Ride a Cockhorse (15 page)

“That's what's going to happen. I promise you. The man is petrified. I saw it in his eyes. Today, sometime before closing, his nerves will fail and he'll sell the whole kit and caboodle.”

“I'm sure you're right.”

While many of Mrs. Fitzgibbons's longtime colleagues at the bank had begun to wonder if she was not experiencing some form of delusional dislocation in recent days, others of more recent acquaintance, such as Julie, were inclined to construe the woman's showiness and fiery outbursts as nothing more than the outward signs of a dramatic business success. When Mrs. Fitzgibbons began a tirade, Julie shrank with apprehension.

“I am right! And out there, at the windows, I'll be opening new accounts all week. You'll see. Telephone Bruce. Tell him to meet me at the hotel. I'm going to lunch.”

“What if Mr. Zabac calls?”

“I don't want to see him till the disaster is complete. You call me when you hear Hooton is selling.”

“But, Mrs. Fitzgibbons, how will
I
know—?”

“You'll find out. You'll just do it.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons darted across the vast main floor of the Parish Bank, pulling on her raincoat, nodding politely to customers in line who recognized her from the newspaper. The public's adulation was spontaneous.

For the next ninety minutes, Mrs. Fitzgibbons sat in a corner banquette at the Roger Smith Hotel and entertained Bruce with a rush of verbal pyrotechnics that returned again and again to the theme of Neil Hooton's cowardice and of her own vaunting bravery in coping with crises. “Credit me,” she said. “I have the man in my hands.”

At two o'clock, Mrs. Fitzgibbons came hurrying back to her office. Not only was Mr. Hooton selling—“Alvin Bray said that he's been on the phone to Shearson for twenty minutes,” said Julie—but Mr. Tom Pesso, the anchorman of the local WKYN television news team, had telephoned for an on-camera interview with Mrs. Fitzgibbons.

When Mrs. Fitzgibbons started up the back staircase to see the chairman, she was in a very determined frame of mind. She intended to wrest from him nothing less than full authority over every soul on the payroll. While Mr. Zabac was owner and titular head of the bank, to Mrs. Fitzgibbons's mind his function now was to hand over the reins of power.

She strode past Miss Mielke's desk, rapped on the chairman's door, and walked right in. Mr. Zabac was waiting for her. He was standing at the big semicircular window, with his back to the door, gazing worriedly out at the spires and pink-and-gray-slated roof of the city hall. Not a man to beat about the bush, he started in at once.

“I can't imagine what possessed you to do such a monstrous thing. It's unheard of. It's grotesque. It's the worst kind of insubordination. Mrs. Fitzgibbons,” he cried in a thin voice, his cheeks shaking, “what possessed you? How could you say those things?”

“Mr. Zabac —” she started to respond.

“How could you publish such lies? What were you thinking? What did you think I would say?” His eyes rounded with disbelief as he leaned toward her. “How could you put me in such an impossible situation?”

The chairman's distress was evident as well in his clenched fists; nevertheless, his anger was in check. He spoke to her in a voice that he wanted no one else to hear, including his secretary. It was soon apparent that Mr. Zabac had convinced himself that the woman before him had not comprehended the scope or implications of her actions and that she had not acted in deceit. That Mrs. Fitzgibbons had become a perplexity to him was obvious. For these reasons, Mr. Zabac modulated his manner toward her.

“You didn't know what you were saying,” he pointed out. “Your statements have been interpreted in ways you could not have guessed. I honestly believe that you don't understand what you've done.”

The daylight was in Mrs. Fitzgibbons's face, as she stood in front of him. She was staring down at him with a hint of a smirk on her lips, her eyes narrowed shrewdly.

“You have frightened and offended a half dozen of my officers downstairs,” he said, “the ablest employees I have. If it wasn't for all the excitement today, they would be tendering me their resignations.”

“Where would they go?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons demanded with a truculence that belied the prettiness of her appearance.

“You see?” he exclaimed. “I'm right. You don't understand.”

