Shell Game (Stand Alone 2)

by Badal, Joseph

  Burns took notes at a frenetic pace.

  “Second,” Folsom continued without waiting for a response, “I want a list of all loans maturing in the next six months and the value of the underlying collateral and the fire-sale value of that collateral. Also, the amount of deposits these borrowers have in the bank. And, finally, I want a write-up on the businesses these borrowers own—profitability, stuff like that—and whether our loans are on owner-occupied real estate. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Give that information to Mr. Cunningham tomorrow,” Folsom said. Folsom stood and, in turn, derisively met the gaze of each of the bankers. “The rest of you can give your presentations to Mr. Cunningham. Understand something, ladies and gentlemen. If you want to keep your jobs here, you have one objective: To make money. I don’t give a shit about the Community Reinvestment Act, or charitable contributions, or fucking retirees who depend on interest payments. I care about making money.” He then added, “One of you will replace Eli Black as president of this bank on Friday. We’ll see who wants that position most.”

  Folsom wagged a finger at Cunningham, wheeled around, and walked out, waiting for Cunningham to join him outside the room.

  “The list of loans you sent me this morning. There was one to a company named Winter Enterprises. Tell me about it.”

  “I don’t know a lot yet, except the company has fast food joints all over the city. The principal shareholder is Edward Winter. Why?”

  “Find out if Edward Winter is related to a guy who was president of a bank over twenty years ago. A guy named Frank Winter.”

  Cunningham shrugged, unconcerned with Folsom’s strange request. “I’ll let you know.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Folsom felt as though he’d popped six Viagra pills. The bank meeting he’d just left had given him a sexual high almost as good as kicking the shit out of Wendy. Even though mousey Francis Dougherty wasn’t his type—too old, too heavy, too plain—the fear in her eyes stirred feelings in his groin. As he drove home, he pictured his bruised and battered wife and contemplated the pleasure she would give him.

  Wendy Folsom stumbled as she moved slowly around her bedroom, still dressed in nothing but her bathrobe. She’d tried to put on panties, a blouse, and a skirt, but her body couldn’t bend to accomplish it. Every movement hurt like nothing she had ever experienced before.

  She was embarrassed that during the first year of her marriage, she had actually enjoyed Gerald’s aggressive approach to sex. It was something new and exciting. But over the last year, he had become even more aggressive, slapping her with more force than usual, putting his hands around her neck and cutting off her breath during orgasm. It heightened the intensity of her orgasms, but it frightened her as well. But Saturday night, into Sunday morning, had been a different thing altogether. The only part that had anything to do with sex was Gerald penetrating her. Everything else was assault and battery, plain and simple. And she had never seen him so excited.

  There was no doubt in Wendy’s mind that her husband had stepped up to another level of violence, and she knew she would not suffer another such beating. She’d already had enough of his narcissism, his ego and his arrogance. Add in the violence and she was through.

  She finished putting a few things in an overnight bag, including all of her jewelry and what little cash she had, and lugged it downstairs with a great deal of difficulty. She went through the kitchen, into the garage, and hoisted the bag into the trunk of her Infiniti SUV. On the way back to her bedroom, Wendy paused in the kitchen and poured herself a glass of orange juice. She hadn’t had anything to eat or drink, except water, since Saturday evening, knowing her stomach wouldn’t keep anything down. She sipped half the glass before her stomach began to cramp.

  The climb back upstairs was slow and painful. She took one step at a time, resting on each tread but by the time she reached the top, she was exhausted. As badly as she wanted to dress and get out of the house, she couldn’t muster the energy. Just a few minutes of rest, she told herself as she slowly sat on her bed. Groaning as she laid her head on her pillow, she closed her eyes. A fuzzy feeling invaded her head and she tried to force herself to stay awake. She knew what was happening. The heavy-duty pain killers and the muscle relaxers she’d taken were having an effect. Just a few minutes of rest, she told herself.

