At first Mercantile American 3 страница

Alex studied the untidy, balding, nondescript man seated opposite him in his office conference area. It was mid-afternoon.

Jax, Alex guessed, was in his early fifties. He looked like a small-town grocer, not too prosperous. His shoes were scuffed and there was a food stain on his jacket. Alex had already learned that Jax had been a staff investigator for the IRS before going into business for himself.

"I'm told you also have a degree in economics," Alex said,

The other shrugged deprecatingly. "Night school. You know how it is. Time on your hands." His voice tailed off, leaving the explanation incomplete.

"How about accounting? Do you have much knowledge there?" "Some. Studying for CPA exams right now."

"Night school, I suppose." Alex was beginning to catch on. "Yep." A pale ghost of a smile. "Mr. Jax," Alex began.

"Most folks just call me Vernon."

"Vernon, I'm considering having you undertake an inquiry. It will require absolute discretion and speed is essential. You've heard of Supranational Corporation?" "Sure."

"I want a financial investigation of that company. But it will have to be I'm afraid there's no other word for it an outside snooping job."

Jax smiled again. "Mr. Vandervoort" this time his tone was crisper "that's precisely the business I'm in."

It would require a month, they agreed, though an interim report would be made to Alex if it seemed warranted. Complete confidentiality concerning the bank's investigative role would be preserved. Nothing illegal would be done. The investigator's fee was to be fifteen thousand plus reasonable expenses, half the fee payable immediately, the balance after a final report. Alex would arrange payment from FMA operating funds. He realized he might have to justify the expense later, but would worry about it when the time came.

Late in the afternoon, when Jax had gone, Margot phoned. "Did you hire him?" `Yes, "Were you impressed?" Alex decided he would play the game. "Not really." Margot laughed softly. "You will be. You'll see."

But Alex hoped he wouldn't. He hoped fervently that Lewis D'Orsey's instincts were wrong, that Vernon Jax would discover nothing, and that adverse rumors about Supranational would prove rumors nothing more.

That night, Alex paid one of his periodic visits to Celia at the Remedial Center. He had come to dread the visits even more; he always came away deeply depressed, but continued them out of a sense of duty. Or was it guilt? He was never sure.

As usual, he was escorted by a nurse to Celia's private room in the institution. When the nurse had gone, Alex sat talking, chatting in an inane, one-sided conversationabout whatever things occurred to him, though Celia gave no sign of hearing, or even an awareness of his presence. Once, on an earlier occasion, he spoke gibberish just to see if her blankness of expression changed. It hadn't. Afterward he felt ashamed and hadn't done it since.

Even so, he had formed the habit during these sessions with Celia, of prattling on, scarcely listening to himself, while half his mind was wandering elsewhere. Tonight, among other things, he said, "People have all kinds of problems nowadays, Celia, problems which no one ever thought of a few years ago. Along with every clever thing mankind discovers or invents, come dozens of questions and decisions we never had to face before. Take electric can openers. If you have one and I do in my apartment there's a problem of where to plug it, when to use it, how to clean it, what to do when it goes wrong; all problems nobody would have if there weren't electric can openers and, after all, who needs them? Speaking of problems, I have several at this moment personal and at the bank. A big one came up today. In some ways you may be better off in here…"

Alex checked himself, realizing he was talking, if not gibberish, then rubbish. No one was better off here, in this tragic twilight quarter-life;

Yet nothing else was left for Celia; in the past few months that fact had become even clearer than before. As recently as a year ago there had been traces of her former girlish, fragile beauty. Now they were gone. Her once-glorious fair hair was dull and sparse. Her skin had a grayish texture; in places eruptions showed where she had scratched herself.

Where once her curled-up fetal position had been occasional, now she adopted it most of the time. And though Celia was ten years younger than Alex, she appeared hag-like and twenty years older.

It was nearly five years since Celia had entered the Remedial Center. In the meantime she had become totally institutionalized, and was likely to remain so.

