The Moneychangers

16

The municipality of Tylersville, like many a human being, was engaged in "finding itself."

It was a neo-suburb a mixture of bustling market town and farmland now partially engulfed by the encroaching city, but with enough of its origins remaining to resist, for a while, ex-urban conformity.

Its populace was a hybrid assortment of the old and new conservative, deep-rooted farming and local business families, and freshly resident commuters, many of the latter disgusted with decaying moral values of the city they had left, and seeking to absorb for themselves and growing families something of peaceful, rustic mores before these disappeared.

The result was an unlikely alliance of real and would-be ruralists, mistrusting big business and city-style maneuverings, including those of banks. Unique, too, in the case of the Tylersville bank run, was one gossipy mail carrier.

All day Thursday, while deliverinB letters and packages, he had also handed out the rumor, "Did you hear about First Mercantile American Bank going bust? They say anyone who has money in there and doesn't get it out by tomorrow is going to lose everything."

Only a few who heard the mailman believed him implicitly. But the story spread, then was fueled by news reports, including those of evening television.

Overnight, among farm folk, trades people and the new migrants, anxiety grew so that by Friday morning the consensus was:

Why take a chance? Let's get our money now.

A small town has its own jungle telegraph. Word of people's decisions circulated rapidly and, by midmorning, more and more of the populace was heading for the FMA branch bank. So, out of small threads, are large tapestries woven.

At FMA Headquarters Tower, some who had scarcely heard of Tylersville were hearing of it now. They would hear more as the chain of events in Vandervoort's Emergency Plan One went forward quickly.

On instructions from Tom Straughan, the bank's computer was consulted first.

A programmer tapped the question on a keyboard:

What are the totals of savings and demand deposits at Tylersville Branch?

The answer was instantaneous and up to the minute since the branch was on-line to the computer.

SAVINGS ACCOUNTS.

$26,170,627.54

DEMAND DEPOSITS

$15,042,767.18

TOTAL…

$41,213,394.72

The computer was then instructed:

Deduct from this total an allowance for dormant accounts and municipal deposits.

(It was a safe assumption that neither of these would be disturbed, even in a run.)

The computer responded: DORMANT & MUNICIPAL.$21,430,964.61

BALANCE!

$19,782,430.11

Twenty million dollars more or less which depositors in the Tylersville area could, and might, demand. A subordinate of Straughan's had already alerted Central Cash Vault, a subterranean fortress below the FMA Tower.

Now the vault supervisor was ir formed,

"Twenty million dollars to Tylersville Branch rushI"

The amount was still more than might be needed, but an objective decided on during advance planning by Alex Vanderyoort's group was to make a show of strength like running up a flag.

Or, as Alex expressed it, "When you fight a fire, make sure you have more water than you need."

Within the past forty-eight hours anticipating exactly what was happening now the normal money supply in Central Cash Vault had been augmented by special drawings from the Federal Reservre.

The Fed had been informed of, and had approved, the FMA emergency plans. A Midas fortune in currency and coin, already counted and in labeled sacks, was loaded onto armored trucks while an array of armed guards patrolled the loading ramp.

There would be six armored trucks in all, several recalled by radio from other duties, and each would travel separately with police escort a precaution because of the unusual amount of cash involved. However, only three trucks would have money in them.

The others would be empty dummies an extra safeguard against holdup. Within twenty minutes of the branch manager's call, the first armored truck was ready to leave Headquarters and, soon after, was threading downtown traffic on its way to Tylersville.

Even before that, other bank personnel were en route by private car and limousine.

Edwina D'Orsey was in the lead.

She would be in charge of the support operation now under way. Edwina left her desk at the main downtown branch at once, pausing only to inform her senior assistant manager and to collect three staff members who would accompany her a loan officer, Cliff Castleman, and two tellers. One of the tellers was Juanita Nunez.

At the same time, small contingents of staff from two other city branches were being instructed to go directly to Tylersville where they would report to Edwina. Part of over-all strategy was not to deplete any branch seriously of staff in case another run should begin elsewhere.

In that event, other emergency plans were ready, though there wu a limit to how many could be managed at once. Not more than two or three. The quartet headed by Edwina moved at a brisk pace through the tunnel connecting the downtown branch with FMA Headquarters.

From the lobby of the parent building they took an elevator down to the bank's garage where a pool car had been assigned and was waiting. Cliff Castleman drove.

As they were getting in, Nolan Wainwright sprinted past, heading for his own parked Mustang. The security chief had been informed of the Tylersville operation and, with twenty million dollars cash involved, intended to oversee its protection personally.

Not far behind him would be a station wagon with a half-dozen armed security guards. Local and state police at Tylersville had been alerted.

