Ride a Cockhorse (30 page)

After dispatching Alec to the basement, to get someone from maintenance to eradicate the hateful words, Mrs. Fitzgibbons retreated to her office. No matter how fair or generous she tried to be, there were always those gutter rats and back-stabbers creeping about with murder in their hearts. Her flesh went cold at the thought that someone in their midst could perpetrate such a sordid act.

As it happened, though, the first extraordinary occurrence of the day did not originate with Mrs. Fitzgibbons. It started with a sudden shout from someone in the back offices. An instant later, Mr. Hooton was standing in the doorway of his office, waving a sheaf of papers in his hand and demanding an explanation. He was in a fury. The sight of the massively built man, his physical frame shaking with outrage, was not that of a displeased employee but of an infuriated boss. The shock of white hair on his head and his bushy white eyebrows made his face a brilliant red.

“What in God's name
is
this?” Mr. Hooton repeated himself in a belling, mooselike voice. He shook the paper in anger at the man sitting before him. The recipient of his thunderous demand was none other than Lionel Kim, his assistant.

Mr. Hooton hollered anew: “What do I have in my hand?”

Going quickly to her door, Mrs. Fitzgibbons forgot momentarily who she was and felt a stab of fright at the picture of Neil Hooton quivering in rage. No one at the bank had ever seen its like. Mr. Hooton, respected by all as the soul of smooth, managerial polish, stood forth in the doorway in an awesome light. Beneath his gaze, Mr. Lionel Kim cowered. He was speechless.

“I told you market level!” Mr. Hooton continued shouting. “That was two hours ago! Now, this security transaction has gotten away from me. It's down a point and an eighth!”

Turning, and waving the sheaf of papers like a traffic cop, Mr. Hooton ordered Lionel Kim into his office. There, the hollering persisted for a full minute, and ended abruptly. “You can just look for another job,” he cried. “That's what you can do for me. You can
get out
.”

By dismissing the slender, delicate young man from his employ, Mr. Hooton could not have created greater resentment or primitive fear in Mrs. Fitzgibbons's heart had he marched into her office and begun thrashing her with his fists. If there was one thing she had not anticipated, it was the possibility of Mr. Hooton stealing her fire. For several minutes, Mrs. Fitzgibbons had reason to wonder if the stout man in the yellow suspenders might not intensify the drama even further by firing some more people. After all, he had the authority to do so in his own department. Like any strategist who has committed the classic blunder of expecting his enemy to behave in accordance with his own schemes, Mrs. Fitzgibbons was left with her wings clipped. The man whom she reviled and dreaded most of all had disarmed her. The boldness of his act augured even worse things to come, being just the first step, that is, in an effort to usurp authority.

Presently, Mr. Hooton came bustling out of his office, only this time the target of his frustration was clearly Mrs. Fitzgibbons herself. He was vaporing away in a resonant voice, as he headed for the stairway leading up to Mr. Zabac's office. “These dilettantes who don't know bunkum!” he threw out. “Boiler room bimbos who don't know a bank note from a Band-Aid—who learned what they know about finance down at the Holy Rosary sisters' school on Mosher Street!”

For a split second, the neon glow of the copy machine painted Mr. Hooton's face green as he hurried by it. He continued spouting insults even as he shot past Julie's desk and Mrs. Fitzgibbons's open door. “Nobody takes advantage of me! Certainly not some psychoneurotic fish-snapper who's headed for the deep end. That's too laughable!” he shouted. “That's downright funny! That makes me laugh.”

Unlike those at the bank, such as Felix Hohenberger, who attributed the big man's outburst to the pressures of the Wall Street crash, Mrs. Fitzgibbons knew better. His loss of control sprang from motives as desperate as her own. She knew what he wanted. He wanted to vilify and defame her. He wanted to drag her out of her office like a common criminal. He wanted to beat the life out of her. Mrs. Fitzgibbons snatched up her telephone and dialed the man upstairs. She was too late.

Jeannine Mielke deflected her attempt with a curt, precise response. “The chairman is talking to Mr. Hooton and is refusing all calls, Mrs. Fitzgibbons.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons hung up and shouted to Julie. “Get me Howard!”