Watching his wife, and continuing to talk, Alex felt compassion and sadness, but no sense of attachment oraffection any more. Perhaps he ought to experience some of those emotions but, being honest with himself, he no longer found it possible. Yet he was tied to Celia, he recognized, by bonds he would never sever until one or the other of them died.

He remembered his conversation with Dr. McCartney, head of the Remedial Center, almost eleven months ago, the day after Ben Rosselli so dramatically announced his impending death. Answering Alex's question about the effect on Celia of a divorce and Alex's remarriage, the psychiatrist had said: It might drive her over the brink into a totally demented state.

And, later, Margot had declared: What I won't have on my conscience, or yours, is shoving what's left of Celia sanity into a Bottomless pit.

Tonight, Alex wondered if Celia's sanity was in some bottomless pit already. But even if true, it didn't change his reluctance to set in motion the final, ruthless machinery of divorce.

Nor had he gone to live permanently with Margot Bracken, or she with him. Margot remained agreeable to either arrangement, though Alex still wanted marriage which obviously he couldn't have without divorcing Celia. Lately, though, he had sensed Margot's impatience at the lack of a decision.

How strange that he, accustomed at First Mercantile American to taking large decisions swiftly in stride, should wrestle with indecision in lapis private lifer

The essence of the problem, Alex realized, was his old ambivalence_about his personal guilt. Could he, years ago, by greater effort, love, and understanding, have saved his young, nervous, insecure bride from what she had become? If he had been more a devoted husband, less a devoted banker, he still suspected that he might.

It was why he came here, why he continued doing the little that he could.

When it was time to leave Celia, he rose and went toward her, intending to kiss her forehead as he did whenever she allowed hi But tonight she shrank away, curling her body even tighter, her eyes alert with sudden fear. He sighed and abandoned the attempt. "Good night, Celia," Alex said.

There was no answer and he went out, leaving his wife to whatever lonely world she now inhabited.

Next morning Alex sent for Nolan Wainwright. He told the security chief that the investigator's fee to be paid Vernon fax would be remitted through Wainwright's department. Alex would authorize the expense. Alex didn't state, and Wainwright didn't ask, the specific nature of Jax's investigation. For the moment, Alex decided, the fewer people who knew the target, the better.

Nolan Wainwright had a reciprocal report for Alex. It concerned his arrangement that Miles Eastin would be an undercover agent for the bank. Alex's reaction was immediate. "No. I don't want that man ever again on our payroll."

"He won't be on the payroll," Wainwright argued. "I've explained to him that as far as the bank is concerned, he has no status. Any money he'll receive will be in cash, with nothing to show where it came from."

"That's hairsplitting, Nolan. One way or the other he'd be employed by us, and that I can't agree to."

"If you don't agree," Wainwright objected, "you'll be tying my hands, not letting me do my job."

"Doing your job doesn't require you to hire a convicted thief." "Ever hear of using one to catch ones" "Then use one who didn't personally defraud this bank."

They argued back and forth, at moments heatedly. In the end, Alex reluctantly conceded. Afterward he asked, "Does Eastin realize how much of a risk he's taking?" "He knows."

"You told him about the dead man?" Alex had learned about Vic, from Wainwright, several months ago. "Yes." "I still don't like the idea any of it."

"You'll like it even less if Keycharge fraud losses keep increasing, as they are."

Alex sighed. "All right. It's your department and you're entitled to run it your way, which is why I've given in. But I'll impress one thing on you: If you've reason to believe Eastin is in immediate danger, then pull him out at once." "I intended that."

Wainwright was glad that he had won, though it had been a tougher argument than he expected. However, it seemed unwise right now to mention anything else for example, his hope of enlisting Juanita Nunez as an intermediary. After all, he rationalized, the principle was established, so why bother Alex with details?

Juanita Nunez was torn between suspicion and curiosity. Suspicion because she disliked and distrusted the bank's vice-president of security, Nolan Wainwright. Curiosity because she wondered why he wanted to see her, apparently in secrecy.