Both Alex Vandervoort and Tom Straughan remained where they were, in FMA Headquarters Tower. Straughan's office near the Money Trading Center had become a command post.

On the 36th floor, Alex's concern was to keep close tab on the remainder of the branch system, and to know instantly if fresh trouble erupted.

Alex had kept Patterton informed and now the bank president waited tensely with Alex, each mulling the unspoken questions: Could they contain the run in Tylersville?

Would First Mercantile American make it through the business day without a rash of runs elsewhere? Fergus W. Gatwick, the Tylersville branch manager, had expected that his few remaining years until retirement would pass unhurriedly and uneventfully.

He was sixtyish, a chubby apple of a man, pink-checked, blueeyed, gray-haired, an affable Rotarian. In his youth he had known ambition but shed it long ago, deciding wisely that his role in life was supportive; he was a follower who would never blaze a trail.

Managing a small branch bank ideally suited his ability and limitations. He had been happy at Tylersville, where only one crisis had marred his tenure until now. A few years ago a woman with an imagined grudge against the bank rented a safe deposit box.

She placed in the box an object wrapped in newspaper, then departed for Europe leaving no address. Within days, a putrid odor filtered through the bank.

At first, drains were suspect and examined, to no effect, while all the time the stench grew greater. Customers complained, staff were nauseated. Eventually suspicion centered on the safe deposit boxes where the awful smell seemed strongest.

Then the crucial question arose which box? It was Fergus W. Gatwick who, at duty's call, sniffed his way around them all, at length settling on one where the matador was overpowering.

After that, it took four days of legal proceedings before a court order was obtained permitting the bank to drill the box open. Inside were the remains of a large, once-fresh sea bass.

Sometimes, even now in memory, Gatwick still sniffed traces of that ghastly time.

But today's exigency, he knew, was far more serious than a fish in a box. He checked his watch. An hour and ten minutes since he had telephoned Headquarters.

Though four tellers had been paying out money steadily, the number of people crowding the bank was even greater, with newcomers pouring in, and still no help had come. "Mr. Gatwick" A woman teller beckoned him.

"Yes?"

He left the railed management area where he normally worked and walked over to her. Across a counter from them both, at the head of a waiting line, was a poultry farmer, a regular bank customer whom Gatwick knew well. The manager said cheerfully,

"Good morning, Steve." He received a cool nod in return while silently the teller showed him checks drawn on two accounts.

The poultryman had presented them. They totaled $23,000.

"Those are good," Gatwick said. Taking the checks, he initialed both. In a low voice, though audible across the counter, the teller said,

"We haven't enough money left to pay that much." He should have known, of course. The drain on cash since opening had been continuous with many large withdrawals.

But the remark was unfortunate. Now there were anew rumblings among those in line, the teller's statement being repeated and passed back. "You hear that! They say they don't have any money."

"By Christ!" The poultry farmer leaned wrathfully forward, a clenched fist pounding.

"You just better pay those checks, Gatwick, or I'll be over there and tear this goddam bank apart." "There's no need for any of that, Steve.

Not threats or shouting either." Fergus W. Gatwick raised his own voice, striving to be heard above the suddenly ugly scene.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing a temporary cash shortage because of exceptional demands, but I assure you a great deal more money is on the way and will be here soon."

The last words were drowned by wrathful shouts of protest.

"How come a bank runs out of money?"… "Get it now!"… "Forget the bullshit! Where's the cash?"… "We'll camp here till this bank pays what it owes."

Gatwick held up his arms. "Once again I assure you

…. "I'm not interested in your sleazy assurances." The speaker was a smartly dressed woman whom Gatwick recognized as a newish resident. She insisted, "I want my money out now."

"Damn right!" a man behind her echoed.

"That goes for all of us." Still others surged forward, voices raised, their faces revealing anger and alarm. Someone threw a cigarette package which hit Gatwick in the face.

Suddenly, he realized, an ordinary group of citizens, many of whom he knew well, had become a hostile mob.

It was the money, of course; money which did strange things to human beings, making them greedy, panicked, at times sub-human.

There was genuine dread, too the possibility, as some saw it, of losing everything they had, along with their security.

Violence, which moments ago appeared unthinkable, now loomed close. For the first time in many years, Gatwick felt physical fear. "Please!" he pleaded. "Please listen"

His voice disappeared under growing tumult. Abruptly, unexpectedly, the clamor lessened. There seemed to be some activity in the street outside which those at the rear were craning to see.

Then, with a bravura flourish, the bank's outer doors flung open and a procession marched in. –

Edwina D'Orsey headed it. Following her were Cliff Castleman and the two young women tellers, one of them the petite figure of Juanita Nunez.

