Ride a Cockhorse (20 page)

“Everyone tells me that.” He colored sheepishly.

As she questioned him, Mrs. Fitzgibbons couldn't help pausing from time to time to show him a steely eye. It was the rather gloating look of the executioner appraising his victim, and produced an unnerving effect on Mr. Moriarty. Other times, despite the age of the Most Beautiful Man, she communicated a tender, maternal disposition. “Aren't you old, Marshall, to be working as assistant to one of my handymen?” She spoke softly to him, as though to keep between them something that was rather shameful. “That's a job for a boy. That's an entry position.”

Marshall was not slow to respond. “When Mr. Klopfer hired me, to help him mornings with maintenance, and to help Mr. Taylor after lunch each day with repair calls on the floor, he told me I would be promoted.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons affected an expression of great wonderment. “He had no authority to say that.”

“He said that I would take over for the first person who quit or retired, except for Timmy Lyons, of course, who is a licensed electrician.” Marshall waited expectantly for her to reply to that.

But Mrs. Fitzgibbons was shaking her head still, with a look of sadness. “He had no authority to say that to you.”

The dilemma stated by Mrs. Fitzgibbons left Marshall speechless. He sat there, with his beautiful Viking head looming in the air before her and nothing to say. As for Mrs. Fitzgibbons, she couldn't help relishing what was coming, not just the frightening effect that selective expulsions had upon others at the bank, but the act itself. She was not unaware, either, from minute to minute, that she could change her mind at any time. That intensified the excitement. She could send him back to his duties and call in some other benighted employee.

“You must have misunderstood your superior's words. Only I,” she stressed, very softly, “have that authority.”

“I thought he did.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons closed her eyes while shaking her head slowly to and fro. “He doesn't have any such thing.” She rose and came round and perched herself casually on the front corner of her desk. She wanted to show that an executive of the highest reaches, even the supreme officer herself, was not too busy to explain basics to someone of the rank and file, to a spear-carrier like himself, a nonentity.

She ticked the shining surface of her olive wood desk with a fingernail. “All authority comes from here. All promotions, all salary decisions, bonuses, holidays, suspensions, dismissals, everything. It all comes from my desk. It all comes from me.”

Marshall's face lighted, as he perceived a fissure in Mrs. Fitzgibbons's logic. “That was a year ago, Mrs. Fitzgibbons. Mr. Klopfer promised me my promotion when you were still —”

She silenced him with a hand. “Mr. Klopfer is a glorified porter, Marshall. He is of no importance here whatsoever. He was doing a trip on you. A mental loop-the-loop. Oh, I could promote you,” she said heartily. “Imagine that you were very ambitious, that you wanted to get ahead, that you had excellent work habits, and had, besides that, a background in real estate finance, or a degree or two from a master's program in business administration, or even first-rate accounting skills —”

“I like working with people,” Marshall said, and faltered, “and I like a challenge.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons turned sidewise from the waist and buzzed for Julie.

“Where did you work last?” she continued.

“Until June of eighty-six, I was on temporary duty with the Parks Department.”

“Oh, my.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons actually winced over this reply. One might have guessed that it was the very last thing she expected to hear. She spoke with obvious dismay. “This is not going to work out,” she said, and seemed genuinely sorry to impart this information.

Marshall's response suggested, however, that he had not grasped the essence of her remark. “I don't need to be promoted,” he said. “I'm happy with my work.”

The look of sad tidings on Mrs. Fitzgibbons's face following this last response was only intensified by the tender concern in her voice. “It isn't going to work out, Marshall.” She stood with her hands clasped before her. She was a picture of feminine solicitude. “I'm not going to be able to keep you.”

Julie came in the door then. Not only had she gone downstairs to get Marshall's briefcase, which she was lugging in her hand, but had already put Mr. Donachie on standby alert outside the office. Until now, Mrs. Fitzgibbons had not appreciated how really clever the girl could be, and couldn't imagine anything more suitable to her desires than the sight of Julie plopping the briefcase down on the table next to the vestibule door. As Mrs. Fitzgibbons directed Marshall Moriarty to the table, she signaled the bank guard to join them. Mr. Donachie entered her office and closed the door gravely behind him.