  Gerald Folsom arrived home at 6:30 p.m. “Wendy, I’m home,” he called out in a taunting voice. No answer. He called out again, with the same result. He climbed the stairs to his bedroom and tossed his suit jacket over a clothes tree. He stripped off his tie and shirt and dropped them on the floor.

  “Wendy, where the hell are you?” he shouted. Still no response.

  Folsom crossed through the bathroom between his and his wife’s bedrooms and spied Wendy asleep on her bed, lying on her side with her back to him. She was still wearing the bathrobe she’d had on when he left that morning, the same thing she’d had on since Sunday morning. He prodded her shoulder with his fingertips. She groaned but didn’t wake up.

  He opened her robe and was briefly shocked at the extent of the yellow and black bruises and red and black hemorrhages on her body. He hadn’t realized he’d beaten her so badly. The damage surprised him; it didn’t make him feel shame or regret. In fact, the thought of screwing her battered body made him more excited, imagining the pain his weight on her would cause, and other ways to increase her pain. He poked her again, with no response.

  “Shit!” he barked. “Bitch!” Fucking was no fun if she wasn’t aware of it.

  He shed the rest of his clothes and put on an exercise outfit before going outside and jogging around the interior perimeter of his property. After forty-five minutes, he returned to his room, showered, and dressed in khakis, a short-sleeved polo shirt, and deck shoes. He decided to go out to eat, hoping Wendy would be conscious by the time he returned. The thought of her being awake, her body bruised, gave him an erection.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Katherine hadn’t made any plans for dinner; it was too late to start cooking something, and she didn’t feel like going out by herself. Then the thought struck her that she had not treated Paul Sanders very well yesterday. She’d used him, put him at risk, and then hadn’t thanked him for going to Folsom’s house with her even though he had gone with her to protect her. “Aw, crap,” she said, feeling guilty.

  She went to her telephone, called Paul’s number, and waited for him to answer, all the while wondering about what she was doing.

  “Hello?” Paul answered.

  “Paul, it’s Katherine.”

  “Oh, hi. Is something wrong?”

  “Well, yes, Paul. Something’s wrong. I—”

  “What is it, Katherine. Do you need me to come over there?” Paul sounded immediately urgent.

  “Whoa, Paul. Let me finish. What’s wrong is that I feel bad about the way I handled things yesterday and want to make amends. Would you be willing to have dinner with me tonight? My treat.”

  “Are we going to break into anyone’s house after dinner? Will I need to bring a flashlight and wear dark clothing?”

  “Do you want to have dinner with me or not?” Katherine asked, beginning to get peeved at Paul’s teasing.

  Paul laughed. “Of course I accept your invitation. I’ll pick you up in, say, a half-hour.”

  “Good,” she said, and hung up, surprising herself with how much she was looking forward to dinner with Paul.

  Edward, trying to restore some semblance of normality back into their home life, had a quiet dinner at home with Betsy. He knew his stress had infected Betsy: She usually was tired from the pregnancy, but had looked utterly exhausted the last few days.

  “What time’s your appointment at the bank tomorrow?” Betsy asked.

  “Ten o’clock. I’m pretty encouraged. I had a nice conversation with the president of Philadelphia Bank & Trust this afternoon. His bank doesn’t seem to be in the same situation as most others.”

  “Tha
t’s good,” Betsy said, somewhat absent-mindedly.

  Edward stood and walked to the other end of the dining table and kissed Betsy’s cheek. “Don’t worry about anything; this is just one more bump in the road. That’s what business is all about. Just think, I could have a job at one of the banks. What a nightmare that would be.”

  Betsy chuckled, brightening a bit, but Edward could tell she was still troubled. “We’ve got almost $4 million dollars in two banks, our real estate equity is around $30 million dollars—even in this market—and we own our home free and clear. What are you worried about?”

  Betsy took his hand and lifted herself from her chair. She moved into his arms and buried her cheek into his chest. “I don’t care about the money. I just don’t want to see you lose what you’ve worked so hard building up. I don’t know how something like that would affect you.”

