Ride a Cockhorse (5 page)

The rather frightening picture that Mrs. Fitzgibbons presented here of the cold-visaged creditor threatening ruin to some woebegone, disadvantaged soul on the other end of the line was certainly outlandish with regard to what her superiors expected of her. She was violating every unspoken rule in the book. However, Mrs. Fitzgibbons had grown impatient with superficial niceties; it satisfied her very warmly inside to put a hypocrite in her place. She listened for a moment to the woman wheedling in her ear, then terminated the matter in a decisive way.

“That's not what you're going to do,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons ordered in a harsh voice. “I'm not going to wait three weeks. You will make a double payment on the tenth of the month. And you'll make it in person. I want to see the two of you here at my desk on the tenth of October. We're going to have a talk about this.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons felt magnificent. A sensual thrill ran through her blood.

“I'll tell you why,” she reacted with an even bigger voice. “Because you and Jed are going to have to convince me that you can get your act together. We're not talking about your snowblower or your refrigerator. We're talking about your house. If you can't show me good faith, I'll turn it over to Maloney and Halpern for foreclosure proceedings. You'll come in here at ten
A.M.
, on the tenth of the month, and ask for me, Mrs. Fitzgibbons. Both of you.” With an elegant gesture, she hung up the telephone and got to her feet.

Everyone was staring sheepishly as she hurried past Mr. Hohenberger's desk, touching her hair as she went, and looking very much the part of the capitalist banker, vain and ruthless, contemptuous of the hardship of others. To her fellow officers, as well as to other bank employees, however, Mrs. Fitzgibbons's outburst was extraordinary to the point of pathology. Not a month or two ago, she was esteemed by all who knew her for her competence and sweet temper; but if any of her colleagues had doubted the testimony of their senses in recent days, this outburst settled the question. Mrs. Fitzgibbons had gone beyond the bounds of propriety.

The very next day, Mrs. Fitzgibbons was summoned to the office of her superior, Leonard Frye, the vice president of the home loan department. Mr. Frye and Mrs. Fitzgibbons were relative old hands at the Parish Bank, going back to the early 1970s, and had worked smoothly together all that time. As employer and employee, they were notably compatible. Lately, though, Mrs. Fitzgibbons had begun taking a less charitable view of her boss, as she saw some of the man's virtues as handicaps from a business standpoint. She saw his smiling, self-effacing manner as detrimental to the needs of a modern financial institution. The loan officers on his staff got away with murder. Further, the man was apathetic, too willing to limp along in the same old way rather than firing up his workers to get new business. When Mrs. Fitzgibbons looked about herself at the great imposing edifice of the bank, with its palatial marble columns and floors and glowing dome, the idea that a man like Leonard Frye, moping about in his well-worn, shiny-trousered blue suit, should occupy a position of dignity and importance here struck her as a near obscenity.

Consequently, when Leonard Frye requested that Mrs. Fitzgibbons report to his office, she was only too eager to do so. She went in with a chip on her shoulder. Moreover, as soon as Mr. Frye detected Mrs. Fitzgibbons's abrasive manner, he looked disheartened. He remarked on it at once.

“What's wrong, Frankie?” he said. “You're not yourself lately.”

Mr. Frye was sincerely trying to fathom the revolutionary component in Mrs. Fitzgibbons's behavior. He sat behind his desk, staring worriedly at her through his ancient, amber-framed glasses. While known all her life as the soul of tact, she had no desire this morning to show the big man in the blue suit her conciliatory manner. Also, on this morning in particular, his wheyish complexion gave him an unusually aged look, as though he had added about ten years to his life in a week. Mrs. Fitzgibbons felt very different from that. She was revitalized; she was attractive, ambitious, on the move.

“I won't pull my punches,” he said, employing a figure of speech that brought a wry smile to Mrs. Fitzgibbons's lips. “You've been very outspoken lately. Lots of people have noticed it.”

“What if they have?”

“You see?” Leonard Frye set down his pencil. He was genuinely perplexed.

