Ride a Cockhorse (11 page)

Spotting the memos in Julie Marcotte's hand, Mrs. Fitzgibbons seized the opportunity to exhibit her newfound authority in the presence of the newspapermen.

“Tell Jeannine Mielke to get down here,” she said.

“Yes, Mrs. Fitzgibbons.” Julie darted out the door like a messenger in combat.

Without preamble, Mrs. Fitzgibbons launched into an account of her promotion to vice president and the reasons underlying the chairman's decisions. As she explained it, though, it sounded as though her advancement owed more to destiny than to any person overseeing such changes. “The time had come,” she said. “We had to put forward more aggressive leadership, a change on the executive level that would make a difference. Mortgage banking isn't what it used to be. Today,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons, as she closed her office door, “you have to find a way to be both cautious and daring.”

She liked the sound of that. It had come to her lips without hesitation. Clearly, the ability to speak out confidently, without a slip, or without even having to think concentratedly, was on the order of a minor miracle; a gift locked away inside her all these years. With the proper encouragement, these energies should have been released long ago. Sometimes, such as now, her performance excited vital sensations, a satisfying tautness in her leg muscles, a tingling in her breasts, a sudden hormonal rush that compelled her to get up and move about. She paced across the room to her desk.

“We're serving notice on everyone, from Albany to Boston, that we're going to be major players here. If that weren't the case, I wouldn't be standing in this office today.”

“That sounds like a mandate.” The reporter spoke jocularly. He had begun writing rapidly in a long, narrow notebook.

Mrs. Fitzgibbons laughed with great charm. “My mandate is to smash the competition.”

“And will you?”

“I will do just that. Any bank,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons specified very firmly, “that is not operating in our region today, will come into our region over my dead body.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons looked genuinely determined and flashed her eyes belligerently to dissuade the reporter from interrupting her (as to ask perhaps about the trend among certain invasive big-city banks). “On that point, I will not give an inch. I'll tell you something else. The region in which we operate, and which we intend to dominate and protect, is forty-percent bigger this morning than it was yesterday afternoon.”

“That is news,” piped the reporter, who was a cheerful soul, and was transcribing her words to paper with lightning speed. At the same moment, the photographer took his first picture of Mrs. Fitzgibbons. “Sounds like a war,” the newsman put in genially.

“It won't be war,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons, reverting to her lighter, more winning manner. “We're just going to play ball on a bigger field.”

“In which direction will you expand? Springfield?”

“No. Not right away,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons said, responding firmly on subjects she had not thought about for a minute. “There are a hundred towns north, east, and west of us, up in the hinterlands, waiting and praying for us to come up there.”

“There are also banks up there,” the newsman cracked.

Mrs. Fitzgibbons gave a derisive shout. She liked the reporter. It was clear from his ironical remarks that he appreciated the loaded quality of her statements.

“There are banks and there are banks,” she remarked sarcastically, and then continued to delineate her views, as the photographer took a series of seven or eight shots of her. “We're going to bring those people some relief from the shoddy business practices they've been getting up there for about a hundred years. I'm going in,” she said, “and I'm going to get what I'm after, and consolidate it, and then I'll look around for bigger opportunities. I don't want to pick a fight with a bank in one direction while forty or fifty unprincipled little fly-by-nights are bilking my friends and calling me names behind my back. You can quote me on that.”

“I'm quoting you on everything,” he said, and laughed.

“We've outgrown the competition,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons, “and we've outgrown the sleepy managers, here and elsewhere, who sit on their hands, and fart and burp, and —”

The photographer convulsed with laughter over Mrs. Fitzgibbons's unexpected vulgarism.

“I won't quote you on that,” said the reporter, just as a rap came to the door and Julie peeked in.

“Miss Mielke is here.” She widened the door to reveal the figure of Mr. Zabac's private secretary standing next to her. The bony, blond woman from upstairs stood with her mouth ajar, stunned at Mrs. Fitzgibbons's temerity in summoning her, but perplexed as well by the sight both of the newsmen and of Mrs. Fitzgibbons's radiant attire.