Behind was a phalanx of security guards shouldering heavy canvas sacks, escorted by other protective guards with drawn revolvers.

A half dozen more staff who had arrived from other branches filed in behind the guards. In the wake of them all a vigilant, wary Lord Protector was Nolan Wainwright.

Edwina spoke clearly across the crowded, now nearsilent bank. "Good morning, Mr. Gatwick. I'm sorry we all took so long, but traffic was heavy.

I understand you may require twenty million dollars.

About a third of it just arrived. The rest is on the way." While Edwina was speaking, Cliff Castleman, Juanita, the guards and others continued through the railed management area to the rear of the counters. One of the newly arrived relief staff was an operations man who promptly took charge of incoming cash. Soon, plentiful supplies of crisp new bills were being recorded, then distributed to tellers.

The crowd in the bank pressed around Edwina.

Someone asked, "Is that true? Do you people have enough money to pay us all?"

"Of course it's true." Eldwina looked over heads around her and spoke to everyone.

"I'm Mrs. D'Orsey, and I'm a vice-president of First Mercantile American Bank.

Despite any rumors you may have heard, our bank is sound, solvent, and has no problems which we cannot handle.

We have ample cash reserves to repay any depositor in Tylersville or anywhere else."

The smartly dressed woman who had spoken earlier said,

"Maybe that's true. Or maybe you're just saying so, hoping we'll believe it.

Either way, I'm taking my money out today."

"That's your privilege," Edwina said. Fergus W. Gatwick, watching, was relieved at no longer being the focus of attention.

He also sensed that the ugly mood of moments earlier had eased; there were even a few smiles among those waiting as increasing amounts of money continued to appear.

But less obdurate mood or not, a purposefulness remained. As the process of paying out continued briskly, it was dear that the run on the bank had not been halted.

While it continued, once more like Caesar's legionaries; the bank guards and escort who had returned to their armored trucks outside, marched in again with still more loaded canvas sacks.

No one who shared that day at Tylersville would ever forget the immense amount of money eventually displayed on public view.

Even those who worked at FMA had never seen so much assembled at a single time before.

On Edwina's instructions and under Alex Vandervoort's plan, most of the twenty million dollars brought to fight the bank run was out in the open where everyone could see it.

In the area behind the tellers' counter, every desk was cleared; from elsewhere in the bank more desks and tables were moved in. Onto them all, great stacks of currency and coin were heaped while the extra staff who had been brought in somehow kept track of running totals.

As Nolan Wainwright expressed it later, the entire operation was "a bank robber's dream, a security man's nightmare."

Fortunately, if robbers learned of what was happening, they learned too late.

Edwina, quietly competent and with courtesy to Fergus W. Gatwick, supervised everything.

It was she who instructed Cliff Castleman to begin seeking loan business. Shortly before noon, with the bank remaining crowded and a lengthening line outside,

Castleman carried a chair forward and stood up on it. "Ladies and gentlemen," he announced, "I'd like to introduce myself.

I'm a loan officer from the city, which doesn't mean a lot except that I have authority to approve loans for larger amounts than are normally dealt with at this branch.

So if any of you have been thinking of applying for a loan and would like a fast answer, now's the time. I'm a sympathetic listener and I try to help people who have problems.

Mr. Gatwick, who is busy doing other things right now, has kindly said I can use his desk, so that's where I'll be. I hope you’ll come and talk to me." A man with a cast on his leg called out, "I’ll be right over, soon's I get my other money.

Guess if this bank's going bust I should grab a loan. I'd never have to pay it back"

"Nothing's going bust here," Cliff Castleman said. He inquired, "What did you do to the leg?" "Fell over in the dark."

"From the sound of you, you're still in the dark.

This bank is in better shape than either of us.

What's more, if you borrow money you'll pay it back or we'll break the other leg."

There was some laughter as Castleman climbed down from his chair, and later a few people drifted over to the manager's desk to discuss loans.

But withdrawals continued. The panic eased, but nothing, it seemed neither a show of strength, assurances or applied psychology vould stop the bank run at Tylersville.

By early afternoon it appeared, to despondent FMA officials, that only one question still remained:

How long would it take for the virus to spread?

Alex Vandervoort, who had talked several times by telephone with Edwina, left for Tylersville himself in midafternoon.

He was now even more alarmed than this morning when he had hoped the run could be terminated quickly.

Its continuance meant that, over the weekend, panic among depositors would spread, with other FMA branches certain to be inundated Monday.

So far today, while withdrawals at some other branches had been heavy, nothing comparable to the Tylersville situation had occurred elsewhere.

But clearly that same luck could not hold for long.

