"Maybe I can prove it's the same money that was taken Wednesday; maybe not. If not, you can always try suing the bank to get it back." Eastin pleaded, "I need it nowl Todayl"
"Oh, sure, some for the bookie and some for the loan shark. Or the strong-arm guys they'll send. Well, you can try explaining how you lost it, though I doubt if they'll listen." The security chief eyed Eastin for the first time with sardonic amusement. "You really are in' trouble. Maybe they'll both come together, then they'll break one of your arms and one leg each. They're apt to do that sort of thing. Or didn't you know"
Fear, real fear, showed in Eastin's eyes. "Yes, I do know. You've got to help met Please!"
From the apartment doorway Wainwright said coldly, "I’ll consider it. After you've written that statement."
The bank security chief dictated while Eastin wrote the words down obediently.
1, Miles Broderick Eastin, make this statement voluntarily. I have been offered no inducement to make it. No violence or threat of violence has been used…
I confess to stealing from First Mercantile American Bank the sum of six thousand dollars in cash at approximately 1:30 P.M. on Wednesday, October…
I obtained and concealed this money by the following means…
A quarter of an hour ago, after Wainwright's threat to walk out, Miles Eastin had collapsed entirely, co-operative and cowed.
Now, while Eastin continued writing his confession Wainwright telephoned Innes, the FBI man, at his home.
15
During the first week of November, Ben RossellPs physical condition worsened. Since the bank president's disclosure of his terminal illness four weeks earlier, his strength had ebbed, his body wasted as proliferating and invading cancerous cells tightened their stranglehold on his remaining life.
Those who visited old Ben at home including Roscoe Heyward, Alex Vandervoort, Edwina D'Orsey, Nolan Wainwright, and various directors of the bank were shocked at the extent and speed of his deterioration. It was obvious he had very little time to live.
Then, in mid-November, while a savage storm with gale force winds beset the city, Ben Rosselli was moved by ambulance to the private pavilion of Mount Adams Hospital, a short journey which was to be his last abode. By then he was under almost continuous sedation, so that his moments of awareness and coherence became fewer day by day.
The last vestiges of any control of First Mercantile American Bank had now slipped from him, and a group of the bank's senior directors, meeting privately, agreed the full board must be summoned, a successor to the presidency named. The decisive board meeting was set for December 4th.
Directors began arriving shortly before 1O A.M. They greeted one another cordially, each with an easy confidence the patina of a successful businessman in the company of his peers.
The cordiality was slightly more restrained than usual in deference to the dying Ben Rosselli, still clutching feebly to life a mile or so away. Yet the directors now assembling were admirals and field marshals of commerce, as Ben had been himself, who knew that whatever else on traded, business, which kept civilization lubricated, must go on. Their mood appeared to say: The reason behind decisions we must make today is regrettable, but our solemn duty to the system shall be done.
Thus they moved resolutely into the walnut paneled boardroom, hung with paintings and photographs of selected predecessors, once important themselves, now long departed.
A board of directors of any major corporation resembles an exclusive club. Apart from three or four top management executives who are employed full time, the board comprises a score or so of outstanding businessmen often board chairmen or presidents themselves from other diverse fields.
Usually such outside directors are invited to join the board for one or more of several reasons their own
achievements elsewhere, the prestige of the institution they represent, or a strong connection usually financial with the company on whose board they sit.
Among businessmen it is considered a high honor to be a company director, and the more prestigious the company the greater the glory. This is why some individuals collect directorships the way some Indians once collected scalps Another reason is that directors are treated with ego satisfying reverence and also generously major companies pay each director between one and two thousand dollars for every meeting attended, normally ten a year.
Particularly high in prestige is a directorship of any major bank. For a businessman to be invited to serve on a top-flight bank board is roughly equivalent to being knighted by the British Queen; therefore the accolade is widely sought. First Mercantile American, as befitting a bank among the nation's top twenty, possessed a board of directors appropriately impressive. Or so they thought.
Alex Vandervoort, surveying the other directors as they took seats around the long, elliptical boardroom table, decided there was a high percentage of deadwood. There were also conflicts of interest since some directors, or their companies, were major borrowers of bank money. Among his long-term objective if he became president would be to make the FMA board more representative and less like a cozy club. But would he be president? Or would Heyward?
Both of them were candidates today. Both, in a short time, like any seeker after office, would expound their views. Jerome Patterton, vice-chairman of the board, who would preside at today's meeting, had approached Alex two days earlier. "You know as well as the rest of us, our decision's between you and Roscoe. You're both good men; making a choice isn't easy. So help us. Tell us your feelings about FMA, in any way you like; the what and how, I leave to you."
Roscoe Heyward, Alex was aware, had been similarly briefed.
Heyward, typically, had armed himself with a prepared text. Seated directly across from Alex, he was studying it now, his aquiline face set seriously, the gray eyes behind rimless glasses unwaveringly focused on the typewritten words. Among Heyward's abilities was intense concentration of his scalpel-sharp mind, especially on figures. A colleague once observed, "Roscoe can read a profit and loss statement the way a symphony conductor reads a score sensing nuances, awkward notes, incomplete passages, crescendos, and potentialities which others miss." Without doubt, figures would be included in whatever Heyward had to say today.
Alex was unsure whether he would use numbers in his own remarks or not. If they were used, they would have to be from memory since he had brought no materials. He had deliberated far into last night and decided eventually to wait until the moment came, then speak instinctively, as seemed appropriate, letting thoughts and words fall into place themselves.
He reminded himself that in this same room, so short a time ago, Ben had announced, "I'm dying. My doctors tell me I don't have long." The words had been, still were, an affirmation that all in life was finite. They mocked ambition his own, Roscoe Heyward's, others.
Yet whether ambition was futile in the end or not, he wanted very much the presidency of this bank. He longed for an opportunity just as Ben in his time had to determine directions, decide philosophy, allot priorities and, through the sum of all decisions, leave behind a worthwhile contribution. And whether, viewed across a larger span of years, whatever was accomplished mattered much or little, the zest itself would be rewarding the doing, leading, striving, and competing, here and now.
Across the boardroom table to the right, the Honorable Harold Austin slipped into his accustomed seat. He wore a windowpane check Cerruti suit, with a classic button-down shirt and hounds-tooth pattern tie, and looked like a pacesetting model from the pages of Playboy. He held a fat cigar, ready to be lighted. Alex saw Austin and nodded. The nod was returned, but with noticeable coolness.