“Look through your things,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons commanded, and all three stood round and watched with blank expressions as Marshall opened and examined his case. Principally, it contained a glen plaid suit neatly folded, a white dress shirt, socks, and a necktie. He fumbled nervously through them.

“All shipshape?” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons.

“Yes.” Marshall looked stupefied.

Mrs. Fitzgibbons nodded, and indicated with her eyes that Mr. Donachie was to accompany the Most Beautiful Man out the back door to the vestibule and street. Julie jumped past them to yank open the door, then watched with suppressed excitement as they marched by. Marshall came first, moving past her with the carriage and complexion of the walking dead. Behind him came Mr. Donachie, staring at the back of Marshall's neck. The guard's eyes glowed like gray agates under the leather bill of his black police cap. (Gossip on the floor in recent days suggested that Mr. Donachie had undergone personality changes matched only by those of Mrs. Fitzgibbons herself. The bank guard never smiled anymore, was quick to show people a censurious eye, and in conversation repeatedly referred to Mrs. Fitzgibbons as the Chief. “Don't let the Chief catch you doing that!” “If that's going to the Chief, I'll take it!” “Things are different under the Chief!” “When the Chief says no, she means no!” That Mr. Donachie was transformed by the new regime was reflected in a joke making the rounds. It was said that Mr. Donachie would work like a slave for his wife, but that he would kill for Mrs. Fitzgibbons.)

Taken in its entirety, Mrs. Fitzgibbons was thrilled by the beauty of the operation. The elimination of Marshall Moriarty on an impulsive, whimsical basis had assuaged her nerves to an extent she would not have thought possible, and at the same time would introduce an element of fear in the staff. The De Marias and Anita Stebbins were genuinely superfluous types, incompetents with whom others could not readily identify. With the sudden dismissal of the beautiful man from the maintenance section, however, all that was changed. Now, no one would feel safe.

“God, was he scared!” said Julie, her hand to her face, thrilling to Mrs. Fitzgibbons's power.

“Well, why shouldn't he have been?” As she stepped importantly about the office, even swaggering a little, Mrs. Fitzgibbons couldn't conceal her happiness. Her thinking was a trifle deranged, but she somehow knew it. “I don't send for people in order to have a sociable chat. A dismissal from time to time makes the others sit up. They realize I mean business. That's why I'm here. We're not the bank we used to be. I'm fast-forwarding us,” she said.

“It's a very exciting bank,” said Julie. “The tellers are going like mad out there. The phones are ringing —”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons acknowledged the point. “That's my strength. If I didn't generate new business, I wouldn't be able to build the power and influence that I need to make the changes that I want. I go on the air, I put myself before the public, and in seventy-two hours, I have an organization in place that they're talking about in Boston. And don't think,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons added, “that I'm not going to smash up some banks around here.”

“Like the Citizens Bank?”

“That's one.”

“South Valley?”

“Anyone,” she explained, “whose territory touches or infringes on mine is a candidate for Chapter XI. I'm not the Easter bunny. I'm going to obliterate them.” She paced purposefully to and fro as she spoke, her eyes dilated abstractedly. “I'll make pretty little cooing noises to two or three of them, while I'm smashing the fourth, until there isn't so much as a grease spot left to any one of them.”

“Will you be firing others?” Julie asked hopefully.

“Are you joking? There are people here who hate my insides. Who'd betray their own mothers just to get at me.”

For ten minutes, Mrs. Fitzgibbons discoursed on the perfidiousness of her detractors and enemies, until even Julie herself was showing signs of exhaustion.

“I have the willpower,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons. “This broom sweeps clean. I'm going to fumigate the place. I've accomplished more in five or six days than all those jimokes were able to do in fourteen years.”

If Mr. Zabac had not phoned for her to come upstairs, she might have vapored on for an hour. Nonetheless, on the way upstairs, she intuited trouble. She was relieved to find Mr. Zabac waiting for her with a smile on his face and coffee set out on his desk in her own two teacups.