Alex went by chauffeured limousine to Tylersville and Margot Bracken rode with him. Margot had concluded a court case earlier than she expected that morning and joined Alex at the bank for lunch. Afterward at his suggestion she stayed on, sharing some of the tensions by then pervading the tower's 36th floor.

In the car Alex leaned back, savoring the relaxed intenal which he knew would be brief. '`This year has been hard for you," Margot said. "Am I showing the strain?"

She reached over, running a forefinger across his forehead gently. "You've more lines there. You're grayer at the temples."

He grimaced. "I'm also older." "Not that much" "Then it's a price we pay for lining with pressures. You pay it too, Bracken."

"Yes, I do," Margot agreed. 'What matters, of course, is which pressures are important and if they're worth the part of ourselves we give to them."

"Saving a bank is worth some personal strain," Alex said sharply. "Right now if we don't save ours, a lot of people will be hurt who shouldn't be."

"And some who should?" "In a rescue operation you try to save everybody.

Any retribution can come later."

They had covered ten of the twenty miles to Tylersville. "Alex, are things really that bad?"

"If we have an unstoppable run on Monday," he said, "well have to close.

A consortium of other banks may then get together to bail us out at a price after which they'll pick over what's left, and in time, I think, all depositors would get their money.

But FMA as an entity would be finished." "The most incredible part is how it can happen so suddenly." "It points up," Alex said, "what a lot of people, who ought to, don't fully understand. Banks and the money system; which includes big debts and big loans, are like delicate machinery.

Monkey with them clumsily, let one component get seriously out of balance because of greed or politics or plain stupidity, and you imperil all the others.

And once you've endangered the system or a single bank and if word leaks out as usually happens, diminished public confidence does the rest.

That's what we're seeing now."

"From what you've told me," Margot said, "and from other things I've heard, greed is the reason for what's happening to your bank."

Alex said bitterly,

"That and a high percentage of idiots on our board."

He was being franker than usual but found it a relief.

There was a silence between them until Alex exclaimed, "God! How I miss him."

"Who?" "Ben Rosselli." Margot reached out for his hand. "Isn't this rescue operation of yours exactly what Ben would have done himself?"

"Maybe." He sighed. "except it isn't working. That's why I wish Ben were here." The chauffeur let down the dividing window between the front seat and his passengers.

He spoke over his shoulder. "We're coming into Tylersville, sir."

"Good luck, Alex," Margot said. Prom several blocks away, they could see a lineup of people outside the branch.

New arrivals were joining it.

As their limousine pulled up outside the bank, a panel truck screeched to a halt across the street and several men and a girl jumped out. On the side of the truck in large letters was WTLC-TV. "Christ!" Alex said. "That's all we need."

Inside the bank, while Margot looked around her curiously, Alex talked briefly with Edwina and Fergus W. Gatwick, learning from both that there was little if anything more that anyone could do. Alex supposed it had been a wasted journey but had felt the need to come. He decided it would do no harm, and might even help, if he chatted with some of those waiting.

He began to walk down the several lines of people, quietly introducing himself.

There were at least two hundred, a sizable cross-section of Tylersville old, young, middle-aged, some well-to-do, others obviously poorer, women with babies, men in work clothes, some carefully dressed as if for an occasion.

The majority were friendly, a few not, one or two antagonistic.

Almost everyone showed some degree of nervousness.

There was relief on the faces of those who received their money and left.

An elderly woman spoke to Alex on the way out.

She had no idea he was a-bank official.

"Thank heaven that's over! It's been the most anxious day I ever spent.

This is my savings all I have." She held up a dozen or so fifty dollar bills.

Others left with much larger or smaller sums. The impression Alex got from everyone he talked to was the same:

Maybe First Mercantile American Bank was sound; maybe it wasn't.

But no one wanted to take a chance and leave their money in an institution which might collapse.

The publicity linking FMA with Supranational had done its work.

Everyone knew that First Mercantile American was likely to lose a huge amount of money, because the bank admitted it. Details didn't matter

Nor did the few people to whom Alex mentioned Federal Deposit Insurance trust that system either.

The amount of federal insurance was limited, a few pointed out, and FDIC funds were believed to be inadequate in any major crunch.

And there was something else, Alex realized, perhaps even more profound:

People didn't believe any more what they were told; they had become too accustomed to being deceived and lied to. In the recent past they had been lied to by their President, other government officials, politicians, business, industry.

Lied to by employers, by unions. Lied-to in advertising. Lied to in financial transactions, including the status of stocks and bonds, stockholder reports and "audited" corporate statements. Lied to at times through bias or omission by communications media.

The list was endless. Deception had been piled on deception until lying or, at best, distortion and failure to make full disclosure had become a way of life. So why should anyone believe Alex when he assured them that FMA was not a sinking ship and their money if they left it there was safe?

