CHAPTER 23

 

.23.

Entering the Royal Danish Pastries headquarters was like crossing the border into a country where the only law was business as usual, despite grief. The lobby was a cathedral of marble and mahogany, the air smelled of floor wax and the faint, sugary ghost of a billion pastries. Every clerk and typist stopped what they were doing to offer a rehearsed look of sympathy. It was a gauntlet of “so sorry for your loss,” but beneath the words, you could feel them weighing Jimmy up, wondering if the new king had the stomach for the throne.

Ole wasn’t in. The interim President was “out at a meeting,” which in the language of 1929 meant he could be anywhere. Instead, we were met by Henrik Poulsen.

Poulsen was the General Manager, a man who looked like he’d been carved out of a ledger book: a thin, precise, 60 years of gray on two legs.

He seemed genuinely relieved to see Jimmy, though he maintained the professional distance of a man who had served the father for decades.

His eyes flicked to me, then back to Jimmy. “Mr. Jimmy. It’s good you’re here. But perhaps we could speak in my office? Alone?”

Jimmy didn’t even look at me. He just leaned back against the mahogany desk, crossing his arms. “Mr. O’Neill stays, Poulsen. He’s the reason I’m still breathing. If you’ve got something to say to me, you say it in front of him.”

Poulsen hesitated, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He didn’t like it, but the hierarchy was shifting. He ushered us into his office and shut the door with a click that felt like the lock of a cell.

“We’re in trouble, Mr. Jimmy,” Poulsen said, his voice dropping to a panicked whisper once the heavy oak was between the secretaries and us. “I thought it was a merger, but it isn’t. It’s an acquisition.”

“Merger? Acquisition?” Jimmy’s voice was sharp. “What the hell are you talking about, Poulsen? Was Father selling the company?”

“No, Mr. Jimmy, of course not! It’s… It’s your uncle.” He scanned the room as if he feared the wolf might be lurking somewhere. “The moment your uncle was named interim President, as soon as your father was pronounced dead, he approached the National Biscuit Company. He’s pushing for an acquisition by NBC.”

“He’s moving fast,” Poulsen continued, gesturing vaguely at the factory blueprints on his wall. “NBC wants the brand. The ‘Royal Danish’ name. But they don’t want the overhead. They’ll close three of the five plants. Hundreds of men on the street. And my position? Eliminated. I’m being ‘retired’ with a handshake and a kick.”

I watched Poulsen’s face. The gray man wasn’t selling out the Usurper because of a sudden fit of morality. He was doing it because his own chair was being pulled out from under him.

Jimmy’s face went white. The thought of his father’s life’s work being reduced to a print on a box was hitting him harder than the whiskey. “Do you know they’re getting married?” he asked suddenly.

Poulsen didn’t look shocked. He just gazed at his desk, his fingers tracing the edge of a fountain pen. “I’ve heard the news, yes.”

“Tell us the math, Poulsen,” Jimmy commanded.

Poulsen looked at me, then back to Jimmy. “Your father built this from scratch. He kept seventy-five percent for the family. Mr. Ole… Well, Mr. Ole only ever had two percent. A courtesy stake. On his own, he has nothing to sell to NBC. He’s just a man with a title and no capital.”

The picture was coming into focus, and it was uglier than I’d thought.

“He’s marrying into the payout of a business he was never smart enough to build,” Jimmy whispered, the realization turning his voice into a jagged piece of glass.

Poulsen nodded grimly. “As your stepfather, Mr. Ole will have the legal standing to represent your mother’s interests in the boardroom. Of course, soon, there will be no boardroom. He’ll sign the acquisition, take the handsome payout due to your mother, and leave the rest of us in the ash.”

For a moment, the office was absolutely silent. Outside the window, the city of Los Angeles was humming with the frantic energy of a 1920s boom time that didn’t know it was about to end in a couple of weeks. But inside, the “Danish Kingdom” was being sold for parts by a man who had only ever owned two percent of the dream.

