by Robert Inman
“I’m much obliged,” she said, reaching for her pocketbook. “What do I owe you?”
“Not a thing, ma’am. I wouldn’t take a million dollars for the experience.” He tipped his cap. “Y’all be careful now, y’hear. And tell Little Fitz I said hello. I met him one time. He’s a right nice fellow. Tell him I said to give ’em hell, y’hear.”
“We’ll do that.”
He left them, glancing back again through the mirror as he drove away. Bright turned off the ignition, let the engine die, and then turned to Jimbo. “Buster Putnam said you needed to do something outrageous,” she said.
He eyed her warily. “Huh!” he grunted.
“Do you want to go home,” she asked him, “or do you want to stick around and see what kind of nutty maneuver I’m going to pull next?”
He considered it for a moment; then he said, “I reckon I’ll stay.”
“You reckon you will. Well, good. Let’s transact our business and get on with things.”
They got out of the car and hoisted the check out the rear window, one holding each end, and headed across the sidewalk toward the entrance of the bank. A young man with a briefcase held the big glass door while they went through into the lobby. It was a big, highceilinged, open room with a lot of marble and brass and potted plants, several desks off to one side, nestled on thick carpet, the people behind them busily putting things away, tidying to go home. Straight ahead was a row of elevators with gleaming doors that opened with a whoosh, disgorging little packs of scurrying people who boiled through the lobby, men in suits and women in snappy dresses, brushing by them with curious looks.
“We better get out of the way, or we’re gonna get run over,” Jimbo said, tugging on his end of the check.
Bright stood her ground, surveying the confusion. “It doesn’t look much like a bank,” she said. And then, off to one side, she spotted the only thing that really looked like a bank, a long high counter. There weren’t any customers there, just a couple of women busily working at calculators.
“Over there,” Bright said, and they edged through the rush of people to the counter and stopped in front of one of the women. She looked very prim, very efficient, punching away at her calculator with one hand while she riffled through a stack of papers with the other. She was absorbed in the work. Bright cleared her throat. “Is this a bank or not?”
She punched a few more times at the calculator and then stopped, gave them a thin smile. “Yes,” she said, “this is a bank.”
“Do you have fifty thousand dollars?”
The woman looked a trifle alarmed.
“It’s not a holdup,” Bright hastened. “We just want to cash our check. Jimbo, turn around this way so the lady can see the check.”
She stared at it for a long moment, opened her mouth, closed it again, then tried another tight smile. Finally she said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Young lady,” Bright said, “I didn’t drive all the way up here to kid around. It’s a perfectly good check, and it’s worth fifty thousand dollars.” She tried to look pleasant but firm.
The young woman stared at them for a moment longer, then picked up a telephone, punched a number, and turned her back to them while she mumbled into it. No sooner had she put it down than a man appeared magically at their side, a balding middle-aged man, one of those Bright had seen at a desk on the other side of the room.
“Lou Purcell,” he said. “The branch manager.” He seemed nice enough and he looked her straight in the eye, avoiding the check. “May I be of assistance?”
“Yes, indeed, you may be of assistance,” she said. “You may cash our check.”
He looked at it then, gave it a careful going-over. He rocked back and forth from his heels to the balls of his feet a couple of times, like a pendulum on a clock, as if to remind her that it was late in the workday and everybody here wanted to end it neatly and quietly, without any fuss. Then he looked at the check again, and his eyes stopped on the “Pay to the order of” line and his eyes narrowed and his nose twitched like a rabbit smelling greens. “Mrs., ah, Birdsong …”
“Mrs. Fitzhugh Birdsong,” she said.
“The ah …”
“Widow of the congressman, mother of the governor.”
Within minutes they were in one of the gleaming elevators, floating toward the upper floors of the building, shepherded by the branch manager, the check now in the custody of the young woman behind the counter, with the manager’s assurance that it would be quite safe in her custody. When they stepped off the elevator, a tall, distinguished-looking man was standing in the big open double doors of a spacious office, smiling broadly, offering his hand.
