“So let’s call the matter settled.”
“Well, no, I’d say it’s pretty damned not settled, Bill,” said Waterman.

Everyone at the party was either gathered around the shouting match, or trying to hear what was being said from a polite distance. At the buffet table men in their best dinner jackets were eating shrimp with the solemn precision of monks copying out prayer books.

Ray Shipton was standing contrapostal with one hand in his pocket, the other scratching the back of his head where the hairline meets the neck, in a pose that pretty much epitomized how much of an asshole he was.

He said: “Pete, Peter.. let it go, ok?”

But this was it. Without the Newton Allied Nitrates contract, Pete Waterman’s company would go under within a year. The relationship his father had maintained with Old Newton, a business partnership of twenty years, was over now that the contract had gone instead to Old Newton’s nephew. Bill Musgrave, Old Newton’s dour, Machiavellian right hand, had just broken the news.

“Nepotism,” spat Waterman, “big family circle-jerk, so be it.”
“Not my family, Pete,” said Bill Musgrave, “you know I’m just doing my job. It’s not up to me. Come on, forget it.”

The three men split up, Waterman to the complimentary bar, Musgrave to smoke a cigarette on the deck, Shipton to flirt with one of his wife’s friends.

After a respectful interlude, I went out to talk to Musgrave. He was leaning against the balcony rail, the lights of the city underneath his chin. There was a cigarette in his fingers, yes, but he wasn’t exactly smoking it. I didn’t really know Waterman at all, and like everybody I despised Shipton.

“Tough,” I said, alongside him.
“Yeah, well,” he said, “complicated.”
“He’s a smart guy, he knows you’re not the one who decided.”
“He was just getting his licks in. He knows all right. He knows that I could get Newton to give the contract to anyone I wanted. Newton, you see, is now too old to move the pieces, so he doesn’t even watch the game.”

This was becoming a potboiler.

“So why Shipton, then?” I asked.
“He’s Newton’s sister’s grandson,” he said. “Keep it in the family.”
“Very consiglieri of you, very Robert Duvall, very Mario Puzo.”
He tilted his head towards me, laughed.
“Yeah, ok, well. And I hate the prick.”
I didn’t get it.
“I see,” I said.
“See, some people say the bottom’s going to fall out of the nitrates industry. Not true; there is no bottom. Nobody wants nitrates these days, not when you’ve got sulphates, sulfides, nitrites, phosphates, flourides, all these new things being invented in China. What are you gonna do with a nitrate?”

He flicked his cigarette at the lights of the city, stood up, turned around, repositioned himself so that he was facing the window, looking in on the party. Pete Waterman was moving towards the door. He came out onto the deck holding two glasses of I think Scotch. I deduced that he wasn’t going to punch Musgrave.

“Bill,” Waterman said.
“Hello, old chum,” said Musgrave. He accepted the drink, tossed it back like a cat washing down a canary. He indicated me with a gesture, as though my presence would otherwise not have been noticed.

“I was just explaining that Newton Allied Nitrates is a sinking ship,” Musgrave said to Waterman.

“Yes, and do you know how you can tell that?” said Ray Shipton, who had managed to sneak onto the deck without being noticed. “Because all the rats are jumping off!”

He was pointing a gun at the three of us, Musgrave, Waterman and myself.

“My uncle suspected you were trying to bankrupt the company from the beginning,” he said, “that’s why I’ve been spying on you two for months. I know you were planning to sell off all your stock, Musgrave, and invest in Waterman, Inc. once I was given the contract.”
“I guess Old Newton wasn’t as senile as he let on,” said Bill, “curse that old bastard.”
“That’s right, and we’ve got a little surprise for you. Since we all know the market in nitrates is ready to plummet, uncle and I are not the ones who are going to take the fall.”

Shipton sneered and pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, then thrust it at Waterman. He did the same thing with a pen, only it was less dramatic the second time.

“Congratulations, Pete, looks like you win the contract after all. Oh well, guess I’ll just have to find another job. Now, sign it!”

At gunpoint, Waterman signed the contract. Shipton returned to the party, and loud laughter could be heard coming from inside the house. Once he was out of sight, Waterman and Musgrave began to laugh too.

“Well, that went well,” said Waterman.
“I wonder how long it will take them to figure it all out,” said Musgrave.

I felt like the stupidest person in the room.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “do you mean to say you had this all planned? This was all an elaborate con to get the contract? But isn’t the nitrate market going to collapse?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, boy,” laughed the diabolically brilliant Bill Musgrave, “how could it? We’re talking about nitrates, boy, nitrates!”