Nim knew about Commissioner Cyril Reid. He was a Ph.D. economist and former university lecturer whose practical business experience was nil. But Reid had worked closely with California’s incumbent Governor through two election campaigns and insiders now believed that when the Governor moved from Sacramento to the White House, as he hoped to, Cy Reid would go with him as chief of staff.
According to a confidential file which Nim had read, Commissioner Reid was once an ardent believer in Keynesian economics, but had recanted, now accepting that the deficit spending doctrines of John Maynard Keynes had led to economic disaster worldwide. A recent report from a senior vice president of GSP & L, Stewart Ino, who had cultivated Reid, declared that the commissioner had “faced up to the realities of income statements and balance sheets, including those of public utilities.” But perhaps, Nim thought, Cy Reid the politician had been laughing at them all along, and was doing so right now.
“During the pendency of the case,” the chairman persisted, “surely there were backstage discussions with commission staff? Weren’t compromises reached?”
Sharlett Underhill answered, “The answer to both questions is yes.”
“Then if compromises were agreed on, what happened to them?”
Mrs. Underhill shrugged. “Nothing done behind scenes is binding. Three of the commissioners, including Reid, ignored recommendations of their staff.”
Something else most people never knew about, Nim thought, were negotiations which proceeded, out of sight, during and after public hearings.
Utilities like GSP & L, when seeking more revenue through a rate increase, often asked more than was needed and more than they expected to get. What followed was a ritualistic dance in which PUC commissioners joined. The commissioners lopped off some of what was asked, thus appearing to be vigilant in their public duty. The utility, though seemingly rebuffed, in fact got what it wanted, or thereabouts.
Essential details were worked out by the commission’s staff during off-the-record talks with other staff from the public utility. Nim had once attended such a session in a small, closed room and heard a PUC staffer ask, “Now how big an increase do you people really need? Never mind the public hearings bullshit. Just tell us, and we’ll tell you how far we can go.” Frankness on both sides had followed, with the outcome settled privately in much less time than was occupied in public hearings.
On the whole, the system was reasonable and it worked. But this time, obviously, it hadn’t.
Aware that the chairman was still seething, Nim said cautiously, “It doesn’t look as if inquests, at this moment, will do a lot of good.”
Humphrey sighed. “You’re right.” He addressed the finance vice president. “Sharlett, financially speaking, how do we get through next year?”
“The options are limited,” Mrs. Underhill said, “but I’ll go over them.” She spread out several sheets of complex calculations.
The discussions continued through most of the day, with still more staff members summoned to the chairman’s office, their input sought. But in the end it became evident there were two choices only. One was to cut back on all planned construction, curtail maintenance and reduce customer service. The other was to cease paying dividends to shareholders. It was affirmed that the first was unthinkable, the second could be disastrous because it would send GSP & L’s stock plummeting and place the company’s future in jeopardy. However, it was also agreed that no other courses of action were possible.
Late in the afternoon, J. Eric Humphrey, visibly tired and downcast, pronounced the verdict which the small top-level coterie had known from the beginning to be inevitable. “Management will recommend to the board of directors that payment of all dividends on the company’s common stock be suspended immediately and indefinitely.”
It was a historic decision.
Since the formation of Golden State Power & Light three quarters of a century earlier when its predecessor company was combined with several others to become a single entity, the corporation had been a model of financial rectitude. Never in the ensuing years had it failed to meet its obligations or to pay a dividend on its stock. As a result, GSP & L was known among investors large and small as “old faithful” and “the widows’ and orphans’ friend.” Retirees in California and elsewhere put their life savings confidently into GSP & L shares, relying on regular dividends as their means of support. Cautious trustees of other people’s money did the same. Thus the omission of dividends would have widespread effect, not only in lost income but in reduction of capital when the value of the shares dropped, as was bound to happen.
Shortly before the chairman’s anguished pronouncement, the original morning quartet had reassembled—Eric Humphrey, Oscar O’Brien, Sharlett Underhill, and Nim—plus Teresa Van Buren. The p.r. head had been called in because of the major public impact the decision would soon have.
A regular board of directors meeting was already scheduled for 10 A.M. next Monday, and the directors’ finance committee would meet a half hour earlier. Presumably at both sessions the management decision would be confirmed, after which an immediate public statement would be made. Meanwhile, precautions were necessary to guard against informational leaks which might trigger speculative trading in the company’s stock.
“Outside this room,” Sharlett Underhill now reminded the others, “there must be no whisper of what is intended until that official statement. Also, as financial officer, I must caution everyone that because of the inside information the five of us possess, any personal trading in the company’s shares, prior to Monday’s announcement, would be a criminal offense under Securities and Exchange Commission laws.”
In an attempt at lightness, Nim said, “Okay, Sharlett, we won’t sell short and make our fortunes.” But no one laughed.
“I presume,” Teresa Van Buren observed, “that everyone has remembered the annual meeting is in two weeks. We’re going to face a lot of angry shareholders.”