As the hours slipped by and afternoon waned, it was clear that no one did. By late afternoon Alex had become resigned. What would: happen would happen; for individuals and institutions, he supposed, there came a point where the inevitable must be accepted.

It was about that time near 5:30, with dusk of the October evening closing in that Nolan Wainwright came to him reporting a new anxiety in the waiting crowd. 'They're worried," Wainwright said, "because our closing time is six o'clock.

They figure in the half hour that's left we can't deal with everybody." Alex wavered. It would be simple to close the Tylersville branch bank on schedule; it would also be legal, and no one could seriously object. He savored an impulse born of anger and frustration; a spiteful urge to say, in effect, to those still waiting: You've refused to trust me, so sweat till Monday, and the hell with your

But he hesitated, swayed by his own nature and a remark of Margot's about Ben Rosselli. What Alex was doing now, she had said, was "exactly what Ben would have done himself." What would Ben's decision have been about closing? Alex knew. "I'll make an announcement," he told Wainwright. First he sought out Edwina and gave her some instructions.

Moving to the doorway of the bank, Alex spoke from where he could be heard by those inside and others still waiting on the street.

He was conscious of TV cameras directed at him. The first TV crew had been joined by a second from another station, and an hour ago Alex made a statement for them both. The TV crews stayed on, one of their people confiding they were getting extra material for a weekend news feature since "a bank run doesn't happen every day."

"Ladies and gentlemen" Alex's voice was strong and dear; it carried easily.

"I am informed that some of you are concerned about the time of our closing tonight.

You need not be.

On behalf of the management of this bank l give you my word that we will remain open here in Tylersville until we have attended to you all."

There was a murmur of satisfaction and some spontaneous handclapping

"However, there is one thing I urge on all of you." Once more, voices quietened as attention returned to Alex. He went on, "I strongly advise that over the weekend you do not keep large sums of money on your person or in your homes.

It would be unsafe in many ways.

Therefore I urge you to select another bank and deposit there whatever you withdraw from this one. To help you in this, my colleague Mrs. D'Orsey is at present telephoning other banks in this area, asking them to remain open later than usual in order to accommodate you."

Again there was an appreciative hum. Nolan Wainwright came to Alex, whispered briefly and Alex announced,

"I am informed that two banks have already agreed to our request.

Others are still being contacted."

From among those waiting in the street a male voice called, "Can you recommend a good bank?" "Yes," Alex said. "My own choice would be First Mercantile American. It's the one I know best, the one I'm surest of, and its record has been long and honorable.

I only wish that all of you felt that way too." For the first time there was a hint of emotion in his voice.

A few people smiled or laughed half-heartedly, but most faces watching him were serious.

"Used to feel that way myself," a voice behind Alex volunteered.

He turned. The speaker was an elderly man, probably nearer eighty than seventy, wizened, whitehaired, stooped, and leaning on a cane. But the old man's eyes were clear and sharp, his voice firm.

Beside him was a woman an of about the same age.

Both were tidily dressed, though their clothing was old-fashioned and well worn. The woman held a shopping bag which, it could be seen, contained packages of currency.

They had just come from the bank counter.

"The wife and me, we've had an account at FMA for moretn thirty years," the old man said. "Feel Linda bad taking it away now."

"Then why do it?"

"Can't ignore all them rumors. Too much smoke for there not to be some truth somewhere." "There is some truth and we've admitted it," Alex said.

"Because of a loan to Supranational Corporation, our bank is likely to suffer a loss.

But the bank can withstand it, and it will."

The old man shook his head. "If I was younger and working, maybe I'd take a chance on what you say. But I ain't.

What's in there" he pointed to the shopping bag "is pretty well all we got left until we die.

Even that ain't much Them dollars don't go half as far as when we worked and earned 'em."

"That's for sure," Alex said. "Inflation hits good people like you hardest.

But, unfortunately, changing banks won't help you there."

"Let me ask you a question, young fellow. If you was me and this here was your money, wouldn't you be doing the same as I am now?" Alex was aware of others closing in and listening. He saw Margot a head or two away. Just behind her, TV camera lights were on.

Someone was leaning forward with a microphone.

"Yes," he admitted. 'I suppose I would." The old man seemed surprised.

"You're honest, anyways. Just now I heard that advice you gave about getting to another bank and I appreciate it. I guess we'll go to one and put our money in."

"Wait," Alex said. "Do you have a car?" "Nope. Live just a piece from here. We'll walk."

"Not with that money. You might be robbed. I’ll have someone drive you to another bank."

Alex beckoned Nolan Wainwright and explained the problem.

