Cash Burn (38 page)

You’re a liar.

You’re a cheat.

You’re a murderer.

60

Bankers drifted in late today. From his office, Jason listened for them and watched them pass. Some called good mornings to him. Billy sent out a Happy Thanksgiving e-mail.

Phones sat idle. The whole feel of the bank was different on a day like this. People were here and yet not here, their minds elsewhere. On this abbreviated day, not much was expected. Projects would be postponed and more time spent in idle conversation than on anything impacting the business.

But Jason sat with his hands knotted together underneath his desk, his arms straining with the clutching of his fingers. After the hours of watching the staff enter, he tried to keep his face pointed at the papers before him. Rows of numbers, columns of them. Sixteen years he’d been eyeing these things, searching for trends and trying to look beyond them into the uncertainty of the future to ascertain the likelihood of repayment. But now these figures lined up on a sheet had lost any meaning. They might as well have been skimmed from a bowl of alphabet soup to be sorted and bunched by a child’s hands.

He’d delivered the documents. Walked them down to loan ops himself to explain the importance of funding the loan today. At this second they were being reviewed by the loan operations department. The processing staff would compare the documents to the approval memo for accuracy. Right now, one of them was probably going through a checklist, making sure the package was complete, the terms correct, the signatures valid. Next they would make entries on the bank’s computer system, taking from the documents the name of the borrower and the total commitment amount and entering it into the bank’s system along with the date the bank expected payments that only Jason and Brenda knew would never be received. The staff would check and double-check the input before finalizing the files on the system. Then, once the loan was properly entered, they would instruct the wire room to send out the funds.

Today as always the loan ops staff would be conscientious. They lived for details, for accuracy. They judged their performance by the absence of mistakes and one-upped one another with their perfection. Catching an error was a highlight of their existence. Correcting it was a bonus.

But nothing could go wrong now. He’d received the approvals he needed. The loan committee had blessed it. The memo bore the committee secretary’s stamp and the signature loan ops would be looking for. The documents were based on the very templates prepared for other credits to Northfield. The signatures Brenda had forged were perfect.

But still his heart thudded in his chest like a caged man pounding on a wall. Thirty million. Sure, he wanted revenge against Vince and Mark. But this would sink the bank. The jobs of every one of the people bantering outside his office would be jeopardized. The jobs of branch employees, tellers, the guys in the mail room. The FDIC would invade this place with their plans and suitors, and before a week was out, BTB would be either absorbed by another bank or shuttered. Another $10-billion bank on the skids. But not because of toxic assets this time. Because of fraud.

He stared at his phone. He could pick it up and call loan ops and tell them the whole thing was off. The customer had changed his mind. The acquisition had fallen through. Something. Anything. The $30 million hadn’t left the bank. He could tell them not to post those debits and credits. The loan wouldn’t be funded.

The readout on the phone read 10:42 a.m. Another couple of hours, and he could walk out of here forever. With Brenda, ready for a life of travel and pleasure.

Or into shackles and a prison cell if anything went wrong.

No. He’d considered every angle. It was perfect. In its timing. This day. No one would suspect anything today. No one would be surprised that he and Brenda were both taking a day off on the Friday after Thanksgiving. In its execution, it was flawless. The documents were right. Every letter of them. The signatures.

His computer chimed. An e-mail from Nancy, head of loan ops. He nearly crushed his mouse clicking on the icon.

The lawyer’s consistency letter was missing from the package.

A grunt escaped from his throat. How could he have forgotten the consistency letter? It usually came over e-mail along with the final set of loan documents from the bank’s attorney.

Brenda was at his door. Eyes wide, she glanced over her shoulder and back at him. She’d been copied on the e-mail, as usual.

She marched to his desk. “What’s a consistency letter?”

Jason sorted his e-mail for everything he had from Casey Flynn. He’d used Casey for every loan he’d ever done for Northfield. There had to be a consistency letter saved somewhere in his e-mail.

But no.

“It’s a letter that lists out everything they prepared. It says the docs are consistent with the bank’s approval and the bank’s standards for documentation. It put the onus on the law firm for mistakes in the documents.”