“Mrs. Birdsong. What a lovely surprise. And honor. I’m Foxhall Beaulieu, the president of the bank. I was just talking with Fitz about you this morning, after we read about your good fortune in the newspaper. Quite an exciting time for you, I imagine.”
Bright shook his hand. “You know my son.”
“Ah, of course,” he said with a wiggle of his eyebrows. “Fitz and I go way back.” She thought about what Harley Gibbons had told her. Fitz and the big banks.
“This is my grandson, Jimbo,” she said, “my daughter’s boy.” They shook hands and Foxhall Beaulieu ushered them into his inner sanctum on a cloud of pleasantries, to big leather armchairs in front of a huge polished table, with ornate, curving cabriole legs, that served as a desk. It was empty except for a telephone console, a blank notepad, and a pen-and-pencil set with a marble base. There was a lot of brass and marble and potted greenery here too, but also a good deal of mahogany, grass-cloth wallpaper, gilt-framed artwork. Two of the walls were entirely glass, covered by sheer, gauzy curtains, one of them strategically parted to reveal a splendid view of the Capitol nestled on its hill a couple of blocks away, the state flag drifting lazily above the dome in a late-afternoon breeze off the river. Purcell, the branch manager, appeared in a moment with a tray of crystal glasses filled with ice and a clear, bubbly liquid. They each took one while Foxhall Beaulieu babbled on about the weather, the traffic, the sterling attributes of the downstate where Bright lived. Everything but the check.
“Something’s wrong with the water,” Jimbo said, taking a sip and wrinkling his nose.
“Perrier,” said Foxhall Beaulieu. “May I get you something else?”
Jimbo looked over at Bright.
“Would you like a Coca-Cola?” she asked. “I’ll bet a big fancy bank like this has a Coca-Cola somewhere on the premises. Even Harley Gibbons’s bank has Coca-Colas, and it’s a little bitty old bank.” She glanced over at Foxhall Beaulieu. “Or, at least it used to be.”
“A Coke?” Beaulieu asked.
“Yes sir,” Jimbo asked. He looked lost in the expanse of the green leather of the armchair and his feet dangled six inches from the thick carpet.
“Of course. And you, Mrs. Birdsong?”
“No,” she said. “Soda water is just fine.”
Beaulieu nodded to the branch manager, who took Jimbo’s glass and disappeared again. “Gosh, I haven’t seen Harley Gibbons in a couple of years,” he said to Bright. “I don’t think he came to the last Bankers Association meeting. How’s he doing?”
Bright took a sip from her glass and thought of Harley, drinking tea on her front porch, the sprig of mint peeking over the top of the glass.
“Just fine for a man who’s lost his business,” she said.
Foxhall Beaulieu’s eyebrows went up. “Lost? Oh yes,” he said, smiling. “He’s merging with First Commercial, I think.”
“Merging,” Bright said. That was an interesting way to put it.
“Well, I’m sure he’ll do well with First Commercial. They’re competitors, of course, but good folks.”
“It won’t be Harley Gibbons’s bank anymore,” Bright insisted. “Things won’t be the same. Harley likes to stand right at the front door and shake hands with all the customers when they come in. I didn’t see anybody standing by your front door.”<
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Foxhall Beaulieu laughed, but she thought it was a trifle forced. “Maybe you’ve got a point there. We’ll have to look into that. Might be a good public relations gimmick. Have somebody stand at the door of every branch and shake hands.” Beaulieu swiveled back in his chair and clasped his hands under his chin. “Might even make a good advertising campaign: ‘The Bank That Wants to Shake Your Hand.’ ” He waved a hand, showing a flash of gold cuff link, as if the slogan might magically appear in the air above them. The branch manager was back now, handing Jimbo a glass of Coca-Cola. “Purcell,” Beaulieu said, “I think Mrs. Birdsong has just given us an idea. What do you think of ‘The Bank That Wants to Shake Your Hand’?” He made another wave. “Put somebody at the door of every branch to greet customers when they come in.”