'This is our chief of security," he told the elderly couple. "No sweat," Wainwright said. "Be glad to drive you myself."

The old man didn't move. He stood looking from one face to the other.

"You'd do that for us? When we've just moved our money out of your bank?

When we've good as told you we don't trust you any more?"

"Let's say it's all in our service.

Besides," Alex said, "If you've been with us thirty years, we ought to part as friends."

Still the old man paused uncertainly.

"Maybe we don't have to. Let me ask you one more question, man to man."

The clear, sharp, honest eyes regarded Alex steadily.

"Go ahead." "You told me the truth once already, young fellow. Now tell me it again, remembering what I said about being old and knowing what them savings mean.

Is our money safe in your bank? Absolutely safe?"

For measurable seconds Alex weighed the question and all its implications.

He knew that not only the old couple was watching him intently, but many others, too.

The omnipresent TV cameras were still turning.

He caught a glimpse of Margot; she was equally intent, a quizzical expression on her face.

He thought of the people here, and of others elsewhere affected by this moment; of those relying on him Jerome Patterton, Tom Straughan, the board, Edwina, more; of what might happen if FMA failed, of the wide and damaging effect, not just at Tylersville but far beyond.

Despite ad this, doubt rose. He thrust it down, then answered crisply and confidently, "I give you my word. This bank is absolutely safe."

"Aw shucks, Freda" the old man told his wife.

"Looks like we been barkin' up a tree about nothing. Let's go put the damn money back."

In an the post-mortem studies and discussions over the following weeks, one fact stayed undisputed:

The bank run at Tylersville effectively ended when the old man and his wife turned back into the FMA branch and redeposited the money from their shopping bag.

People who had been waiting to withdraw their own money, and who witnessed the exchange between the old man and the bank executive either avoided each other's eyes or, if they didn't, grinned sheepishly and turned away.

Word passed speedily among the remainder of those outside and inside; almost at once the waiting lines began dispersing, as quickly and mysteriously as they had formed.

As someone said later: It was the herd instinct in reverse. When the few remaining people in the bank were dealt with, the branch closed only ten minutes later than was normal on a Friday night.

A few FMA people, at Tylersville and in Headquarters Tower, had worried about Monday.

Would the crowd return, the run begin again? In the event, it never did. Nor, on Monday, did a run develop anywhere else.

The reason most analysts agreed was an explicit, honest, moving scene involving an old couple and a good-looking, open, bank vice-president as it appeared on weekend television news.

The item, when cut and edited, was so successful that stations used the item several times. It came through as an example of the intimate, effective cinema verite technique which TV can do so well, but seldom does.

Many viewers were moved to tears.

During the weekend, Alex Vandervoort saw the TV item but reserved his comments.

A reason was that he alone knew what his thoughts had been at the vital, decisive moment when he was asked the question: Is our money… absolutely safe? Another was that Alex knew the pitfalls and problems which still lay ahead for FMA. Margot also said little about the incident on Friday night; nor did she mention it Sunday when she stayed at Alex's apartment. She had an important question she wanted to ask but wisely decided that now was not the time.

Among First Mercantile American executives who watched the telecast was Roscoe Heyward, though he didn't see it all.

Heyward turned on the TV after arriving home on Sunday night from a church vestry meeting but snapped it off in jealous anger part way through.

Heyward had serious enough problems of his own without wishing to be reminded of a Vandervoort success. And quite apart from the bank run, several matters were likely to surface during the coming week which made Heyward highly nervous.

One other postscript developed from that Friday evening in Tylersville. It concerned Juanita Nunez. Juanita had seen Margot Bracken arrive during the afternoon.

She had recently debated whether or not to seek out Margot and ask advice. Now she decided to. But for reasons of her own, Juanita preferred not to be observed by Nolan Wainwright. The opportunity Juanita had been waiting for occurred shortly after the bank run ended, while Wainwright was busy checking branch security arrangements for the weekend, and the day-long pressure on the staff had eased.

Juanita left the counter where she had been assisting a regular branch teller and crossed to the railed management area.

Margot was seated there alone, waiting until Mr. Vandervoort could leave. "Miss Bracken," Juanita said, speaking softly, "you once told me that if I had a problem I could come and talk to you."

"Of course, Juanita. Do you have one now?" Her small face creased in worry. "Yes, 1 think so."

"What kind of problem?" "If you don't mind, could we talk somewhere else?" Juanita was watching Wainwright, near the vault on the opposite side of the bank.

He seemed about to end a conversation. 'When come to my office," Margot said. ''When would you like to make it?" They agreed on Monday evening.

17

The reel of tape, retrieved from the DoubleSeven Health Club, had been lying there on the shelf above the test bench for six days.