“Where would they go?” she repeated firmly. “The South Valley Bank is in a coma. The Citizens Bank is reducing staff. We,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons, employing the no-nonsense air of a chief executive officer, “are the only viable thrift in this neck of the woods.”

Mr. Zabac showed Mrs. Fitzgibbons a raised hand, but he was visibly pleased by her characterization of the competition. “Let me explain something to you. You are a home loan officer.” He paused. “That's what you are, and that's what you have been. You have an adequate grasp of that. In fourteen years, you've established a creditable, even enviable, record. You're pleasant,” he continued, “you're honest, you're helpful. All that is true. You tend to business. You're loyal and hardworking.” Unable to desist, he alluded to Mrs. Fitzgibbons's revolutionary looks. “You have a fine, dashing appearance, also, that I find to be both businesslike and reassuring. People like that. But this is a big bank, Mrs. Fitzgibbons. It has taken me half a lifetime, more than thirty years, to comprehend the complexities and risks in this business. You don't understand these things.”

For the first time, Mrs. Fitzgibbons felt anxiety; it moved about her insides like something with cold legs. Mr. Zabac's head was drawn down toward his shoulders. His little shoes gleamed icily, and his cheekbones, glimmering with tiny hairs, darkened to the ominous color of raw meat. Had Mrs. Fitzgibbons not learned lately how to confront danger, and had instead succumbed to her long-accustomed habit of accommodating authority by smiling placatingly and quailing before it, she would have faltered fatally at this moment. It was her proven ability to hold forth in a bright and inspired manner, the words coming unbidden to her lips, the seeming issue of a lifetime of reticence and shyness, that fueled her response.

“If you're going to insult me,” she said, peevishly, “I'll hand in my resignation on the six o'clock evening news.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Tom Pesso and his camera team from Channel 6 are on their way to see me right now. He's coming to interview me for the evening news program.”

The chairman looked as though he had been tapped on the top of the head with a heavy tool.

“The people at WKYN are interested in the fact that ours is the first bank in the region to give a woman a meaningful promotion.” She tossed out this last invention with no regard for its validity.

After listening intently, Mr. Zabac emerged from his momentary stupefaction and returned the discussion to its original subject. “Mrs. Fitzgibbons,” he said, “do you, or do you not, understand the harm you did to me and this institution in your newspaper article?”

“I do not.”

Of the two, Mrs. Fitzgibbons was now the more reasonable and self-collected. When Mr. Zabac showed signs of frustration or uncertainty, as he was doing now, a warm, almost sexy feeling ran through her limbs. Nevertheless, she backtracked diplomatically. She did not wish to corner the man.

“I told them you were a prince,” she said, “and you are. I would do anything for you. You know that,” she brought out with sudden heartiness. “Why shouldn't I?”

“I have no doubt,” said Mr. Zabac, in an even more conciliatory way, “that you meant no harm to me personally, or to the others.”

“What others?” she interrupted sharply.

Mr. Zabac ignored her this time and went on. He stepped away from the window and paced thoughtfully to his desk. “Nor,” he conceded, “can there be any question, Mrs. Fitzgibbons, that your newspaper story has produced a very happy effect today on the popularity and reputation of the bank.”

“No one would argue that!”

“That's what I said.” Up shot the stubby pedantic finger.

Mrs. Fitzgibbons was in no mood to be lectured. “The deposits are pouring in.”

“I am not unaware of it.”

“It's the biggest single day we've ever had.” She kept interrupting him, determined to steer the discussion to her own purposes.

“In that way,” he said, nicely, “you have shown some considerable skill.” By praising her, he hoped to regain the upper hand. “You have talents.”

“Some of the deposits are enormous,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons sternly.

“You have talents that were not known to most of us.”

“What is Neil doing?” That quickly Mrs. Fitzgibbons swung the discourse onto her adversary.

The chairman didn't like it. “Mrs. Fitzgibbons! Please. I insist.”

“Did you tell him to sell his holdings?”

“We are not going to talk about that. Our exposure in that area is not great.”

Sure of herself, Mrs. Fitzgibbons persisted. She spoke in the tone of one autocrat addressing another. “I'm glad,” she said. “I'm relieved that you didn't. Only a moron would eliminate holdings at this stage.”