He went to his archived e-mails. There were hundreds of e-mails from Casey. “I’ve got to have one here someplace.” He began clicking on every e-mail with an attachment. Casey never labeled his documents with anything decipherable. The attachments were always coded with a series of numbers broken by underscores. Some kind of code within the firm that made it easy for them to find a particular piece of paper but made it impossible for Jason to differentiate between a consistency letter and a collateral search.

Jason reached for his phone. Nancy picked up.

“Hey, Nancy. It’s Jason. Can we get this thing boarded without the consistency letter? I don’t know if I’ll be able to track Casey down.” He opened another attachment. A security agreement. Next.

“Sure, just need credit admin’s approval. Cynthia’s covering today. Do you want me to e-mail her?”

It was the last thing he wanted.

Every attachment he opened took a lifetime to load. His archived e-mails were someplace in the bank’s cyber-warehouse, so who knew how many firewalls and links each document had to pass through.

“No, I’ll see if I can track down Casey.” He struggled to keep his voice level. Just a documentation glitch. It happened with nearly every single legitimate loan ever boarded. “How do the rest of the docs look?”

Brenda paced back and forth on the other side of his desk. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

Nancy said, “Everything else looks good. Rebecca’s just about done with the data entry. Just need that consistency letter to board. Do you need any help tracking down Casey?”

“No, I’ll try his cell. I’ll take care of it.”

They clicked off. He found the execution documents for his last deal for Northfield. Eight attachments. He began opening them.

The last one was Casey’s consistency letter.

“Here.” He printed it. “Check the printer.”

Brenda spun for the door and was back in seconds, reading the letter. “Do we list out the same documents?”

“Give it to me. There are too many people out there. Somebody might look over your shoulder.” He put the letter in his lap and prepared to type it out. He looked up at her. “What do we do about the letterhead? It’s got to be on their letterhead.”

“Just type it out.” She returned to her desk.

He heard a noise. When he looked up, she was in the doorway again. “E-mail it to me when it’s done. With the other one.” She closed his door.

He had the list of documents typed out when the door opened and the two parole officers walked in, looking ready for a fight.

61

“You come in too, baby.” Hathaway talked to Brenda like she was his pet. “Come on.”

“I’ve got work to do.”

“This won’t take long.” He winked at her, chomping at his gum.

Tom faced the brother. No tie today. Bankers dressed down the day before Thanksgiving, apparently.

“What do you want? I haven’t seen him. I’ll call you if I see him.”

“And good morning to you too,” Hathaway said. Tom heard the door close behind them. Hathaway ushered Brenda into the little circle they formed with Jason. He hadn’t moved from behind his desk.

Jason looked at Hathaway. “We’re trying to get some things done around here so we can take off for the holiday. What do you want?”

“You haven’t heard from him?” Tom asked.

“No. I would’ve called you.”

“Well, you won’t. He’s dead.”

A breath escaped from Brenda. Her hands clenched and went to her abdomen.

The banker laughed. People did that sometimes. “No way.”

“Trash men found him in an alley this morning about a mile from your house.”

His face started twisting. Here was what Tom wanted to see. Jason fell back in his chair and his head turned away. His top lip snarled upward.

“Well, lookie here.” Hathaway leaned forward to get a better look at Brenda. She tried to get away from him, but Hathaway caught her by the chin. “I told you, Tommy.”

“Get your hands off her.” The banker came out of his chair. Papers fell from the edge of his desk onto the floor. He was around the desk and ready to shove into Hathaway, but Hathaway chopped the banker’s arms away. He caught Jason by the shoulder, twisted him around and had his arm ready for breaking by the time he pinned his chest against the wall.

“I understand you’re in a state of shock, brother Dunn,” Hathaway breathed into the banker’s ear. “So maybe you’re not responsible for your actions. But you don’t want me to haul you in for assault, do you?”

Tom kept his eyes on the girl. She blinked away tears. Her arms folded across her chest and then fell back to her sides. She couldn’t seem to keep her feet still.