Wizard Wong had looked at the tape several times, reluctant to wipe out what was on it, yet uneasy about passing on the information.

Nowadays, recording any telephone conversation was risky.

Even riskier was to play the recording back for someone else.

Yet Marino, Wizard was certain, would very much like to hear a portion of that tape, and would pay well for the privilege.

Whatever else Tony Bear Marino might be, he was generous about payment for good service, which was the one reason Wizard did work for him periodically.

Marino was a professional crook, he was aware. Wong himself was not. Wizard (his real first name was Wayne, though no one who knew him ever used it) was a young, clever, second-generation Chinese-American.

He was also an electronics audio expert, specializing in the detection of electronic surveillance.

His genius in the subject had earned him his name. For a long list of clients,

Wong provided guarantees that their business premises and homes were not bugged, their phones untapped, their privacy from surreptitious electronics inviolate.

With surprising frequency he did discover planted listening devices and when it happened his clients were impressed and grateful.

Despite official assurances to the contrary including some recent presidential ones bugging and wiretapping in the U.S. continued to be widespread and flourishing.

Heads of industrial companies retained Wong's services.

So did bankers, newspaper publishers, presidential candidates, some big-name lawyers, a foreign embassy or two, a handful of U.S. senators, three state governors, and a Supreme Court justice.

Then there were the other executives the Don of a Mafia family, his consiglieri, and various wheels at a slightly lower level, of whom Tony Marino was one.

To his criminal clients Wizard Wong made one thing plain: He wanted no part of their illicit activities; he was making an excellent living within the law. However, he saw no reason for them to be denied his services, since bugging was almost always illegal, and even criminals were entitled to protect themselves by lawful means.

This ground rule was accepted and worked well. Just the same, his organized crime clients intimated to Wizard from time to time that any usable information he acquired as a result of his work would be appreciated and rewarded. And occasionally he had passed on tidbits of knowledge in return for money, yielding to that oldest and simplest of all temptations greed.

He was being tempted by it now. A week and a half ago, Wizard Wong had made a routine anti-bug survey of Marino's haunts and telephones.

These included the Double-Seven Health Club where Marino had a financial interest. In course of the survey which showed everything to be clean Wizard amused himself by briefly bugging one of the club lines, a practice which he sometimes followed, rationalizing that he owed it to himself and his clients to maintain his own technical expertise. For the purpose he chose a pay phone on the health club's main floor. Through forty-eight hours Wizard left a tape recorder spliced across the pay-phone circuit, the recorder hidden in the basement of the Double-Seven.

It was a type which switched itself on and off each time the phone was used.

Though the action was illegal, Wizard reasoned that it didn't matter since no one but himself would hear the tape played back.

However, when he did play it, one conversation, especially, intrigued him.

Now, on Saturday afternoon, and alone in-his sound lab, he took the tape from the shelf above the test bench, put it on a machine and listened to that portion once again.

A coin was inserted, a number dialed. The sound of dialing was on the tape. A ringing tone. One ring only. A woman's voice (soft, with slight accent):

Hello. A male voice (whispering): You know who this is. But don't use names. The woman's voice: Yes. The first voice (still whispering):

Tell our mutual friend I've discovered something important here. Really important. It's most of what he wanted to know. I can't say more, but I'll come to you tomorrow night. A woman's voice: All right. A click.

The caller, in the Double-Seven Health Club, had hung up. Wizard Wong wasn't sure why he thought Tony Bear Marino would be interested.

He simply had a hunch, and his hunches had paid off before. Making up his mind, he consulted a private notebook, went to a telephone and called a number. Tony Bear, it transpired, could not see him until late Monday afternoon.

Wizard made an arrangement for then and having committed himself set out to extract more information from the tape. He rewound it, then carefully played it several times again.

"Judas Priestl" Tony Bear Marino's husky, thick features contorted in a savage scowl. His incongruous falsetto voice rose even higher than usual.

"You had that goddam tape, and you sat on your goddam ass a week before you came herel" Wizard Wong said defensively,

"I'm a technician, Mr. Marino.

Mostly, the things I hear are none of my bustness.

But after a while I got to thinking this one was different." He was relieved in one sense.

At least there had been no angry reaction because he had bugged a Double-Seven line.

"Next time," Marino snarled, "think faster!"

Today was Monday. They were at the trucking terminal where Marino maintained an office and, on the desk between them, was a portable tape player which Wong had just switched off.

Before Coming here he had re-recorded the significant part of the original tape, transferring it to a cassette, then erased the rest.

Tony Bear Marino, in shirtsleeves in the stuffy, heated office, appeared physically formidable as usual. His shoulders were a prizefighter's; his wrists and biceps thick.