By pure coincidence, though, just as Howard Brouillette came hurrying out of his office, an altercation of an entirely separate nature broke out in the bank. It took place in the open space in front of the tellers' windows. Three or four individuals were grappling with one another. Mr. Donachie was one of them. Depositors standing in line looked on in disbelief as the bank guard strove both to subdue the others and to disentangle himself from the struggling mass. The melee was a gratuitous occurrence, it was later established, and had arisen from the attempt by a rather burly customer to regain the place in line he had temporarily relinquished, and by the active resistance of two others to this effort. It eventuated in a noisy, scuffling, swaying knot of four men, lurching first toward the windows, then across the marble floor in the opposite direction.

If nothing else, the sudden crisis attested at once to Mrs. Fitzgibbons's own courage in an emergency. While the other employees looked on helplessly, she, arriving on the scene with Howard Brouillette at her heels, immediately took charge. She shouted for Howard to protect Mr. Donachie's revolver. “He's armed! Get it from him,” she said.

In fact, the violence and danger worked an instantaneous tonic on her spirits, as did the sight of Mr. Brouillette emerging from the struggle clutching in hand Alec Donachie's immensely long, blue-black .38-caliber side arm. Had Howard Brouillette possessed any understanding of Mrs. Fitzgibbons's mental state, it is doubtful that he would have handed her the weapon.

The revolver in her hand looked like a cannon. “Who said banking was a dull business?” she exclaimed, to the delight and relief of those looking on. After Howard and Mr. Donachie had separated the other three men, Mrs. Fitzgibbons inspired a general outburst of laughter when she dealt Alec his pistol, saying, “This must be yours.”

“You're one of a kind, Frankie!” a customer piped in admiration. Every time she opened her mouth, it brought an animated reaction, as when Mr. Donachie asked her if he should call the police.

“You are the police,” she said.

“We love you, Mrs. Fitzgibbons,” said a young woman.

Marcel Sullivan, the youth from the mailroom, was standing at her elbow. “You go back to work,” she told him.

The boy was agog. “You were wonderful, Chief.”

“What's your name?” She liked the fact that the young man called her Chief. He put her in mind of Terry Sugrue.

“I'm Marcel.”

“Marcel what?”

Everyone looked on with interest as Mrs. Fitzgibbons, the supreme executive officer, devoted a moment of her time to question an employee of the lowest echelon. Mrs. Fitzgibbons's cheeks and eyes glowed in the aftermath of the violence.

“Marcel Sullivan,” he replied.

“You do work for me?” she queried in a high-pitched voice, her chin raised interrogatively. Everything in Mrs. Fitzgibbons's bearing bespoke magnificence, but most especially the expression of condescending interest that pinched her lips and set her dark blue eyes aflare. Given her mood of exulting egoism, it was no wonder that the sight of Mr. Hooton returning down the back staircase from Mr. Zabac's office promoted powerful feelings of contempt for him. With Howard darting along at her side, Mrs. Fitzgibbons went out of her way now to put herself in the path of Mr. Hooton. Howard was by now thoroughly allied to Mrs. Fitzgibbons in the politics of the bank, especially as his wife, Dolores, had, in fact, fulfilled her assignment of the night before.

Mrs. Fitzgibbons flung her words out as soon as Mr. Hooton drew near: “Imagine entrusting your life savings to the likes of that!” she said. Howard laughed obediently at her side.

Mr. Hooton stopped in his tracks, then approached her. A rosy flush invaded his jowls. He reached with stubby fingers and took off his little gold eyeglasses. They confronted one another eye to eye. Mrs. Fitzgibbons looked quite splendid in her supercilious attitude, as she stood smiling before him. She mocked him. “Did you report me to the headmaster?” she said. Not only did Howard Brouillette laugh, but Julie, approaching from her desk, laughed also.

“Your days are numbered,” said Mr. Hooton. His face shook with anger. “I'll be here when the men in the white coats come for you. You need psychiatric attention!” With that, Mr. Hooton marched past her, with his head high and his shoulders back. “Candidate for the loony bin!”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons clicked her fingers rudely at Howard. “Get into my office.”

Howard was shaking his head sycophantically. “That man must have a death wish,” he said, as he closed her office door behind him.

In a sudden tantrum, Mrs. Fitzgibbons picked up a tall stack of papers from her desk, and with both hands threw it at the wall. A nervous shiver ran the length of her body. “He insults me to my face. I have him in my hands.”

