipping, Mining and Manufacturing. Now, the firm represented several New England corporations, but Pratt Industries was still the chief client, and Calvin Pratt, senior partner in the firm, sat on the Pratt Industries board of directors. Since 1870, at least one descendant of the original partners had always been with the firm. Carrington’s father and grandfather had been partners; Carrington’s mother and grandmother expected nothing less of him.

As a first-year associate with Pratt, Pratt, and Carrington, he had enjoyed no favor because of his name. He hunted references, prepared briefs, and drafted third-party complaints for the senior staff. But the cases had been interesting, and his responsibilities
had grown quickly. Beyond that, he preferred Boston to New York. It was small and manageable. It was close to Searidge, where he kept his sailboat. It was three hours from Stowe, where he owned a condominium. When he wanted night life, New York was only an hour away on the Eastern shuttle. For a twenty-nine-year-old bachelor, it was an excellent arrangement. For a young attorney who believed that corporate law played an important part in the smooth functioning of American society, it was the ideal practice. Until he began to explore the family history in his grandmother’s attic.

Since then, Christopher Carrington had spent more time as a genealogist than a lawyer. He had tracked down relatives so distant they neither knew nor cared that they were Pratt blood. He had given their names to Philip Pratt, who had sought out everyone.

Now, instead of working to solidify his client’s position as the controlling force in Pratt Industries, Carrington was trying to protect the company from the charges of harassment that Fallon would certainly press when he discovered Pratt employees following him day and night. Carrington intended to find out what Fallon knew. If Fallon was innocent, Carrington would tell Soames to suspend the surveillance. If Fallon knew something, if it seemed that he was working for Rule or hunting on his own, Carrington would still suggest leaving him alone. He knew a breach of ethics when he saw one. He knew that he was committing his time and energy to a scheme that was, if it worked, nothing short of blackmail.

“You’re becoming emotional,” his Uncle Calvin had told him the day before. “We’re simply helping a client to keep his options open.”

“You wouldn’t endanger our reputation for any other client. If someone else mismanaged a firm the way Philip has screwed up Pratt Industries, you’d let him sink straight into the mire he’d created for himself and hope that the new officers showed more business sense.”

“I must remember not to let you handle litigation for a while. You’ve been making some rather rash statements lately. The current problems of Pratt Industries reflect a bad economy and bad
management at several levels of the corporation. You know that Philip doesn’t deserve all the blame.” Calvin Pratt spoke in the carefully measured tones of his courtroom voice.

Christopher’s voice rose angrily. “You wouldn’t be trying to help him out of this if his name was Forbes or Fishman.”

Calvin Pratt fingered his Phi Beta Kappa key and studied his nephew like an opposing attorney. Then, he smiled. “Certainly not Fishman, and probably not Forbes. But we are Pratts. We owe a good deal of what we enjoy to our heritage. We have been blessed with money, homes, roots that sink deep into the New England soil, a name that commands respect, and inbred confidence in our abilities and potential. As individuals, we must take credit or blame for whatever we achieve, but our name has smoothed the way for all of us. We owe it our loyalty.” He spoke softly, and it was clear to his nephew that Calvin believed everything he was saying.

“In your own quiet way, you’re becoming emotional yourself, Uncle.” Christopher liked Calvin Pratt and respected his intelligence.

“Then let me offer you a more compelling reason to assist Philip Pratt in his battle to remain in control of Pratt Industries.” Calvin spoke without emotion. “For two hundred years, the Pratt Company has played an important role in the growth of this country. We have taken our profits, but we have always recognized our social and patriotic mission. In the last few years, however, the old guard, the families who’ve owned large chunks of stock since we went public in 1876, have begun to drop away. They’ve been selling out. Now, too much of our stock is controlled by short-run profiteers only too willing to turn their support over to a corporate marauder like William Rule.”