  He hugged her tighter and said, “That isn’t going to happen, honey,” not disclosing that he had wondered the same thing a dozen times during the past few days.

  Katherine and Paul got through both dinner and dessert without once mentioning the episode at Gerald Folsom’s house. Katherine had been afraid they would talk about nothing else, which would only have embarrassed her further. But Paul had been a gentleman, as usual, and, instead regaled her with stories about humorous legal cases he’d handled, keeping her laughing through much of the dinner. Then somehow they’d segued to American literature.

  “How do you find time to read so much?” she asked him.

  “I don’t sleep. If I get five hours a night it’s a lot. I just finished reading Carl Sandburg’s Lincoln last night.”

  “Any good?” she asked.

  He smiled and said, “Well, let’s put it this way. Edmund Wilson said, ‘In my opinion Carl Sandburg is the worst that has happened to Lincoln since Booth shot him.’ “

  “Ouch! That’s pretty rough.”

  “Pretty accurate, too.”

  They both chuckled, then the conversation lulled. Katherine finally filled it. “What do you think is going to happen with this Tea Party movement?”

  Paul showed a mischievous smile. “John Adams, in a letter to Abigail, wrote, ‘I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.’ ”

  Katherine hadn’t realized that Paul was such a tease. She smiled back and said, “And Abigail once wrote to John, ‘Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as vassals of your sex.’ ”

  “Touché,” Paul responded. “To answer your question about the Tea Party, I think it’s causing people to focus on just how mad they are at all politicians. The citizenry is anxious to send a message to the political class that they’re fed up with over-spending, over-taxation, and over-regulation. I think we’re going to see incumbents of both parties get swept out of office, just like what happened in 2010.”

  “Of course, we could be in worse trouble if Congress gets taken over by a bunch of freshmen legislators dependent on the bureaucrats and their own staffers,” Katherine said.

  “Damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

  “Adlai Stevenson,” Katherine said.

  Paul stared at Katherine. “I’m going to have to be on my toes when I’m with you.”

  She smiled.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Folsom downed two scotch and waters before dinner and polished off most of a bottle of cabernet sauvignon with his rare steak and baked potato, feeling no pain as he got into his Mercedes and drove home. Images of Wendy lying in her bed, naked under her snow-white silk robe, intruded on his alcohol-fueled thoughts. His mind reeled with the possibilities of what the rest of his evening would be like, but derailed when an errant thought penetrated his mind.

  What if he’d killed her? That question floated around in his head for a minute or two. He remembered how shocked he’d been when he saw how badly bruised Wendy was. The idea scared him and excited him at the same time. He’d never killed anybody. What would it feel like? What if he killed his wife? What would he do with the body? What sort of story could he come up with?

  He shook his head as though to clear it of these strange ideas and questions, but they wouldn’t dissipate. He knew he’d leaped to another level, like surging through a time warp membrane into a strange and unknown land. Murder! Another dimension altogether.

  The drive home took him twenty minutes. By the time he entered the house through the garage, he was jacked up on alcohol, adrenaline, and testosterone. He climbed the stairs to the second level, picturing what his naked wife looked like, sprawled on the bed, robe open. He disrobed on his way to her room, dropping his clothes on the floor as he went, completely naked when he got to her bedside.

  Wendy had shifted and was now lying on her back, spread-eagled on the side of the bed, the corners of her robe caught between her thighs.

  Folsom thumped the side of her head with his middle finger. “You awake?”

  Wendy groaned.

  He shook her. “Wake up!” he shouted.

  She rolled on her side toward him, groaning as she moved.

  Enough of this crap, Folsom thought. He grabbed a handful of her robe and ripped it from under her, leaving it bunched under her head. He rubbed a palm over her stomach, pressing down firmly against her tight but bruised muscles.

  The pain from Folsom’s touch must have finally penetrated Wendy’s brain. She sprang awake and cried out, “Jesus!”