There was nothing for her to be concerned about personally, Wainwright had assured Juanita on the telephone yesterday when he called her at the main downtown branch. He would merely like the two of them, he said, to have a confidential talk. "It's a question of whether you'd be willing to help someone else." "Like you?" "Not exactly." "Then who?" "I'd prefer to tell you privately."

Prom his voice, Juanita sensed that Wainwright was trying to be friendly. But she parried the friendliness, stillremembering his unfeeling harshness when she had been under suspicion of theft. Not even his subsequent apology had wiped out that memory. She doubted if anything ever would.

Just the same, he was a senior officer of FMA and she a junior employee. "Well," Juanita said, "I'm here, and last time I looked the tunnel was open." She assumed that either Wainwright would walk over from the Headquarters Tower or she would be told to report there. However, he surprised her.

"It would be best if we didn't meet in the bank, Mrs. Nunez. When I've explained, you'll understand why. Suppose I pick you up in my car from your home this evening, and we talk while we drive." "I can't do that." She was more wary than ever. "You mean, not tonight?" "Yes." "How about tomorrow?"

Juanita was stalling, trying to decide. "I'll have to let you know."

"All right, call me tomorrow. As early as you can. And meanwhile, please don't tell anyone else we had this conversation." Wainwright hung up.

Now it was tomorrow Tuesday in the third week of September. At midmorning, Juanita knew that if she failed to call Wainwright soon, he would call her.

She was still uneasy. Sometimes, she thought, she had a nose for trouble and scented it now. Earlier Juanita had considered asking the advice of Mrs. D'Orsey whom she could see, on the other side of the bank, at the manager's desk on the platform. But she hesitated, remembering Wainwright's cautionary words about not telling anyone else. That, as much as anything, had piqued her curiosity.

Today Juanita was working on new accounts. Beside her was a phone. She stared at it, picked it up, and dialed the internal number of Security. Moments later, Nolan Wainwright's deep voice asked, "Can you make it tonight?"

Curiosity won out. "Yes, but not for long." She explained that she would leave Estela alone for half an hour; no more. 'what will be long enough. What time and where?"

Dusk was settling in when Nolan Wainwright's Mustang nosed to the curb outside the Forum East apartment building where Juanita Nunez lived. Moments later she emerged through the main floor entranceway, closing it carefully behind her. Wainwright reached over from belund the wheel to open the nearside door and she climbed in.

He helped fasten her seat harness, then said, "Thank you for coming."

"Half an hour," Juanita reminded him. "That's all." She made no attempt to be friendly and was already nervous about leaving Estela alone.

The bank security chief nodded as he eased the car away from the curb and into traffic. They drove two blocks in silence, then made a left turn onto a busier, divided road, lined with brightly lighted stores and eateries. Still driving, Wainwright said, "I hear young Eastin came to see you." She responded sharply, "How did you know?" "He told me. He also said that you've forgiven him." "If he said it, then you know." "Juanita may I call you that?" "It is my name. I suppose so."

Wainwright sighed. "Juanita, I already told you I'm sorry about the way things went between us once before. If you still hold that against me, I don't blame you."

She thawed slightly. "Bueno, you had better tell me what it is you want." "I want to know if you'd be willing to help Eastin." "So he is the one." "Yes." "Why should I? Isn't forgiving him enough?"

"If you ask my opinion more than enough. But he was the one who said you might…" She interrupted. "What kind of help?"

"Before I tell you, I'd like your promise that what we say tonight will go no further than the two of us."

She shrugged. "There is no one to tell. But you have the promise."

"Eastin is going to do some investigative work. It's for the bank, though unofficial. If he succeeds it may help him get rehabilitated, which is what he wants." Wainwright paused while he maneuvered the car around a slow-moving tractor-trailer. He continued, "The work is risky. It would be riskier still if Eastin reported directly to me. What the two of us need is someone to carry messages both ways an intermediary." "And you decided it should be me?"

