Читать книгу Mysteries Unlimited Ltd. - Donald Ph.D. Ladew - Страница 9

Irwin Allen Rommel sat in his chauffeured Bentley and stared up at the expanse of black, anti-glare, safety glass. In the San Francisco banking district, the Intercoastal Bank was known as the Black Behemoth. It was world class ugly and blocked some of the finest views of the bay.

It had been built by his predecessor, William ‘Bill’ Merriman. Bill was a nice guy. Everyone said so. In his five years as CEO, the bank lost one hundred and thirty million dollars and most of its prestige.

CEO Rommel wasn’t a nice guy. He didn’t know the in’s and out’s of international computer banking, but he did know how to run a large organization. In two years he got back the one hundred and thirty million, and the banks prestige.

In the trade he was frequently referred to as, ‘that asshole over at Intercoastal’. He figured, correctly, he was getting in someone’s shorts at B of A and Wells Fargo.

He hated the building. At a board meeting he referred to it as twenty-first century KGB, and would happily have destroyed it and started over.

Inside, he took a private elevator to the third floor. Top management did not inhabit the top floor. CEO Rommel and his panzer corps of bright young yuppy accountants occupied the third floor. He sent the computer wienies to the twenty first floor, directly under the computers. For cause, as he put it.

When a Senior Vice President in foreign operations asked why, he answered in a way that endeared him to all those who mistrust high tech.

Rommel said, “When the great quake comes I want to be sure those pimple-dick, digit-dropping, dope smoking pea brains are killed by their own hand, so-to-speak. I don’t mind cashing in myself, but not if any of those simpering swishes outlive me. They spend more money and make more trouble than a regiment of bank robbers.” Rommel wasn’t long on political correctness.

But that was then. For Rommel, life hadn’t been good since the great May Day looting, a year earlier. When you loose ninety million of the customer’s money, and only recover two, the board usually looks for abandoned tin mines and large male nurses to ‘care for’ the CEO in his ‘retirement’.

He was still the Boss. He was lucky.

It is also a fact, he thought, that none of those patricidal pansies want to test the power of my thirty five percent, or popularity with the rank and file.

What with insurance and other built in protections, they hadn’t been hurt too bad dollar wise, but their credibility, their face had taken a beating. And that, in the banking business can be more important than money.

Like religion, banks operate on faith—faith that the cash is safe from all marauders. If one tampers with that faith, the bank could end the day with no depositors at all. It had happened before.

After the raid, Rommel got a list of depositors, every man, woman and child who did business with the bank. Then he called or personally visited everyone of them. He told them what happened without pulling punches, and what he was doing to protect them. He was confident and persuasive, so much so, the bank showed a ten percent increase in deposits the month after his personal reassurance campaign ended.

But Rommel found it hard to go on with the same zest. He felt guilty. He didn’t have to, but he did. His favorite employee was in prison, and he was ninety percent sure she didn’t do a thing except be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He worked hard all morning then had lunch brought in. He ate alone and was miserable. Miss J. K. Heely, Vice President in charge of computer security, who used to have lunch with him and beat him unmercifully at gin rummy every Tuesday and Thursday, was in Mojave State Women’s Prison for seven years.

A bachelor, whose wife and children were long gone, he had few contemporaries, people he genuinely liked. When she was there, she called him Al, and explained the new technology in terms he understood. He couldn’t bully her, and she made him laugh. She really liked him and that made him feel...important.

When they found two million stashed in a secret account in Belgium, and traced it back to her, he didn’t believe it. His first thought was that she had been set up, but he did nothing. His lawyers and the bank’s legal branch suggested he distance himself as far as possible from her. And he did. It was unforgivable. One doesn’t desert ones friends.

He sat in his office as he had done for months, going over the theft a piece at a time, and each time he got the same answer. It had to be an inside job. He also realized he didn’t know enough to figure it out, and the one person who did, was in that goddamned prison.

Where had the ninety million come from in the first place? The operations officer said it was part of a deposit of cash from a large Japanese bank.

“You’re a better man...woman than I, Miss Heely,” he grumbled.

Not once during the trial had she mentioned him or their special relationship, not once. Nor had she asked him for help. She could have traded on that friendship. He told himself he went along with the lawyers for the good of the bank.

Horseshit!

When he bought into the bank, and then eventually took over, she had briefed him on bank security. He knew people. It was the machines that got the better of him. She had a knack for making the complexities of large, modern computer banking systems understandable. During those conversations he explained what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it.

She went to everyone in her department and urged them to support his ideas and quit bitching about it. She wouldn’t permit any negative comments or gossip. She did it so unobtrusively most men would never have known. During the whole re-construction she supported his policies and made sure that others did also.

He admitted that he liked having her around because she was good to look at. He wouldn’t admit it at first because he thought it undignified for a man of sixty eight to be making eyes at one of the employees.

He never made advances, but he liked her company. She dressed and smelled like a woman.

“Now, goddamn it, I eat alone and don’t loose at gin.”

He opened a small, black notebook and looked at the scores of their games, the notations of the amounts won and lost. After each game she took the note book and wrote comments. He read through them wistfully.

“Gentlemen don’t crow when they win $3.25,” he read aloud.

“What do they do when they lose $42.50?” he had written beneath her comment.

“They don’t use the ‘S’ and ‘F’ words!” she wrote under that.

He smiled, then his expression quickly sobered. He totaled up the amounts.

“By God, I owe that girl six hundred and fifty dollars!” He sat staring out the window morosely.

“It was worth a lot more.” He pushed the plates aside and sat down at the PC she had taught him to use.

“I better write her a letter. I’m going to be one miserable son of a bitch until I do.”