by James Ross
When it came to lending, Harold was as polished as a pair of shoes on Oscar night and as crafty as a conman talking a widow out of her estate. The letters B-A-N-K on the exterior of the building served as a reminder to all that a stash of bills was stacked in the vault. And that gave him power. He trusted that he would figure something out and get around any problems that he might have with the examiners. It was too late to accommodate them now. The red digital reading on the desktop clock confirmed that it was time to go home.
He dialed the police station. “Harold Syms down at First Cornstalk Bank,” he began. “I’ve been working late and forgot about what might happen if I walked out alone. Can you send a car down to watch me out the door?”
“I’ll radio for one of the guys to swing by there,” the dispatcher agreed. “Give us a few minutes.”
Several minutes later a squad car entered the parking lot. The cop pulled up and parked by the front door. He exited the vehicle and proceeded to peer through the glass front doors. Harold motioned for the patrolman to go to the side of the building. The banker had a private door in his office that he used to enter and exit the building.
Harold instantly recognized Festus, the night shift cop. He originally hailed from a small river town on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River that prompted the nickname. Festus and Crystal City are twin towns about thirty-five to forty miles south of the city limits of St. Louis on I-55. When Festus took a job on the east side of St. Louis and identified where he was from, some guy with a wisecrack gave him a moniker . . . . and it stuck.
At any rate, if Harold looked like a fox, then Festus took on the appearance of a frog. His dark eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets. It was almost as if they were located on the outside corners of the eyeball. When Festus walked his back curled forward from the waist and the underside of his chin appeared to rest on his chest. The poor posture and slouched look gave the impression that Festus was ready to leap forward to the next lily pad. Even though he was in his late twenties the rounded look on his spine and the slumped, slouched-over form of his shoulders gave him the appearance of an elderly lady suffering from kyphosis.
When Festus took a step it was as if his entire body bounced from the spring in his knees. It was a very identifiable trait that Harold recognized immediately as the image appeared on the darkened parking lot. He was familiar with the movements from his attendance at the city council meetings on the first Wednesday of every month. In an effort to earn additional income for his family, Festus volunteered as the Sergeant of Arms at the meetings at city hall.
As Festus loped along and ultimately reached the side of the bank, Harold was quick to open the door and invite him inside. “Thanks for stopping by,” he started. “I got to thinking that it might be pretty stupid to walk out of the bank all by myself at this time of night. You never know what is lurking behind a parked car or a hidden corner.”
Festus extended his neck from the slumped over position. His round face seemed to lack a chin and his mouth, an upper lip. The creases of his mouth appeared to wrap around his cheeks to the bottom of his ears. “Better safe than sorry,” Festus gurgled.
Harold reached into the back pocket of his pants. He pulled out a wad of folded up bills and peeled a hundred out of the stash. “I appreciate you coming over here and helping me out.”
“I can’t take that Mr. Syms,” Festus began. The words almost needed to be pulled out of his throat. A simple four or five word phrase took ten seconds to be verbalized.
“No, no, no, no. Go ahead. Help your family out a little,” Harold urged. He grabbed the hand of Festus, folded the bill, placed it in his palm, and curled the cop’s fingers back over the face of Benjamin Franklin.
“I don’t know about all of this,” Festus sloshed. “It’s against department policy.” The sound of his voice seemed to originate deep in his throat and its resonance was guttural, like listening to the sounds of a video clip in slow motion.
“Nobody will know a thing,” Harold assured him. “Hell, I’m one of the guys that set the policy for the department anyway.” His years on the police board had served him well over the course of time.
“That’s all the more reason for me not to accept this.” Festus took the bill and gave it back to Harold.
“Dammit!” Harold was irritated. It was time to go home. He sincerely wanted to help the late night cop out a little. “There’s plenty where that came from! Take it! I appreciate you coming over here and escorting me to my car!”
“You won’t turn me in, will you?” Festus continued. “I need this job for my wife and kids.”
“For heaven’s sakes! No!” Harold was slick and he could understand why some people would view his actions as self-serving, but the midnight oil was burning and he wanted to crawl into his own bed.
“You know, some people could take this as some sort of a bribe or payment for something illegal,” Festus babbled.
“ . . . For God’s sake, Festus!” Harold was getting frustrated.
“I won’t have to report this to the IRS as a gift received, will I?” At this Harold clenched his fists and threw imaginary punches through the air.
“Dammit, Festus! No! Just take it!” Harold took the bill, crumbled it, and tried to force the wadded-up C-note back into Festus’ paw.
Festus was reluctant to reach out and grab the bill. “If I took that Mr. Syms you might be able to come back and hold that against me some day. I don’t know if I should do that.”
Harold rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Would it make you feel better if I opened the door and threw the damn thing on the ground?” Festus’ slouched-over look allowed for him to peer out of the top of his beady eyes. He gave him one of those “are-you-thinking-what-I’m-thinking” looks. Harold grinned. He walked over to the door and tossed the wadded up bill onto the parking lot. “There . . . . if you find something on the way back to your car, then good for you.”
