by Ron Hevener
“Agreed!”
“Absolutely!”
“By now, we’ve probably all heard from friends and family about what they’re facing,” he said. “They’re probably asking for advice. Maybe for a place to stay. And asking for money. Some of you might have used money you borrowed from your banks—and that’s what it was, it wasn’t ours; we borrowed it.”
No one spoke.
“All of us—I am sure every last one of us—regrets from the bottom of his heart the tragedy and confusion spreading because of this financial crash. We wish we could do something to make it go away. But we can’t. Nobody—not even the highest ranking official of this country—knows how long it’s going to take for the markets to recover…or if they ever will. All we can do now is keep the money safe until that day comes, and pray it comes soon. I know what I’m saying. I know because I went there. I talked to people. I heard their stories. And I and saw it for myself. What I saw is a hell of a lot more than people losing their money—I saw people losing their minds! What some of us predicted and feared is coming true! Even if the markets come back, it could take years—generations—to find any kind of real balance again.
“I hope,” he said then. “No—I believe!—I have to believe we, right here, right here in this room tonight! That we have the power to help restore that balance and build again. I have to believe we can find a way to guide our depositors back to prosperity. Let’s get started!” he said, rolling up his sleeves and encouraging the rest of them to do the same. “Let’s start right now—start with the people counting on us, the community we represent, and save our world! I’ll start with mine—Steitzburg!”
“Watsonville!” came a brave voice. “Ephrata Springs!” came another. “Mount Haven!” “Snyderton!” “Honeydale!” Twelve banks had snatched their money right from the jaws of Wall Street and the only thing they were sure of was they had to hide what they had done and protect each other at all costs.
A hurricane of briefcases, tablets and pens began appearing and the shuffle of papers could be heard at the table now. Along with the other bankers, Ezra totaled his deposits, loans, payments and even the interest owed on savings accounts for everybody who had trusted him in Steitzburg. As each member finished, they passed their financial statements to him. Moments later, he was screaming.
There is no sound like the moan of a betrayed heart. “Oh, no! GOD’S SAKE, no!” Ezra’s look of betrayal and disappointment could only have been matched by the faces of those who had thrown themselves from windows to the streets below. “You call yourselves bankers?” he choked reaching for a pitcher, knocking it over and not even caring. “Fools!” he hollered, spilling glasses of water around him and throwing wet papers across the room. “Get these excuses for financial records away from me!” he said, tearing them up. “I’m ashamed! I can’t look at this crap!”
Several men scrambled out of the way, then gathered their wits to hold him still. “What’s the matter?” they said, shaken to their bellies.
“The numbers!” he managed to say, gasping for breath. “Tell me they’re wrong!”
But they weren’t wrong. They were accurate in every detail, and some had even been prepared beforehand for angry stockholders, directors and depositors.
“How could this happen?” he finally said. “If those figures are right, some of you were grossly overextended. You never should have made investments and loans like that. One of you has over sixty percent of your assets invested in only nine men, and they’re all on your board of directors. Another has nearly forty percent in loans to borrowers with the same last name—tell me what that’s all about! And another one has fifty-three percent of its assets in the phony-sounding names of thirty-two borrowers with the same address—and it’s a Post Office box!” Looking around the room, he held his attention on a few of them just long enough to make sure the others noticed. “Can’t any of you read a financial statement?” he asked no one in particular.
“Most of us managed to unload paper when the market was falling to raise cash—not a bad idea,” he said. “What else could we do, right?” He shook his head. “But we were working against each other! Selling off at the same time and pushing prices down for everybody!” He shook his head again, like a disappointed coach talking to a team of rank beginners. “The liabilities? Even if we throw all of the money together and put it in the highest savings account or bonds we can find in any country in the world, we have so many debts to cover it’ll be YEARS before we can even hope to replace our depositors’ savings and other accounts from this amount.” He took a sip of water and some of the members looked away, dreading what they might hear next. “I don’t know if we can do it,” he said, disappointed. “I honestly don’t,” he said, at a genuine loss, but, gaining momentum from somewhere inside his heart now, he faced them and said, “None of us—not one of us—has any idea what it’s like out there—or what it can become! We’re lazy, soft, arrogant fools living in a wonderland of plenty! Every one of us! And the sooner we get wise to that, the sooner we can all get out of this. You disgust me!
