Descent from Xanadu by Harold Robbins

prevailed.”
    Again he sipped from his glass. “I will not bore you with all the technical details involved in the transfer of power that will take place here. The foundations, all the measures necessary because of laws that protect inheritance, that’s all been taken care of, but in the end, it will all be the same. My son will have the responsibility and the power and the wealth that was once mine, and my father’s before me.” He turned to Judge Gitlin. “It’s up to you now, Paul.”
    Judge Gitlin rose from his chair. “I’ve simplified the agreements the best that I could, but there are still twenty documents to sign in sextuplicate. You, Barbara, and Judd have to sign them and they have to be notarized. It could take several hours. Samuel, do you feel up to it?”
    “I can manage,” Samuel said. “Let’s begin.”
    Judd interfered. “Father, maybe you’d better listen to what I plan to propose.”
    His father looked at him. “I don’t even want to hear it. I said it would be your baby. You take care of it.”
    “Okay, Father.” Judd looked at Judge Gitlin. “I’m ready.”
    The lawyer began to place the documents in front of them. The signing took almost three hours. The old man was gray and tired at the end.
    He looked at Judd as the last paper was turned over. Judd was silent. His father leaned over to him and kissed his cheek. “May God be with you, son.”
    Barbara came around the table and kissed Judd on the other cheek. And at the same time Judge Gitlin and the others met him with a chorus of congratulations.
    Judd didn’t speak until they had all finished. Then he stood at his chair. “Many of you will not like what I plan to do, but as my father said, it’s now mine to do with as I please.
    “I plan to retire the present managing director of every one of our companies and replace him with his successor in line. That’s because I want the heads of all the companies loyal to me alone, and to no one else.”
    Judge Gitlin nodded. “That’s good thinking, Judd.”
    Judd looked at him with a faint smile. “I’m glad you approve, Uncle Paul,” he said, “because yours is the first name I placed on the list.”

8
    “One million dollars a year,” Judd said.
    “What for?” Barbara asked. “I don’t need it. Your father took care of everything with the trust fund he set up for me. I’m a rich woman. Besides, I have the apartment here, the homes in Connecticut and Palm Beach.”
    “Pin money,” he said. “Your life will change now that you’re a widow. All your social life was built around my father. People are shit. The moment they discover you cannot do anything for them they’ll disappear.”
    “I don’t need them,” she said. “I’m used to living alone.”
    He looked at her. “You were nineteen when you went to work for Crane Industries, twenty-three when you became his personal assistant. Once you had that job you moved into another world. His. That was long before you married him.”
    “I still went home after work.”
    “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Judd said. “You were close to the center of action. Now—zero.”
    She was quiet for a moment. “What do you suggest I do?”
    “Build a life of your own,” he answered.
    She stared into his cobalt-blue eyes. “I don’t know how.” She looked down at her hands. “From the very beginning I made my life for his convenience. When we were married I thought it would change. But it didn’t really. The only change was that I moved into his home with another title. His wife, not his assistant. The duties were the same.”
    “But you loved him?”
    “Yes,” she said. “And I believe he loved me too. But nothing could be, then. He was sick and it was all over. There was no sex, no children, no fun times. Only plans for a future that did not include the two of us, because he was going to die.”
    Judd sat down across from her on the couch. “You’re still a young woman,” he said. “There is much