Like a cardplayer, on discovering each incoming card to be even more welcome than the last, Mrs. Fitzgibbons knew in a flash by the painful wince in the chairman's face that he was not in sympathy with Mr. Hooton's decisions. Unable to quell her joyous feeling, she turned and paced to and fro on the big Chinese carpet. “That's all we'd need,” she continued invidiously, feigning ignorance of what Mr. Hooton had just done. “To have our treasurer make us the laughingstock of the entire state — on the very day when every depositor who saw my picture in the paper, and who read what I had to say, is lining up at our windows.”

While stepping about, she gestured modestly with her fist. “They liked my interview,” she said. “Everyone did. It gave them confidence in us. That's why they're pouring in here this morning. They wanted to be told that we're up to the minute and not just some roadside, drive-in pack of money-grubbing amateurs risking our money on deadbeats.”

“That's not the point,” he argued.

“That we're going to be sleek and dynamic,” she added. “That our competitors are in for a fight now. They're feeling sick this morning. A week ago,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons fired at him, as though citing the most incredible of facts, “the public didn't even know our name! That's criminal. After what we've done for thousands and thousands of them. They know it now,” she said. “I gave it to them.”

Once again, although despairing somewhat, Mr. Zabac endeavored to broach and thrash out his objectives; but Mrs. Fitzgibbons turned and faced him.

“Someone had to tell them. Tell me I did wrong.”

She would like to have said much more but decided it was time to present the dapper little chairman with a picture of the beautiful, self-assured figure to whom he would presently be entrusting total power downstairs. She was standing very straight and holding his gaze without a blink. She studied him with her midnight blue eyes as he strove to summon the necessary courage.

“I see only one way out for us,” he said at last, with finality. “You will have to make known to everyone that while you are my director — you may use the word
director
— of our home loan department, any
greater
implications that have been erroneously disseminated —”

“That's ridiculous.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons's snappish response sounded more like a wife refuting her husband over some minor domestic squabble than of a bank executive intent on seizing authority. “It was in the newspaper,” she reminded him.

“But don't you see,” Mr. Zabac cried, “you put it in the newspaper.”

She calmed him with a raised hand. “No one should hear us. Otherwise, there'll be no stopping the rumors.”

In the face of Mr. Zabac's sudden resentful outburst, Mrs. Fitzgibbons's self-control was a thing of beauty. “This is my plan,” she said. “I'll go on television in an hour, and I'll bring you on with me. We'll go on camera together. We'll be on the evening news tonight. And I don't mean for a few seconds. They'll guarantee us sufficient air time, or I'll refuse to do it.”

The abrupt shift in subject to that of the WKYN news team silenced Mr. Zabac, as he appeared both alarmed and enchanted by the prospect. “You needn't worry about having to say very much or answer a lot of questions,” she said. “I'm comfortable with it and will keep the ball rolling nicely. That's my forte. That's my job. Let's don't worry, Louis, about tromping on the toes of some people downstairs. They'll be sitting home watching us on television, just as a hundred thousand other people will be doing, and will know that the bank is on the move.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons continued more robustly. “You gave them every chance. What are you supposed to do, massage them to sleep at night? The publicity will be worth a fortune. It isn't even measurable!”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons's vigorous recital was accompanied by attractive movements as she gestured prettily and turned her head this way and that. She felt his eyes glued to her. If her gathering moral ascendancy over the man involved a sexual component, what was the harm in it.

Mr. Zabac tried again. “I admit that you did wonderfully in your interview, Mrs. Fitzgibbons. I was impressed by the length of the article, by its prominent position in the paper, and by its obvious results.”

“Only I could have done that.”

“Please.” He protested the interruption.

But Mrs. Fitzgibbons had an inspiration. “I hope that Mrs. Zabac saw it,” she exclaimed.

“She did, I assure you.”

“I hope she read every word. I hope she was proud of you. What did she say about your appointing a woman like myself?”

“She couldn't imagine who you were. She couldn't believe you had worked for me all these years.”