“Let me remind you of the words of the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling,” he said, glaring at them and suddenly thinking of Mary. “He said, ‘If you risk your all on a game of pitch and toss; If you can hold your head when all others are losing theirs’—”
Not a perfect quote, but every man knew those lofty words. “Never heard it put that way!” a brave soul said.
“Don’t you dare interrupt me!” Ezra spat, throwing his trembling hands up as if he would turn them all in to the U.S. Department of Treasury or the Internal Revenue Service right then and there. “We’re never going to have another chance like this as long as we live! No matter how Kipling said it, every man in this room took a risk—put his reputation on the line—and, tonight,” he stared at the one who had interrupted him, “was to see “If” that risk was worth taking at all!” For the educated and well-read among them, his meaning was not squandered.
At the abrupt close of the meeting, it was decided that their legal options would be looked into, and they would meet again like this. By the next meeting, there would be a plan and it would be their only hope. Not everybody liked the idea of having a plan shoved down their throats without a vote, but nobody in that room had any doubt that should they not agree with Ezra’s plan and stick to it, their days of freedom were numbered. The idea that their days of freedom might be numbered anyway didn’t occur to twelve bank presidents in a heap of trouble as they got into their cars as fast as they could and drove away that night.
After a while, just long enough for it to take a side road, turn around and loop back, one of those cars returned. Calmly, the driver touched his tie, got out and approached the house. He didn’t knock. He just opened the door and walked in.
“Did anyone see you?” Ezra asked.
“No,” Theodore said, removing his coat and hat. “I’m sure,” he added, knowing he wasn’t really.
The lights were lower now, giving the house a more intimate sensation for this meeting of the minds as they went back to the table again, where a bottle of wine and two glasses were waiting.
“You changed the plan,” Theodore said, seating himself and swirling the medicine for a man’s soul into his glass.
“Not really,” said Ezra, pouring. “Improvised a bit maybe.”
“A bit?” Theodore said, as he considered this new twist in their predicament. “I almost believed it when you spilled water all over the papers and threw them around like that—until I remembered how easy ink can smear when it’s wet, and how good you are at memorizing numbers.” He smiled. Did Ezra think he was a fool?
“Some of the best insurance never sees the pages of a policy,” Ezra said.
“Right now, you’ve got a golden policy,” Theodore said. “Papers destroyed, seeds of doubt planted in all the right places. After what you said about misappropriation of funds, who can they trust?”
“Don’t you mean, who can you trust?” Ezra was
looking him in the eye.
Theodore waited, sensing there was more coming. “Big money has a strange effect on people. They take risks and don’t think it through. Something about tonight bothers me,” Ezra said. “You’re right: I did the water thing on purpose. But the ones who grabbed me. Something about how they jumped up like that. It didn’t feel right.”
Theodore thought back. “They came at you together. At the same time.” He considered that and concluded, “You think they’re already bonded. Comfortable with each other. You think they had a little meeting of their own tonight.”
“Exactly. Money’s tight now, and not much left. Thanks to me messing up the figures, they don’t know how much we’ve got our hands on. But I’m telling you, it’s enough for all of them together never to work another day in his life.” He reached into his shirt for a piece of paper and showed Trimble the figures.
“You’re kidding me!” Theodore whistled.
“Balanced to the penny,” Ezra said. “If they told us everything. And my guess is, those three didn’t.”
Theodore looked at the bottle and sighed with exhaustion at the suspicions coming at him so easily now—was there poison in that bottle, would Ezra turn against him? “You’re right,” he said, knowing the stakes were high and for anything to work—anything at all—they must trust each other. “There’s something else,” he said.