Mrs. Fitzgibbons watched him with a puzzled smirk and said nothing. She had begun dressing in a more fetching manner lately and was curious to see whether Mr. Frye would lose the thread of his thought were she to pause and cross her legs in a deliberate way while showing him a fixed, smoldering look.

Mr. Frye faltered. He took off his glasses. “Frankie,” he said, “you're going to have to tell me what the trouble is. Connie McElligot said you spoke rudely to her and that you raised your voice three or four times to Mr. Donachie, the security guard, scolding him for looking sleepy on the job.”

“I didn't speak to him for being sleepy,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons. “That is your own complaint, I'm sure. I happen to like Mr. Donachie, because he's never afraid to interfere when a customer starts to act up. I corrected him,” she said, “because he had his service cap on the back of his head, and another time for a loose necktie.”

“But that's not your responsibility.” He shrugged placatingly, pleased to relieve her of unnecessary concerns.

“As for Connie, I want her off my case.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons's retort took the form of a demand. “She sends me deadbeats. I've told her a dozen times to deal with her own deadbeat customers. A week ago, she interrupted a closing of mine in the conference room to remind my client's lawyer that the exterminator's report, which was required on that transaction, wasn't available yet. Does that make sense?”

“No, it doesn't,” said Mr. Frye, looking demoralized.

“Where does she shine in?” As Mrs. Fitzgibbons straightened in anger, she noticed he averted his eyes from the upward inclination of her breasts.

“I'll talk to her,” he muttered.

What Mrs. Fitzgibbons said next was a choice instance of the boldness and unpredictability of her newfound assertiveness and gift of speech. She flung out the words without a moment's reflection.

“Everyone knows,” she said, “and has known since long before Larry died, how I feel about you, Leonard.” The remark was sternly put.

Mr. Frye's reaction was that of a man struck a blow on the head. He actually lurched in his chair.

“How what?”

“I feel about you. It's no secret. And I don't mind, so long as certain fat-legged busybodies don't go running behind my back trying to discredit me in the eyes of one of the few people I know that I really like and admire.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons had relaxed once more, sitting back, and was showing Mr. Frye the calm, level, intense sort of look characteristic of persons involved in, or at least intent upon, romance.

“You know, Frankie,” he persisted politely, “we almost never have strife among the personnel. And we're having an excellent year.”

“I,” Mrs. Fitzgibbons corrected him, “am having an excellent year.”

“You're having a fine year.”

“I'm having the best year I've ever had. I've done more business in the past six weeks than any four of them put together.”

“Is that,” he queried in a discreet voice, “why you've gotten so outspoken? Because you're outperforming the others?”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons affected bewilderment. She couldn't control her tongue. “What a mentality,” she said.

“I'm not saying that it is that!” he was quick to point out.

“Listen to me, Leonard.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons felt an overpowering need to take command of the moment. “In the past couple of years, I've had four or five job offers from other banks. The South Valley has made overtures, and so has Citizens. I'm not here today because I'm desperate.” She was lying, but was not troubled by the blatant fiction of her claims, as she felt that these statements offered a more accurate appraisal of her worth than any measurable criteria. The sight of Mr. Frye sitting before her, in his old blue suit, with the three points of his starched white handkerchief showing, left Mrs. Fitzgibbons feeling that the first forty-five years of her life constituted a terrible joke.

“You're a good loan officer, Frankie,” he said.

“I stayed because of you,” she lied even further. Sitting close to his desk, she laid her arm on the shiny olive wood surface, offering to view the prettiness of her wrist and bracelet and of her pink manicured nails. “I want Connie off my neck,” she told him.

“I'll talk to her, Frankie.”

“You do that.” In a second, it had flashed upon Mrs. Fitzgibbons that Leonard Frye could not summon the courage to fire her if he had a million years to do it. She regarded him with dismay and pity. This was the sort of vacant, neutered force to which she had paid loyalty all these years, believing in the meanwhile that her personal welfare and livelihood depended upon it. It was a revelation to her. The man was a leader in title only. If put to the test, he would be swept from his post in a twinkling. “I won't stand for it anymore,” she said.

