Shell Game (Stand Alone 2) (7 page)

Katherine eyed the column and a small shack hidden behind it. She spied a one-foot-square metal door. She turned the handle on the door and found an electrical panel with a green and red button. She pushed the green button and the gate immediately began to slide open. She met Paul’s gaze and snapped her fingers. “Nothing to it, Paul.”

“Aw, jeez, what have I gotten myself into?” He walked back to his car and drove through the gate, stopping to let Katherine get in the passenger seat before proceeding toward an immense residence that was more castle than house. It was a four-story stone structure with a pitched gray slate roof and huge dormers. The driveway branched to the right toward a five car garage, and to the left to the front entrance. A stone fountain sat in the middle of the circular drive that was at least fifty yards across.

“You realize this is trespassing,” Paul said.

Katherine didn’t respond, waiting for Paul to stop by the front entrance. She got out of the car, walked up to the front door, and pressed the doorbell. She waited for thirty long seconds but got no response. She tried the bell again, with the same result.

Paul got out of his car. “He’s gone, Katherine. Let’s get out of here.”

Ignoring Paul, Katherine lifted an enormous metal knocker in the center of the door and let it drop. The noise it made was loud enough to wake the dead, she thought. It also caused the door to move an inch. She turned around and said to Paul, “The door’s not locked.” She turned back to the door and pushed against it.

“Don’t go in there, Katherine,” Paul yelled, as he ran after her. By the time he reached the door, she was already inside, standing in the center of an entry half the size of a basketball court. A five-tier chandelier hung overhead; curved stairways rose to the next floor from each side of the entry.

“Hello, is anyone home?” Katherine shouted.

Paul grabbed her arm and groaned, “This is nuts. We can’t be in here.”

She shook off his hand and said, “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what? I didn’t hear anything but my beating heart.”

“Quiet, Paul. Listen.”

They stood in the center of that massive area and listened. A few seconds passed before a sound drifted down from somewhere above the first floor.

“You hear it now, Paul?”

He nodded. “Sounds like it’s coming from upstairs.” He moved toward the bottom of the left staircase and waited. This time the sound came louder. Moaning and then sobbing.

No longer hesitant, Paul moved up the stairs as quickly as his out-of-shape legs would allow. By the time he reached the next floor, Katherine sprinted past him. They fast-walked down the corridor to the left toward an ornate double door. Paul pulled Katherine back before she could grip the door handle and stepped in front of her. He pushed down on the handle and slowly opened the door. Katherine moved around Paul and stepped into the room. A tall, young blonde wearing a silk robe that draped her shoulders bent before a vanity table, her hands on the table supporting her, looking into a mirror. She was sobbing terribly. She had apparently not heard them enter.

“Miss,” Paul said.

The young woman whipped around and shrieked. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Paul had barely moved into the room, when his breath caught in his chest. The woman’s robe was open and she wore nothing beneath it. Not only was her face marked with red and purple bruises, but her chest, stomach, and thighs were also badly bruised.

A pained grimace swept her features. A high-pitched screech that turned into a scream filled the room. The woman clutched her robe around her and shouted, “Get out!”

Katherine put up her hands, palms out. “I’m sorry. We came to speak to Mr. Folsom. The door was open and we heard someone moaning and ran up here to help.”

The woman wiped the sleeve of her robe across her eyes. “Get out!”

“You look hurt, Miss. We can help.”

“Get out or I’ll call the police.” She started crying.

Paul walked forward, taking a business card out of his shirt pocket and placing it on the vanity. “If you need help, call me.” Then he turned and walked from the room.

Katherine backed out after Paul, turned in the hallway and followed him downstairs. They made their way back to the car and drove away, heading back to Katherine’s place.

“Did you see the bruises on her face, on her body?” Katherine asked once the house was out of sight.

“Yeah. She looked awful.”

“Folsom?” she asked.

“I guess?” Paul answered.

“The sonofabitch!”

“Still think you can reason with the man?”

Gerald Folsom sucked on a cut knuckle on his right hand. Probably shouldn’t have hit her so hard, he thought. He’d gotten carried away. The more she cried and pleaded, the more he was aroused, which only made him beat her more. But he’d almost knocked her out. He wanted his women awake and begging, fear showing on their faces, not unconscious. Otherwise, it just wasn’t any fun.

He wondered briefly about the car he had passed after he left. A man and a woman. Older couple. Probably just taking pictures of his mansion. It happened all the time. People thought it was a friggin’ tourist site. He put the couple out of his mind. He had more important things to dwell on. Sanford Cunningham was due at Folsom’s offices at 10 a.m. to brief him on progress on the transition of ownership of Broad Street National Bank.

Folsom hated the damned banking business. Too many employees, too many branches, too many customers, too much regulatory oversight. And then there was all that bullshit about CRA. Banks had to adhere to Community Reinvestment Act rules and regulations that essentially required lending institutions to “give back to the community” by making loans to disadvantaged borrowers, among other requirements. “Fuck CRA,” Folsom muttered. He’d made a lot of money off the Feds, but they were all a bunch of bureaucratic pantywaists who were concerned about two things only: Their jobs and their retirements. These assholes had been asleep at the switch while loans were being made to anyone who could fog a mirror. Now they were covering their asses by demonizing the bankers and taking over perfectly good lending institutions. Good for him; bad for the bankers; bad for bank shareholders; bad for the taxpayers.