“Angry!” O’Brien grunted; he was relighting his cigar, which had gone out. “They’ll all be foaming at the mouth and that meeting will need a riot squad to handle it.”
“Handling it will be my job,” J. Eric Humphrey said; for the first time in several hours the chairman smiled. “I’ve been wondering, though, if I shouldn’t wear a bulletproof vest.”
4
Twice since receiving Karen Sloan’s letter at Devil’s Gate Camp, Nim had talked to her on the telephone. He promised to visit her again when he could.
But the letter had arrived on the day that was marred by Wally Talbot’s tragic accident and, since then, other events had crowded in, so Nim’s intended visit was postponed. He still hadn’t made it. Karen had remembered him, however—with another letter.
He was reading it now, in his office, in a moment of quietness.
Across the top of Karen’s elegant blue stationery she had typed in capitals:
I WAS SAD WHEN YOU TOLD ME OF YOUR FRIEND’S ACCIDENT AND WHEN I READ ABOUT HIS INJURIES
Below was still more of her immaculate stick-in-mouth typing.
Tell him from one who knows:
A sputtering candlewick
Though burning dimly
Is brighter by far
Than Cimmerian blackness.
For life,
On whatever terms,
Outranks oblivion.
Yes!—the “if onlys” do persist forever
As hovering, wraithlike, used-up wishes,
Their afterburners spent:
“If only” this or that
On such and such a day
Had varied by an hour or an inch;
Or something neglected had been done
Or something done had been neglected!
Then “perhaps” the other might have been,
And other others … to infinity.
For “perhaps” and “if only” are first cousins
Addicted to survival in our minds.
Accept them,
And all else.
r />
For what seemed a long time Nim sat still and silent, reading and rereading Karen’s words. At length he became aware that his telephone was buzzing and realized it had done so twice before.
As he picked it up his secretary’s voice said brightly, “Did I wake you?”
“Yes, in a way.”
“Mr. London would like to see you,” Vicki said. “He can come now if you’re free.”
“Tell him okay.”
Nim put the sheet of blue stationery away in a desk drawer where he kept private papers. When the right moment came he would show it to Wally Talbot. The thought reminded him that he had not spoken to Ardythe since their unsatisfactory encounter at the hospital, but he decided he would leave that problem on the shelf for the time being.
The door of Nim’s office opened. “Here’s Mr. London,” Vicki announced.
“Come in, Harry.” Nim was aware that the Property Protection head had been dropping in more frequently of late, sometimes with a work-related purpose, more often without. But Nim had no objection. He enjoyed their growing friendship and exchange of views.
“Just read about that no-dividend deal,” London said, settling into a chair. “Thought you could stand a bit of good news for a change.”
Announcement of the dividend’s cancellation, reluctantly agreed to by the board of directors, had made big news yesterday afternoon and today. Reaction in the financial world had been one of incredulity and stockholder protests were already flooding in. On the New York and Pacific stock exchanges, panic selling, after a four-hour trading suspension, had depressed GSP & L stock a devastating nine dollars a share, or a third of its pre-announcement value.
Nim asked, “Which good news?”
“Remember D-day in Brookside?”
“Of course.”
“We just got four court convictions.”
Nim ran his mind over the meter-tampering incidents he had seen personally that day. “Which ones?”
“The guy with the gas station and car wash was one. He might have got away with it, but his lawyer made the mistake of putting him on the witness stand. When he was cross-examined he tripped himself up a half-dozen times. Another was the tool-and-die maker. Remember that?”
“Yes.” Nim recalled the small tract house where no one was at home but which London had put under surveillance. As the investigators hoped, neighbors reported the CSP & L activity and the man had been caught trying to remove the illegal wire device from his meter.
“In both those cases,” London said, “and two others you didn’t see, the court handed down five-hundred-dollar fines.”
“What about the doctor—the one with the bridging wires and switch behind his meter?”
“And the haughty wife with the dog?”
“Right.”
“We didn’t prosecute. That woman said they had important friends, and so they did. Pulled every string, including some inside this company. Even then we might have gone to court, except our legal department wasn’t sure they could prove the doctor knew about the switch and meter. Or so I was told.”
Nim said skeptically, “Sounds like the old story—there are two kinds of justice, depending on who you are and whom you know.”
“That happens,” London agreed. “Saw plenty of it when I was a cop. Just the same, that doctor paid up all the money owing, and we’re collecting from a lot of others, including some more we’re prosecuting where there’s strong evidence.” He added, “I got some other news, too.”
“Such as?”
“All along I’ve said that in a lot of these theft cases we’re dealing with professionals—people who know how to do good work, then cover it up so our own company guys have trouble finding it. Also I thought the professionals might be working in groups, even a single big group. Remember?”
Nim nodded, trying not to be impatient, letting Harry London get to the point in his own didactic way.
“Well, we got a break. My deputy, Art Romeo, had a tipoff about a big office building downtown where current transformers have been tampered with and the gas system, which heats the whole building, has a massive illegal shunt. He did some checking and found it’s all true. Since then I’ve been in there myself—Art recruited a janitor who’s working with us; we’re paying him to keep watch. I’m telling you, Nim, this is big-time, and the job’s the slickest I’ve seen. Without the tipoff Art got, we might never have found it.”
