Overload

"We bring in the District Attorney’s office and the city police. I know who to contact in both places, and who’s reliable and will move fast. Not yet, though. The fewer people who know what we’ve uncovered, the better."

"All right," Nim acknowledged. "It all sounds promising, but remember two things. Number one, warn your man Romeo to be careful. If this operation is as big as you say, it can also be dangerous. The other is-keep me informed of everything that happens."

The Property Protection head gave a wide, cheerful grin. "Yessir!”

Nim had the feeling that Harry London was restraining himself from snapping off a smart salute.

5

Traditionally, the annual meeting of Golden State Power & Light shareholders was a sedate, even dull, proceeding. Only two hundred or so of the company’s more than 540,000 shareholders normally attended; most ignored it. All that the absentees cared about, it seemed, were their regular quarterly dividends, until now as predictable and reliable as each year’s four seasons.

But not anymore.

At 12 noon, two hours before the annual meeting was due to begin, a trickle of shareholders began presenting credentials and entering the ballroom of the St. Charles Hotel where seating-to allow for all possible contingencies-had been provided for about two thousand. By 12:15 the trickle had become a flow. At 12:30 it was a flood tide.

Among those arriving, more than half were elderly people, some walking with the aid of canes, a few on crutches, a half-dozen in wheelchairs. A majority was not well dressed. A large number had brought coffee in thermos bottles and sandwiches on which they lunched while waiting.

The mood of most arrivals was clearly evident; it varied between resentment and anger. Most were barely polite to GSP & L staff whose job was to check identifications before allowing admittance to the ball. Some shareholders, delayed in the process, became belligerent.

By 1 P.m., with an hour still to go, all two thousand seats were filled, leaving standing room only, and the influx of arrivals had become even heavier. The ballroom now presented a babel of noise as countless conversations and group discussions proceeded, some heatedly, with participants raising voices. Occasionally, words and phrases were audible above the rest.- – __

". . said it was a safe stock, so we put in our savings and . . ."

". . lousy, incompetent management…"

". . . all very well for you, I told the guy who came to read the meter, but what am I supposed to live on-air?"

". . bills are high enough, so why not pay a dividend to those who . . ."

".. . bunch of fat cats in the boardroom; what do they care?"

". . after all, if we sat here and simply refused to leave until . . ."

"String the bastards up, I say; they’d soon enough change their . . “

The variations and permutations were endless, though a single theme persisted: GSP & L management was the enemy.

A press table near the front of the hall was already partially occupied and two reporters were moving around in search of human interest vignettes. A gray-haired woman in a light green pantsuit was being interviewed. She had spent four days traveling by bus from Tampa, Florida, "because the bus is cheapest and I don’t have much money left, especially now." She described how five years ago she quit working as a salesclerk, moved into a retirement home and, with her modest life savings, bought GSP & L stock. "I was told it was as safe as a bank. Now my income has stopped, so I have to move out of the home and I don’t know where I’ll go." Of her journey to California: "I couldn’t afford to come but I couldn’t afford to stay away. I had to know why these people here are doing this awful thing to me." As words tumbled out emotionally, a wire service photographer shot close-ups of her anguish which tomorrow would be displayed in newspapers across the country.

Only still photographers were being allowed inside the meeting ball. Two TV crews, encamped in the hotel lobby, had protested their exclusion to Teresa Van Buren. She told them, "It was decided that if we let television cameras in it would turn the annual meeting into a circus."

A TV technician grumbled, "From the looks of things, it’s already a circus."

It was Van Buren who was first to signal an alarm when it became evident, soon after 12:30, that the space and seating reserved would be totally inadequate. A hastily called conference then took place between GSP & L and hotel officials. It was agreed to open another hall, about half the size of the ballroom, where an overflow crowd of fifteen hundred could be accommodated, proceedings in the main ball to be transmitted there by a public address system. Soon, a squad of hotel employees was setting up chairs in the extra room.

But fresh arrivals quickly objected. "Nuts to that! I’m not sitting in some second-class outhouse," a heavyset, red-faced woman insisted loudly. "I’m a stockholder with a right to be at the annual meeting and that’s where I’ll be." With one beefy hand she shoved aside an elderly security guard; the other she used to unfasten a roped-off area, then marched into the already crowded ballroom. Several others pushed as the guard and followed her. He shrugged helplessly, then replaced the rope and tried to direct still more people to the overflow accommodation.

A thin, serious-faced man appealed to Teresa Van Buren. "This is ridiculous. I’ve flown here from New York and I’ve questions to ask at the meeting."

“There will be microphones in the second hall," she assured him, and questions from there will be beard and answered in both halls."

The man looked disgustedly at the milling throng. "Most of these people are just small stockholders. I represent ten thousand shares."

A voice behind said, "I got twenty, mister, but my rights are as good as yours."

Eventually both were persuaded to go to the smaller hall.

"He was right about small stockholders," Van Buren observed to Sharlett Underhill, who had joined her briefly in the hotel foyer.

The finance vice president nodded. "A lot of the people here own ten shares or less. Very few have more than a hundred."

Nancy Molineaux: of the California Examiner had also been observing the influx. She was standing near the other two women.

"You hear that?" Van Buren asked her. "It refutes the charges that we’re a huge, monolithic company. These people you’re seeing are the ones who own it."

Ms. Molineaux said skeptically, “There are plenty of big, wealthy shareholders, too."

"Not as many as you’d think," Sharlett Underhill injected. "More than fifty percent of our shareholders are small investors with a hundred shares or less. And our largest single stockholder is a trust which holds stock for company employees-it has eight percent of the shares. You’ll find the same thing true of other public utilities."

The reporter seemed unimpressed.

"I haven’t seen you, Nancy," Teresa Van Buren said, "since you wrote that rotten, unfair piece about Nim Goldman. Did you really have to do that?

Nim’s a nice, hard-working guy."

Nancy Molineaux smiled slightly; her voice affected surprise. "You didn’t like that? My editor thought it was great." Unperturbed, she continued surveying the hotel foyer, then observed, "Golden State Power doesn’t seem able to do anything right. A lot of people here are as unhappy about their utility bills as about their dividends."

Van Buren followed the reporter’s gaze to where a small crowd surrounded an accounts service desk. Knowing that many shareholders were also its customers, GSP & L set up the desk at annual meetings so that any queries about gas and electric charges could be dealt with on the spot. Behind the desk a trio of clerks was handling complaints while a lengthening line waited. A woman’s voice protested, "I don’t care what you say, that bill can’t be right. I’m living alone, not using anymore power than I did two years ago, but the charge is double." Consulting a video display connected to billing computers, a young male clerk continued explaining the bill’s details. The woman remained unmollified.

"Sometimes," Van Buren told Nancy Molineaux, "the same people want lower rates and a bigger dividend. It’s hard to explain why you can’t have both."

Without commenting, the reporter moved on.

At 1:40, twenty minutes before the meeting would begin, there was standing room only in the second hall and new arrivals were still appearing.

"I’m worried as hell," Harry London confided to Nim Goldman. The two were midway between the ballroom and overflow room where the din from both made it hard to hear each other.