The Feds had “encouraged” him to buy Broad Street National Bank by threatening to not sell him any more loan pools. He’d been buying loan pools from the Feds at huge discounts, making tens of millions of dollars on each pool. Buy a $100 million pool at twenty cents on the dollar, or $20 million. Then strong arm the borrowers to pay up or forfeit their collateral. Even if he only collected $40 million from the pool, he’d doubled his money. The Feds were smart enough to realize how good the deals were they’d given him. Now they wanted him to come to their assistance. So, he’d forked over the bucks to buy this bank so the Feds wouldn’t have to come in and close it down, scaring the crap out of the average citizen and the politicians in Washington, and depleting the FDIC insurance fund. The last thing the FDIC wanted was another Indy Mac fiasco —panicked depositors lined up to get their money.

Well, he’d collect whatever loans he could, liquidate the collateral on those he couldn’t collect, and then liquidate the bank or sell the franchise to some big financial institution that wanted a branch footprint in Philadelphia—one of the big nine banks who were in bed with the Feds. Too big to fail, my ass, he thought.

He pressed the telephone button on his steering wheel and engaged his Bluetooth device, speed dialing Donald Matson’s cell phone number.

“Hello,” Matson answered in a hushed voice.

“It’s Gerald,” Folsom said. “Where are you?”

“In church. Hold on while I go outside.”

“Church, my aching butt,” Folsom groaned. “Probably begging God’s forgiveness for taking bribes to fuck over unsuspecting bankers and dumbshit taxpayers.”

“What was that?” Matson asked.

“Nothing,” Folsom said. “Probably the radio. What are your employees telling you about the Broad Street Bank transition?”

“Everything’s going great. Cunningham’s a real pro. He’s done this at least a dozen times now, right?”

“Three times since working for me; probably nine or ten times before that.”

“So far, so good,” Matson said. “The transition is seamless.”

“Good. I just wanted to make sure my friends with Uncle Sugar are happy. You check the safety deposit box?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“I had to use a bigger box this time. The small ones couldn’t hold that much money.”

“Jeez, Gerald. Someone could be listening to this call.”

“What? The National Reconnaissance Office is using a billion dollar satellite to track your conversations while rag head terrorists blow up people all over the Middle East, and retarded assholes from Africa stuff explosives in their underwear. I don’t think so. Go back to church. Put a large contribution in the offering plate in thanks for your new found wealth. But do it in cash and don’t write it off your tax return. Wouldn’t want Uncle Sugar to question how someone making a hundred-fifty grand a year can afford to be so generous. Oh, and give me a call when the FDIC has another loan pool for sale. I’m awash in cash.”

Folsom punched the disconnect button without waiting for an answer and turned on his CD player. He cranked up the volume and pounded the steering wheel to the beat of Foreigner singing
Urgent
.

Edward and Nick met again at the company’s offices on Sunday. They’d reviewed the loan package they were taking to Curtis Bank & Trust the next morning. The meeting was too important to take casually.

“I’ll provide an overview of the company,” Edward said. “Franchise situation, where we want to expand to, number of branches, that sort of thing. I’ll rehearse that part of the presentation again this afternoon. You’ll handle the financial statements and the three-year projections you prepared. Then I’ll go into detail about our present relationship with Broad Street National Bank, our loan arrangements with them, and what we need from Curtis Bank.”

“Who’s going to be at the meeting besides Van Snowden from Curtis Bank?” Nick asked.

“Van told me he’d have his chief credit and chief operating officers with him.”

“I’ll make six copies of the presentation. That will give them an extra copy to send to their credit department for analysis.”

“And we’ll need copies for the meetings at Pennsylvania Industrial Bank and Philadelphia Savings & Trust. You might as well make all the copies at once.”

“You feeling okay about things?”

“Yeah, Nick. Of course, I don’t like the uncertainty, but if we can’t get financing, with our financial situation, who the hell can?”

Nick nodded. “How’s Katherine holding up?”

“Better than me. Most people see her as this quiet, gentile little lady. They have no idea how tough she is. I ought to call her just to say hello. Betsy and I usually take her to brunch after church on Sundays. Obviously, we didn’t do that today.”

“By the way, the staff did a hell of a job diverting the weekend receipts here. We’ve got $558 thousand and change in cash, credit card receipts, and checks sitting in the vault. We’ll clear the credit card receipts and checks through whichever bank we move our accounts to.”

“Good. That, plus the $3 million in Broad Street Bank should sweeten the deal for Curtis Bank.” Edward leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at Nick. “Katherine tells me a few of our restaurant managers were concerned about Broad Street Bank. They know what’s going on in the financial markets and are smart enough to realize we could be impacted. I’d sure like to close a deal with another bank before rumors start scaring our people.”

“Like you said, if we can’t get financed, who can?”

Edward put on a brave smile. “Oh, that makes me feel so much better.” He laughed, although it felt strained. “I’ll pick you up at your home at 7:30 in the morning. That will give us enough time to get downtown, even with rush hour.”

After Nick left his office, Edward called his mother at home. She answered on the first ring, sounding out of breath.

“You okay, Mom?”

“Fine, fine. What’s up?”

“Sorry about brunch. I have to get ready for the meetings with the bankers tomorrow.”

“Son, I understand. Besides, Paul and I went out for a while.”

“You and Paul. That’s interesting.”

Katherine chuckled. “Don’t read anything into it. We had some business to discuss. Remember, we’re old friends.”

“You know he’s nuts about you,” Edward said, a mischievous lilt in his voice, thinking how Paul had wasted years waiting for Katherine to give him one bit of encouragement.

“Now, do you have anything else you want to discuss other than my social life?”

“No. Just checking in.”

“Call me after you meet with the banks.”

“You can count on it. Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need luck. You’ve got everything going for you.”

MONDAY

JULY 18, 2011