“Sounds good to me,” the branch manager said agreeably.
“Well, we’ll look into it,” Beaulieu said.
“That’s fine,” Bright said. “Now can you cash my check?”
Foxhall Beaulieu leaned forward slowly in his chair, propped his elbows on the desk. “Gosh, that’s a mighty big check, Mrs. Birdsong. In more ways than one.” He gave them a nice laugh.
“It is to me,” she said. “And it might be to Harley Gibbons. But I’ll bet a big bank like this has got millions stashed away in a vault somewhere.”
“Well,” he said, dismissing the notion of millions with a flick of his wrist.
“It’s a perfectly good check,” she said. “Harley told me that.”
“Then why didn’t he cash it?”
She hung fire for a second. She didn’t want to tell this pleasant man, this friend of Fitz’s, a bald-faced lie. “Because I didn’t ask him to,” she said.
“Oh.”
The telephone on Beaulieu’s desk beeped softly then, and he picked up the receiver, leaned back in the chair again. “Fitz!” he said. “I was hoping they could track you down, old buddy. Guess who’s sitting right here in the office with me. Your mom. And your nephew. Yes, that’s right. Well, she wants to transact some business with us.” He listened for a moment, then nodded. “Sure. I’ll put her on.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece, looked across at Bright. “Would you like to take this somewhere, ah, more private?”
She hesitated. She didn’t really want to talk to Fitz right now. But there didn’t seem to be much way around it, with Foxhall Beaulieu sitting there, expectantly holding the receiver. So she said, “Yes, I suppose I’d better.” He put the call on hold and ushered her into a small room next to his office with just a desk, chair, and telephone. He closed the door behind him and she sat down, picked up the receiver, punched the blinking light. “Fitz?”
“Mama, what the hell’s going on?”
“What do you mean, son?” she asked innocently.
“I just called your house and talked to what’s his name …”
“Rupert.”
“Yeah, Rupert. He said you locked Roseann in the bathroom and ran off with Jimbo.”
Bright blanched. “Well, that’s not the way it happened at all. Roseann locked herself in the bathroom and Jimbo left with me quite voluntarily.”
“Rupert says Roseann is under sedation.”
“Good Lord.”
“Did you have a fight, Mama?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact we did. We had a right serious fight.”
“Over the money?”
“That’s none of your business, Fitz. That’s between Roseann and me.”
“Okay. Okay.” She could tell that Fitz was trying to be calm and patient, and having a very hard time of it. “Do you know why I called your house, Mama?”
“No, why?”
“Because I had just gotten off the phone with Harley Gibbons. And do you know why I called Harley Gibbons?”
I don’t want to hear this. “Why, son?”
Fitz measured out the words, his voice tight and controlled. “Because a newspaper reporter called me to ask what I thought about your uproar with the town council last night. That was the word he used. Uproar.”
“No,” Bright said firmly, “there definitely wasn’t an uproar. I spoke my piece and walked out and then they all went home. I wouldn’t call that an uproar. Nothing was thrown or burned.”
“Did you call them dolts, Mama?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Well,” he said, “I think you’ll find all those words in the paper tomorrow morning in the story about how the governor’s mother is battling the town council over integrating the swimming pool.”
“Why on earth would the paper up here be interested in our little old controversy way down there?” she asked.
“Because, Mama, there’s a governor’s race going on and this particular paper has taken particular interest in me lately. I’ve been the source of an exceptional amount of news.”
The photograph flashed before her, Fitz in his boxer shorts and the woman in her bathrobe on the front porch of the camp house. “Oh,” she said. “That paper.”
“Yes, that paper.”
There was a long silence while the phone line hissed and sizzled across the distance between them. Then she heard noise in the background, the rumble of engines, somebody shouting. “Where are you, Fitz?” she asked.
“I’m at a phone booth outside a truck stop upstate. On my way to a campaign rally.”
“Why on earth are you calling from a truck stop?”
“The highway patrol got us on the radio. They said it was an emergency.”
