Ride a Cockhorse (31 page)

Mrs. Fitzgibbons had gravitated to her door, the phone at her ear extended the length of its cord. She could see Howard doubled over behind his desk.

“He's in ecstasy, Chief!”

“You sit up straight,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons commanded. “I'm watching you.”

Instantly, Howard's head snapped around. His glasses twinkled in the distance. Mrs. Fitzgibbons had determined that Howard's reactions to his wife were a species of behavior not fully understood by science.

“What are you doing over there?” she said. “Pulling your pudding? That's not David Rockefeller, you know.”

“It could be,” Howard attested in a chastened voice. “She's that good.”

Not more than three minutes elapsed when Mr. Hooton came marching solidly out of his office, pulling on his venerable Irish-tweed overcoat and making for the front door. Mrs. Fitzgibbons watched the man depart with satisfaction. She remembered a time ten years ago when this powerful figure was her own ideal of successful manhood, and of how she had even encouraged Larry, her husband, to dress in the manner of Neil Hooton.

Mrs. Fitzgibbons dealt Julie the telephone to be hung up, and issued an order. “Tell Jacqueline Harvey to increase Marcel Sullivan's salary by twenty percent, effective today. Marcel is the youngster in the mailroom. And tell Marcel that the Chief likes his work and his respectful manner, and that I'd like him to start training in the home loan department after he graduates from school.”

“Right, Chief.” Julie reacted with military smartness.

This time, she didn't wait for the chairman to open their meeting with his usual recitation of compliments and recommendations, but started right in on him. “Here we have a man,” she flung out, “who lost us a king's fortune in the markets overnight, and what has he done? He's dismissed the only person down there who had his head screwed on straight. This is what comes from allowing confusion in the chain of authority, over who has the power to eliminate undesirables. With the proper authorization from you, I could have prevented all of this! Now, it's too late. Mr. Kim has gone home, and we're rudderless down there. Well, it's not my fault.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons crossed her legs. She was not unaware of the fetching, even formidable picture she presented to Mr. Zabac, as she rattled on in this same loquacious vein.

“I continue,” she said, “to draw a world of new business in through the front door and over the wires, while others piddle it away by the tens of thousands behind my back. Matters are coming to a head, Louis.” She hardened her mascaraed eyes. “I will not be sabotaged.”

While he was growing used to Mrs. Fitzgibbons's increasingly truculent style, the speed and accusation in her voice appeared genuinely to upset Mr. Zabac's fabled calm.

“I don't like the firings,” he admitted.

“We were through with the firings until today! ... I had selectively singled out for elimination six or seven hard cases. I was satisfied. I was appeased.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons felt an actual surge of anger in her breast. “I was happy.” She shifted and straightened her torso meaningfully, as though each declaration were a physical eruption from within. “You have a tender heart, Louis. I can tolerate that. You don't want to hurt anyone. You prefer looking the other way. Et cetera, et cetera,” she said, with a dismissing wave. “I was happy to do it. I threw them out. It was a tonic. Everyone feels better. The air is cleared. The deadbeats are gone. People who couldn't tie their own shoelaces”—Mr. Zabac winced painfully at Mrs. Fitzgibbons's reference to the one-armed Mr. Kane—“are scarcely qualified to cut the mustard in this new order.”

“Mrs. Fitzgibbons,” the chairman pleaded to be heard, “why are you so irritable today?”

“You don't run mongrels in a dog race,” she added. “You use greyhounds.”

“Discrimination is illegal.”

“Please! Louis! We're both grown-ups. I fired a bunch of mutts.” She laughed out loud as she recalled the air of innocence of Marshall Moriarty when she axed him. “I did it cleanly. The people I disposed of were either simpleminded, aging, or so inconsequential that if they dropped dead at the supper table their own families wouldn't notice.”

“I have a fax right here—” He reached for a sheet of paper.

“Fax me no faxes.” She held up a hand. “You're breaking my heart.”

It was manifest by now that Mrs. Fitzgibbons's day-to-day triumphs, combined with her intransigent manner and rather brutal way of expressing herself, had worked a spell on Mr. Zabac. He sat motionless behind his enormous desk, his custom-tailored suit offset by a sky blue necktie, and strove to keep pace with her tongue. Now and again, his eyes dropped to the spectacle of her body. When she got worked up, as she was now, her body moved with a liquid grace that was a sight to behold.

