Hampton Manor

Chapter 31

Adam had a busy morning on the phone with customers and suppliers of Elegant Sportswear. He was using the den as his office, hoping to take advantage of the time usually spent commuting, to tackle the growing list of concerns. The merger between Hampton Industries and Preston Industries was going well with over half of the companies fully integrated, but Elegant Sportswear’s consolidation into Hampton Sportswear was not one of them. When he fired Marcia, Adam attempted to tackle the remaining work himself but discovered very quickly that he had been away from day-to-day operations too long. He was having difficulty grasping the work-flow differences between the two companies, especially since Elegant was years ahead, technologically. To make matters worse, the vice-president of Elegant had left the company two weeks after the takeover announcement was made and Adam’s decision to push for the unionization of the surviving Elegant workers resulted in work slowdowns on several of the garment lines. Worst of all, the production at the Neo-Weaves plant was involved.

Adam spent ten minutes on the phone with Porter Stinson, CEO of Hampton Sportswear, reviewing where things stood. When the call was finished, he dialed Bill Somerset, their vice-president of sales.

“What can I do for you Mister Hampton?”

“Well, for one thing, you can start by calling me Adam. I was speaking to Porter about re-assigning your work on the sportswear merger to someone else. I need you to be the new CEO of Bretton Trading. What do think of that?”

“I don’t know what to say, Adam.”

“A simple ‘yes’ will suffice.”

“Well then, yes, of course. I appreciate your faith in me. Bretton is a real opportunity. When I heard that Marcia Bloom resigned I knew that a hugh vacuum had been created. I never thought I’d be considered to move over there.”

“Porter is assigning Walter Turner to cover your current responsibilities. Get on over to Porter’s office right away. Make sure that Turner has all the files he’ll need to finish the sportswear merger. See me first thing in the morning and we’ll get started on Bretton. Call me at home if you have any further questions.”

Adam felt confident about the promotion. Having a proven executive to pick up at Bretton Trading would reduce many of the demands for his time. He visited the bar in the corner of his den and mixed a Rusty Nail. After several sips, it was back to business. I better get to this list while I still have my wits about me.

The first call was to Gil Parsons to advise him that the unionization at the Elegant Sportswear plants was now back on track. He listened to Gil’s protests about the loss of representation at the Old Brooking sports stadiums. He assured him that he would make it up to him with a generous check made out to the union’s rainy day fund. Lately, calls to Gil ended up with a donation to something or someone.

Call two was to his contact at the SEC. Unfortunately the investigation of Kane Masterson was winding down. The decision to close their inquiry had already been made. All that was remaining was the official statement that would be released the next day. What else can I do to that sneaky bastard? Once he’s cleared of any wrongdoing, he and that whore will leave town. I’m not quite finished with them, yet. I’m convinced that he propped up the price of Preston’s stock by not divulging the pending loss of key customers. He had to know about it. I just need to sow some seeds with the SEC to get them to reopen their investigation. For all I know, Marcia may have been covering for him all along. I relied on her to check on his integrity and all the time she was going to bed with him. Why didn’t I realize that sooner. She was spending all that time with him while making excuses as to why she couldn’t see me. What a blind fool I was. Well, I’m going to get back to the SEC. They need to investigate that European Consortium. Washington is interested whenever the U.S, suffers a loss of business to overseas companies. The SEC will get to the truth and when they do, those two will get what they deserve. He made the call and received assurances that the there would be a full scale investigation into the new charges.

The third call was to Chuck Meredith to get an update on the search for the “mystery heir”. By now they should have located Sarah Gershwin and Alice Wentworth and must have found out something about “E”.

“Chuck, I haven’t heard from you. What’s taking so blasted long?”

“We’re going as quickly as we can, Mister Hampton. It was so long ago. People have moved away, some have died and others can’t remember even when some green is offered to jog their memory.”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses. I’m paying you for results. This is taking much too long and is costing too much. It’s been a week now since you told me about those two women. What’s the story on them?”

“We found something, but I was waiting until my guys finished the trace. What we know so far, is that Sarah Gershwin was married to Mark Gershwin at the time she was meeting with your father. They divorced in July of that year. She died in childbirth that September. The baby was stillborn. It was a boy.”

Could she be the one? Maybe dad didn’t know the baby died. This could all be a wild goose chase. Maybe I’ve been getting myself worked up for no reason.

“What happened to the husband?”

“He remarried in March of the following year. Both he and his new bride were killed in a boating accident while they were on their honeymoon. We’re still looking.”

“Okay, look, don’t waste any more time on that one. If the baby died there is no reason to continue the search. What about Alice Wentworth?”

“That search is proving even more difficult. Their time together was so short. The hotel they frequented a few times burned to the ground five years after their stay there. It wasn’t part of a chain or anything and it was never rebuilt. Any records of their stay were lost in the fire and there is no of record of employees. All businesses adjacent to where the hotel used to stand are less than twenty years old. Believe it or not, a name search comes up with twenty-seven Alice Wentworths within a two hundred mile radius of New Haven. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack and we’re not even certain that we have the right haystack. We start our check by phone. Half of the time we have to leave a message or there just isn’t any answer. Some numbers we’ve called a dozen times and still no answer. We’ve sent a few men out to check at the addresses, but that didn’t help either. The next thing will try on those few is an official looking letter . We’ll see how that works.”

“Put the people from the Gershwin trace on this one too.”

“It’s not just a manpower issue, Mister Hampton. We really don’t know what to look for next.”

“That’s all the more reason for you to complete your search for Alice Wentworth. Why not place some discreet ads in the personal section of the daily papers. Maybe that will flush somebody out, or check Google for lost schoolmates. There’s got to be someone out there that knows what happened to this Alice Wentworth.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll get some people right on that right away.”

Adam shook his head. He should have thought of that. Am I the only one with an imagination? What the hell am I paying him for, anyway?

“What about the specific search for “E”? Are there any leads there at all?

“None yet, but we still have a lot of phone records to go through. You know it occurred to me that the “E” initial may have been some sort of a code rather than the first initial of a first or last name.

“That’s a good point, but that’s all the more reason to follow up on all leads.

Put more people on this if you have to. I want answers, not more excuses.”

“Yes, sir.”

Adam slammed the phone down and mixed another drink. He sat down in his favorite chair in front of the fireplace. He ran over his mental list of things to do. I haven’t heard from John about what my father remembers about “E”. He should have something by now.

John answered on the first ring. “Good afternoon, Mister Hampton. What can I do for you?”

“I’m just checking up on my father. Milton’s said nothing about it at breakfast.”

“There’s been a slight improvement. The doctor’s optimistic that the effects of his seizure will be gone in another day, but we’re on a high state of alert, watching for any sign of a relapse.

“I’m glad to hear that. I miss my time with him. By the way, John, did you ever get a chance to ask him about ‘E’?”

“Yes, I did, and he reacted in a strange way. I saw recognition in his eyes, but he shrugged off the question and changed the subject. I decided not to push it then, but if you want me to, I’ll broach the subject again.”