The Devil's Banker

Chapter 9

“Get up!”

In the intensive care ward of the Hôpital Salpetitpierre, Adam Chapel shuddered, his body lifting from the bed as if juiced with ten thousand volts. The voice echoed across the recesses of his memory, dragging him from the darkness like a prisoner to the executioner’s block. Chapel ordered his limbs to move, his head to rise from the pillow, but the drugs that numbed his body had left him as frozen as his fear had twenty years earlier. Consumed with dread, he lay still, hearing his father’s voice, recoiling at the cruel, mocking melody of his childhood.

“Get up!”

The voice was not directed at him, yet Chapel flinched all the same. In the swirling crucible that was his mind’s eye, he saw himself, a pale, chubby ten-year-old boy with tousled black hair, sitting at his desk in his cramped bedroom. He can smell the meat loaf his mother is making for dinner and knows that there will be pears and Hershey’s chocolate syrup for dessert because pears were on special at Mr. Parks’s grocery store.

The door to his room is closed and he looks at himself in the full-length mirror hanging on its back. Get up, he tells himself. Go help her. Several times he begins to stand, only to fall back to his chair. He wants to go to her, but he can’t. He’s too scared. Only the shame weighing on his shoulders, the shame that shrinks him to a tenth his size, is worse than the fear.

“Stay down,” he whispers to her. “Stay down and he’ll leave you alone.”

But his mother is a stubborn woman. Through the paper-thin walls, he hears a chair scrape the linoleum floor as Helen Chapel claws her way to her feet.

“About time,” bellows his father. “Aren’t you going to make your son some dinner?”

“Robert, please… Adam’ll hear…”

“Let him hear. I don’t want him to think his father allows a woman to speak to him that way.”

“I’m your wife. If your commissions drop, I have every right to ask why. If you’re having trouble with the new line, let’s talk about it. Maybe I can help.”

“Help? Business is lousy. There, I told you again. People are buying loafers and we’re selling lace-ups. You want Adam to hear that, too? Do you want him to know that his father can’t hustle enough shoes to pay off his wife’s charge at Alexander’s? Let him hear. The boy’s a freakin’ genius. You think he doesn’t know what’s what? He’s going to earn big money someday. Important he knows enough not to get stuck with some nag who never stops whining. Who else is going to teach him?”

Hurriedly, Adam turns the page of his algebra text and throws himself into his homework. Numbers are his refuge. Among the figures and equations and theorems, he can lose himself like a shadow in the night. Cheek pressed to paper, he asks himself question after question as the solutions spill from the tip of his Ticonderoga No. 2 pencil-4(X-2) = 8. Answer: 4. 3X+8X =? Answer: 11X.

“Let go of me, you bastard. Let go!”

Let her go! Adam closes his eyes so tightly, his cheeks ache. Angrily, he wipes away the tears as he recites the quadratic equation, the Fibonacci sequence to a thousand, pi to the twenty-second digit, which is as far as he’s memorized it so far, but he promises to go higher, to thirty, even fifty. Anything to block the images of his father grasping his mother’s long, graying hair, lifting her off the floor to give her a few pointers about “the world out there” as he knows it. Adam has listened to the drunken soliloquy so many times, he has the words memorized. “American-made products don’t sell anymore. The Pakis are undercutting us by a dollar a pair. They’re dumping the stuff to get share; selling at below cost. It’s illegal, but no one gives a shit. It’s all about price, Helen. You have to fight for every cent. Scrap for every dollar.” And then the wider lessons about life. “The only thing that means anything is money. Hear me, Helen? Money buys you respect. Money buys you position. Money buys you a better class of friends. You don’t have money in this world, you don’t have a life. Sooner Adam learns that, the better.”

Afterward, his mother comes to him as she always does.

“Your father isn’t a bad man. Do you understand?” his mother asks as she dabs away the perfect red pearl resting in the corner of her lips.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He’s frustrated, that’s all. Things aren’t going as well as he’d like.”

“Mom, he knocks you around like he’s Jimmy Connors and you’re a tennis ball. Look at your mouth. Let’s get out of here.”

His mother grabs his shoulder and gives him a shake, as if he were a television on the fritz. “Don’t talk about your father that way.” Cowardice has made him his father’s accomplice. Any slight against his dad is taken as a slight against himself. “We have your education to think about. Bishop Manulis is a fine school. You’re such a good student. We can’t jeopardize that. It’s your career that matters now. Your father’s right. With your intelligence, you can make a lot of money.”

