Читать книгу Sins of Our Fathers - Shawn Lawrence Otto - Страница 13

5

The following morning was fine and dry, and it felt warm as JW left the building. He pulled out onto Sixth, heading for the highway. The city of North Lake had a scenic rusticity that owed much to its proximity to the west end of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a vast roadless expanse of hundreds of lakes along the border with Canada. Native lake names like Kekekabic, Ogishkemuncie, and Gabimichigami, fell easily from the tongues of Iron Rangers when they talked fishing, and the region attracted outdoor enthusiasts from around the world who wanted to experience an authentic American wilderness. North Woods décor, log buildings with dark green roofs, colorful chalk sandwich boards changed daily by dreadlocked hipsters, Will Steger mukluks, and tree stumps sculpted by chain saws into bears and eagles all helped to attract eco-vacationers who injected cash into the local economy.

North Lake Bank operated from a log building out on the main highway. It hadn’t been built to appeal to the granola crowd. That was a happy accident. During the housing crisis, one of JW’s best customers, a log home builder, was suddenly left with several unsellable vacation homes he had built on spec. They were pitched up like derelicts along the vast shores of North Lake. When he fell behind on his payments, rather than liquidate his business at a certain loss, JW suggested he use his unsold inventory to construct a new building for the bank, thereby saving an important customer’s business and solving the bank’s space problem at a bargain-basement price. The picturesque result had earned JW a feature article in Banking magazine and a Community Banker of the Year nomination. Since then, business was up sharply.

He pulled in, bumping up over the curb cut. A large carport supported by thick log posts and iron stanchions sheltered the drive-through lanes. The grounds were well landscaped, with a chain-saw sculpture of a leaping trout on the front strip of grass. He angled into a space marked by a small brass lawn sign that read President.

The morning’s rising heat hit him hard as he stepped out. The lawn sprinkler heads hissed, wetting the sidewalk. Schmeaker’s black Charger with its red NRA bumper sticker was already parked in his spot, which was marked by a similar sign that read Vice President.

With morning had come clarity. He was still the president of North Lake Bank. He could get a short-term loan to consolidate his debts. He would call Carol to apologize. It was all manageable. He pulled open the front doors, fully reinhabiting the persona of the competent and successful bank president, the man invited to speak about his successes around the Midwest. He was, truly, among the very best at what he did, and that counted for something.

Sandy smiled up at him.

“Sandy.”

“Good Morning, Mr. White. Mr. Jorgenson’s here to see you.”

“Jorgenson?”

That was a strange bit of news. JW walked back to his office to deposit his things on his desk. He wondered what could have caused Jorgenson to make the four-hour drive and arrive by nine in the morning, when he had just seen him yesterday afternoon.

JW snugged his tie and headed for the conference room, a wood-paneled space centered by a long table. Its red surface was rich with morning light slanting in through wooden blinds. Jorgenson sat at the far end, poring over some papers.

“Frank! Is something wrong?”

Jorgenson looked up from the paperwork. His face was inscrutable.

“Close the door, John.”

JW corrected course, surprised at Jorgenson’s tone.

“Sure.”

He closed the door and touched the button to turn the blinds down slightly, as a courtesy more than anything, and began walking between the wall of windows and the long table.

“Everything all right?”

“No, John, I’m afraid it’s not.” Jorgenson set the papers down and sat back as he neared. “I didn’t sleep last night. I got up at four in the morning just to come and see you, so I could find out what’s going on up here.”

JW’s heart sped up. Had he discovered the loan? “I don’t understand.”

Jorgenson picked up his smartphone and thrust it toward JW. The screen glowed with colors.

“Take a look at that.”

JW took it and examined the image. Two men pored over a roll of blueprints spread over the hood of a truck. Behind them rose the pale ribs of a new building. He was surprised to recognize one of the men.

“That’s Johnny Eagle.”

“The one from your talk yesterday. And he’s at the building site that Sam Schmeaker’s been e-mailing me about, the one that’s going up on the edge of town. Just took that this morning.”

JW looked up at him. Jorgenson was clearly irritated. “What else do you know about him?” he asked.

JW put the phone down. He didn’t, really. Not much more than the story in his presentation. “Moved back to the reservation after his wife died, little over a year ago.”

He pulled his right cuff farther down his wrist. His white shirt and collar felt constricting under his jacket, as if they had become twisted somehow.

“Have you been keeping track of this building project?” said Jorgenson.

“There’ve been some grumblings about it at the Sunrise Rotary, but—” He hadn’t paid any particular attention. They had just started putting it up ten days ago or so. “It’s on the edge of the reservation. They haven’t announced what it is yet,” he said.