“My goodness,” Mr. Zabac spoke up in greeting, “how agitated you look, Mrs. Fitzgibbons.” He then addressed a remark to her that he had evidently rehearsed in advance. “I hope that you will learn the lesson stated long ago by Marshal Joffre of the French army. ‘The higher one is promoted, the easier the job becomes.' ”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons responded affably and moved her chair closer to his desk before sitting. “You were wonderful on television, Louis. Everyone says so. My hairdresser said you reminded him of Claude Rains. You made quite a hit.”

Unable to hide his pleasure, Mr. Zabac gestured modestly. “Oh, I preferred just to say my few words,” he allowed politely, “and make way for you, Mrs. Fitzgibbons. I thought that appropriate. After all, the newsmen were here to see you. I thought you handled yourself with distinction.”

“Thank you, Louis.”

“You have a flair for it. You have a speaking gift, Mrs. Fitzgibbons. I never knew that.” As was his custom, the chairman expressed himself in measured accents. “You've been hiding your light.” He reached for his teaspoon. “If anyone had told me three months ago that you and I would be on television together, I would not have believed them.”

“You deserve to be showcased. There's going to be more of it. I intend to keep us in the news.”

“Are you aware,” inquired he, “that we are having another magnificent day downstairs?”

When Mrs. Fitzgibbons looked up in reply, she saw in his face for the first time a look of rapt attention. He was staring at her in a puzzled, inquiring way, as though trying to fathom the secret of the woman who had sprung to life like a wizard right beneath his feet. On his desk lay a copy of the
Boston Globe
, turned open to the page with her picture on it.

“I don't calculate the money at the windows. I'm here,” she said, “to publicize us, to generate excitement. The Shawmut Bank called this morning — Nate Solomon — to ask if we'd like to participate with a few other banks in funding an industrial park in Worcester.”

“Worcester?”

“A state-backed, low-risk arrangement that the bigwigs throw to the fat cats.”

“But that's fifty miles away.” Mr. Zabac was doubtful.

“He saw my photo in the
Globe
. They're tossing us some tenderloin, Louis.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons enjoyed expressing herself in this way, portraying a cynical, sophisticated demeanor.

“We don't do multimillion dollar deals,” Mr. Zabac cautioned her. “We're prudent. We spread our risks. We keep ourselves in step with the health of the region.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons nodded wryly. “We're not going to do anything rash. This isn't the sort of prospect that I'd entrust to Leonard, or Felix, or Connie, or anyone else out there. I'll look into it myself. Nate is sending a car for me in a few days.” Despite the warm, voluptuous feelings coursing through her body, Mrs. Fitzgibbons thought it proper to accustom the little man to his figurehead status; to the realities of her prerogatives. “If I like what I see, we'll get our feet wet.”

Seeing him wince at these words, she returned the subject to something brighter. “I'm not an egomaniac, Louis, but it's obvious that the media want me. It's a simple equation. The media give out the news. If they don't have news, they have to make the news. That's when they turn to people like me. Once it's obvious that the public wants you, you have the media in your hands. I know what I'm talking about,” she added in a harsh voice, and showed him a challenging eye.

“Well, I'm convinced you do.”

“What do you suppose would have happened,” she went on, while crossing her legs and balancing her teacup delicately on her knee, “if they had interviewed someone like Neil Hooton instead of me? Can't you just picture it? Mumbling gobbledygook under his breath about transportation stocks and hedges against inflation, while the market is coming down around his ears.” She threw her head back and laughed gaily.

“Now, now,” said Mr. Zabac.

“We'd have had a run on the bank.”

“Mr. Hooton is not to blame for the crack in stock prices.”

“The man is yellow.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons showed the chairman a look of blushing contempt for her adversary. The disdain was so withering that the chairman chose not to object. “Why,” she said, “he doesn't know word one about Wall Street. Do you honestly believe that he understands what's happening? He's a little lamb!” Again, Mrs. Fitzgibbons blushed and revealed discomfort at having to discuss the merits of a fool.

“Many investors,” Mr. Zabac reminded her softly, “were caught unawares. The market fell five hundred points. We must be fair.”