Festus didn’t display any teeth as the corners of his lips extended skyward. “Are you ready to lock up?”
Harold was used to getting his way and the little episode with Festus exemplified how he did business. He knew it, and his adversary knew it . . . everybody has a price. Even though he didn’t want anything from Festus he wanted to make sure that Festus accepted his token of appreciation. “Yeah, I am. Let’s get out of here.” Harold paused. “And make sure you clean up the trash on the parking lot.”
CHAPTER TWO
It was as if a tornado blew through the lobby of First Cornstalk Bank the next morning. If Harold went to bed with a lot of unanswered questions the night before, you wouldn’t have known it from the way he barked out orders the next morning. Sometime in the middle of the night he awoke with all of the answers to the dilemma he was facing.
Employees were still arriving as Harold assumed his seat behind the president’s desk of the most aggressive bank in the region. Images were visible on the plasma screen TV located in one of the cubicles of the book shelf complex. Voices from the cable business channel signaled the pre-market opening of the stock market. Harold was busy watching the opening of the bond market on the monitor of his personal computer to see if he could make a quick buck on a futures play before he had to open the doors of his bank. The volatile interest rate market allowed for a shrewd investor to sit on the swinging pendulum for a matter of minutes and make an easy kill—or become the prey if not careful. Harold liked to think that he had more victories than defeats playing that high-stakes game of poker.
“Ricki, could you come in here for a minute?” he shouted to his personal secretary. Ricki Sandstoner bent over backwards to make sure her boss was adequately provided for. She didn’t particularly like to eat the rotten end of the stick and wasn’t afraid to tell him so if he threw too much stuff in her direction or overstepped his bounds. In a perverse sort of way Harold admired that about her. He knew that he was a son-of-a-bitch and she didn’t mind telling him so once in a while. He respected her for that. So the
ir professional mutual admiration smoothed out their idiosyncrasies and allowed them to co-exist.
How Ricki remained thin was anybody’s guess. Maybe she possessed a high metabolism that burned calories as she sat at her desk or perhaps she learned early not to snack and eat poor food choices. When Harold called she moved her long-limbed, five-foot-ten frame into his office in a split second. If he shouted for her before the bank opened it normally meant that he had something important on his mind and wanted her to put the plan into action. “Good morning. How can I help?”
She towered above him when he was standing and now that he was sitting Ricki looked even more intimidating. Deep down maybe that was why Harold respected her so much. Perhaps if he thought that if he got too cross with her, she would smack the crap out of him and then walk out the door. “We’ve got some issues here that we need to get all over,” he started.
Ricki pulled up a chair in front of his desk and grabbed her notepad. She was ready with pen in hand when he started barking instructions. “Does it have to do with what I noticed on the calendar yesterday?” She flipped her long, auburn hair over her shoulder with her left hand.
Harold tilted his head down and looked out the top of his eyes. “What do you think?” She knew that when he answered a question with a question she needed to remain silent. “Oh yeah. It’s got me a little concerned. Or should I say, very concerned.” Harold knew that he could confide in Ricki. She knew the ins and outs of the banking business and looked after his affairs with efficiency. “I stayed in here until damn near midnight last night and left not knowing what to do. But when it came to me I sat up in bed. We don’t know if it’s going to be the state regulators or the FDIC, but we have to expect one of them any day now.”
“It’s smart to try to stay one step ahead. You know that they’re not going to give us any advance warning,” Ricki confirmed.
“No shit. Let’s order our own internal audit and maybe we can hope that we have at least a couple of day’s head start on them,” Harold suggested.
“Do you want me to call Walter?”
Harold nodded his head. Walter Hancock was the accounting whiz around town that everyone seemed to rely on. He had his peculiar habits, but for the most part he had a conscience and was aggressive when he needed to be. He had done a lot of creative accounting in the past for a number of influential clients and was a tax expert. His knowledge of the ever-changing IRS tax code was second to none. After he had built up his book of clients Walter expanded his accounting practice to include auditing services for a select number of trusted friends. Harold fell into that group. “Try to get him over here today. We need to scrub the files,” Harold instructed.
“Bait the hook with a buffet table of food?” Ricki proposed with a devilish grin.
Harold laughed out loud. He loved the way she thought. “I don’t give a rat’s rear end what he wants to eat. If he wants pizza, get him a pizza. If he wants a steak, call down to Salvatore’s and get the best cut on the menu. If he wants Marcia Schroeder to cater it, then give her a call. Just keep him happy and make sure he gets down here today.”
“ . . . Anything else?”
“Get all of our loan guys in here. Have them work the phones and update the personal financials for all of their customers. Make sure that they are in the conference room with Walter and have their hands on the files.” The words were flying out of Harold’s mouth. “If we need to get current insurance information make sure that they call the agents and have the updated policies faxed over. All of the land deals have to have a current survey on file. Make sure they are collected. Update the real estate tax records and double check that the receipts are in with the paperwork. If the title needs to be updated, then get the orders in.” Harold was under control despite having his back up against the wall.
