Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less Read online

  At the same time, Richard Elliott, acting as the company spokesman, leaked stories to the press about large buyers coming into the market, which in itself occasioned a flood of small investors and kept the price steady.

  One lesson a man learns in the Harvard Business School is that an executive is only as good as his health. David never felt happy without a regular medical check-up; he rather enjoyed being told he was in good shape, but perhaps should take things a little easier. His secretary, Miss Rentoul, had therefore made an appointment for him with a Harley Street doctor.

  Dr. Robin Oakley was by anyone’s standards a successful man. At thirty-seven he was tall and handsome, with a head of dark hair that looked as if it would never recede. He had a classic strong face and the self-assurance that came from proven success. He still played squash twice a week, which helped him look enviably younger than his contemporaries. Robin had remained fit since his Cambridge days, which he left with a Rugby Blue and an upper-second-class degree. He had gone on to complete his medical training at St. Thomas’s, where once again his Rugby football rather than his medical skill brought him into prominence with those who decide the future careers of young men. When he qualified, he went to work as an assistant to a highly successful Harley Street practitioner, Dr. Eugene Moffat. Dr. Moffat was successful not so much in curing the sick as in charming the rich, especially middle-aged women, who came to see him again and again however little seemed to be wrong with them. At fifty guineas a visit that had to be regarded as success.

  Moffat had chosen Robin Oakley as his assistant for exactly those qualities which he himself displayed, and which had made him so sought-after. Robin Oakley was unquestionably good-looking, personable, well-educated—and just clever enough. Robin settled very well into Harley Street and the Moffat system, and when the older man died suddenly in his early sixties, he took over his mantle with the ease with which a crown prince would take over a throne. Robin continued to build up the practice, losing none of Moffat’s ladies other than by natural causes, and did remarkably well for himself. He had a wife and two sons, a comfortable country house a few miles outside Newbury in Berkshire, and a considerable saving in blue chip securities. He never complained at his good fortune and enjoyed life, at the same time being, he had to confess, a little bored with it all. He was beginning to find that the bland role of sympathetic doctor was almost intolerably cloying. Would the world come to an end if he admitted that he neither knew nor cared just what was causing the minute patches of dermatitis on Lady Fiona Fisher’s diamond-studded hands? Would the Heavens descend if he told the dreaded Mrs. Page-Stanley that she was a malodorous old woman in need of nothing more medically taxing than a new set of dentures? And would he be struck off if he personally administered to the nubile Miss Lydia de Villiers a good dose of what she so clearly indicated she desired?

  David Kesler arrived on time for his appointment. He had been warned by Miss Rentoul that in England doctors and dentists cancel if you are late and still charge you.

  He stripped and lay on Robin Oakley’s couch. The doctor took his blood pressure, listened to his heart, and made him put out his tongue, an organ that seldom stands up well to public scrutiny. As he tapped and poked his way over David’s body, they chatted.

  “What brings you to work in London, Mr. Kesler?”

  “I’m with an oil company in the City. I expect you’ve heard of us—Prospecta Oil?”

  “No,” said Robin. “Can’t say I have. Bend your legs up please.” He hit David’s kneecaps smartly, one after the other, with a patella hammer. The legs jumped wildly.

  “Nothing wrong with those reflexes.”

  “You will, Dr. Oakley, you will. Things are going very well for us. Watch out for our progress in the papers.”

  “Why?” said Robin, smiling. “Struck oil, have you?”

  “Yes,” said David quietly, pleased with the impression he was creating. “As a matter of fact, we’ve done just that.”

  Robin prodded David’s abdomen for a few seconds. “Good muscular wall, not fat, no sign of an enlarged liver. Young man, you’re in good physical shape.”

  Robin left him in the examination room to get dressed and thoughtfully wrote out a brief report on Kesler for his records, while his mind dwelt on deeper things. An oil strike.

