Sons of Fortune (44 page)

By
seven, Fletcher was relieved to see a few more blue lines appearing on the
sheets and although the Republicans were still in the lead, the feeling was
that it would go to the line. Jimmy had to cut the last six houses down to
eleven minutes each, and even then he didn’t reach the final two until after
the poll had closed.

“What
now?” asked Fletcher as he walked away from the last
house.

Jimmy
checked his watch. “Back to HQ and listen to the tallest stories you’ve ever
heard. If you win, they will become folklore, and if you lose, they will be
disowned and quickly forgotten.”

“Like
me,” commented Fletcher.

Jimmy
turned out to be right, because back at HQ everyone was talking at once, but
only the foolhardy and naturally optimistic were willing to predict what the
result would be. The first exit poll was broadcast minutes after the last vote
had been cast and showed that Hunter had won by a whisker.

The
national polls were predicting that Ford had beaten
Carter.that
“History repeating itself,” said Harry as he walked into the room. “Those same
guys were telling me that Dewey was going to be our next president.

They
also said I’d lose by a whisker, and we cut both those whiskers off, so don’t
worry about straw polls, Fletcher, they’re for straw men.”

“What
about the turnout?” asked Fletcher, recalling Jimmy’s
words.

“Too
early to be sure, it’s certainly over fifty percent, but not fifty-five.”

Fletcher
looked around at his team and realized that it was no longer any use thinking
about how to gather in votes, as the time had come to count them.

“There’s
not much else we can do now,” said Harry, “except to make sure that our tellers
register at City Hall before ten. The rest of you should take a break, and
we’ll all meet up at the count later. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long
night.”

In
the car on the way to Mario’s, Harry told Fletcher he couldn’t see a lot of
point in them turning up much before eleven, “so let’s have a quiet meal and
follow the party’s fortunes in the rest of the country on Mario’s television.”

Any
chance of a quiet meal evaporated when Fletcher and Harry entered the
restaurant, and several of the diners rose to their feet and applauded the two
men all the way to their table in the corner.

Fletcher
was pleased to find his parents had already arrived, and were enjoying a drink.

“So
what can I recommend?” asked Mario once everybody had settled down.

“I’m
too tired to even think about it,” said Martha. “Mario, why don’t you go ahead
and choose for us, as you’ve never taken any notice of our opinion in the
past.”

“Of
course, Mrs. Gates,” said Mario, “just
leave
it to
me.”

Annie
stood up and waved when Joanna and Jimmy walked in. As Fletcher kissed Joanna
on the cheek, he glanced over her shoulder to see Jimmy Carter on Mario’s
television arriving back at his ranch, and moments later President Ford
stepping onto a helicopter. He wondered what sort of a day they’d had.

“Your
timing is perfect,” said Harry as Joanna took the seat next to him, “we’ve only
just arrived. How are the children?”

Within
minutes, Mario returned carrying two large plates of antipasti, while a waiter
followed with two carafes of white wine. “The wine is on the house,” declared
Mario, “I think maybe you make it,” he said as he poured a glass for Fletcher
to taste.
Someone else who wasn’t willing to predict the
result.

Fletcher
put a hand under the table and touched Annie’s knee. “I’m going to say a few
words.”

“Must
you?” said Jimmy, pouring himself a second glass of wine. “I’ve heard enough
speeches from you to last a lifetime.”

“It
will be short, I promise you,” Fletcher said as he rose from his place,
“because everyone I want to thank is at this table. Let me start with Harry and
Martha.
If I hadn’t sat next to their dreadful little brat on
my first day at school.
I would never have met Annie, or indeed Martha
and Harry, who have changed my whole life, although in truth it is my mother
who is to blame, because it was she who insisted that I went to Hotchkiss
rather than Tail. How different my life might have been if my father had had
his way.” He smiled at his mother. “So thank you.”

He
sat down just as Mario reappeared at their table carrying another bottle of wine.

“I
don’t remember ordering that,” said Harry.

“You
didn’t,” said Mario, “it’s a gift from a gentleman sitting on the far side of
the room.8I

“That’s
very kind of him,” said Fletcher, “did he leave
his.,,
name?”

“No,
all he said was that he was sorry not to be able to give you more help during
the election, but he’s been involved in a takeover. He’s one of our regulars,”
added Mario, “I think he’s something to do with Russell’s Bank.”

Fletcher
looked across the restaurant and nodded when Nat Cartwright raised a hand. He
had a feeling that he’d seen him somewhere before.

K

“How
did she manage it?” asked Tom, his face ashen.

“She
chose her victim well and, to be fair, she paid meticulous attention to
detail.”

“But
that doesn’t explain
. .”

“How
she knew we would agree to transfer the money? That was the easy part,” said
Nat. “Once all the other pieces had fallen neatly into place, all Julia had to
do was call Ray and instruct him to move her account to another bank.”

“But
Russell’s closes at
five,
and most of the staff leave
before six, especially at a weekend.”

“In Hartford.”

“I
don’t understand,” said Tom.

“She
instructed our chief cashier to transfer the full amount to a bank in San
Francisco, where it was still only two in the afternoon.”

“But
I only left her alone for a few minutes.”

“Long enough for her to make a phone call to her
lawyer.”

“Then
why didn’t Ray contact me?”

“He
tried to, but you weren’t in the office and she took the phone off the hook
when you got home, and don’t forget when I called you from LA, it was three
thirty, but it was six thirty in Hartford and Russell’s was already closed.”

