Dead Wrong Page 22

  “Amazing!” Father Deutsch was deeply impressed.

  There was a pause.

  “Well, Teddy,” Nash said finally, “whaddya think?”

  Ted looked up. “You mean about finding out that I have a sister—a half sister?”

  Nash nodded.

  “Frankly, Dad, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that I have brothers and sisters all over the world. But Mary Lou? I’ve never met her. Oh, Brenda has told me about her. But not much. I was never particularly interested. But that she’s my sister! That’s going to take a lot of rethinking.”

  Nash grew very serious. “The way it worked out, she might just as well be Brenda’s sister. That’s the way they grew up.”

  “But they’re not sisters! They’re not related in any way!”

  “History’s repeating itself, son.”

  “What?”

  “I had a family when I was having an affair with Maureen Monahan. And now you’ve got a family while you’re having an affair with someone who practically grew up in the same Monahan house. Don’t you see that?”

  “No! And you’re not seeing it straight either. What ended your relationship with Maureen was when she got pregnant. And she got pregnant because she didn’t keep your bargain to protect herself from that. With the kind of marriage I’ve got, it doesn’t make a damn difference whether or not I’ve got a relationship on the side. You had Mother to deal with. She wouldn’t have stood for your having a girl on the side—not for a minute.

  “So, okay, your life would have been too complicated to handle when Maureen had Mary Lou. But the difference is, just to make sure our life together stays completely uncomplicated, Brenda had herself sterilized.”

  From Nash’s reaction, it was clear that this was one—perhaps the only—facet of Ted’s life that had remained hidden from the old man’s information network.

  “What’d she do?” Nash asked. “A hysterectomy?”

  “She had her tubes tied.”

  “She did that for you?”

  “Does it make a difference?”

  From his change in attitude, obviously it made a significant difference to Nash. It was completely foreign to his experience that any woman would voluntarily make such a drastic sacrifice for any man. He was profoundly impressed.

  “On top of that”—Ted pressed his advantage—“I didn’t ask her to do that. Hell, I didn’t care if we had a dozen! I can afford as many kids as God sends. And as far as Brenda’s concerned, I could hire as many nannies as needed to take care of the brats. She just didn’t want to muddle things up. She insisted on it!”

  It was rare, very rare, but Nash was taken aback. Ordinarily, he never asked a question whose answer he did not already know. Similarly, it was not his wont to wander into an area where he was not familiar with the topography. Brenda had flabbergasted him. It seemed she might actually love his son.

  To Nash, it didn’t matter how many wives or mistresses a man had. If a man actually found a woman who would love unconditionally, such a man was fantastically lucky. In all his life, Nash had never encountered such a person,

  “Okay, I was wrong. It happens. Maybe you shouldn’t get rid of her after all. Maybe she can be a help.”

  “Help?” Ted asked. “Help in what?”

  Nash was growing noticeably weaker. He seemed to be calling on some inner strength to continue. “Help in the matter—the reason I called you. I told you, I got a message from Maureen.”

  “How?” Ted asked. “How did it come? The phone?”

  “Registered mail. It was short and to the point.” Nash pulled a paper from a drawer beneath the wheelchair seat and handed it to Ted.

  “‘Now is the time for you to pay your dues,’“ Ted read.

  “And it’s signed, ‘Maureen Monahan.’“ Nash snorted. “As if there were more than one Maureen who would send me a note like that.”

  Ted returned the note. “What’s it mean?”

  “It means she’s ready to drop the other shoe.”

  “Huh?”

  “When I dumped her,” Nash said, “and after she had Mary Lou, I kept waiting for the lawsuit. I thought sure she would demand child support. Hell, I didn’t give a damn about the money; my only worry was how to keep it quiet. It wouldn’t have been good for business to have to juggle a paternity suit at that time in my life. Your mother wouldn’t have gotten a kick out of it either,” he added.

  “Matter of fact, I wouldn’t have minded kicking in child support without any court order. But I didn’t want to give Maureen the idea that I was changing my mind about ending our affair. And I wasn’t real anxious to make the first move either.