“Come on, Mom. You can get work somewhere. You’ve got a degree. You’re a CPA.”

“What’s important is you. You’re our star. You’re going to take the world by storm. Earn yourself a million dollars by the time you’re thirty. I know it. Now, come on, let’s get cleaned up. After dinner, we’ll walk down to the ice-cream store.”

“With Dad?”

“Of course. Your father adores his mocha nut.” She squeezes him to her and meets his eye, demanding his cooperation. “Did you know that they serve ice cream every night in those fancy dining clubs at Harvard?”

The lights dim. Adam drifts to the sounds of Atlantic Avenue on a summer night. A boom box plays Michael Jackson singing, “Billie Jean is not my lover…” Kids shout and screech, playing stickball in the street. A siren whoops in the distance. From the living room, J.R. accuses Sue Ellen of conspiring with Cliff to steal Ewing Oil from beneath him.

“What do you want to do with yourself, son?” his father asks him. “You know, when you get out of school.”

“I’m thinking of joining the police force.”

“A policeman? What? Are you kidding?”

It is an idea that Chapel has nurtured for a year. “Yeah. A detective. I want to help people.”

A smile to console the misguided. “You know what a cop earns? Twenty-five thousand dollars a year. How’re you going to support your family on that? How do you plan on buying your boy a Rawlings Reggie Jackson mitt? Or a Walkman? A Polo shirt… all that Ralph Lauren stuff your mother’s always picking up for you?”

“I’ll make do. Besides, I’m not planning on getting married. Police work’s interesting. You’re doing a service to the community. Solving crimes, murders, and stuff. I’d be good at that.”

“Nah. It’s a crummy idea. No cash. They’re always on the take. Looking for a little extra on the side. Bunch of crooks, really.”

“But, Dad-”

“Ever seen a cop’s shoes, Adam? Florsheim’s at best. Cheap brogues with rubber soles and Dr. Scholl’s inlays to kill the athlete’s foot. That isn’t the way to go. Not for you. You’re too smart. You’re going to wear Lobbs. John Lobb of Jermyn Street. London, England. Nothing finer on the planet. Custom fitted. The best leather. Topstitching on the vamp and sole. Soft as a baby’s bottom. Fit you like a glove. Make you look like a million bucks.”

“But, Dad, policemen need practical shoes because they’re running all the time. Lobbs are great, but you’d ruin them in a second. Policemen need-”

“No buts!” his father shouts, saliva speckling his face, the breath thick with Marlboros and Maalox. “You-you’re going into business. Hear me? And I don’t mean to pull down a commission check like me. Unh-unh. I’m thinking Wall Street. A young man with your brains-you’re going right to the top. You’ll be pulling down a mil a year easy in no time. Right up there with Felix Rohatyn.”

“It’s not just about money. There’re other things in-”

The cuff comes from out of nowhere, a glancing blow that takes him on the ear.

“What do you know about money? Nothing. Not a goddamned thing. Listen to me. Money is the only thing that matters. Money comes first. Wife, family, friends-all of that comes afterward. Get your priorities straight. No kid of mine is going to be a policeman. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good boy. Now what do you wanna be?”

“A businessman.” Adam corrects himself immediately. “I mean a banker.”

“What kind of banker?”

“An investment banker.”

“That’s right, kid. You’re aces all the way.” Tenderly, Robert Chapel touches the red spot where he struck his son. “Better lose some weight, too. You don’t see too many fatsos in the executive suite. No wonder your friends are always making fun of you.” He taps his boy on the cheek. “Who knows? Might help you get a date.”

His father’s image fades. The noises die off.

A new image forms itself in Adam’s mind… a single gunshot punctures the darkness.

Adam sees the body sprawled in the easy chair, the legs splayed, but the Lobb brogues are sparkling, and over the whiff of cordite and blood, he can smell his father’s Kiwi polish.

It is the day Adam Chapel made partner at Price Waterhouse.

The memories faded.

The past disappeared.

Hating himself for having met his father’s exacting standards, Chapel allowed himself to drift toward a healing light.

There was only now and he was floating.

“Monsieur Chapel, wake up, please. Wake up. We must check your vital signs.” A hand tapped his cheek. “How are you feeling?”

