Bitter Business

name Superior Plating and Specialty Chemicals. Unless things have changed, it is wholly owned and operated by the Cavanaugh family—Jack Cavanaugh is the company’s CEO and there are a bunch of middle-aged children in management.”
    “That’s very good”—Babbage chuckled—“especially for someone who only billed six hours to the file.”
    “I think you had me looking into the possibility of a two-for-one stock split,” I replied. “I can’t remember why they didn’t pursue it.”
    “They figured that whatever they were going to save in taxes they were going to end up paying in legal fees. They decided to give the money to Uncle Sam.”
    “Is the father still around?” I inquired. “I only met him once, but I remember him being tough as nails.”
    “If you think that Jack’s tough, you should have met his father. Now, he was quite a character. I think that’s how we politely refer to bastards once they’re safely dead. They say that in his day James Cavanaugh drank more whiskey, screwed more women, and smoked more cheap cigars than any other son of a bitch in Chicago.”
    “Charming,” I observed dryly.
    “I wouldn’t be so quick to turn up my nose if I were you, Ms. Millholland,” Babbage admonished. “You’d probably have to go back a few generations, but you’d find a couple of your ancestors who were no better than James Cavanaugh and one or two who were a damned sight worse.”
    “Point taken,” I replied.
    Daniel was right about my family, of course, but he was wrong in thinking I was looking down on the Cavanaughs. It seemed, however, pointless to go into it.
    Sometimes I forgot how protective Babbage could be of his clients.
    “Hasn’t Jack Cavanaugh retired by now?” I asked. “I remember he seemed to be getting to that age....”
    “He’ll be seventy this summer, but believe me, the only way he’ll be leaving Superior Plating is feet first.”
    “Come on, Daniel,” I protested. “I thought that frogmarching these old guys into retirement was one of your specialties.”
    “This one I’m leaving for you, Kate. Jack Cavanaugh and I go too far back—he was my first client. He hired me when I was straight out of law school. Now I realize he picked me because I was the cheapest lawyer he could find, but at the time landing him as a client was quite a coup. In my mind Jack was a bona fide industrialist. It didn’t matter that he’d just inherited a run-down factory, a payroll full of his father’s drunken cronies, and a balance sheet that was bleeding red. To me, he was a captain of industry. Since those days Jack and I have been through a lot of things together—baptisms and funerals, foreclosures and Christmas dinner. I’m even his son Eugene’s godfather....”
    “I’d think that would make talking to him about stepping down easier.”
    “You might think so, but it doesn’t. You have to understand that for a man like Jack Cavanaugh retirement is just another word for euthanasia.”
    “Do any of his children have what it takes to succeed him?”
    “Yes. But not the one who Jack’s been grooming to take over.”
    “I see,” I replied, pulling out a legal pad to take notes. “Philip’s the oldest and the heir apparent. When Jack turned sixty-five he made Philip president of the company and gave him the day-to-day running of the business—on paper anyway.”
    “And in practice?”
    “In practice, Philip has the title but no authority. Everyone knows that Jack is still calling the shots. He lets Philip build his card houses and whenever it suits him he strolls over and knocks them down.”
    “So what does Philip do about it?”
    “Nothing. That’s the problem. Now, Philip’s sister Dagny is another story. She doesn’t take one ounce of shit from her father, and as a result he doesn’t give her any.”
    “What does Dagny do at Superior Plating?”
    “She’s the company’s chief financial officer.”
    “And you think she’s the one who should take over for Jack.”
    “It’s completely obvious to everyone but Jack. But even if he did figure it out, he’d never do it.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because feminist progress and just plain common sense aside, men of Jack’s generation don’t pass over a son in favor of a daughter.”
    I thought that one over for a minute.
    “Do any of the other children fulfill the anatomical requirements for top management?” I inquired.
    “Eugene’s the only other son,” Daniel replied, choosing to ignore my