"No one's decided. It's a question of whether you'd be willing. If you were, it would help Eastin help himself." "And is Miles the only one this would help?"

"No," Wainwright admitted. "It would help me; also the bank." "Somehow that is what I thought."

They had left the bright lights now and were crossing the river by a bridge; in the gathering darkness the water gleamed blackly far below. The road surface was metallic and the car wheels hummed. At the end of the bridge was the entrance to an interstate highway. Wainwright turned onto it.

"The investigation you speak of," Juanita prompted. 'Yell me more about it." Her voice was low, expressionless.

"All right." He described how Miles Eastin would operate under cover, using his contacts made in prison, and the kind of evidence Miles would search for. There was no point, Wainwright decided, in holding anything back because what he didn't tell Juanita now she would find out later. So he added the information about the murder of Vic, though omitting the more unpleasant details. "I'm not saying the same will happen to Eastin," he concluded. "I'll do everything possible to make sure it won't. But I mention it so you know the risk he's running, and he understands it, too. If you were to help him, as I said, it would keep him safer."

"And who will keep me safe?"

"For you there'd be virtually no risk. The only contact you'd have would be with Eastin and with me. No one else would know, and you wouldn't be compromised. We'd make sure of that."

- "If you are so sure, why are we meeting this way now?"

- "Simply a precaution. To make certain we're not seen together and can't be overheard."

Juanita waited, then she asked, "And that is all? There is nothing more to tell me?" Wainwright said, "I guess that's it."

They were on the interstate now and he held the car at a steady 45, staying in the right-hand lane while other vehicles speeded past. On the opposite side of the divided highway three lines of headlights streamed toward them, passing in a blur. Soon he would turn off at an exit ramp and return the way they had come. Meanwhile, Juanita sat silently beside him, her eyes directed straight ahead.

He wondered what she was thinking and what her answer would be. He hoped it would be yes. As on earlier occasions he found this petite, elfin girl-woman provocative and sexually attractive. Her perversity was part of it; so was the smell of her a bodily feminine presence in the small closed car. There had been few women in Nolan Wainwright's life since his divorce, and at any other time he might have tried his luck. But what he wanted from Juanita now was too important to take a chance with self-indulgence.

He was about to break the silence when Juanita turned to face him. Even in the semidarkness he could see her eyes were blazing. "You must be mad, mad, mad!" Her voice rose heatedly. "Do you think I am a little fool? Una boba! tonta! No risk for me, you say! Of course there is a risk, and I take all of it. And for what? For the glory of Mr. Security Wainwright and his bank." "Now wait…"

She brushed aside the interruption, storming on, her anger spilling out like lava. "Am I such an easy target? Does being alone or Puerto Rican qualify me for all the abuses of this world? Do you not care who you use, or how? Take me home What kind of pendejada is this anyway?"

"Hold it!" Wainwright said; the reaction had astonished him. "What's pendejada?"

"Idiocy! Pendejada that you would throw a man's life away for your selfish credit cards. Pendejada that Miles would agree to do it." "He came to me asking for help. I didn't go to him." "You call that help?"

"He'll be paid for what he does. He wanted that, too. And it was he who suggested you."

"Then what is wrong with him that he cannot ask me himself? Has Miles lost his tongue? Or is he ashamed, and hiding behind your skirts?"

"Okay, okay," Wainwright protested. "I get the message. I'll take you home." An off ramp was close ahead; he turned onto it, crossed an overpass and headed back toward the city. Juanita sat fuming.

At first, she had tried to consider calmly what Wainwright was suggesting. But while he had talked, and she had listened, doubts and questions besieged her, then afterward, as she considered each, her anger and emotion grew, and finally exploded. Coupled with her outburst was a fresh hate and disgust for the man beside her. All the old painful feelings of her earlier experience with him now returned and were augmented. And she was angry, not only for herself, but about the use which Wainwright and the bank proposed to make of Miles.