Ezra waited.
“Tonight, when you accused some of them of taking money for themselves,” Theodore said, “did you notice, nobody at the table denied it, or even raised an eyebrow?”
Ezra smiled to himself. “I was too busy throwing around water.”
“Well, I did,” Theodore said. “I couldn’t help it.” He paused, then added, “How long before they start pointing fingers and fighting each other? The only way out now is to declare a figure, divide it between each bank according to how much they put in and move the plan forward. If they had a negative balance, the fund gives them a loan to get started. They’re bankers. Everybody should go along with that, right? And,” he said, “what if they don’t go back to their communities as regular banks now—controlled by any kind of authority—but what if everybody turns into a private, legitimate holding company instead?” It wasn’t a bad idea.
“If everybody has a line of credit equal to the share of what his bank threw into the big fund, it should work, right? You’d have ‘Something-Investments of Steitzburg’ and ‘Same-thing Investments of Snyderton,’ Watsonville…get it?”
“I’m listening,” Ezra said. “But you realize it would be an accounting nightmare.”
“That’s where I come in. I’m going to be a lawyer, Ezra. I can have an accounting department.”
“I see where this is going,” Ezra said.
“Well?” Theodore asked, “Is it a deal?”
Ezra clicked his tongue thoughtfully, just to give a little suspense. “You’ve been talking with your father, Theodore. I think you’ll make a great lawyer.”
“Good. Then let me tell you the rest,” Theodore said.
“Please do.” Ezra smiled at the young man’s enthusiasm now.
“Two funds,” Theodore said. “Not one.”
Ezra furrowed his brow with curiosity. “You know about the account Fenstamacher set up with your father?”
Theodore nodded. “You said something tonight—you said it could take years for this mess to straighten out. Generations maybe.”
“But that was just talk!” Ezra laughed. “I was going crazy. I don’t know for sure. Nobody does!”
“But don’t you see?” Theodore said urgently now. “It’s our way out! It makes perfect sense! Do the math!” he said, pointing to the figures. “Even at today’s interest—not even counting if things get better—if we don’t do anything else but put the money in a savings account, and never touch it, we could take half of this money and, with enough time, the interest alone could be a fortune! More than enough to pay everybody back and still have another fortune left over! Everybody comes out a winner! Think! It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds.”
“And you’re sure you talked this over with your father,” Ezra said.
“Of course. And, he’s ready to help any way he can.”
“It’s like an empire,” Ezra said. “Countries facing war and making treaties. You, my friend, have a very sinister mind.”
“Could it be done?” Theodore asked.
“If you mean, could we do it?” Ezra said. “I’m sure we could. Yes. Putting money into the Swiss account is very simple. There’s already one set up, thanks to Fenstamacher and your Dad. But nobody knows how long it’s going to take for the United States to get through this. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long time,” he said. “And there are unpredictable forces. What are people going to be like when it’s over, for example? What kind of new banking laws and stock market controls might there be? What if we can’t get the money back after we send it out of the country? It’s risky.”
“Which is why you love it!” Theodore said.
Ezra smiled again. Maybe if Mary was at his side, he wouldn’t have felt so wild. Maybe he wouldn’t take a leap and throw his caution to the wind. “Our country’s never going to be the same again, Theodore. It means gambling everything—risking prison, maybe. We can’t predict the future.”
“No, we can’t,” Theodore said, “but, we’re young enough, and we can influence it. And, if we plan ahead far enough, it might be worth the risk. We might find someone to carry on what we’ve started—whoever that lucky one is. It makes more sense than you think! Everybody knows society’s going crazy, and nobody knows what the hell’s going to happen. But we could live to see it. If there’s any chance you’re right, let’s prove it! Skip a whole generation—or, even two if you want—and find out!
Ezra thought of his newborn daughter, or, maybe in time, a son. He thought of grandchildren.