“Maybe they’ve been selling out because the company is losing money. Maybe it’s time for an outsider to take over. It’s time for some new blood.” Christopher spoke casually, pretending to toss out an idea he’d been thinking about for some time.

“If William Rule becomes chairman of the board, the only blood will be Philip’s and mine, and it will be spread across that mahogany table in the boardroom like lamb’s blood on a sacrificial altar.” Calvin stood as though he were making a summation.
“The tradition of Pratt Industries will end, and you, my boy, will never be elected to your rightful position on the board of directors. That should be a reason for you to oppose William Rule in every way possible.”

It was. As he thought about the conversation, Christopher Carrington agreed with most of what his uncle had said. Unlike his sister, he believed in the tradition of the Pratts and Carringtons. His family was indeed special. His ancestors and relatives had built an important American corporation, and they had done it all with undeniable dignity and style.

He was an elitist, and he knew it. He recognized the moral and intellectual superiority of his kind. In his love affairs and friendships, he gravitated toward people of similar background and inclination, people of old money and Protestant upbringing, from New England prep schools and Ivy League universities, people taught from childhood to appreciate the finer things in life—an exhibition of restored Monets at the Museum of Fine Arts, Bach recitals in the upstairs chamber at the Gardner Museum, Bulfinch architecture, IBM stock, twenty-year-old single-malt Scotch, and slopes of packed powder under Hexcel skis.

Even Philip Pratt, for all his failings and subtle vulgarities, was a Pratt. William Rule was an uncultured thug. Christopher Carrington would do everything he could to help his uncle defeat Rule, but he would do nothing dishonorable. He owed his heritage a greater debt than that.

La Crêperie on Newbury Street was decorated like a French country house, bright and pastel, small enough to be intimate yet large enough to maintain a high volume of business.

When he arrived, Fallon realized that he didn’t know what Christopher Carrington looked like. By the window, he noticed a young man reading the
Wall Street Journal
. He approached. “Mr. Carrington? Good morning.”

Carrington extended his hand and smiled. “You must be Peter Fallon. I’m glad you could make it.”

“You didn’t give me much choice.” Fallon did not sound annoyed.

“I suggested La Crêperie because they have the best air conditioning in town and very tasty Belgian waffle,” said Carrington.

Fallon studied the menu, and the two men studied each other.

Carrington was all that Fallon had expected—fit and well tanned, in a beige Brooks Brothers suit, button-down blue shirt and brown knit tie, with a polite manner that was just this side of condescending and a pretentious accent that drew every vowel into at least two syllables. Fallon’s first impulse was to dislike him, but he resisted it for the moment.

Carrington was impressed by Fallon’s obvious fitness and good looks. Fallon’s body was muscular, supple, like that of a gymnast. He didn’t look to Carrington like someone who spent his days and nights in the library. Perhaps he wasn’t. Perhaps Soames was right. This guy might be trouble. Quick, irrational thoughts. Carrington felt a shot of adrenaline pump through him.

Henry Dill entered La Crêperie and went directly to a table in the corner of the room. He did not look around until he was hidden behind a menu.

Not very subtle, thought Carrington. He knew little about Henry Dill, but he felt no comfort in Dill’s presence. If Fallon should turn out to be an unknown quantity, someone dangerous or unpredictable, Carrington didn’t think he could rely on Dill’s help. Then, Carrington realized that he was beginning to think like Soames. He told himself to relax.

Coffee arrived and Carrington slid the sugar across the table to Fallon. “Tell me about your work.”

A little small talk first, thought Fallon, just to loosen things up. He saw a copy of the
Boston Globe
beneath Carrington’s
Wall Street Journal
. “Not until you tell me the score of last night’s ballgame.”

“Five to three, Boston. This year, they’re going to win the pennant.”

Fallon laughed. “Reading Boston sportswriters and New York stock analysts before breakfast is the sort of thing that makes manic depressives. The sportswriters fill you with false optimism, then the analysts shatter it, or vice versa.”