At the same time Juanita was incensed at Miles. Why had he not approached her himself, directly? Was he not man enough? She remembered that less than three weeks ago she had admired his courage in coming to her, facing her penitently, and asking forgiveness. But his actions now, the method of working on her through someone else, seemed more in keeping with his earlier deceit when he had blamed her for his own malfeasance. Suddenly her thinking veered. Was she being harsh, unjust? Looking inside herself, Juanita asked: Wasn't part of her frustrationat this moment a disappointment that Miles had not returned after the encounter in her apartment? And wasn't there exacerbating that disappointment here and now a resentment that Miles, whom she liked despite everything, was being represented to her by Nolan Wainwright, whom she didn't?

Her anger, never long sustained, diminished. Uncertainty replaced it. She asked Wainwright, "So what will you do now?" "Whatever I decide, I'm certainly not likely to confide in you." His tone was curt, the attempt at friendliness i gone.

With sudden alarm, Juanita wondered if she had been needlessly belligerent. She could have turned down the request without the insults. Would Wainwright find some way to retaliate within the bank? Had she put her job in jeopardy? the job she depended on to support Estela. Juanita's anxiety increased. She had a sense, after all, of being trapped.

And something else, she thought: If she were honest which she tried to be she regretted that because of her decision she would see no more of Miles.

The car had slowed. They were near the turnoff which would take them back across the river bridge.

Surprising herself, Juanita said in a flat, small voice, "Very well, I will do it." "You'll what?" "I will be whatever it was an…"

"Intermediary." Wainwright glanced sideways at her. "You're sure?" "Si, estoy segura. I am sure."

Por the second time tonight he sighed. "You're a strange one." "I am a woman."

"Yes," he said, and some of the friendliness was back "I'd noticed."

A block and a half from Forum East, Wainwright stopped the car, leaving the motor running. He removed two envelopes from an inside jacket pocket one fat, the other smaller and handed the first to Juanita. "That's money for Eastin. Keep it until he gets in touch with you." The envelope, Wainwright explained, contained four hundred and fifty dollars in cash the agreed monthly payment, less a fifty-dollar advance which Wainwright had given Miles last week.

"Later this week," he added, "Eastin win phone me and I'll announce a code word we've already arranged. Your name win not be mentioned. But he'll know that he's to contact you, which he'll do soon after."

Juanita nodded, concentrating, storing the information away.

"After that phone call, Eastin and I won't contact each other directly again. Our messages, both ways, will go through you. It would be best if you didn't write them down, but carry them in your head. I happen to know your memory is good."

Wainwright smiled as he said it, and abruptly Juanita laughed. How ironic that her remarkable memory, which was once a cause of her troubles with the bank and Nolan Wainwright, should be relied on by him nowl

"By the way," he said, "I'D need to know your home phone number. I couldn't find it listed."

"That is because I do not have a telephone. It costs too much."

"Just the same, you'll need one. Eastin may want to call you; so might I. If you'll have a phone installed immediately, I'll see that the bank reimburses you."

"I will try. But I have heard from others that phones are slow to be put in at Forum East."

'When let me arrange it. I’ll call the phone company tomorrow. I guarantee fast action." "Very well."

Now Wainwright opened the second, smaller envelope. "When you give Eastin the money, also give him this."

"This" was a Keycharge bank credit card, made out in the name of H. E. LINCOLP. On the rear of the card a space for signature was blank.

"Have Eastin sign the card, in that name, in his normal handwriting. Tell him the name is a fake, though if he looks at the initials and the last letter, he'll see they spell H-E-L-P. That's what the card is for."

The bank security chief said that the Keycharge computer had been programmed so that if this card was presented anywhere, a purchase of up to a hundred dollars would be approved, but simultaneously an automatic alert would be raised within the bank. This would notify Wainwright that Eastin needed help, and where he was.

"He can use the card if he's on to something hot and wants support, or if he knows he's in danger. Depending on what's happened up to then, I'll decide what to do. Tell him to buy something worth more than fifty dollars; that way the store will be certain to phone in for confirmation. After that phone call, he should dawdle as much as he can, to give me time to move."