“Last year when he was in here, was it a tribal loan he was after?”

JW shook his head. “No, I would have approved that. It was for his house. An addition, remodel or something, and some kind of small business.”

Jorgenson nodded, thinking about it. “You know he used to be a vice president at one of our competitors in Minneapolis,” he said. “A real climber. They called him the Indian Obama.”

JW saw the implication. He picked the phone back up and thumbed through some of the other images. “You think it’s a bank.”

Jorgenson looked both worried and aggressive, like a bear about to strike. “You tell me.”

JW finished thumbing through the images. The structure did seem to have preparations for a drive-through canopy. “We’d lose the tribal deposits,” he said, setting the phone back on the table.

Jorgenson nodded. “Yeah, and that would probably put this branch out of business. I bet that’s his intent. Do you know how much Capitol Bank Holdings paid for this branch?”

“No.” He wanted to sit, but Jorgenson hadn’t asked him to, and he sensed that it would anger him.

“Eight million dollars. And you built it higher since.”

JW suddenly realized how damaging such a development would be to Jorgenson’s CEO campaign. If a tribal bank put Jorgenson’s flagship branch out of business, they would lose millions of dollars and his entire strategy for growth near casinos would be called into question. JW and everyone who worked here would be out of a job, and permanently blemished by the failure. It would be a blow to the entire community.

“You’re the expert on this, John. Christ, you teach it,” said Jorgenson. “How many tribe-owned banks are there?”

“Not many. They’d need a state or federal charter to do it.”

Jorgenson looked at him for a moment as if contemplating something, then nodded faintly.

“If you took a leave, do you think you could get your arms around this thing for us?”

“A leave?” JW was shocked. “Frank, I’ve got my hands full as branch president—”

“Well, actually—”

Jorgenson slid a piece of paper out from beneath the stack of financial reports he had been reviewing and pushed it across the table to JW.

“I’ve been looking into some of your loans. One in particular.”

JW picked it up, noticing how the embossed recorder’s seal caught the light. He saw his signature along with the forgeries of Sam’s and Sandy’s as the notary public. It was the second mortgage on his home. The $100,000 figure suddenly looked staggering. He felt a wave of nausea.

“What’s the problem? It’s my second mortgage. That’s what banks do, they improve people’s lives.”

“John, come on, okay? You’ve been waiving your payments for almost a year.”

JW laughed. “You know Carol. Her redecorating—”

“Bullshit! Okay? Bullshit.” Jorgenson slapped the table. “Everybody knows you’ve got a gambling problem, and that you and Carol are separated over it. Christ, I used to run this branch! You think I don’t still have connections? I also know you’re being evicted from your apartment. So let’s cut the shit, and you give me some honest answers.”

“Frank, it’s just a little gaming.”

“This is embezzling,” Jorgenson said, stabbing the papers with his fingers. “Put your keys on the table. I’m going to call the FBI.”

JW hesitated.

“Now!”

JW felt sick and paralyzed. The enormity of what was happening was surreal. He started to reach for his keys, but somehow he found the presence of mind to push back.

“Just, now just, wait,” he said, his voice shaking. “Okay? I’ve made you a lot of money. I’ve turned this into the most profitable branch in your territory.”

“That’s why I was offering you a deal,” said Jorgenson.

“Well, let me—” JW stared at him, but words eluded him.

“What, do you think I’m fucking around?”

JW swallowed and forced himself to focus. “No. It’s just, sudden. You want me to investigate him.”

“Without alerting him, yes.” Jorgenson seemed to calm. “You figure out what it is and if it’s a real threat.” He leaned back again. “We’ll tell people you’re taking a leave to deal with your gambling problem. You get yourself one of those twelve-step books and you carry it around with you. Might even do you some good.”

JW turned away and looked through the blinds, out at the fields behind the bank, breathing deeply in a conscious effort to get hold of himself. He looked down. Sunlight cast dark stripes across his new suit and his hands. He felt his jaw muscles bulging, and he willed them to relax.

“Okay,” he said, barely audible.

“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

“Okay!” JW had a sudden impulse to strangle him.

“Wise man,” said Jorgenson. “Whispering Pines manages some trailer homes out on the reservation, near where this Johnny Eagle lives,” he said. “Go take one. I’ll cover your rent.”

JW stood motionless, staring out the window. “And if it is a bank?” He turned back and presented a composed face to Jorgenson, who rose from his chair and walked toward him. He stopped and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Then I want you to stop him.”