“What will happen this afternoon if Elizabeth Wilson starts firing people?” she challenged. “Or Howard Brouillette? Or Jack Greaney? Or the man in maintenance? Or payroll?”

“Mr. Hooton has listened to my views,” the chairman conceded, “and would not be opposed to our recalling Mr. Kim.”

“I intend to recall him!” Mrs. Fitzgibbons seized instantly on the chairman's ameliorative attitude. “Did you think he wasn't coming back? I have plans for Lionel. He's a brilliant boy.”

“Yes, I believe he is.”

Without a clue, Mrs. Fitzgibbons threw out a lie. “It was Kim,” she said, “who wanted that department to go into treasury notes and gold last summer. It was Kim who believed the market was too high and wanted to take corrective steps. I know that for a fact,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons lied boldly, “because he told me so to my face.”

“He's a very astute young man.”

“Why, he's brilliant,” she said. She sat back and recrossed her legs. “He was fired for being right.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons listened then as the chairman delivered a reasoned and well-meaning lecture on the importance of harmony in the workplace and of the need for her to help effect a reconciliation between herself and Neil Hooton. Looking exhaustedly bored, Mrs. Fitzgibbons waved her hand desultorily, as though such sentiments were too obvious to remark on. After that, Mr. Zabac spoke about the strong capital position of the Parish Bank, and of its future, and the important role it would continue to play in the region. To Mrs. Fitzgibbons, the man might have been addressing the local Lions Club; she breathed audibly and opened and closed her eyes many times.

“For six consecutive years,” Mr. Zabac explained, “we have outperformed our competitors. The South Valley—”

“Outperform them? I'll tear them up, root and branch. The fighting has already begun. You can see it on the floor downstairs. Their depositors are coming to us by the hour. There's talk of insolvency, collapsed earnings, bank examiners, liquidation. What do you think I'm all about? I'm bleeding them. Everyone knows it. I promise you, on all that's holy,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons, “before winter is over, I'll be marching into their executive offices.”

“The happy fact is—” Mr. Zabac sought to mollify her by confirming something of her optimism, but was cut short.

“When I go in there, watch out!”

“The happy fact is,” Mr. Zabac tried again, “that we have had—”

“I'm not the forgiving person I once was,” she said. “I'm not big-minded. I'm not a philosopher. I'm not Mother Teresa.”

“I understand, Mrs. Fitzgibbons.” For the third time, Mr. Zabac endeavored to soothe the figure sitting opposite him without rejecting the thrust of her assertions. “Truth is, we have received overtures this week from the Citizens Bank. Mr. Will Donnelly called me on Tuesday, and this morning, Mr. Lieber, one of their lawyers, telephoned Mr. Hooton.”

“They did what?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons's reaction was predictable. She sat up. Her eyes dilated. She appeared thunderstruck.

For his part, while unable to suppress the enormous satisfaction he felt over this dramatic statement, Mr. Zabac maintained a grave, businesslike demeanor. He formed a steeple with his hands and regarded Mrs. Fitzgibbons over the tips of his fingers. “I believe they want an accommodation.”

“They didn't talk to me?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons pictured Mr. Hooton earlier delivering this important news to the little chairman.

Louis Zabac made small of the matter. “Oh, pay no mind, Mrs. Fitzgibbons, to the manner they—”

“Are they psychotic?”

“It wasn't the president who called. It wasn't Mr. Schreffler. If Mr. Schreffler had called, I'm confident he would have telephoned you or me.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons pointed a long arm in the direction of the Citizens Bank. She couldn't credit her ears. “I could mail them their death warrants. I know every one of them. I went to school with half of them. Ralph Lieber called Hooton?” she repeated in astonishment. “So that I could do what? Nail him to his front door?”

“Now, now, let's don't get ahead of ourselves.” Mr. Zabac made a calming gesture with both hands. “As I construe it, it was only an opening gambit.”

“I have all the playing cards.” She waved her hand illustratively over the surface of his desk. As often lately, Mrs. Fitzgibbons revealed her genius for targeting weakness in her opponents. “When this news leaks out, they won't have a leg under them.”

The prudish chairman blanched instantly. “We are not to breathe a word about it.”

That set Mrs. Fitzgibbons laughing. “Please.”