Again, Hathaway had been right about some kind of connection here.

Hathaway backed away from the banker and shoved him toward his desk.

Jason’s sport coat had been ripped at the shoulder. He looked down at it, stripped the coat off and threw it at Hathaway. “Why did you come here? What did you expect to find out?”

The girl wouldn’t look at them. Hathaway got in her face. “Trying to think about something else, aren’t you? Don’t want to think about Flip.”

“I don’t even know him. It’s Jason’s brother, that’s all.”

Tom looked close. “Just feeling sorry for your boss, is that it?”

She nodded. But tears brimmed her eyes.

Hathaway’s head shook back and forth, and a smile warped his mouth. “No, no, no.” He pointed at her face. “You knew him. Didn’t you?”

“She’s never even met him,” the brother said. He supported himself with the desk. Tom could see the anger draining from the banker’s face. “I’ve got to call my father.” The words came out vacant of emotion.

Tom and Hathaway watched as Brenda touched away a tear escaping from her left eye.

She lifted her chin and shook her head as if she’d just come out of the water. “Can’t you get out of here? Poor Jason’s just lost his brother. Don’t you have any decency?”

“How did you know him? His brother doesn’t think you did, but we know better, don’t we, Tommy?”

“Yes, we do. What was it you and Flip had going?”

The threat of tears was gone. It was as if she’d lowered over her face the veil of the character she played. The real woman was again replaced by the part of Brenda Tierney.

“I’m telling you, she doesn’t know him.” The banker returned to his chair. He lifted from the floor the papers that had fallen when he went after Hathaway. He stared at them for a long time.

Hathaway didn’t take his eyes off the girl. “Tell us about the real Brenda Tierney.”

For an instant, her guard dropped. Those green eyes betrayed fear. Then the veil dropped again. “You’re looking at her.”

“No, the
real
Brenda Tierney,” Tom said. “The one born in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania.”

Her eyes held. She didn’t allow them to shift. She was good, all right.

“We got your social. The one you used when you applied here. Your HR people really want to cooperate with us. That Brenda Tierney wasn’t born around here at all.”

“So I was born in Westmoreland. So what?”

Tom stepped in. “So how do you live in two different places? You’ve still got an address in Pennsylvania, and this address here in LA. What’s that about? And what’s the tie with Flip Dunn?”

“There’s no tie. My parents live in Pennsylvania. I went to school there. They still get some of my mail.”

Hathaway looked at her as if he were peering through a magnifying glass. “Tidy.”

She waved a hand. “You guys need another hobby. Jason, I don’t think we have to listen to this.”

The banker slouched in his chair. His eyes had the appearance of having sunk far into their sockets. “Get out.”

“Don’t you want to know where the body is?” Tom asked.

“No.” He blinked, seemed to regain something. “All right. Where is he?”

“Coroner’s. You need the address?”

“No.” He stared at the papers he’d picked up off the floor. “I have to call my father.”

Hathaway leaned into Brenda. “We’ll be in touch, baby.”

“I’m not your baby.”

Tom said, “They really want to cooperate with us. We’ve got your picture, your fingerprints. It’s just a matter of time until we find out who you really are.”

“Get a life.” She went to Jason. “You better call your dad. I’ll finish that up for you.”

He looked up at her. The papers drew his attention like something from the distant past. Things like a brother’s death had a way of dividing time into before and after.

The banker handed her the papers.

62

Alone in his office, holding the handset to his landline, Jason stared at the telephone and tried to think of what he would say to his father. How do you tell a man his son is dead? Do you drag it out, tell him you’ve got some bad news, try to prepare him for the worst thing he’ll ever experience by giving him five seconds to brace himself? Do you tell him to sit down?

He thought of his father in that old shell of a house, the only sounds the clink of bottle on glass or the scrape of a dog’s toenails against linoleum. The old man shuffling from room to room or collapsing into an easy chair to try for something on television that didn’t make him too angry to watch. No friends. No companion other than the canine that watched mutely from the corner.