Acting on Mr. Wheatley’s recommendations, Mr. Hammersmith had been able to make a lot of money for the trusts under his control, and he was perfectly willing to admit that this success had been a factor, indeed a major factor, in his recent promotion to senior trust officer, which carried with it the titular promotion to vice president.
(While he was willing to concede that it was true that First Philadelphia dispensed titular promotions instead of salary increases, it was, nevertheless, rather nice to have the bronze name plate reading D. LOGAN HAMMERSMITH, JR. VICE PRESIDENT sitting on his desk.)
Logan Hammersmith was not the only one around First Pennsylvania who had noticed that M. C. Wheatley had never married. But there never had been any talk that he was perhaps light on his feet. For one thing, the contents of his personnel file, although they were supposed to be confidential, were well known. One is not prone to jump to the conclusion that someone who has served, with great distinction, was twice wounded and three times decorated, as an Army officer in Vietnam is a fag simply because he has not marched to the marriage altar.
And he didn’t have effeminate mannerisms, either. He drank his whiskey straight and sometimes smoked cigars. Hammersmith’s final, best guess was that Wheatley was either very shy, and incapable of pursuing women, or, more likely, asexual.
And, of course, for all that anybody really knew, Marion Claude Wheatley might be carrying on, discreetly, with a married woman, or for that matter with a belly dancer in Atlantic City. He had a country place, a farm, or what had years before been a farm, acquired by inheritance, in that area of New Jersey known as the Pine Barrens. He spent many of his weekends there, and presumably his summer vacations.
Hammersmith, over the years, had had Marion C. Wheatley out to the house in Bryn Mawr a number of times for dinner. His behavior had been impeccable. He’d brought the right sort of wine as a gift, and he didn’t get plastered, or try to grope some shapely knee under the table. But he was not a brilliant, or even mediocre, conversationalist. He was, as Bootsie (Mrs. D. Logan, Jr.) Hammersmith had put it, a crashing bore.
It had been, Hammersmith thought, as he handed the menu back and told the waiter he’d have the Boston scrod, well over a year since Wheatley had been out to the house. He would have to do something about that.
"1 think the same for me, please," Marion C. Wheatley said.
"Do you think the building would fall down if we walked back in reeking of gin?" Hammersmith asked.
Employees of First Pennsylvania were expected not to take alcohol at lunch. Officer were under no such unwritten proscription.
"I think a martini would be a splendid idea," Marion said with a smile.
Hammersmith held up two fingers to the waiter, and then his eyes fell on a familiar face.
"We are in the presence of the mayor," he said, and discreetly nodded his head in the mayor’s direction.
After a moment Marion C. Wheatley looked.
“Is he a member, do you think?”
“I think ex-officio,” Hammersmith said. “For the obvious reasons. Speaking of the upper crust, Bootsie and I were invited to the Peebles wedding.”
Marion C. Wheatley looked at him curiously.
“Peebles,” Hammersmith repeated. “As in Tamaqua Mining.”
“Oh,” Wheatley said.
That rang a bell, Hammersmith thought. I thought it would. Tamaqua Mining owned somewhere between ten and twelve percent of the known anthracite reserves of the United States. Anthracite coal was still an important part of petrochemicals, and according to Marion Claude Wheatley it would grow in financial importance. Miss Martha Peebles owned all of the outstanding shares of Tamaqua Mining, and Wheatley would know that.
After a moment Marion Claude Wheatley asked, “Is that in a trust?”
“No. She manages it herself. With Mawson, Payne, Stockton, McAdoo & Lester’s assistance of course.”
“You know her, then?” Wheatley asked.
Hammersmith was pleased they had found something to talk about. Making conversation with Wheatley was often difficult. Or impossible.
“No. I know the brother. Alexander Peebles, Jr.”
Wheatley’s face showed that he didn’t understand.
“When the old man died, he, in the classic phrase, cut the boy off without a dime. There is an unpleasant story that the son, how should I phrase this delicately?”
“He’s a fairy,” Marion Claude Wheatley said. “Now that you mention it, I’ve heard that.”
I don’t think he would have used that word if he was queer himself.
“Not from me,” Hammersmith said. “Anyway, he left everything to the