“He doesn't understand who you are.” Howard's moral descent was framed in his sallow cheeks and sickly smile.

“Mind you,” she went on, “this pillar of the community is embroiled with a prostitute, a big-titted, hundred-dollar-an-hour whore from Lyman Street who looks like she could blow up the Goodyear blimp all by herself—and
she
works for me.”

Howard was enthralled; he was sweating. “Dolores is the best. She'll do what's expected of her.”

“If she doesn't,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons retorted without skipping a breath, “you'll be working my rock-salt detail this winter. You'll be shoveling my driveway. I'll have you picked up. I'll have you booked. You'll go away, Howard.”

Howard's lemony complexion admitted points of a red hue at the cheekbones. “Dolores's got him good, Chief. You'll see.”

“Call her up! Tell her to start the ball rolling.”

“Hooton expects her to call him at three o'clock.”

“Now!” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons. “I want him out of here.”

While Howard Brouillette spoke softly on the telephone to his wife, Mrs. Fitzgibbons paced the carpet, giving outlet to her nerves. “By midnight tonight,” she vowed softly, “if somebody out there isn't floating in the water, I will be. Because I'll never stop now. Then we'll see how this organization ought to be run. They'll
never
get me out. They'll carry me out.”

Howard was clutching the receiver to his head with both hands. His octagonal eyeglasses sparkled in the lamplight above Mrs. Fitzgibbons's desk. He was telling his wife what to do. “It's more important than that,” he whispered. “My salary is riding on it, Dolores.”

“Your head,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons.

“My head,” said Howard.

“Tell her to talk dirty,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons.

“Talk dirty to him,” Howard repeated dutifully, in a soft voice. “Do what you're told. Get him out of here. That's imperative. That's from the Chief, Dolores. Make sure you're in bed with him from five to seven. That's the
sine qua non
.”

Mrs. Brouillette must have sought clarification of her husband's Latin locution, as he repeated his meanings. “That's the most important part. Just telephone us at the old German Club.” Howard listened at length then, as Dolores repeated her instructions. He revealed a sudden vein of frustration, however. “It isn't just fun, Dolores!” he cried into the phone. “Does everything have to be fun?” He smiled sickishly then at Mrs. Fitzgibbons, who stood by her desk, watching him. He lowered his voice in warning: “The Chief can put you away, Dolores. You know what that would mean. No more satin sheets, no ostrich boots. No champagne weekends. No new boat.”

“Cut that out,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons.

“No bikini waxes or pedicures at home. No more flights up to Bar Harbor to see Mr. What's-his-name.”

“You're scaring the poor thing out of her wits.”

Immediately after hanging up, Howard Brouillette returned hurriedly to his own office; from there, he could see across the consumer loan desks to Mr. Hooton's open door. Mrs. Fitzgibbons had Howard on the line, in advance of the incoming call. She wanted a description of what was happening. Within one minute, she heard the far-off tinkle of Neil Hooton's phone ringing.

“He's taking the call, Chief!” Howard's voice came over the phone excitedly.

“How does he look?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons asked.

“He looks happy, Mrs. Fitzgibbons!” Howard narrated what he saw. “He's put down his pen and taken off his glasses. “He's sitting way back in his chair.”

“He looks happy, though,” she said.

“Very happy. He has his hand over his forehead and is laughing at what Dolores is saying to him.... Look at him now!” Howard cried in a suppressed whisper. “He can't believe this is happening.”

“She's talking dirty now.”

“That's for sure. She's pouring it on, too! She's the best. Oh, Dolores!”

“You take it easy,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons remarked.

“He's standing up! He's getting up! He's on his feet. He's looking up at the ceiling, he's laughing—he's listening—”

“She's talking dirty—”

“He's nodding. She's bringing it to a close. That's smart, Dolores. She's smart, Chief. She's not giving him too much. He's smiling—he's nodding—he's
nodding!
”

“You take it easy,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons.

“He can't believe his ears. He can't believe what Dolores is saying to him. She can do it all on the phone. She can do anything. She should be in Paris. She should be in Vegas. Dolores,” Howard cried over the phone, “you're a dream. I wish I could hear you. He looks like a four-year-old. He's in heaven. He's rubbing his belly with the palm of his hand.”