Wainwright added, "He may never need the card. But if he does, it's a signal no one else will know about."

At Wainwright's request, Juanita repeated his instructions almost word for word. He looked at her admiringly. "You're pretty bright." "`De que me vale, muerta?" "What does that mean?"

She hesitated, then translated, "What good will it do me if I'm dead?"

"Stop worrying!" Reaching across the car he gently touched her folded hands. "I promise it'll all work out."

At that moment his confidence was infectious. But later, back in her apartment with Estela sleeping, Juanita's instinct about impending trouble persistently returned..

The Double-Seven Health Club smelled of boiler steam, stale urine, body odor, and booze. After a while, though, to anyone inside, the various effluvia merged into a single pungency, curiously acceptable, so that fresh air which occasionally blew in seemed alien.

The club was a boxlike, four-story brown brick building in a decaying, dead-end street on the fringes of downtown. Its facade was scarred by a half century of wear, neglect, and more recently graffiti. At the building's peak was an unadorned stub of flagpole which no one remembered seeing whole. The main entrance consisted of a single, solid, unmarked door abutting directly on a sidewalk notable for cracks, overturned garbage cans, and innumerable dog turds. A paint-flaking lobby just inside was supposed to be guarded by a punch-drunk bruiser who let members in and churlishly kept strangers out, but he was sometimes missing, which was why Miles Eastin wandered in unchallenged.

It was shortly before noon, midweek, and a dissonance of raised voices drifted back from somewhere in the rear. Miles walked toward the sound, down a main-floor corridor, none too clean and hung with yellowed prizefight pictures. At the end was an open door to a semi-darkened bar from where the voices came. Miles went in.

At first he could scarcely see in the dimriess and moved uncertainly so that a hurrying waiter with a tray of drinks caromed into him. The waiter swore, somehow managed to keep the glasses upright, and moved on. Two men perched on barstools turned their heads. One said, "This is a private club, buster. If you aina member out!"

The other complained, " 'S 'at lazy bum Pedro goofin' off. Some doorman! Hey, who are ye? Wadda ya want?" Miles told him, "I was looking for Jules LaRocca."

"Look someplace else," the first man ordered. "No wunna that name here."

"Hey, Milesy baby" A squat pot-bellied figure bustled forward through the gloom. The familiar weasel face came into focus. It was LaRocca who in Drummonburg Penitentiary had been an emissary from Mafia Row, and later attached himself to Miles and his protector Karl. Karl was still inside, and likely to remain there. Jules LaRocca had been released on parole shortly before Miles Eastin. "Hi, Jules," Miles acknowledged.

"Come over. Meet some guys." LaRocca seized Miles's arm in pudgy fingers. "Frenna mine," he told the two men on barstools who turned their backs indifferently.

"Listen," Miles said, "I won't come over. I'm out of bread. I can't buy." He slipped easily into the argot he had learned in prison.

"forget it. Hava couple beers on me." As they passed between tables, LaRocca asked, "Whereya bin?"

"Looking for work. I'm all beat, Jules. I need some help. Before I got out you said you'd give it to me."

"Sure, sure." They stopped at a table where two other men were seated. One was skinny with a mournful, pockmarked face; the other had long blond hair, cowboy boots, and wore dark glasses. LaRocca pulled up an extra chair. "Thissa my buddy, Milesy."

The man with dark glasses grunted. The other said, '.The guy knows about dough?"

"That's him." LaRocca shouted across the room for beer, then urged the man who had spoken first to,-"Ask him sumpum." "Like what?"

"Like about money, asshole," dark glasses said. He considered. "Where'da first dollar get started'

"That's easy," Miles told him. "Lots of people think America invented the dollar. Well, we didn't. It camefrom Bohemia in Germany, only first it was called a thaler, which other Europeans couldn't pronounce, so they corrupted it to dollar and it stayed that way. One of the first references to it is in Macbeth 'ten thousand dollars to our general use."' "Mac who?"

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