  “Jesus ain’t gonna help you here, sweetie,” he said, rubbing harder.

  “No! Not tonight. I hurt so bad. Ple-e-e-aze.”

  “Especially tonight, Wendy. Especially tonight,” he murmured

  Folsom mounted her and quickly satisfied himself. He knew, and he knew she knew, that the worst was yet to come. He took her face in one hand and squeezed her cheeks, his fingers compressing the swollen areas around her eyes, until she screamed with pain.

  “That’s my girl,” Folsom said. “You never disappoint me.”

  He moved his hand down to her left breast and squeezed the nipple until her screams came in a long, high-pitched sequence. He started to move down her body so he could put his mouth on her breast when a shrill ringing broke into his reverie.

  “What the hell!” Folsom spat, knowing it was his cell phone. Very few people had the number, so it must be important, especially at this late hour. “Sonofabitch!”

  He climbed off Wendy and slapped her face. “Don’t move,” he roared. “I’ll be right back.”

  He went in search of his cell phone, which was in a pocket of the pants he’d dropped somewhere in his bedroom. In a corner of the room, he saw the light blinking through the fabric of his pants. Snatching them off the floor, he rummaged in the pocket, grabbing the phone, and jerking it free. He looked at the display and recognized the number: Donald Matson’s. He pressed the TALK button.

  “This better be good, Matson. You’re interrupting something very important.”

  “I’ve got problems, Gerald. Bad problems.”

  Oh, Jeez, what a pussy, Folsom thought. “Your wife find you in bed with the babysitter?”

  “This isn’t funny,” Matson cried. “The FDIC performed an audit of the safety deposit box owners at Broad Street National Bank. It was just a standard audit, looking for anything suspicious. You know, names of politicians or of organized crime members. But they found the box in my name. Someone from the agency’s Inspector General’s office just served me with an order to disclose the contents of the box when the bank opens tomorrow. They want to inventory the contents.”

  “So? You’re a citizen. You’re allowed to have a safety deposit box.”

  “They thought it was strange I had a box in downtown Philadelphia, when my office and home are on the northwest side of town.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “The $1 million in cash you gave me is in there.”

  “You fuckin’ idiot. You left the money in the box? In my bank?!”

  “Where else was I going to put it? It
’s not like I can invest it in a mutual fund.”

  A sudden thought hit Folsom. “Don’t tell me you’ve still got the safety deposit boxes at the other banks I’ve taken over, with the cash still sitting in them.”

  “Well, I’ve taken out some of the money. Gifts for the family, private school tuition. Stuff like that. But I can’t buy boats or sports cars without raising questions.”

  “Matson, do you realize once the Feds find the cash in your box in Broad Street National Bank, they’ll probably put two and two together and check boxes at all the banks you put me into? How are you going to explain millions of dollars sitting in a half-dozen banks?” What Folsom didn’t add was that there was no doubt in his mind once the Feds started interrogating Matson, he’d spill everything he knew, including how Gerald Folsom had paid him off. They were both going to jail.

  Matson began crying. “Oh God, Jerry. What am I going to do?”

  Folsom considered the options and then snapped, “Pull yourself together. What else do you have in that box?”

  “Nothing. Just the money.”

  “Okay, here’s what you do. Pull together your car titles, mortgage documents and deeds, any insurance policies you’ve got at home. Take them down to the bank and I’ll meet you there in an hour. And don’t forget your safety deposit box key.”

  Folsom terminated the call and started to dress. “What a dickhead!” he growled. As he was putting on his socks and shoes, he called Sanford Cunningham.

  “Hello?”

  “Sanford, I need your help. That stupid twerp, Donald Matson, just got an order from his agency to disclose the contents of his safety deposit box at Broad Street Bank when the bank opens tomorrow at nine o’clock.”

  “Something in the box that shouldn’t be there?”

  “You could say that. But that’s something you don’t need to know. Can we get into the safety deposit box vault tonight?”