“Where is Mr. Zabac?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons rapped out, even though Julie had already informed her.

“He won't be in today,” said Jeannine Mielke.

“Why did you return my memos?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons was demonstrating to her two guests from the media how underlings get talked to in a modern-day financial institution—and at the same time exorcising some devil in herself which had led her to believe in past times that she was no better than this anemic, phony-assed excuse for a human being who stood gaping in at her.

“Well,” Miss Mielke retorted, a trifle apologetically this time, “he said he wouldn't be in.”

“Put them on his desk! Use your head!”

After Mr. Zabac's secretary had hurried away, Mrs. Fitzgibbons remarked, “That is what you get these days for eight bucks an hour—an appliance who leaves her batteries at home.”

“Mrs. Fitzgibbons,” the reporter spoke up curiously, “would I be right in concluding that you are, in fact, the new chief executive officer of the Parish Bank?”

“I'll explain the situation. Louis Zabac is the finest, smartest, fairest banker in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—in all New England—besides being a marvel to work for. The man is varsity. He's a prince.” She imagined the chairman sitting at home in his little Giorgio Armani suit, reading these extravagant accolades in tomorrow's newspaper. She had turned to the photographer to permit him some good frontal shots. “Louis is my hero. I'd go to the ends of the earth for him. He's what I'd want my son to be like, if I had a son.”

“You have a daughter, don't you, Mrs. Fitzgibbons. A teacher?”

“My daughter believes that glass pyramids have supernatural powers in them and that you can generate a sixth sense by listening to synthesizer music while chewing Sen-Sen. Barbara is so liberal that she cleans up behind her dog with her bare hands. If you so much as include her name in this article, I'll close both your savings accounts. Do you
have
accounts here?”

“I do, he doesn't,” answered the reporter, chuckling.

“You're not a depositor?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons turned on the man with the camera and showed him a look that advertised better than anything so far the artistry of her cosmetician. Her face glowed like alabaster. She pouted.

“I'm not, but I'm going to be,” came his singsong reply.

“I should hope so. Julie,” she called, “get this gentleman an account application from René. The Golden Access application.”

“Could I get a shot of you leaning against your desk?” he said.

“Why not.” Already, Mrs. Fitzgibbons's interview with the
Telegram
was pleasurable to all. She could feel their enthusiasm. They wanted her to be witty, to boast, be aggressive and outspoken. Mrs. Fitzgibbons came round the desk once more, leaned her buttocks against it, and continued with vivacity about the new administration, while the cameraman backed up to the door and took full-length shots.

“We're going to promote like the devil, but we're going to do it with taste. If you walk out of here with a toaster, it will be because you walked in with one. If our growth curve doesn't take off for the moon,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons, parroting words she had come across that morning in the
Wall Street Journal
while Bruce was blow-drying her hair, “if my quarterly projections aren't met, I can promise you, heads will roll.” She waited for the reporter to get it down. “I'm here to double and treble our results. I'm not going to tolerate more of the same.”

“Mrs. Fitzgibbons,” the reporter interrupted, as before, “are you, in fact, the chief executive officer of this bank?”

“I am,” she said, decisively, at last.

“You are.”

“Yes.”

“Well, that is news,” he sang, while scribbling in his leather-bound pad.

Mrs. Fitzgibbons's outrageous assertion, although thrown out impulsively, was not altogether impromptu; the idea had been flitting in and out of her brain for a few minutes, so that when the words actually left her mouth, she felt relief, a sense of having kicked a senseless obstacle from her path.

“Are you aware,” said he, “that you are the first woman to serve as chief executive officer of a bank in the entire area?”

“How could I not be?” she countered. “Mr. Zabac is a pioneer. The man is progressive. He knows what he wants, he knows what's right, he's not sexist, or small-minded, or parochial in any way. He wants the best he can get. I'm going to give him what he wants.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons's invoking of Mr. Zabac was a conscious lie, the recognition of which only fueled her indignation; she was alive to the fact that she was seizing the post, and would deal with her enemies and detractors as they came to her.