“Where did he get the tip?” Nim had met Art Romeo. He was a shifty little man who looked like a thief himself.
“Let me tell you something,” Harry London said. “Never ask a cop that question—or a Property Protection agent either. A tipster sometimes has a grudge, mostly he wants money, but either way he has to be protected. You don’t do that by telling a lot of other people his name. I didn’t ask Art.”
“Okay,” Nim conceded. “But if you know the illegal installation is there, why aren’t we moving on it right away?”
“Because then we’d seal up one rathole and close off access to a lot of others. Let me tell you some of the things we’ve found out.”
Nim said drily, “I was hoping you would.”
“The outfit that owns that office building is called Zaco Properties,” London said. “Zaco has other buildings—apartments, offices, some stores they lease to supermarkets. And we figure what they’ve done in one place they’ll try in others, maybe have already. Checking out those other places, without it being known, is what Art Romeo is working on now. I’ve pulled him off everything else.”
“You said you’re paying the janitor in the first building to keep watch. What for?”
“When an operation is that big—even stealing—there has to be a checkup occasionally and adjustments.”
“In other words,” Nim said, “whoever bypassed those meters is likely to come back?”
“Right. And when they do, the janitor will tell us. He’s an old-timer who sees most of what goes on. He’s already talked a lot; doesn’t like the people he works for; it seems they did him dirt somehow. He says the original work was done by four men who came well organized for it, on three occasions, in two well-equipped trucks. What I want are license numbers of one or both of those trucks, a better description of the men.”
It was obvious, Nim thought, that the janitor had been the original informant, but he kept the conclusion to himself. “Assuming you get all or most of the evidence you need,” he said, “what then?”
“We bring in the District Attorney’s office and the city police. I know who to contact in both places, and who’s reliable and will move fast. Not yet, though. The fewer people who know what we’ve uncovered, the better.”
“All right,” Nim acknowledged. “It all sounds promising, but remember two things. Number one, warn your man Romeo to be careful. If this operation is as big as you say, it can also be dangerous. The other is—keep me informed of everything that happens.”
The Property Protection head gave a wide, cheerful grin. “Yessir!”
Nim had the feeling that Harry London was restraining himself from snapping off a smart salute.
5
Traditionally, the annual meeting of Golden State Power & Light shareholders was a sedate, even dull, proceeding. Only two hundred or so of the company’s more than 540,000 shareholders normally attended; most ignored it. All that the absentees cared about, it seemed, were their regular quarterly dividends, until now as predictable and reliable as each year’s four seasons.
But not any more.
At 12 noon, two hours before the annual meeting was due to begin, a trickle of shareholders began presenting credentials and entering the ballroom of the St. Charles Hotel where seating—to allow for all possible contingencies—had been provided for about two thousand. By 12:15 the trickle had become a flow. At 12:30 it was a flood tide.
Among those arriving, more than half were elderly people, some walking with the aid of canes, a few on crutches, a half-dozen in wheelchairs. A majority was not well dressed. A
large number had brought coffee in thermos bottles and sandwiches on which they lunched while waiting.
The mood of most arrivals was clearly evident; it varied between resentment and anger. Most were barely polite to GSP & L staff whose job was to check identifications before allowing admittance to the hall. Some shareholders, delayed in the process, became belligerent.
By 1 P.M., with an hour still to go, all two thousand seats were filled, leaving standing room only, and the influx of arrivals had become even heavier. The ballroom now presented a babel of noise as countless conversations and group discussions proceeded, some heatedly, with participants raising voices. Occasionally, words and phrases were audible above the rest.
“… said it was a safe stock, so we put in our savings and …”
“… lousy, incompetent management …”
“… all very well for you, I told the guy who came to read the meter, but what am I supposed to live on—air?”
“… bills are high enough, so why not pay a dividend to those who …”
“… bunch of fat cats in the boardroom; what do they care?”
“… after all, if we sat here and simply refused to leave until …”
“String the bastards up, I say; they’d soon enough change their …”
The variations and permutations were endless, though a single theme persisted: GSP & L management was the enemy.
A press table near the front of the hall was already partially occupied and two reporters were moving around in search of human interest vignettes. A gray-haired woman in a light green pantsuit was being interviewed. She had spent four days traveling by bus from Tampa, Florida, “because the bus is cheapest and I don’t have much money left, especially now.” She described how five years ago she quit working as a salesclerk, moved into a retirement home and, with her modest life savings, bought GSP & L stock. “I was told it was as safe as a bank. Now my income has stopped, so I have to move out of the home and I don’t know where I’ll go.” Of her journey to California: “I couldn’t afford to come but I couldn’t afford to stay away. I had to know why these people here are doing this awful thing to me.” As words tumbled out emotionally, a wire service photographer shot close-ups of her anguish which tomorrow would be displayed in newspapers across the country.