Nim put the sheet of blue stationery away in a desk drawer where be kept private papers. When the right moment came he would show it to Wally Talbot. The thought reminded him that he had not spoken to Ardythe since their unsatisfactory encounter at the hospital, but be decided he would leave that problem on the shelf for the time being.

The door of Nim's office opened. "Here's Mr. London," Vicki announced.

"Come in, Harry." Nim was aware that the Property Protection head had been dropping in more frequently of late, sometimes with a work related purpose, more often without. But Nim had no objection. He enjoyed their growing friendship and exchange of views.

"Just read about that no-dividend deal," London said, settling into a chair. "Thought you could stand a bit of good news for a change."

Announcement of the dividend's cancellation, reluctantly agreed to by the board of directors, had made big news yesterday afternoon and today.

Reaction in the financial world had been one of incredulity and stockholder protests were already flooding in. On the New York and Pacific stock exchanges, panic selling, after a four-hour trading suspension, had depressed GSP & L stock a devastating nine dollars a share, or a third of its pre-announcement value.

Nim asked, "Which good news?"

"Remember D-day in Brookside?"

"Of course."

"We just got four court convictions."

Nim ran his mind over the meter-tampering incidents he had seen personally that day. "Which ones?"

"The guy with the gas station and car wash was one. He might have got away with it, but his lawyer made the mistake of putting him on the witness stand. When he was cross-examined he tripped himself up a half-dozen times.

Another was the tool-and-die maker. Remember that?"

"Yes." Nim recalled the small tract house where no one was at home but which London had put under surveillance. As the investigators hoped, neighbors reported the GSP & L activity and the man had been caught trying to remove the illegal wire device from his meter.

"In both those cases," London said, "and two others you didn't see, the court handed down five-hundred-dollar fines."

"What about the doctor-the one with the bridging wires and switch behind his meter?"

"And the haughty wife with the dog?"

"Right."

"We didn't prosecute. That woman said they had important friends, and so they did. Pulled every string, including some inside this company. Even then we might have gone to court, except our legal department wasn't sure they could prove the doctor knew about the switch and meter. Or so I was told."

Nim said skeptically, "Sounds like the old story-there are two kinds of justice, depending on who you are and whom you know."

"That happens," London agreed. "Saw plenty of it when I was a cop. Just the same, that doctor paid up all the money owing, and we're collecting from a lot of others, including some more we're prosecuting where there's strong evidence." He added, "I got some other news, too."

"Such as?"

"All along I've said that in a lot of these theft cases we're dealing with professionals-people who know how to do good work, then cover it up so our own company guys have trouble finding it. Also I thought the professionals might be working in groups, even a single big group. Remember?"

Nim nodded, trying not to be impatient, letting Harry London get to the point in his own didactic way.

"Well, we got a break. My deputy, Art Romeo, had a tipoff about a 1big office building downtown where current transformers have been tampered with and the gas system, which beats the -whole building, has a massive illegal shunt. He did some checking and found it's all true. Since then I've been in there myself-Art recruited a janitor who's working with us; we're paying him to keep watch. I'm telling you, Nim, this is big-time, and the job's the slickest I've seen. Without the tipoff Art got, we might never have found it."

"Where did he get the tip?" Nim had met Art Romeo. He was a shifty little man who looked like a thief himself.

"Let me tell you something," Harry London said. "Never ask a cop that question-or a Property Protection agent either. A tipster sometimes has a grudge, mostly he wants money, but either way be has to be protected. You don't do that by telling a lot of other people his name. I didn't ask Art."

"Okay," Nim conceded. "But if you know the illegal installation is there, why aren't we moving on it right away?"

"Because then we'd seal up one rathole and close off access to a lot of others. Let me tell you some of the things we've found out."

Nim said drily, "I was hoping you would."

"The outfit that owns that office building is called Zaco Properties,"

London said. "Zaco has other buildings-apartments, offices, some stores they lease to supermarkets. And we figure what they've done in one place they'll try in others, maybe have already. Checking out those other places, without it being known, is what Art Romeo is working on now. I've pulled him off everything else."

"You said you're paying the janitor in the first building to keep watch.

What for?"

"When an operation is that big-even stealing-there has to be a checkup occasionally and adjustments."

"In other words," Nim said, "whoever bypassed those meters is likely to come back?"

"Right. And when they do, the janitor will tell us. He's an old-timer who sees most of what goes on. He's already talked a lot; doesn't like the people he works for; it seems they did him dirt somehow. He says the original work was done by four men who came well organized for it, on three occasions, in two well-equipped trucks. What I want are license numbers of one or both of those trucks, a better description of the men."

It was obvious, Nim thought, that the janitor had been the original informant, but he kept the conclusion to himself. "Assuming you get all or most of the evidence you need," he said, "what then?"

"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.

London and several of his staff had been "borrowed" for the occasion to beef up GSP & L's regular security force. Nim had been sent, a few minutes ago, by J. Eric Humphrey to make a personal appraisal of the scene. The chairman, who usually mingled informally with stockholders before the annual meeting, had been advised by the chief security officer not to do so today because of the hostile crowd. At this moment Humphrey was closeted behind scenes with senior officers and directors who would join him on the ballroom platform at 2 p.m.

"I'm worried," London repeated, "because I think we'll see some violence before all this is through. Have you been outside?"

Nim shook his head, then, as the other motioned, followed him toward the hotel's outer lobby and the street. They emerged through a side door and walked around the building to the front.

The St. Charles Hotel had a forecourt which normally accommodated hotel traffic-taxis, private cars and buses. But now all traffic movement was prevented by a crowd of several hundred placard-waving, shouting demonstrators. A narrow entryway for pedestrians was being kept open by city police officers who were also restraining demonstrators from advancing further.

The TV crews which had been refused admittance to the stockholders' meeting had come outside to film the action.

Some signs being held aloft read: Support power & light for people The People Demand Lower Gas/Electric Rates Kill the Capitalist Monster GSP&L.

p & lfP Urges Public Ownership Of GSP&L Put People Ahead of Profits Groups of GSP & L stockholders, still arriving and moving through the police lines, read the signs indignantly. A small, casually dressed, balding man with a hearing aid stopped to cry angrily at the demonstrators, "I'm just as much 'people' as you are, and I worked hard all my life to buy a few shares . . ."

A pale, bespectacled youth in a Stanford University sweatshirt jeered, "Get stuffed, you greedy capitalist!"

Another among the arrivals-a youngish, attractive woman-retorted, "Maybe if some of you worked harder and saved a little .

She was drowned out by a chorus of, "Screw the profiteers!" and "Power belongs to the people!"

The woman advanced on the shouters, a fist raised. "Listen, you bums! I'm no profiteer. I'm a worker, in a union, and . . ."

"Profiteer!" . . . "Bloodsucking capitalist!" . . . One of the waving signs descended near the woman's bead. A police sergeant stepped forward, shoved the sign away and hurried the woman, along with the man with the hearing aid, into the hotel. The shouts and jeering followed them. Once more the demonstrators surged forward; again the police held firm.

The TV crews had now been joined by reporters from other media among them, Nim saw, Nancy Molineaux. But he had no wish to meet her.

Harry London observed quietly, "You see your friend Birdsong over there, masterminding this?"

"No friend of mine," Nim said. "But yes, I see him."