“If
only you hadn’t been on vacation.”

“My
bet is she took that into consideration as well,” said Nat.

“But how?”

“One
call to my secretary asking for an appointment that
week,
and she would have known I would be in LA, and no doubt you confirmed as much
soon after you’d met her.”

Tom
hesitated. “Yes, I did. But it doesn’t explain why Ray didn’t refuse to action
the transfer.”

“Because
you’d deposited the full amount in her account, and the law is very clear in a
case like this: if she asks for a transfer, we have no choice but to carry out
her instructions. As her lawyer pointed out when he called Ray at four fifty,
by which time you were on your way back home.”

“But
she’d already signed a check and handed it over to Mr. Cooke.”

“Yes,
and if you had returned to the bank and informed our chief teller about that
check, he might have felt able to hold off any decision until Monday.”

“But
how could she be so confident that I would authorize the extra money to be
placed in her account?”

“She
wasn’t, that’s why she opened an account with us and deposited $500,000,
assuming we would accept that she had more; than sufficient funds to cover the
purchase of Cedar Wood.”

“But
you told me that her company checked out?”

“And
it did.
Kirkbridge
and Company is based in New York
and made a profit of just over a million dollars last year, and surprise,
surprise,
the majority shareholder is a Mrs. Julia
Kirkbridge
. And it was only because Su Ling thought she was
a phony that I even called to check and see if the company was having a board
meeting that morning. When the switchboard operator informed me that Mrs.
Kirkbridge
couldn’t be disturbed as she was in that
meeting, the last piece of the jigsaw fell neatly into place. Now that’s what I
mean by attention to detail.
”,

“But
there’s still a missing link,” said Tom.

“Yes,
and that’s what turns her from an ordinary
flim
-flam
artist into a fraudster of true genius.

It
was Harry
Gates’s
amendment to the finance bill that
presented her with a hoop that she knew we would have to jump through.”

“How
does Senator Gates get in on the act?” asked Tom.

“It
was he who proposed the amendment to the property bill stipulating that all
future transactions enacted with the council should be paid in full on
signature of the agreement.”

“But
I told her that the bank would cover whatever surplus proved necessary.”

“And
she knew that wouldn’t be sufficient,” said Nat, “because the senator’s
amendment insisted that the principal beneficiary,” Nat opened the brochure at
a passage he had underlined, “had to sign both the check and the agreement. The
moment you rushed back to inquire if she had a checkbook with her, Julia knew
she had you by the balls.”

“But
what if I’d said the deal is off unless you can come up with the full amount?”

“She
would have returned to New York that night, transferred her half million back
to Chase, and you would never have heard from her again.”

“Whereas
she pocketed three point one million dollars of our money and held on to her
own $500
,000
,” said Tom.

“Correct,”
said Nat, “and by the time the banks open in San Francisco this morning, that
money will have disappeared off to the Cayman Islands via Zurich or possibly
even Moscow, and although I’ll obviously go through the motions, I don’t
believe we have a hope in hell of retrieving one cent of it.”

“Oh,
God,” said Tom, “I’ve just remembered that Mr. Cooke will be presenting that
check this morning, and I gave him my word that it would be cleared the same
day.”

“Then
we shall have to clear it,” said Nat. “
It’s
one thing
for the bank to lose money, quite another for it to lose its reputation, a
reputation which your grandfather and father took a hundred years to
establish.”

Tom
looked up at Nat. “The first thing I must do is resign.”

“Despite
your
naivete
, that’s the last thing you should do.
Unless, of course, you want everyone to find out what a fool you’ve made of
yourself and immediately transfer their accounts to Fairchild’s. No, the one
commodity I need is time, so I suggest you take a few days off. In fact, don’t
mention the Cedar Wood project again, and if anyone should raise the subject,
you simply refer them to me.”

Tom
remained silent for some time, before he said, “The true irony is that I asked
her to marry me.”

“And
her true genius is that she accepted,” replied Nat.

“How
did you know that?” asked Tom.

“It
would have all been part of her plan.”

“Clever
girl,” said Tom.

“I’m
not so sure,” said Nat, “because if you two had become engaged, I was ready to
offer her a place on the board.”

“So
she had you fooled as well,” said Tom.

“Oh
yes,” replied Nat, “with her grasp of finance she wouldn’t have been a
passenger, and had she married you she would have made a lot more than three
point one million, so there must be another man involved.” Nat paused. “I
suspect he was the one on the other end of the phone.” Nat turned to leave.
“I’ll be in my office,” he said, “and remember, we only ever discuss this
matter in private, nothing in writing, never on the phone.”

Tom
nodded as Nat closed the door quietly behind him.

“Good
morning, Mr. Cartwright,” said Nat’s secretary as he walked into his office,
“did you have a good vacation?”

“Yes,
I did, thank you, Linda,” he replied cheerily. “I’m not sure who enjoyed
Disneyland more, Luke or
myself
.” She smiled.

“Any
real problems?” he asked innocently.

“No,
I don’t think so. The final documents for the takeover of Bennett’s came
through last Friday, so from January first, you’ll be running two banks.”

Or
none,
thought Nat. “I need to speak to a Mrs. Julia
Kirk-bridge, the director of...”

“
Kirkbridge
and Company,” said Linda. Nat froze. “You asked
for the details of her company just before you went on vacation.”

“Of
course I did,” said Nat.

Nat
was rehearsing what he would say to Mrs.
Kirkbridge
,
when his secretary buzzed through to tell him that she was on the line.