She spoke with the power of law. He listened in trepidation. She could feel it. The sharpness and unpredictability of her tongue hypnotized him. Leonard Frye yearned for peace and harmony and would have conceded anything to maintain it. Mrs. Fitzgibbons was not like that, not anymore; nor could she respect anyone who was. Leonard was wishy-washy. He was manipulable.

“You're not being fair to me, to let her insult me like that.”

“I'll speak to her,” he said.

“You know what I think of you, Leonard, and how that must affect me.”

The vice president's resolve to reprimand Mrs. Fitzgibbons and warn her of the possible unhappy consequences of her strident behavior lately had ironically lost force upon contact with that very thing. She was very much in charge of the situation and was enjoying herself immensely. Even when it had become apparent that Mr. Frye considered the matter closed, she made no move to get up.

“We've been together for fourteen years. We've been through thick and thin,” she argued in a fibrous voice. “If you're going to favor somebody above me, I'll go to work someplace else.”

“I won't.” He was clear on that point. His eyes were watery and shone a pale cloudy blue as he polished his glasses.

“You made the chairman give me a Christmas bonus my first year on the job. That was important to me.”

“I don't remember that,” he said.

“You did.” That too was a lie, and Mrs. Fitzgibbons knew it was a lie, but no one in his right mind can resist such blandishments. After that, the falsifications poured out unrestrainedly.

“When Zabac promoted you to vice president, who in all the bank was happiest for you? I was.” She continued to regard him with a stern, recriminatory look. Once or twice, the vice president's eyes strayed to Mrs. Fitzgibbons's breasts, which were moving agitatedly as she spoke. “I talked about you so much Larry used to get jealous. ‘What is he, some kind of god?' Larry used to say.”

Hearing that, the banker muttered something in embarrassment, adding, “Larry was a wonderful guy.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons was not smiling. “He was sick with envy. He used to worry that I wouldn't come home at night. He said my dresses were too tight. He said I wore too much perfume on the job. He accused me of being restless in bed.” Her imagination ran on without hindrance. “That was why I avoided you the morning of the funeral,” she said. “Do you remember?”

“I don't,” said Mr. Frye.

“You don't remember my husband's funeral?”

“Of course, I remember the funeral—”

“I intentionally avoided you. I didn't even look at you. I tried not to think about you all morning.”

Mr. Frye passed his hand before his face. He touched his lips with his fingers. He picked up his amber eyeglasses. He was in a visible muddle, astonished and confused. Mrs. Fitzgibbons's lips were pursed incriminatingly.

“Larry and I were a mistake. He knew it, and I knew it, and,” she said, “I think you knew it.”

“I didn't,” he said, his tone as soft as that of a penitent in a confessional.

“From the beginning,” she added harshly. “From day one.”

Leonard Frye appeared to be searching his mind for something to say to her. At the moment, he reminded Mrs. Fitzgibbons of a tongue-tied secretary whose boss was making a pass at her, and who was both frightened and thrilled, and couldn't speak up.

“I'm afraid,” Mr. Frye brought out at last, “that some of your remarks have come as a shock to me.”

Having said that, the banker lapsed into a painful silence; his pallid face admitted tiny wine spots of embarrassment. Mrs. Fitzgibbons was left shaking her head in wonderment. His ineptitude was indescribable. She decided to let him squirm.

The vice president cleared his throat. “I've been thinking a lot about the Howell-McCann account,” he said, in an astonishing change of subject, “and whether we can put that together.”

Mrs. Fitzgibbons couldn't believe her ears.

“We're not here to talk about that,” she said, inflamed momentarily by his digression. She had a half mind to say something outrageous, as about his fat wife, or even unleash an obscenity or two. Still, his next remark left scope for debate.

“We're not going to be able to talk anymore in such intimate terms,” he said. He stared at her with colorless eyes.

“How on earth are we going to do it, then?” she said.

“We're not.” He was finding his voice now. “We're going to go on just as before.”

For the first time, she actually enjoyed the line he was taking. It seemed coy. She found it provocative.

“Believe me, Leonard, it's not going back to the way it was.”