“Will you be bringing in new blood?” asked the reporter.

“I'm the new blood!”

“Zabac retiring?”

“Louis will never retire. Behind the quiet facade, the man is a powerhouse. He'll live to be a hundred. He'll bury us all.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons couldn't stop talking.

While she was revealing at some length the unpropitious fate that lay in store for the banks nearer at hand, that is, the chief competitors in town, Mr. Donachie, the guard, came to show off his new uniform.

“Those are the institutions,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons was saying, “that are most imperiled by what is happening here today at Maple and Main.”

“Look, Mrs. Fitzgibbons.” Mr. Donachie signaled from the doorway, then gestured with his chubby fingertips at the outfit he had just acquired. The effect
was
eye-catching. The black uniform he wore, and the glistening black cap that shaded his eyes, formed a faintly sinister picture that was ameliorated very little by Mr. Donachie's swelling paunch or by the little brass American flag on his lapel. Mrs. Fitzgibbons didn't pause to comment on Mr. Donachie's satanic appearance, or even to look twice, as she was caught up in her own train of thought.

“They're the ones that will feel the pinch,” she promised. “They're the ones for whom insolvency could become more than just a word.”

Both the reporter and photographer were staring at Alec Donachie.

“Mortgage finance is my business. I'm committing us to growth. I intend to increase incoming deposits and the depth of our loan portfolio by more than thirty percent this year. Now, that's going to hurt somebody. It's got to. Let's be realistic. Our capital-to-assets ratio is the envy of the region. We have the muscle.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons recalled a statement made by Mr. Brouillette in a recent conference. “For a year now, the spread between the cost of funds and the yield on loans has been under severe pressure. Those that can endure the pressure in the months ahead will survive, and over the long run will actually prosper at the expense of others. The day of reckoning”—Mrs. Fitzgibbons felt angry juices in her blood—“is coming fast for our competitors. I won't mention their names, but I have the wherewithal to drive them into a corner!—
and
I have the will.”

Mr. Donachie had gone back to his post. The reporter was scratching furiously in his notebook. While being photographed, Mrs. Fitzgibbons was leaning against her desk, gesturing with her fist. The words bubbled forth with spontaneity.

“We've waited patiently for this day,” she said.

“You have known for some while, then,” the reporter prompted, “that you were to be named CEO.”

“We don't jump impulsively. When the time is ripe, as it is now, we like nothing better than to take off the gloves. Our competitors are not cost-effective. They're already headed into the red, and, believe me, it's going to get much worse. They're going to be dripping in the stuff! The red'll be coming out their ears!” she exclaimed hotly, causing both newspapermen to glance up instinctively.

She had a vision at that moment of Mr. Curtin Schreffler, president of the nearby Citizens Savings Bank, a man of exquisite tailoring and a rather sniffy hauteur, being dragged out the front door of his bank by a couple of shirtsleeved, big-bellied city marshals and thrown into an unmarked sedan.

“It's not going to help them to discover, today or tomorrow, what's in store for them.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons ridiculed her enemies. “The people I speak for, and I speak for every prudent, honest-minded human being that lives and works in this valley, and every person, young and old, and the not so young and not so old, who are entitled to home ownership and a decent yield on their hard-earned money—the people I speak for are fed up with the shady dealings, the nosiness, the extra charges, the impoliteness, the inconsistency, the mathematical errors, the stupid late-night television advertising, the deaf and dumb tellers, the insensitivity”—Mrs. Fitzgibbons was in high gear and could have gone on like this all afternoon—“the rudeness, slovenliness, and incompetence that these local-yokel operators
purvey
”—she waited for the reporter to catch up—“as their ordinary day-to-day bilk-the-other-guy way of doing business.”

“Wow,” the photographer put in.

“I'm getting it,” said the reporter. “We're fine, Mrs. Fitz.”

“I'm going to overrun them!” she said.