  “The way it turned out, she surprised me: She didn’t ask for a penny. And she didn’t have any money; hell, she was so poor she couldn’t even hold on to Mary Lou. She had to farm the kid out to a series of foster homes. That took a lot of guts—”

  “Do you mean you actually sat by and did nothing to help that poor woman?” Father Deutsch interrupted. “Even though she didn’t have enough to keep her child—your child?”

  “I’ll get to you in a few minutes, Deacon.” Nash did not even look at the priest. “As I was saying, I thought that took a lot of guts. But I knew she was mad as hell at me. I had to wonder, though, when there wasn’t any paternity suit.

  “The first shoe dropped when she had the kid and didn’t do a damn thing to get me involved. She had to have something else in mind for me—”

  “Didn’t you think it possible that she could have forgiven you in the spirit of Christian charity?” Father Deutsch interrupted again.

  “You don’t know Maureen. And you don’t know how goddam mad she was. Besides,” Nash almost growled, “I said I’d get to you in a minute.

  “The thing is, I’ve been living with this sword over my neck for the past thirty years, just waiting for it to fall. But that’s okay; I can take it. It’s just that it looks like it’s time … at least as far as Maureen’s concerned.”

  Ted shifted forward as if to say something, but his father waved him away.

  “I can take it,” Nash repeated. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’ve been waiting for this to happen and I’ve been planning a bunch of counterattacks. Only thing is … I don’t have any idea how long I’m gonna last. It’s getting harder every day—just to go on living.

  “And that’s why I called you in as soon as I got her message. Whatever she does, I want you to be ready for it just in case I’m not here.”

  “Dad … I …”

  Again Charles waved his son off. “No pious shit, Ted. Nobody lives forever. And I’m not even gonna come close. So, pay attention …”

  C H A P T E R

  23

  WITH ALARMING debility, Nash dropped a trembling finger to the button on the wheelchair’s arm. Immediately the young man in white entered the room. He went first to a tank alongside the hospital bed and picked up a coil of plastic tubing that unwound in his wake as he came over to the wheelchair, where he inserted a two-pronged device into Nash’s nostrils, bringing the instant relief of oxygen.

  It was undoubtedly a routine that had been repeated many times, for it was accomplished smoothly and flawlessly.

  After making sure Nash was breathing with some ease, the young man left the room. Not a word had passed between them.

  “Look, Dad,” Ted said, “this is too much for you. We can come back anytime you want us. Tomorrow—”

  “No!” Nash’s voice had regained its strength. “No.” He relaxed a bit. “It’s the old joke about the guy who doesn’t buy green bananas. I don’t know if I’ve got a tomorrow. We do it now.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Now, as I was saying, I expected her to hit me hard with a paternity suit. When she didn’t I was sure she had something else in mind. The longer she held off, the more sure I was about what she was after.” Nash paused and looked intently at his son.

  “Which is …?”

  “Can’t you
guess?”

  “You don’t mean—”

  “I sure as hell do!”

  “What?!” asked a frustrated Deutsch.

  “Nash Enterprises!” said Ted with fervor.

  “At least half the company,” Nash confirmed.

  “She can’t get away with that!” Ted blurted. But no one endorsed that view. “Can she?” Ted added feebly.

  “That’s it!” Nash said. “We got to be ready to stop her. It’s not a bad plan,” he affirmed. “If you’d listened to Brenda better, you’d have a better idea of the whole scheme. Because it’s got as much to do with Mary Lou as her mother.

  “See, Mary Lou has been a loser just about all her life. Okay, so she had a couple of strikes on her right off the bat. But she had damn good genes going for her. The only way I can explain it is that Maureen brought her up to become a lemon. And why, I ask myself? So that Maureen can manipulate the kid to do whatever Momma wants her to.

  “You should see Mary Lou’s work record! She’s worked at more places than I’ve done business with. She’s not gaining experience; she just can’t hold a job. That’s what’s waiting in the wings to take over half of Nash Enterprises. Half of what I built and handed over to you, Ted.”