  Harley Street doctors, although they routinely keep private patients waiting for three-quarters of an hour in a gas-fired waiting-room equipped with one out-of-date copy of Punch, never let them feel rushed once they are in the consulting room. Robin had no intention of rushing Mr. Kesler.

  “There’s very little wrong with you, Mr. Kesler. Some signs of anemia, which I suspect are caused by nothing more than overwork and your recent rushing about. I’m going to give you some iron tablets which should quickly take care of that. Take two a day, morning and night.” He scribbled an illegible prescription for the tablets and handed it to David.

  “Many thanks. It’s kind of you to give me so much of your time.”

  “Not at all. How are you finding London?” asked Robin. “Very different from America, I expect.”

  “Sure—the pace is much slower. Once I’ve mastered how long it takes to get something done here I’ll be halfway to victory.”

  “Do you have many friends in London?”

  “No,” replied David, “I have one or two buddies at Oxford from my Harvard days, but I haven’t yet made contact with many people in London.”

  Good, thought Robin, here is a chance for me to find out a little more about the oil game, and spend some time with a man who makes most of my patients look as if they had both feet in the grave. It might even shake me out of my lethargy. He continued. “Would you care to join me for lunch later in the week? You might like to see one of our antique London clubs.”

  “How very kind of you.”

  “Excellent. Will Friday suit you?”

  “It certainly will.”

  “Then let’s say one o’clock at the Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall.”

  David returned to his City desk, picking up his tablets on the way. He took one immediately. He was beginning to enjoy his stay in London. Silverman seemed pleased with him, Prospecta Oil was doing well and he was already meeting some interesting people. Yes, he felt this was going to be a very happy period in his life.

  On Friday at 12:45 P.M., David arrived at the Athenaeum, a massive white building on the corner of Pall Mall, overlooked by a statue of the Duke of York. David was amazed by the size of the rooms and his commercial mind could not help wondering what price they would fetch as office space. The place appeared to be full of moving waxworks who, Robin later assured him, were in fact distinguished generals and diplomats.

  They lunched in the Coffee Room, dominated by a Rubens of Charles II, and talked about Boston, London, squash, and their shared passion for Katherine Hepburn. Over coffee, David readily told Robin the details of the geologist’s findings on the Prospecta Oil site. The shares had now climbed to £3.60 on the London Stock Exchange, and were still going up.

  “Sounds like a good investment,” said Robin, “and as it’s your own company, it might be worth the risk.”

  “I don’t think there’s much of a risk,” said David, “as long as the oil is actually there.”

  “Well, I’ll certainly consider it most seriously over the weekend.”

  They parted on the steps of the Athenaeum, David to a conference on the Energy Crisis organized by the Financial Times, Robin to his home in Berkshire. His two young sons were back from prep school for the weekend and he was looking forward to seeing them again. How quickly they had passed from babies to toddlers, to boys; soon they would be young men, he thought. And how reassuring to know their future was secure. Perhaps he should make that future a little more secure by investing in David Kesler’s company. He could always put the money back into blue chip shares once the strike had been announced.

  Bernie Silverman was also pleased to hear the possibility of a further investment.
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  “Congratulations, my boy. We’re going to need a lot of capital to finance the pipe-laying operations, you know. Pipe-laying can cost $2 million per mile. Still, you’re playing your part. I’ve just had word from head office that we are to give you a $5,000 bonus for your efforts. Keep up the good work.”

  David smiled. This was business in the proper Harvard tradition. If you bring home the results, you get the rewards.

  “When will the strike be officially announced?” he asked.

  “Some time in the next few days.”

  David left Silverman’s office with a glow of pride.

  Silverman immediately contacted Harvey Metcalfe on the red phone, and he set the routine in motion once again. Metcalfe’s brokers released onto the market 35,000 shares at £3.73 and approximately 5,000 each day onto the open market, always being able to feel when the market had taken enough and thus keeping the price steady. Once again, the shares climbed when Dr. Oakley invested heavily in the market, this time to £3.90, keeping David, Robin and Stephen all happy. They were not to know that Harvey was releasing more shares each day because of the interest they had caused, and that this was now creating a market of its own.