Adam opened his eyes and saw that the doctor was a woman. “All right, I guess,” he said, starting to sit up.

“No, no. Better to stay still for a while. My name is Dr. Bac. I took care of you when you arrived yesterday afternoon. Your ribs, they are bruised. If they were broken, you would feel something, even with the drugs we give you.”

Forcing the world into focus, he saw that she was pretty in an academic kind of way. Not a trace of makeup. Frameless glasses. Pale skin, and if hospital doctors were treated anything like they were in America, overworked. She wore a purple blouse, blue jeans, and white clogs. Were it not for the stethoscope around her neck, he would have taken her for a political activist, not his attending physician.

Bending slightly, she pressed a button that commanded the head of the bed to rise. Adam held his breath, waiting for the pain to arrive, but mercifully, he felt only a general soreness, as if he’d worked out particularly hard the day before.

“If you don’t mind…” Dr. Bac opened his gown and placed the stethoscope on his chest. “Good,” she murmured. A hand gently took his wrist. “Your pulse is forty-four. You are an athlete?”

“I run a little bit. Swim. Bike. You know.”

“You do the triathlon? We had one in Nice a week ago.”

“I used to do it for fun. I don’t have so much time anymore. Why? You a runner, too?”

Dr. Bac gave him a brittle smile. “I run from patient to patient. You’d be surprised at how fit it will keep you.”

Chapel wanted to laugh, but he could see something dark shifting behind the lady’s eyes.

“How is your hearing?” she asked. “Some bells? Some ringing, perhaps?”

“A siren’s more like it.”

“Your eardrum on this side. It is ruptured. You are lucky to hear anything at all. Your shoulder has been badly burned. Mostly second-degree, but a small patch that is very bad.”

He had come to briefly as he was being wheeled into the emergency room. Lifting his head, he’d noted with a punch drunk’s surprise that the bomb had blown his clothing more or less completely off his body. One leg of his blue jeans was gone. The other was in tatters, as if someone had taken a knife and cut it into fine horizontal strips. His shirt was missing, except for a cuff on his right hand. The same hand had immediately ventured south, making sure he was intact. It was only then that he’d glimpsed the red, blistered pulp that was his shoulder. A moment later, a doctor-maybe it was even Dr. Bac-had stuck a two-inch needle into him and he’d been out ever since. A clock on the wall read 9:15. Eighteen hours, more or less.

“Excuse me,” said Chapel, grasping her forearm.

“Yes?”

“What about the others? Keck, Gomez, Monsieur Babtiste? You know, the men I was with. Who else is being treated in this hospital?”

Dr. Bac drew up a rolling stool alongside the bed and sat down. “Mr. Chapel, you were in an enclosed space with a man who detonated a pound of plastic explosives on his person. You are a policeman, non? Surely, you know what this material can do. When you place four walls around such a blast, it is like multiplying the force by ten.”

“What about Carmine Santini? Big guy… going bald… could lose ten pounds around the middle?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Is Keck okay? Skinny, blond, looks like he’s about twelve.”

“I’m sorry.”

“One of them’s got to have made it out. Please.”

“Unfortunately…” The words trailed off as Dr. Bac formed a smile of infinite sadness.

“No,” said Chapel. “It can’t be. They can’t… God, no. One of them at least. I can’t be the only one.”

“The only reason you are alive is that another man shielded you from the blast.”

“Who was it? Which one of them saved me?”

“I have no idea. They tell me you were pulled from beneath a body. Actually, I’m not supposed to discuss these things with you, but I see you are-” She hesitated, her intelligent eyes crinkling as if looking at something odd or mysterious. “You are different.” She stood suddenly, fixing a strand of hair behind her ear, shoving her stethoscope back in her pocket. “There are some men waiting for you outside. They are from the FBI. They showed me their badges. Very impressive. I told them you are weak, that you should remain in my care another two days, minimum, and then that you should rest another seven days at home. They would prefer to take you with them. I leave the choice to you.”

“No one made it out?” Chapel searched her eyes for a new answer. A better answer.

Dr. Bac shook her head slowly. “Come see me tomorrow. Ten A.M. sharp. I have to change your dressing. I will tell the men to come back in an hour. I think you need the time.”

“No. I’m all right. Send them in.”

“You are sure?”

Chapel nodded, and her expression darkened. Looking away, she shook her head as if to say “Of course, he’s sure.” She was disappointed. She had been wrong about him.