The Moneychangers (2 page)

"Dear God!" The other voice on the telephone still reflected the dismay expressed moments earlier. "And to have to let people know personally!" Harold Austin was one of the city's pillars, third generation old family, and long ago he served a sin
gle term in Congress hence the
title "honorable," a usage he encouraged. Now he owned the state's largest advertising agency and was a veteran director of the bank with strong influence on the board.

The comment about a personal announcement gave Heyward the opening he needed. "I understand exactly what you mean about the method of letting this be known, and frankly it did seem unusual. What concerned me most is that the directors were not informed first. I felt they should have been. But since they weren't, I considered it my duty to advise you and the others immediately." Heyward's aquiline, austere face showed concentration; behind rimless glasses his gray eyes were cool.

"I agree with you, Roscoe," the voice on the telephone said. "I believe we should have been told, and I appreciate your thinking."

"Thank you, Harold. At a time like this, one is never sure exactly what is best. The only thing certain is that someone must exercise leadership."

The use of first names
came easily to Heyward. He was ol
d family himself, knew his way around most of the power bases in the state, and
was a member in good standing o
f what the British call the old boy network. His personal connections extended far beyond state boundaries, to Washington and elsewhere. Heyward was proud of his social status and friendships in high places. He also liked to remind people of his own direct descent from one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Now he suggested, "Another reason for keeping board members informed is that this sad news about Ben is going to have tremendous impact. And it will travel quickly."

"No doubt of it," the Honorable Harold concurred. "Chances are, by tomorrow, the press will have heard and will be asking questions."

"Exactly. And the wrong kind of publicity could make depositors uneasy as well as depress the price of our stock." "Um."

Roscoe Heyward could sense wheels turning in his fellow director's mind. The Austin Family Trust, which the
Honorable Harold represented, held a big block of FMA shares.

Heyward prompted, "Of course, if the board takes energetic action to reassure shareholders and depositors, also the public generally, the entire effect could be negligible."

"Except for the friends of Ben Rosselli," Harold Austin reminded him drily.

"I was speaking entirely outside the framework of personal loss. My grief, I assure you, is as profound as anyone's." "Just what do you have in mind, Roscoe?"

"In general, Harold a continuity of authority. Specifically, there should be no vacancy in the office of chief executive, even for a day." Heyward continued, "With th
e greatest of respect to Ben, an
d notwithstanding all our deep affection for him, this bank has been re
garded for too long as a one-man
, institution. Of course, it hasn't been that way for many years; no bank can achieve a place among the nation's top twenty and still be individually run. But there are those, outside, who think it is. That's why, sad as this time is, the directors have an opportunity to act to dissipate that legend."

Heyward sensed the other man thinking cagily before answe
ring. He could visualize Austin
too
,
a handsome, aging playboy type, flamboyant dresser and with styled and flowing iron-gray hair. Probably, as usual, he was smoking a large cigar. Yet the Honorable Harold was nobody's fool and had a reputation as a shrewd, successful businessman. At length he declared, "I think your point about continuity is valid. And I agree with you that Ben Rosselli's successor needs to be decided on, and probably his name announced before Ben's death." Heyward listened intently as the other went on.

"I happen to think you are that man, Roscoe. I have for a long time. You've the qualities, experience, the toughness, too. So I'm willing to pledge you my support and there are others on the board whom I can persuade to go the same route with
me. I assume you'd wish that."

"I'm certainly grateful…"

"Of course, in return I may as
k an occasional quid pro quo."
"That's reasonable." "Good! Then we understand each other."

The conversation, Roscoe Heyward decided as he hung up the phone, had been eminently satisfactory. Harold Austin was a man of consistent loyalties who kept his word. The preceding phone calls had been equally successful.

Speaking with another director soon after Philip Johannsen, president of MidContinent Rubber another opportunity arose. Johannsen volunteered that frankly he didn't get along with Alex Vandervoort whose ideas he found unorthodox.

"Alex is unorthodox," Heyward said. "Of course he has some personal problems. I'm not sure how much the two things go together." "What kind of problems?" "It's women actually. One doesn't like to…"

"This is important, Roscoe. It's also confidential. Go ahead."

"Well, first, Alex has marital difficulties. Second, he's involved with another woman, as well. Third, she's a left
-
wing activist, frequently in the news, and not in the kind of context which would be helpful to the bank. I sometimes wonder how much influence she has on Alex. As I said, one doesn't like to

…"

"You were right to tell me, Roscoe," Johannson said. "It's something the directors ought to know. Left-wing, eh?" "Yes. Her name is Margot Bracken."

"I think I've heard of her. And what I've heard I haven't liked." Heyward smiled.

He was less pleased, however, two telephone calls later, when he reached an out-of-town director, Leonard L. Kingswood, chairman of the board of Northam Steel.

Kingswood, who began his working life as a furnace molder in a steel plant, said, "Don't hand me that line of  bullshit, Roscoe," when Heyward suggested that the bank's directors should have had advance warning of Ben Rosselli's statement. "The way Ben handled it is the way I'd have done myself. Tell the people you're closest to first, directors and other stuffed shirts later."

As to the possibility of a price decline in First Mercantile American stock, Len Kingswood's reaction was, "So what?"

"Sure," he added, "FMA will dip a point or two on the Big Board when this news gets out. It'll happen because most stock transactions are on behalf of nervous nellies who can't distinguish between hysteria and fact. But just as surely the stock will go back up within a week because the value's there, the bank is sound, and all of us on the inside know it."