  David decided to spend some of his bonus on a painting for his little flat in the Barbican, which he felt was rather gray. About $2,000, he thought, something that was going to appreciate in value. David quite enjoyed art for art’s sake, but he liked it even more for business’s sake. He spent Friday afternoon tramping around Bond Street, Cork Street and Bruton Street, the home of the London art galleries. The Wildenstein was too expensive for his pocket and the Marlborough too modern for his taste. The painting he finally picked out was at the Lamanns Gallery in Bond Street.

  The gallery, just three doors away from Sotheby’s, consisted of one vast room with a worn gray carpet and red faded wallpaper. As David was later to learn, the more worn the carpet, the more faded the walls, the greater the success and reputation of the gallery. There was a staircase at the far end of the room, against which some unregarded paintings were stacked, backs to the world. David sorted through them on a whim and found, to his delight, something that appealed to him.

  It was an oil by Leon Underwood called Venus in the Park. The large, rather somber canvas contained about six men and women sitting on metal chairs at circular tea tables. Among them, in the foreground, was a comely naked woman with generous breasts and long hair. Nobody was paying her the slightest attention and she sat gazing out of the picture, face inscrutable, a symbol of warmth and love in indifferent surroundings. David found her utterly compelling.

  The gallery proprietor, Jean-Pierre Lamanns, advanced on him, adorned in an elegantly tailored suit, as befitted a man who rarely received checks for less than a thousand pounds. At thirty-five, he could afford the little extravagances of life, and his Gucci shoes, Yves St. Laurent tie, Turnbull & Asser shirt and Piaget watch left no one, especially women, in any doubt that he knew what he was about. He was an Englishman’s vision of a Frenchman, slim and neat with longish, dark wavy hair and deep brown eyes that hinted at being a little sharp. He was capable of being persnickety and demanding, with a wit that was often as cruel as it was amusing, which may have been one of the reasons why he had not married. There certainly had been no shortage of applicants. Customers, however, saw only his charming side. As David wrote out his check, Jean-Pierre rubbed his forefinger backward and forward over his fashionable mustache, only too happy to discuss the picture.

  “Underwood is one of the greatest sculptors and artists in England today. He even tutored Henry Moore, you know. I believe he is underestimated because of his dislike of journalists and the press, whom he describes as nothing more than drunken scribblers.”

  “Hardly the way to endear oneself to the media,” murmured David, as he handed over the check for £850, feeling agreeably prosperous. Although it was the most expensive purchase he had ever made, he felt the picture was a good investment and, more important, he liked it.

  Jean-Pierre took David downstairs to show him the Impressionist and Modern collection he had built up over many years, continuing to enthuse about Underwood. They celebrated David’s first acquisition over a whiskey in Jean-Pierre’s office.

  “What line of business are you in, Mr. Kesler?”

  “I work with a small oil company called Prospecta Oil, who are exploring prospects in the North Sea.”

  “Had any success?” inquired Jean-Pierre, a little too innocently.

  “Well, between the two of us, we’re rather excited about the future. It’s no secret that the company shares have gone from £2 to nearly £4 in the last few weeks, but no one knows the real reason.”

  “Would it be a good investment for a poor little art dealer like myself?” asked Jean-Pierre.

  “I’ll tell you how good an investment I think it is,” said David. “I am putting $3,000 in the company on Monday, which is all I have left in the world—now that I’ve captured Venus, that is. We’ll shortly be making a rather important announcement.”

  A twinkle came into Jean-Pierre’s eye. To one of his Gallic subtlety, a nod was as good as a wink. He did not pursue the line of conversation any further.

  “When’s the strike going to be announced, Bernie?”