“I've given my word. I am morally constrained to observe complete confidentiality. Otherwise—”

“Oh, I'll do the dirty work! But when I get there, it will be ugly. On that, they have Mrs. Fitzgibbons's word,” she said.

Mr. Zabac's anxiety was visible. “We are to do nothing and say nothing.”

“I'll give them confidentiality!” Suddenly, Mrs. Fitzgibbons gestured with her fist. “I'll give them the mother and father of confidentiality.”

In her mind's eye, Mrs. Fitzgibbons had a vision of Dolores Brouillette—perhaps at that very instant—stepping off a curbstone and opening the passenger door of Neil Hooton's car.

“I've been running things for one week, and they're already folding their tents! Can you imagine where they'll be in a month?”

“You're an extraordinary resource,” Mr. Zabac allowed with a sigh.

Mrs. Fitzgibbons didn't want to insult the man, but couldn't check herself at this moment. His fatuity embarrassed her. “What a mentality!” she said. She consulted her wristwatch and stood up.

“Before you go,” Mr. Zabac insisted, while rising, “I want your word, Mrs. Fitzgibbons, that you will do all possible to patch up your differences here. I insist on that. I charge you with it. I'm going to be in Falmouth for the next three or four days, until Tuesday. I'm leaving within the hour. The contention and bitterness must come to an end.”

“No problem.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons waved a pretty hand.

“Fighting among superiors is demoralizing on the staff. I'm appealing to your wisdom. It must stop, and,” he added, stressing his second worry, “the firings must stop.”

Standing attractively before him, Mrs. Fitzgibbons let him look at her.

“There are reports of an early snow,” he added, “and I want to get away before it starts.”

Again, Mrs. Fitzgibbons said nothing.

“But I won't leave without an absolute assurance,” he said, patting his palms softly for emphasis, “that my instructions will be obeyed.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons sighed with forbearance. “There'll be no firings.”

“I need to know that,” he continued doggedly.

“I swear it!”

At three minutes to three o'clock that same afternoon, Mrs. Fitzgibbons struck. Despite the day-long tension in the bank, her sudden appearance on the floor sent a shock wave among the employees. For one thing, Mrs. Fitzgibbons, who was not insensitive to the importance of her costuming at such a moment, was dressed for the street. She was wearing her gloves and dark, gun-metal leather coat. She came out of her office with great dispatch. There was murder in her face.

Behind Mrs. Fitzgibbons, Emily and Julie hurried to keep pace. The three of them came quickly along the big mahogany rail bordering the home loan department, with Mrs. Fitzgibbons leading the way energetically. Louis Zabac's departure for the airport minutes earlier had cleared the way for Mrs. Fitzgibbons to put an end to some unfinished business that had nagged her for days. All work came to a stop in the bank at the sight of the three of them moving in phalanx across the open space beneath the skylit dome. Mrs. Fitzgibbons's heels rang on the marble floor; her hair shook at every step; her face was bony and drawn.

When Mrs. Wilson's secretary, Patricia Quirk, saw them coming, she reacted with instinct. She spun impulsively and thrust open Mrs. Wilson's door, then danced out of the way. Mrs. Fitzgibbons shot past her and darted into Elizabeth Wilson's office. Emily and Julie were not a foot behind, the three of them forming a living wedge.

Mrs. Wilson gave a cry of alarm at the sudden hurly-burly entrance. She sat back in her chair. Elizabeth Wilson was a woman in her early sixties, a mother and grandmother, a living exemplum of the good citizen. Mrs. Fitzgibbons was shouting at her with great vehemence, leaning over the woman's desk, calling her names, castigating her. “What's happening?” Mrs. Wilson managed to bleat out. She was terrified, clearly fearful for her physical safety when Mrs. Fitzgibbons, while hollering at her, reached with her gloved hand and sent a mountainous pile of stacked papers and folders cascading to the floor. To worsen matters, Julie Marcotte and Emily Krok had instantly come round her desk on either side of her and appeared eager to commence striking her. Mrs. Wilson's voice was reedy with alarm. “What's going on? ... What are you doing?”

Suddenly, unable to restrain herself any longer, and genuinely angered by the woman's bad manners toward Mrs. Fitzgibbons, Emily Krok reached out, grabbed the bow at the throat of Mrs. Wilson's white polyester blouse and pulled Mrs. Wilson up to her feet. “Stand up when the Chief talks to you!” she said.