“Well, it’s not an emergency, and I can’t imagine why they bothered you. I’m just trying to cash my check.”
There was another long pause and she could hear the blast of a truck’s air horn, some whiny music from a radio. Finally Fitz said, “Why do you want to cash your check, Mama?” His voice was low and strained now, as if he were chugging uphill in low gear.
“To get the money,” she said.
He sighed. She could hear it clearly, a long sad sigh that went way beyond desperation. “I’m not even going to ask you any more questions about that. But I’ll tell you what, Mama. I just don’t need any more problems right now. Why the devil did you think you had to take on the town council now?”
“Because it needed doing. And because Flavo …” She stopped.
“Flavo Richardson?”
“His grandson drowned because they make children buy a season ticket to get in the swimming pool.” It sounded confused and stupid. If he were here right now, she could explain it all, explain it so that he would understand how urgent it had seemed. And she could tell him how she had blundered, gone about it all wrong, stuck her neck out, had it chopped off, and left a mess on the floor. But he wasn’t here. He was at some fool truck stop.
“Mama, your timing was exquisite,” he said.
“You’re angry,” she said matter-of-factly.
“I’m wore out,” he answered.
“Fitz, I’m sorry. I didn’t think …”
He didn’t say anything for a good while. There was a long, thick silence and something changed in his voice. When he finally spoke he said quietly, “No, you’re not.”
“Not what?”
“Sorry. You did this to Papa once. You and Flavo. The high school. You just went ahead and did it. You didn’t ask him what he thought. You didn’t think about whether it affected him. You just did it.”
“Fitz…”
“You’ve always done pretty much what you wanted, Mama.” His voice was tight and bitter now.
“Listen …,” she started. And then she heard the echo of Roseann’s voice: You were never sorry … It might be the only thing Little Fitz and Roseann had ever agreed on. This one thing.
“No, Mama,” Fitz broke in. “I’ve got to go now. Put Foxy on the line and I’ll tell him to cash your check.”
“Fitz…”
“I’m about at the end of my rope, Mama. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She held the receiver for a moment and then she punched the button that said hold an
d placed the receiver back in its cradle. Her hands were trembling. She put them in her lap and sat, trying to collect herself. Finally she got up and opened the door. Foxhall Beaulieu was standing at the big plate glass window with Jimbo, pointing out the Capitol and its outbuildings. “Mr. Beaulieu,” she said, and he turned to her. “My son wants to talk to you again.”
He gave her an odd look; then he left Jimbo at the window and went back to his desk, picked up the telephone, listened for a moment before he said, “Whatever you say, good buddy. We’ll work something out. Look, I’ll talk to you later. Give me a call at home when you get back in.”
He hung up, then rose from his chair. “Purcell,” he said to the branch manager, “cash Mrs. Birdsong’s check.”
“Yes sir,” Purcell said. “What are we going to do with that big cardboard check, Mr. Beaulieu? The Federal Reserve will never accept it.”
Beaulieu thought for a moment, pressing his fingertips together. “When the supermarket people send you the check, Mrs. Birdsong, get it in the mail promptly to us if you would. Special delivery would be nice, addressed to me personally. We’ll consider this transaction today a loan. Until the other check clears.”
“No interest,” Bright said.
“Of course. Purcell, take care of it.”
Purcell looked doubtful. “This is pretty irregular, Mr. Beaulieu.”
Beaulieu fixed him with a stare. “Just do it, Purcell. On my authority. Bring me all the papers.”
“Yes sir,” Purcell said, backing toward the door.
“How do you want the money?” he asked Bright.
“Fifties will be fine.”
“I’m a little concerned about you having all that cash on you,” Beaulieu said. “Are you staying overnight?”
“No,” Bright said, “we’re going to get a bit of supper and go straight home. The straighter the better.”
Foxhall Beaulieu got up from behind the desk, came around to where she and Jimbo stood now in the middle of the room. “Mrs. Birdsong, I think the world of your son,” he said.
