The Complete Crime Stories (35 page)

“No, but while that's going on, we're completely defenseless. We've got our chins hanging out and no way in the world of putting up a guard. I mean, while you're holding out those adjustment entries, so you can edge them in gradually, your cash doesn't balance the books. If then something happened—so I had to call for a cash audit on the spot, or if I got called away to the home office for a couple of days, or something happened to you, so you couldn't come to work—then watch that ship go out of water. You may get away with it. But it'll have to be done, everything squared up, before the next check on your cash. That's twenty-one days from now. And at that, a three- or four-hundred-dollar bulge in your cash every day is going to look mighty funny. In the bank, I mean.”

“I could gag it off. I could say I'm keeping after them, to keep their deposits up, the way Charles always did. I don't think there's any danger. The cash will be there.”

So that was how we did it. She had the slips printed, and began mailing them out, three or four at a time. For the first few days' replacement, the cash replacement I mean, I had enough in my own checking account. For the rest, I had to go out and plaster my house. For that I went to the Federal people. It took about a week, and I had to start an outside account, so nobody in the bank would know what I was up to. I took eight thousand bucks, and if you don't think that hurt, you never plastered your house. Of course, it would be our luck that when the first of those books came in, she was out to lunch, and I was on the window myself. I took in the book, and receipted for it, but Church was only three or four feet away, running a column on one of the adding machines. She heard what I said to the depositor, and was at my elbow before I even knew how she got there.

“I can do that for you, Mr. Bennett. I'll only be a minute, and there'll be no need for him to leave his book.”

“Well—I'd rather Mrs. Brent handled it.”

“Oh,
very
well, then.”

She switched away then, in a huff, and I could feel the sweat in the palms of my hands. That night I warned Sheila. “That Church can bust it up.”

“How?”

“Her damned apple-polishing. She horned in today, wanted to balance that book for me. I had to chase her.”

“Leave her to me.”

“For God's sake, don't let her suspect anything.”

“I won't, don't worry.”

From then on, we made a kind of routine out of it. She'd get in three or four books, ask the depositors to leave them with her till next day. She'd make out new cards, and tell me the exact amount she needed, that night. I'd hand her that much in cash. Next day, she'd slip it into her cash box, make out new cards for the depositors, slip them in the file, then make out new passbooks and have them ready when the depositors called. Every day we'd be that much nearer home, both praying that nothing would tip it before we got the whole replacement made. Most days I'd say we plugged about $400 into the cash, one or two days a little more.

One night, maybe a week after we started putting the money back, they had the big dinner dance for the whole organization. I guess about a thousand people were there, in the main ballroom of one of the Los Angeles hotels, and it was a pretty nice get-together. They don't make a pep meeting out of it. The Old Man doesn't like that kind of thing. He just has a kind of a family gathering, makes them a little speech, and then the dancing starts, and he stands around watching them enjoy themselves. I guess you've heard of A. R. Ferguson. He's founder of the bank, and the minute you look at him you know he's a big shot. He's not tall, but he's straight and stocky, with a little white moustache that makes him look like some kind of a military man.

Well, we all had to go, of course. I sat at the table with the others from the branch, Miss Church, and Helm, and Snelling, and Snelling's wife, and Sheila. I made it a point not to sit with Sheila. I was afraid to. So after the banquet, when the dancing started, I went over to shake hands with the Old Man. He always treated me fine, just like he treats everybody. He's got that natural courtesy that no little guy ever quite seems capable of. He asked how I was, and then: “How much longer do you think you'll be out there in Glendale? Are you nearly done?”

An icy feeling began to go over me. If he yanked me now, and returned me to the home office, there went all chance of covering that shortage, and God only knew what they would find out, if it was half covered and half not.

“Why, I tell you, Mr. Ferguson, if you can possibly arrange it, I'd like to stay out there till after the first of the month.”

“… So long?”

“Well, I've found some things out there that are well worth making a thorough study of, it seems to me. Fact of the matter, I had thought of writing an article about them in addition to my report. I thought I'd send it to the
American Banker,
and if I could have a little more time—”

“In that case, take all the time you want.”

“I thought it wouldn't hurt us any.”

“I only wish more of our officials would write.”

“Gives us a little prestige.”

“—and makes them
think!”

My mouth did it all. I was standing behind it, not knowing what was coming out from one minute to the next. I hadn't thought of any article, up to that very second, and I give you one guess how I felt. I felt like a heel, and all the worse on account of the fine way he treated me. We stood there a few minutes, he telling me how he was leaving for Honolulu the next day, but he'd be back within the month, and looked forward to reading what I had to say as soon as he came back. Then he motioned in the direction of the dance floor. “Who's the girl in blue?”

“Mrs. Brent.”

“Oh yes, I want to speak to her.”

We did some broken-floor dodging, and got over to where Sheila was dancing with Helm. They stopped, and I introduced the Old Man, and he asked how Brent was coming along after the operation, and then cut in on Helm, and danced Sheila off. I wasn't in much of a humor when I met her outside later and took her home. “What's the matter, Dave?”

“Couldn't quite look the Old Man in the eye, that's all.”

“Have you got cold feet?”

“Just feeling the strain.”

“If you have got cold feet, and want to quit, there's nothing I can say. Nothing at all.”

“All I got to say is I'll be glad when we're clear of that heel, and can kick him out of the bank and out of our lives.”

“In two weeks it'll be done.”

“How is he?”

“He's leaving the hospital Saturday.”

“That's nice.”

“He's not coming home yet. The doctor insists that he go up to Arrowhead to get his strength back. He'll be there three or four weeks. He has friends there.”

“What have you told him, by the way?”

“Nothing.”