  “I’m expecting it early next week. We’ve had a few problems. Nothing we can’t lick, though.”

  That gave David some relief, as he had taken up 500 shares himself that morning, investing the remaining $3,000 from his bonus. Like the others, he was hoping for a quick profit.

  “Rowe Rudd.”

  “Frank Watts, please. Jean-Pierre Lamanns.”

  “Good morning, Jean-Pierre. What can we do for you?”

  “I want to buy 25,000 Prospecta Oil.”

  “Never heard of them. Hold on a minute…New company, very low capital. A bit risky, J.-P. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “It’s all right, Frank, I only want them for two or three weeks, then you can sell. I’ve no intention of holding on to them. When did the account start?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Right. Buy this morning and sell them before the end of the account, or earlier. I’m expecting an announcement next week, so once they go over £5 you can get rid of them. No need to be greedy, but buy them in my company name; I don’t want the deal traced back to me—it might embarrass the informant.”

  “Right, sir. Buy 25,000 Prospecta Oil at market price and sell before the last day of the account, or sooner if instructed.”

  “Correct. I’ll be in Paris all next week looking at pictures, so don’t hesitate to sell once they go over £5.”

  “Right, J.-P. Have a good trip.”

  The red telephone rang.

  “Rowe Rudd are looking for a substantial block of shares. Do you know anything about it?”

  “No idea, Harvey. It must be David Kesler again. Do you want me to speak to him?”

  “No, say nothing. I’ve released another 25,000 shares at £3.90. Kesler’s only got to do one more big one and I’ll be out. Prepare our plan for seven days before the end of this Stock Exchange account.”

  “Right, boss. You know quite a few people are also buying in small amounts.”

  “Yes, just as before, they all have to tell their friends they’re on to a good thing. Say nothing to Kesler.”

  “You know, David,” said Richard Elliott, “you work too hard. Relax. We’re going to have enough work on our hands when the announcement’s made.”

  “I guess so,” said David. “Work’s just a habit with me now.”

  “Well, why don’t you take tonight off and join me for a spot of something at Annabel’s?”

  David was flattered by the invitation to London’s most exclusive nightclub and accepted enthusiastically.

  David’s hired Ford Cortina looked somewhat out of place that evening in Berkeley Square among the double-parked Rolls Royces and Mercedes. He made his way down the little iron staircase into the basement, which at one time must have be
en no more than the servants’ quarters for the elegant town house above. Now it was a splendid club, with a restaurant, discotheque and a small elegant bar, the walls covered in old prints and pictures. The main dining room was dimly lit and crowded with small tables, most of them already occupied. The décor was Regency and extravagant. Mark Birley, the owner, had in the short period of ten years made Annabel’s the most sought-after club in London, with a waiting list for membership of well over a thousand. The discotheque was playing in the far corner of a crowded dance floor, on which you couldn’t have parked two Cadillacs. Most of the couples were dancing very close to each other—they had little choice. David was somewhat surprised to observe that nearly all of the men on the floor were about twenty years older than the girls they held in their arms. The head waiter, Louis, showed David to Richard Elliott’s table, realizing it was David’s first visit to the club by the way he stared at all the personalities of the day. Oh well, thought David, perhaps one day they’ll be staring at me.

  After an exceptionally good dinner Richard Elliott and his wife joined the crowd on the dance floor, while David returned to the little bar surrounded by comfortable red settees and struck up a conversation with someone who introduced himself as James Brigsley. Even if he did not treat the whole world as such, Mr. Brigsley certainly treated Annabel’s as a stage. Tall, blond and aristocratic, his eyes alight with good humor, he seemed at ease with everyone around him. David admired his assured manner, something he had never acquired and feared he never would. His accent, even to David’s untutored ears, was resonantly upperclass.

  David’s new acquaintance talked of his visits to the States, flattering him by remarking how much he had always liked the Americans. After some time, David was able quietly to ask the head waiter who the Englishman was.