  “But why?” Ted was nearing anguish. “In God’s name, why? Does Maureen want to ruin the company? Just out of spite against you? She’s not even hitting at you anymore. You’re retired. It’s me she’s going to destroy! Why? Why?”

  “Think, Ted,” Nash admonished. “Maureen didn’t wait until I died. Although she easily could have. She’s waited this long; what’s another few months? A few weeks? A few days? Whatever.

  “No, she waits until now. I’m still alive, but not by much. Maybe she thinks the pressure will push me over the edge. Maybe she wants to hit us while I would take up the challenge, but, she figures, I wouldn’t be able to stand up to her now when I’m a shadow of my former self.

  “But it doesn’t matter. We’re not gonna waste our time trying to second-guess Maureen. The hell with her! I’m gonna give you our battle plans. We’ll be ready for her whether I’m here to lead the fight or not. There isn’t any way in hell that Maureen Monahan’s gonna take half our company so she can run it through that mannequin daughter of hers.”

  “So that’s it!” Ted exclaimed. “Maureen wants to get fifty percent of our company for her idiot daughter so Momma can run it. Well, fat chance!”

  “Damn right!” Nash removed a medium-sized portfolio from the drawer and handed it to Ted, who immediately opened it and started riffling through the papers.

  “Those papers are for your eyes only,” Nash said. “Not even the deacon here. The first thing we gotta take care of is the damn DNA test. That’s one they didn’t have when Mary Lou was born. They say it’s pretty accurate.”

  “More than ‘pretty accurate,’ I’m afraid,” Ted said. “If a test of cells or blood from you and Mary Lou proved compatibility, any court would rule in favor of your paternity. It happened to Mayor Cobb a few years back.”

  “I know; I know all that.” Nash gestured toward the papers Ted was holding. “You got a list there of labs and technicians that either we own or are into us plenty deep and owe us some big favors. And just in case there might be a problem there … remember, just now, you said ‘any court’ would rule against us? Well, there’s a list in that packet of judges who you can depend on to look the other way.

  “If push comes to shove, Teddy, remember what’s at stake. Not just the billions our company is worth, but everything we put into it. God, my whole life is in this company! So, for chrissakes, don’t pinch pennies. Whatever we got is worth this fight.”

  Ted nodded firm agreement.

  “One final thing, and one final list. There’s names and contacts of some people who have proven themselves, people we’ve used in the past. With each name there’s a description of the guy’s specialty. They don’t come cheap, but they’re worth every cent.”

  Ted studied the list, then, suddenly looked up. “Chardon!”

  “Yeah, he’s still with us and still good enough to stay on the list. Remember the fire in the priest’s house—gutted the place where they kept the records? Just make sure you explain exactly what you want done. He’s gotta be the most dependable guy on the list. Which is not to take anything away from any of ’em. They’re all good. And you got their specialties right there.

  “Now”—Nash adjusted the oxygen tube and inhaled deeply—“you should have everything you need. You know the whole story. You know what the threat is, and you know who the players are. But you’re the dealer now, and you can call the game.”

  It was something like a last will and testament; in spelling out the priorities, the testator reveals much about himself. Charles Nash laid bare his priorities. They came as no great surprise to his son.

  In all probability, Nash had never really cared for Maureen. She was just one of many pleasant diversions. Nor did he give a damn for their offspring, Mary Lou. Even without the bombshell of Maureen’s pregnancy, Nash would have dumped her eventually, whenever the relationship became inconvenient. But he would have tried to make the split far more amicable. He would have had the luxury of time to engineer an unhurried break.

  Nash did not care for his wife. But every respectable tycoon should have one. So he got one.

  Nash did not care for his son. The son’s purpose in the scheme of life was to preserve, enlarge, and perpetuate Nash Enterprises.

  That’s what he cared about. The care and feeding—the survival and prospering—of his company; that was his sole and abiding concern.