“Anyway,” Theodore said, wanting Ezra to know he had been paying attention, “isn’t this what Rudyard Kipling was really talking about?”
They looked at each other, thought a while and laughed. Instead of saying, “Look at us! We’ve got enough money to live the rest of our lives doing anything we want. Let’s buy mansions and boats!” Instead of saying that, what Ezra said—and what changed the destiny of them both—was, “You know? I think it could work!”
That night, the partners in crime decided to move half of the pledged cash assets into the secret account and the rest into a U.S. account as originally intended, for working capital seeing their communities through the crisis. If the government could restructure the banking system of the nation, great. If not, the frugal and thrifty Pennsylvania Dutch Country—a country within a country—could rebuild itself with, or without, any government telling it what to do, when or how.
At the next meeting of the bankers, the plan would be presented. No longer were they bankers in any traditional sense of the word. They were businessmen throwing off their shackles and limits. They would throw off their aura of righteous superiority, put on new shirts and roll up their sleeves. They would put the money to work. It wasn’t a perfect cover for what they had done—robbed innocent people of their money—but could anyone call it robbery if the intention was to pay it all back…someday?
Clinking together their wine glasses, Ezra and Theodore knew—no matter how long it took—they could wait. They could wait through war, they could wait through peace. They could wait through love, hate and all the political storms of humanity. Ten years. Twenty. Fifty, if they had to. They could wait to open the time capsule they had just created, and they would be there for The Brotherhood of Gold.
*
Financial planning doesn’t always come with sophisticated charts, facts and figures, but it almost always comes with a flaw. Through the ages, financial planning has been plotted in royal courts, senate assemblies and power centers all the way from family kitchens to royal bedrooms, and there’s always something you never counted on.
W
hat you never count on has a way of taking root, just like boxwood hedges outside the windows of old stone farmhouses where a desperate customer of the bank might be hiding: Arden Miller, a small-time horse trainer always running behind on his mortgage payments, could hear everything that night…and he knew exactly how much it could mean for him.
He waited there in the shadows until Theodore and Ezra shook hands and said good-night.
He waited until he couldn’t hear Theodore’s car anymore.
He waited until it was his turn to knock on the door of opportunity.
CHAPTER 3
Daddy’s Girl
“It was your grandfather, wasn’t it, Ben, who got the bank up and running again.” It comes as a statement out of the blue and it doesn’t sound like a question. She looks around broadly and smiles. “From what I’ve seen, and what I’ve heard, Ezra Hoover certainly did all right for himself.” As if on cue, the camera moves in for a closer look at those not-so-innocent blue eyes. “Pretty good for a simple, down-to-earth, hard-working farmer from the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Don’t you think?”
Beautiful and the very image of good grooming, Diane Wallace reaches for her glasses and studies her notes as Ben considers her comment. Before he can answer, she says more. “According to my research, Ezra was reinstated at the bank. But he wasn’t just reinstated, was he?” It’s a loaded question and he doesn’t have an answer.
Ben says, “Actually, and I’m not sure how it happened, it must have taken a great deal of skill and reassurance to the whole town he grew up in; you’re right, my grandfather did return to the bank, yes.”
“He more than just returned to his old job, though. Isn’t that right?”she says, guiding him with a gentle touch.
Sensing a trap, he says, “Well, yes, if you consider that he was the loan officer when the bank crashed.”
She smiles. “Wouldn’t you say that was a pretty big jump? Going from a loan officer to president of the whole bank?”
Ben clears his throat and gathers his wits for the right response. “Well, Diane,” he points out, “you’re right. It was a very big jump. But people today—a lot of them, at least—don’t realize what it was like back then. Things are pretty good for the country right now. I mean, we have people today who honestly don’t remember what it’s like to lose everything you have—all the cash you had in the bank and the buying power and the security that gives your life. We’re a long way from that now, and, God be with us, it won’t ever happen again.”