“Just nothing?”

“Not one word.”

“He had an ulcer, is that what you said?”

“Yes.”

“I was reading in a medical magazine the other day what causes it. Do you know what it is?”

“No.”

“Worry.”

“So?”

“It might help the recuperating process if he knew it was O.K. about the shortage. Lying in a hospital, with a thing like that staring you in the face, that may not be so good. For his health anyway.”

“What am I to tell him?”

“Why, I don't know. That you've fixed it up.”

“If I tell him I've fixed it up, so nobody is going to know it, he knows I've got some kind of assistance in the bank. That'll terrify him, and I don't know what he's likely to do about it. He may speak to somebody, and the whole thing will come out. And who am I going to say has let me have the money, so I can put it back? You?”

“Do you have to say?”

“No. I don't have to say anything at all, and I'm not going to. The less you're involved in this the better. If he worries, he ought to be used to it by now. It won't hurt that young man to do quite a little suffering over what he's done to me—and to you.”

“It's up to you.”

“He knows something's cooking, all right, but he doesn't know what. I look forward to seeing his face when I tell him I'm off to—where did you say?”

“… I said Reno.”

“Do you still say Reno?”

“I don't generally change my mind, once it's made up.”

“You can, if you want to.”

“Shut up.”

“I don't want you to.”

“Neither do I.”

VI

We kept putting the money back, and I kept getting jitterier every day. I kept worrying that something would happen, that maybe the Old Man hadn't left a memo about me before he went away, and that I'd get a call to report to the home office; that maybe Sheila would get sick and somebody else would have to do her work; that some depositor might think it was funny, the slip he had got to bring his book in, and begin asking about it somewhere.

One day she asked me to drive her home from the bank. By that time I was so nervous I never went anywhere with her in the daytime, and even at night I never met her anywhere that somebody might see us. But she said one of the children was sick, and she wanted a ride in case she had to get stuff from the drugstore that the doctor had ordered, and that anyway nobody was there but the maid and she didn't matter. By that time Brent had gone to the lake, to get his strength back, and she had the house to herself.

So I went. It was the first time I'd ever been in her home, and it was fixed up nice, and smelled like her, and the kids were the sweetest little pair you ever saw. The oldest was named Anna, and the younger was named Charlotte. She was the one that was sick. She was in bed with a cold, and took it like a little soldier. Another time, it would have tickled me to death to sit and watch her boss Sheila around, and watch Sheila wait on her, and take the bossing just like that was how it ought to be. But now I couldn't even keep still that long. When I found out I wasn't needed I ducked, and went home and filled up some more paper with the phoney article I had to have ready for the Old Man when he got back. It was called, “Building a Strong Savings Department.”

We got to the last day before the monthly check on cash. Six hundred dollars had to go into her box that day, over and above the regular day's receipts. It was a lot, but it was a Wednesday, the day the factories all around us paid off, and deposits were sure to be heavy, so it looked like we could get away with it. We had all the passbooks in. It had taken some strong-arm work to get the last three we needed, and what she had done was go to those people the night before, like Brent had always done, and ask where they'd been, and why they hadn't put anything on savings. By sitting around a few minutes she managed to get their books, and then I drove her over to my place and we checked it all up. Then I gave her the cash she needed, and it looked like she was set.

But I kept wanting to know how she stood, whether it had all gone through like we hoped. I couldn't catch her eye and I couldn't get a word with her. They were lined up at her window four and five deep all day long, and she didn't go out to lunch. She had sandwiches and milk sent in. On Wednesday they send out two extra tellers from the home office, to help handle the extra business, and every time one of them would go to her for help on something, and she'd have to leave her window for a minute, I'd feel the sweat on the palms of my hands, and lose track of what I was doing. I'm telling you it was a long day.

Along about two-thirty, though, it slacked off, and by five minutes to three there was nobody in there, and at three sharp Adler, the guard, locked the door. We went on finishing up. The home office tellers got through first, because all they had to do was balance one day's deposits, and around three-thirty they turned in their sheets, asked me to give them a count, and left. I sat at my desk, staring at papers, doing anything to keep from marching around and tip it that I had something on my mind.

Around quarter to four there came a tap on the glass, and I didn't look up. There's always that late depositor trying to get in, and if he catches your eye you're sunk. I went right on staring at my papers, but I heard Adler open and then who should be there but Brent, with a grin on his face, a satchel in one hand, and a heavy coat of sunburn all over him. There was a chorus of “Hey's,” and they all went out to shake hands, all except Sheila, and ask him how he was, and when he was coming back to work. He said he'd got home last night, and would be back any time now. There didn't seem to be much I could do but shake hands too, so I gritted my teeth and did it, but I didn't ask him when he was coming back to work.

Then he said he'd come in for some of his stuff, and on his way back to the lockers he spoke to Sheila, and she spoke, without looking up. Then the rest of them went back to work. “Gee, he sure looks good, don't he?”

“Different from when he left.”

“He must have put on twenty pounds.”

“They fixed him up all right.”

Pretty soon he came out again, closing his grip, and there was some more talk, and he went. They all counted their cash, turned in their sheets, and put their cash boxes into the vault. Helm wheeled the trucks in, with the records on them, and then he went. Snelling went back to set the time lock.

That was when Church started some more of her apple-polishing­. She was about as unappetizing a girl as I ever saw. She was thick, and dumpy, with a delivery like she was making a speech all the time. She sounded like a dietician demonstrating a range in a department store basement, and she started in on a wonderful new adding machine that had just come on the market, and didn't I think we ought to have one. I said it sounded good, but I wanted to think it over. So then she said it all over again, and just about when she got going good she gave a little squeal and began pointing at the floor.