  And, upon reflection, Ted had to admit that he himself was not far removed motivationally from the old man. This reflection became clear as Ted clutched to his bosom the sheaf of papers his father had just committed to his care.

  Ted wanted to save and protect the company every bit as much as did Charles. Perhaps more, if not for the same reason. Nash Enterprises was Charlie’s baby. No matter how many human children he had sired, the only one that truly counted was the company.

  For Ted, the company was a most comfortable vehicle through life. And the span of his life was a prime concern. If the company were to perish after he had entered into his eternal reward, that would be unfortunate. That would also be a major problem for those he left behind, principally his wife and children. Those who survived him could make or break what he bequeathed them. But as long as he lived, by God, Nash Enterprises would remain dominant in the development field.

  Another major difference between father and son was the matter of an interest beyond the company. For Charles, there was none. For Ted, there was Brenda.

  Nash never understood why his son had become so obsessed with another human being. It was, for Nash, a defect in his son’s character. But as long as Teddy could keep the store going, that was enough.

  And Nash was positive he had just given his son all the weapons Ted would need for the upcoming battle.

  Nash had but one more base to touch. Then he would be able to rest. “Now, Teddy, why don’t you go into the next room with Chan for a while? Give you a chance to look through those files. Maybe you’ll have a question or two … you never know.”

  “If it’s all the same with you, Dad, I think it would be a good idea for Father Art and me to leave … that is, if you haven’t got anything else to tell me.”

  “I don’t have anything more for you. I got something for the deacon here. I didn’t know he was coming, but now that he’s here, I want to talk to him a bit.”

  “But I can stay—”

  “No, you can’t. I want to talk to him one on one. If you hadn’t brought him along, I’d’ve sent for him soon anyway. Now you go on. I’ll let Chan know when we’re done. Go on. Git!”

  Ted gathered up the papers, packed them back into the portfolio, and left the room.

  Nash studied the priest intently. But before he could speak, Father Deutsch said, “You’re going to ask me to do something—a favor,
aren’t you?”

  Nash almost smiled. “I didn’t think of it like that.”

  “That’s because you don’t ask for many favors, if any. You give orders. And I’ll bet they’re carried out. But what you’re about to do is ask a favor … right?”

  “Well, what makes you so sure?”

  “I don’t work for you. I don’t owe you anything. You’re not in a position to order me or even threaten me.”

  “What if I was to say that you’re off the payroll of the company? What if I was to take away your office, the secretary, the whole shebang—your TV Mass?”

  Cool confidence emanated from the priest’s face; clearly he did not feel threatened. “I am a retired priest of the archdiocese of Detroit in good standing. I did a good job saving my pennies. I’ve got a home in Boca Raton. I was very comfortable down there before Ted asked me to be chaplain here. I could return to Florida. I could return there very easily. So we’re getting back to what you’re about to say to me. It’s what people call a favor. It has to be.”

  Nash’s body shook ever so slightly. He might have been chuckling. “Okay, okay, if it’ll help us get on with this, I’ll admit it’s a favor. I’m gonna ask you a favor, okay?”

  “Not quite. Before I consider whatever you have in mind, I’ll ask a favor of you.”

  “A bargain! That’s nice.” He was chuckling—mirthlessly. “You’re a little different than I expected. Most of you guys—you priests—if I ask a favor, you’d do it. You’d just do it. That … what’s his name?… Kelzer—”

  “Koesler?”

  “Yeah, Koesler. He’d probably just do whatever favor I’d ask.”

  “Maybe that’s why he’s pastor of a broken-down church in the middle of this miserable city and I’m very comfortably retired.”

  “Well, I like it! You wanna strike a deal. Okay. I can understand that. Whaddya want? You want my immortal soul? You want me to confess? That it?”

  “Oh, I’d like you to make your peace with God. I’d even like to be the one who absolves you. But that’s not it. I don’t believe you can sell your soul either to the devil or to God. That’s not the stuff that a bargain can be struck over.”