And later in the conversation: "Roscoe, this lobbying job of yours is as transparent as a fresh washed window, so I'll make my position just as plain, which should save us both some time.

"You're a top
-
flight comptroller, the best numbers and money man I know anywhere. And any day you get an urge to move over here with Northam, with a fatter paycheck and a stock option, I'll shuffle my own people and put you at the top of our financial pile. That's an offer and a promise. I mean it."

The steel company chairman brushed aside Heyward's murmured thanks as he went on.

"But good as you are, Roscoe, the point I'm making is you're not an over-all leader. At least, that's the way I see it, also the way I'll call it when the board convenes to decide on who's to follow Ben. The other thing I may as well tell you is that my choice is Vandervoort. I think you ought to know that."

Heyward answered evenly, "I'm grateful for your frankness, Leonard."

"Right. And if ever you think seriously about that other, call me anytime."

Roscoe Heyward had no intention of working for Northam Steel. Though money was important to him, his pride would not permit
it after Leonard Kingswood
biting verdict of a moment earlier. Besides, he was still fully confident of obtaining the top role at FMA.

Again the telephone buzzed. When he answered, Dora Callaghan announced that one more director was on the line. "It's Mr. Floyd LeBerre."

"Floyd," Heyward began, his voice pitched low and serious, "I'm deeply sorry to be the one to convey some sad and tragic news."

3

Not all who had been at the momentous boardroom session left as speedily as Roscoe Heyward. A few lingered outside, still with a sense of shock, conversing quietly.

The old-timer from the trust-department, Pop Monroe, said softly to Edwina D'Orsey, "This is a sad, sad day."

Edwina nodded, not ready yet to speak. Ben Rosselli had been important to her as a friend and he had taken pride in her rise to authority in the bank.

Alex Vandervoort stopped beside Edwina, then motioned to his office several doors away. "Do you want to take a few minutes out?" She said gratefully, "Yes, please."

The offices of the bank's top echelon executives were on the same floor as the boardroom the 36th, high in FMA Headquarters Tower. Alex Vandervoort's suite, like others here, had an informal conference area and there Edwina poured herself coffee from a Silex. Vandervoort produced a pipe and lit it. She observed his fingers moving efficiently, with no waste motion. His hands were like his body, short and broad, the fingers ending abruptly with stub-by but well-manicured nails.

The camaraderie between the two was of long standing. Although Edwina, who managed First Mercantile American's main downtown branch, was several levels lower than Alex in the bank's hierarchy, he had always treated her as an equal and often, in matters affecting her branch, dealt with her directly, bypassing the layers of organization between them.

"Alex," Edwina said, "I meant to tell you you're looking like a skeleton."

A warm smile lit up his smooth, round face. "Shows, eh?"

Alex Vandervoort was a committed partygoer, and loved gourmet food and wine. Unfortunately he put on weight easily. Periodically, as now, he went on diets.

By unspoken consent they avoided, for the moment, the subject closest to their minds. He asked, "How's business at the branch this month?" "Quite good. And I'm optimistic about next year."

"Speaking of next year, how does
Lewis view it?" Lewis D'Orsey, Edwina's husband, was owner-publisher of a widely read investors newsletter.

"Gloomily. He foresees a temporary rise in the value of the dollar, then another big drop, much as happened with the British pound. Also Lewis says that those in Washington who claim the U.S. recession has 'bottomed out' are just wishful thinkers the same false prophets who saw 'light at the end of the tunnel' in Vietnam."

"I agree with him," Alex mused, "especially about the dollar. You know, Edwina, one of the failures of American banking is that we've never encouraged our clients to hold accounts in foreign currencies Swiss francs, Deutsche marks, others as European bankers do. Oh, we accommodate the big corporations because they know enough to insist; and American banks make generous profits from other currencies for themselves. But rarely, if ever, for the small or medium depositors. If we'd promoted European currency accounts ten or even five years ago, some of our customers would have gained from dollar devaluations instead of lost." "Wouldn't
the U S. Treasury object?"

"Probably. But they'd back down under public pressure. They always do."

Edwina asked, "Have you ever broached the idea of more people having foreign currency accounts?"

"I tried once. I was shot down. Among us American bankers the dollar no matter how weak is sacred. It's a head-in-sand concept we've forced upon the public and it's cost them money. Only a sophisticated few had the sense to open Swiss bank accounts before the dollar devaluations cone."

"I've often thought about that," Edwina said. "Each time it happened, bankers knew in advance that devaluation was inevitable. Yet we gave our customers except for a favored few no warning, no suggestion to sell dollars." "It was supposed to be unpatriotic. Even Ben…"

Alex stopped. They see for several moments without speaking.

Through the wall of windows which made up the east side of Alex's office suite they could see the robust Midwest city spread before them. Closest to hand were the business canyons of downtown, the larger buildings only a little lower than First Mercantile American's Headquarters Tower. Beyond the downtown district, coiled in a double-S, was the wide, traffic-crowded river, its color today as usual pollution gray. A tangled latticework of river bridges, rail lines, and freeways ran outward like unspooled ribbons to industrial complexes and suburbs in the distance, the latter sensed rather than seen in an all
-
pervading haze. But nearer than the industry and suburbs, though beyond the river, was the inner residential city, a labyrinth of predominantly substandard housing, labeled by some the city's shame.

In the center of this last area, a new large building and the steelwork of a second stood out against the skyline.

Edwina pointed to the building and high steel. "If I were the way Ben is now," she said, "and wanted to be remembered by something,: I think I'd like it to be Forum East." "I suppose so." Alex's gaze swung to follow Edwina's.