“Can we get all of that done in one day?” Ricki questioned.
“I doubt it,” Harold admitted. “But if Walter is here then at least we can document a file and indicate when the paperwork was ordered. I want those loan files sanitized.”
Ricki got up from her seat and headed for the door. “You know, you might be worrying over something that might not happen.”
“Why do you say that?”
There’s that question again, she thought. Ricki contemplated answering her boss. “If the regulators show up, they might not ask to see the loan papers.”
Harold wrinkled his nose, gave her an inquisitive look and let his mind race at ninety miles an hour. “I don’t want to take that chance. After what I saw last night the loans are a mess. And I’ve got my name in most of the files.”
“One of these days the state is only going to follow the tellers around or go to the vault and check our deposits,” Ricki said in a soothing tone.
“Anything’s possible, but I need to plan for the worst. I don’t want those clowns to come down on us.” Harold moved his shifty eyes nervously from side to side. “Plus I have way too much exposure in those loan packages. My personal financial statement can’t stand on its own if they start prying too hard,” Harold cautioned.
Ricki knew that Harold lived on the edge and was strung out financially. “You haven’t borrowed from Peter to pay Paul, have you?”
Harold reached up to his face with both of his hands and massaged his brow. “It’s too early in the morning to start coming at me with all of that. Don’t ruin my day.” The insinuation that he had been taking money out of the vault to float loans was an area that Harold didn’t want to visit. “Make sure the place is spruced up for Neal Brownfield. I have a big deal cooking with him.”
“We’ll roll out the red carpet the minute he walks through the door,” Ricki assured her boss.
“He’s due in here at a quarter past nine. Now get things rolling.” Harold spun his chair around and stared at the television screen as the opening bell rang on Wall Street.
CHAPTER THREE
Neal Brownfield was one of the good old boys around town. The land in his family had been handed down from generation to generation and farmed for decades. What started out as one hundred twenty acres bordering an aged country golf course now was considered a valuable tract of land. As the suburbs of St. Louis bulged from development the farm fields of Illinois offered a more attractive return to the homebuilders in the area. Neal was no idiot. He knew that his property was worth a heckuva lot more growing homes than ears of corn—and for that matter, wheat or soybeans.
His normal routine was to rise early in the day and drive his rusty, Chevy pickup truck down to Norma’s Diner on Cherry Street. He didn’t need a new truck when the old Chevy was dependable for him. Even if the paint was substandard, the engine was long-lasting. And he certainly didn’t want to stop at the new Burger King or Denny’s that sprouted up on the outskirts of town. He had been going to Norma’s ever since he was a little boy. It had changed ownership several times, but through the entire process Norma had stayed on the griddle and had managed to keep the regulars happy.
Neal could walk into the diner in his overalls and work boots and feel at home. He knew that he would be just as comfortable and welcome there as if he was dining in a five-star restaurant. That, by the way, would make him feel uncomfortable. At Norma’s he could assume his seat at the counter, have a cup of coffee in front of him before his butt hit the stool, and have three fried eggs served two minutes later with a plateful of hash browns and a slab of country ham. Norma knew that he wanted two slices of buttered, wheat toast as well as a cup full of apple butter. Plus she always remembered that he wanted his eggs over medium so that his bowels wouldn’t “get too loose” as he had reminded her one unforgettable day a little after sunrise.
On that particular morning all the other guys were chowing down on biscuits and gravy. Neal propped his elbow on the countertop, leaned onto the side of his stool to raise his ass in the air a tad, and promptly passed some gas. The release of pressure caused a slight accident and he yelled at Norma for making the yokes too runny. While he scurrie
d off to the restroom amid the laughter of the regulars he vowed to remind Norma to make sure that his eggs were cooked a little longer from that day forward. Over medium they became and Neal’s problems with a loose stool disappeared.
Neal liked going into Norma’s to start his day. It was as customary to his routine as shaving. Plus it gave him the opportunity to constantly kid her about putting her best side forward every morning as he gazed at her backside while she fried the eggs.
Any number of the fellow farmers would drop in and complain about the terrible prices that the commodities market had placed on their crops. Or they would gripe about the weather being too wet or too dry, whatever the case may be. If it wasn’t that, then one or two of them would bitch about the cost of equipment or a mechanical breakdown of an older tractor. All the while, they would be twiddling their thumbs and watching the crops sprout skyward in spite of what Mother Nature had in store for them. And they would sit and plan their next vacation out of town . . . possibly to one of the many casinos that had opened on the Mississippi or Ohio rivers.
As comfortable as life had become Neal pondered the next move for his family. He was torn between selling property that had been in his family for several generations and taking the millions that were possible from the homebuilders. On one hand he would lose his status in the farming community, but on the other hand he could put the cash into the bank and not have to worry about insects and pesticides or crops and herbicides. That was the dilemma that faced him as he prepared to visit Harold Syms at First Cornstalk Bank.