Jimmy looked at me, the Waikiki stillness gone, replaced by a cold, corporate fury. “How do I stop this, Poulsen?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Mr. Jimmy,” the General Manager whined. “I’m not sure if anything can be done. Not until your father’s estate is probated. I only thought you should know.”

Yes, of course, you did, I said to myself. Just in case there’s actually something that can be done, and you want to make sure you’ll be in the Danish Prince’s good books.

***

When we stepped out of Poulsen’s office, Jimmy was still vibrating with that cold, corporate fury. His jaw was set so hard I thought it might crack.

He was halfway to the exit, moving with a velocity that suggested he wanted to leave his own name behind, when a figure by the reception desk made him check his stride.

Daisy Poulsen stood there, framed by the harsh light of the lobby. She was eighteen, recently back from a finishing school in Switzerland, and she carried herself with a composure that didn’t belong in 1929.

Of course, I didn’t know who she was then. I just looked at her, maybe even gaped a little, and the university degree in my head whispered a name: Simonetta Vespucci. She had that same ethereal, haunting translucence. It was the kind of beauty that looked better suited for a painting on a marble wall than a corporate lobby.

“Jimmy?” Her voice was soft, yet it carried through the hum of the office like a bell.

Jimmy stopped. He didn’t rush to her. He didn’t even smile. His face settled into a mask of formal, distant courtesy. “Daisy. I didn’t know you were back.”

The Renaissance beauty stepped toward him, her gloved hands clasped in front of her. “I came back a month ago,” she explained, after offering her condolences. “I’ve been trying to reach you, but they said you were… unavailable.”

“I was,” Jimmy said. He looked at her, but he didn’t really see her. He was looking through her, back at the maps and the acquisition figures in her father’s office.

He remembered I was there, almost as an afterthought. “Daisy, this is a friend of mine from the islands. Horatio O’Neill. Ray, this is Miss Daisy Poulsen.”

“It’s a pleasure,” I said, and the gods know I meant it. She gave me a small, sad nod that made me feel like I was a character in a play I hadn’t rehearsed for.

“I came to take Papa to lunch,” she said, her eyes searching Jimmy’s face for a version of him that had probably died in the Pacific. “He’s been so stressed, Jimmy. Ever since your father… Well, everyone is on edge.”

“The world’s on edge, Daisy,” Jimmy replied, his tone clipped. “It’s a bad year for nerves.”

She hesitated, then bit her lip. “Mother is hosting a small gathering at the house tomorrow. A ‘morale’ party, she calls it. Uncle Ole and your mother will be there. She’d be so happy if you came. It would mean a lot to everyone.”

Jimmy didn’t answer immediately. The invitation was a hook, and he knew it. It was a summons to the new court held in seemingly neutral territory, a chance to watch the wolf and the widow toast to the future and count swords.

“I’ll consider it, Daisy,” Jimmy said. His voice was smooth, polite, and completely empty of promise. “I’ve got a lot of things to settle now that I’m back. You know how it is.”

“But Jimmy…” she started to say.

“Give your mother my best,” Jimmy interrupted, already turning back toward the exit.

Daisy stood there, looking small against the mahogany backdrop, her hand halfway raised as if to catch something that had already drifted out of reach.

Before leaving the building, I caught one last glimpse of her: a 20th-century Simonetta Vespucci left alone in a hallway owned by men who cared about the price of sugar, not necessarily its taste.

“You were a bit short with her,” I remarked as we turned to the parking lot.

“Don’t let her innocent looks deceive you, Ray,” Jimmy said, adjusting his sunglasses. “She’s playing her parents’ game. The Poulsens have been trying to sell that particular pastry to me since we were kids.”

“She is still a kid,” I noted.

Jimmy scoffed. “This is LA, Ray. Around here, the kids are as phony as the grownups.”