II
Out of the gray granite morass of Wall Street rises one building like a heron of fire, soaring up in blue-white astonishment—Number 18 Wall—a rocket of glass and blinding copper. It is theGrand Investment Building, perhaps the most contemporary business structure in our country, known in circles of high finance simply asGrand’s.
Offices ofGrand’sare occupied by companies which deal inmutual funds—giant and fantastic corporations whose policies define the shape of nations.
August Guy Grand himself was a billionaire. Hehad 180 millions cash deposit in New York banks, and this ready capital was of course but a part of his gross holdings.
In the beginning, Grand’s associates, wealthy men themselves, saw nothing extraordinary about him; a reticent man of simple tastes, they thought, a man who had inherited most of his money and had preserved it through large safe investments in steel, rubber, and oil. What his associates managed to see in Grand was usually a reflection of their own dullness: a club member, a dinner guest, a possibility, a threat—a man whose holdings represented a prospect and a danger. But this was to do injustice to Grand’s private life, because his private life was atypical. For one thing, he was the last of the big spenders; and for another, he had a very unusual attitude towardspeople—he spent about ten million a year in, as he expressed it himself, “making it hot for them.”
*****
At fifty-three, Grand had a thick trunk and a large balding bullet-head; his face was quite pink, so that in certain half-lights he looked like a fat radish-man—though not displeasingly so, for he always sported well-cut clothes and, near the throat, a diamond thesize of a nickel ... a diamond now that caught the late afternoon sun in a soft spangle of burning color when Guy stepped through the soundless doors ofGrand’sand into the blue haze of the almost empty street, past the huge doorman appearing larger than life in gigantic livery, he who touched his cap with quick but easy reverence.
“Cab, Mr. Grand?”
“Thank you no, Jason,” said Guy, “I have the car today.” And with a pleasant smile for the man, he turned adroitly on his heel, north towards Worth Street.
Guy Grand’s gait was brisk indeed—small sharp steps, rising on the toes. It was the gait of a man who appears to be snapping his fingers as he walks.
Half a block on he reached the car, though he seemed to have a momentary difficulty in recognizing it; beneath the windshield wiper lay a big parking ticket, which Grand slowly withdrew, regarding it curiously.
“Looks like you’ve got aticket, bub!” said a voice somewhere behind him.
Out of the corner of his eye Grand perceived the man, in a dark summer suit, leaning idly against the side of the building nearest the car. There was something terse and smug in the tone of his remark, a sort of nasal piousness.
“Yes, so it seems,” mused Grand, without looking up, continuing to study the ticket in his hand. “How much will you eat it for?” he asked then, raising a piercing smile at the man.
“How’s that, mister?” demanded the latter with a nasty frown, pushing himself forward a bit from the building.
Grand cleared his throat and slowly took out his wallet—a long slender wallet of such fine leather it would have been limp as silk, had it not been so chock-full of thousands.
“I asked what would you take toeatit? You know....” Wide-eyed, he made a great chewing motion with his mouth, holding the ticket up near it.
The man, glaring, took a tentative step forward.
“Say, I don’tgetyou, mister!”
“Well,” drawled Grand, chuckling down at his fat wallet, browsing about in it, “simple enough really....” And he took out a few thousand. “Ihave this ticket, as you know, and I was just wondering if you would care toeatit, for, say”—a quick glance to ascertain—“six thousand dollars?”
“What do you mean, ‘eat it’?” demanded the dark-suited man in a kind of a snarl. “Say, what’re you anyway, bub, awise-guy?”
“‘Wise-guy’ or ‘grandguy’—call me anything you like ... as long as you don’t call me ‘late-for-chow!’Eh? Ho-ho.” Grand rounded it off with a jolly chortle, but was quick to add, unsmiling, “How ’bout it, pal—got a taste for the easy green?”
The man, who now appeared to be openly angry, took another step forward.
“Listen, mister ...” he began in a threatening tone, half clenching his fists.
“I think I should warn you,” said Grand quietly, raising one hand to his breast, “that I am armed.”
“Huh?” The man seemed momentarily dumfounded, staring down in dull rage at the six bills in Grand’s hand; then he partially recovered, and cocking his head to one side, regarded Grand narrowly, in an attempt at shrewd skepticism, still heavily flavored with indignation.
“Just who do you think youare, Mister! Just what is yourgame?”
“Grand’s the name, easy-green’s the game,” said Guy with a twinkle. “Play along?” He brusquely flicked the corners of the six crisp bills, and they crackled with a brittle, compelling sound.
“Listen...” muttered the man, tight-lipped, flexing his fingers and exhaling several times in angry exasperation, “... areyoutrying ... are you trying to tell ME that you’ll givesix thousand dollars... to ... to EAT that”—he pointed stiffly at the ticket in Guy’s hand—“toeatthat TICKET?!?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Grand; he glanced at his watch. “It’s what you might call a ‘limited offer’—expiring in, let’s say,one minute.”
“Listen, mister,” said the man between clenched teeth, “if this is a gag,so help me....” He shook his head to show how serious he was.
“No threats,” Guy cautioned, “or I’ll shoot you in the temple—well, what say? Forty-eight seconds remaining.”
“Let’sseethat goddamn money!” exclaimed the man, quite beside himself now, grabbing at the bills.
Grand allowed him to examine them as he continued to regard his watch. “Thirty-nine seconds remaining,” he announced solemnly. “Shall I start thebig count down?”
Without waiting for the latter’s reply, he stepped back and, cupping his hands like a megaphone, began dramatically intoning, “Twenty-eight...twenty-seven...twenty-six...” while the man made several wildly gesticulated and incoherent remarks before seizing the ticket, ripping off a quarter of it with his teeth and beginning to chew, eyes blazing.
“Stout fellow!” cried Grand warmly, breaking off the count down to step forward and give the chap a hearty clap on the shoulder and hand him the six thousand.
“You needn’t actually eat the ticket,” he explained. “I was just curious to see if you had your price.” He gave a wink and a tolerant chuckle. “Most of us have, I suppose. Eh? Ho-ho.”
And with a grand wave of his hand, he stepped inside his car and sped away, leaving the man in the dark summer suit standing on the sidewalk staring after him, fairly agog.