He overflowed the chair he sat in, though not with fat; most of him was solid muscle.

Wizard Wong tried not to be intimidated, either by Marino's bulk or his reputation for ruthlessness. But, whether from the hot room or other reasons, Wong began to sweat.

He protested, "I didn't waste all that time, Mr. Marino. I found out some other things I thought you'd want to know n "Such as?" "I can tell you the number that was called. You see, by using a stop watch to time the length of each dial turn as recorded on the tape, then comparing it…"

"Cut the crap. Just give me the number." "There it is." A slip of paper passed across the desk. "You've traced it? Whose number is it?"

"I have to tell you, tracing a number like that isn't easy. Especially since this particular one is unlisted. Fortunately, I have some contacts in the phone company … Tony Bear exploded. He slammed a palm on the desktop, the impact like a gunshot.

"Don't play games with me, you little bastard! If you got information, give!"

"The point I'm making," Wizard persisted, sweating even more, "is that it costs. I had to pay off my phone company contact."

"You paid a goddam lot less than you'll squeeze out of me.

Get on with it!" Wizard relaxed a little, aware that he had made his point and Tony Bear would meet the price to be asked, each of them knowing there might be another time.

"The phone belongs to a Mrs. J. Nunez.

She lives at Forum East. Here's the building and apartment number." Wong passed over another slip. Marino took it, glanced at the address, and put it down.

"There's something else might be of interest to you. The records show the phone was installed a month ago as a hurry-up job.

Now normally, there's a long waiting list for phones at Forum East, but this one wasn't on the list at all, then all of a sudden it was put on at the top."

Marino's growing scowl was part impatience, part anger at what he heard.

Wizard Wong went on hastily, "What happened was, some pressure was applied. My contact told me there's a memo in the phone company ales showing it came from a guy named Nolan Wainwright who's head of security for a bank First Mercantile American.

He said the phone was needed urgently for bank business. Billing for it is going to the bank, too." For the first time since the audio technician's arrival, Tony Bear was startled.

Momentarily the surprise revealed itself on his face, then vanished, to be replaced by a blank expression. Under it, his mind was working, relating what he had just learned to certain facts he already knew.

The name Wainwright was the connection. Marino was aware of the attempt six months ago to plant a stoolie, a creep named Vic who, after they busted his balls, said "Wainwright."

Marino knew of the bank click by reputation. In that earlier series of events Tony Bear had been very much involved.

Was there another one now?

If so, Tony Bear had a strong idea what action he was after, though there was a lot of other business through the Double-Seven he had no wish to see disclosed. Tony Bear did not waste time in speculation. The caller's voice, a whisper only, you couldn't tell.

But the other voice the woman's had been traced, so whatever else was needed they could get from her.

It did not enter his mind that the woman might not co-operate; if she was foolish, there were plenty of ways.

Marino paid Wong off quickly and sat thinking.

For a while, he followed his usual cautious pattern, not rushing a decision and leaving his thoughts to simmer for several hours. But he had lost time, a week.

Later that night he summoned two musclemen. Tony Bear gave them a Forum East address and an order. "Pick up the Nunez broad."

18

"If everything you just told me turns out to be true,"

Alex assured Margot, "I'll personally administer the biggest kick in the ass that Nolan Wainwright ever had." Margot snapped back,

"Of course it's all true. Why would Mrs. Nunez invent it? In any case, how could she?"

"No," he admitted, "I don't suppose she could."

"I'll tell you something else, Alex. I want more than your man Wainwright's head on a platter or his ass. A whole lot more."

They were in Alex's apartment where Margot had come a half hour ago, following her Monday-night talk with Juanita Nunez.

What Juanita had revealed amazed and enraged her. Juanita had nervously described the month old agreement in which she had become the link between Wainwright and Miles Eastin. But recently, Juanita confided, she had begun to realize the risk she was running and her fears had grown, not just for herself but for Estela.

Margot had gone over Juanita's report several times, questioning her on details, and at the end Margot went directly to Alex.

"I knew about Eastin going under cover."

Alex's face was troubled, as it had been so often recently; he paced the living room holding an untasted scotch. "Nolan told me what he planned.

At first I opposed it and said no, then I gave in because the arguments seemed convincing. But I swear to you that no arrangement with the Nunez girl was ever mentioned."

"I believe you," Margot said. "He probably didn't tell you because he knew you'd veto it." "Did Edwina know?" "Apparently not."

Alex thought peevishly: Then Nolan was out of line there, too.

How could he have been so shortsighted, even stupid? Part of the trouble, Alex knew, was that department heads like Wainwright got carried away by their own limited objectives, forgetting the larger view.

He stopped pacing. "A minute ago you said something about wanting a whole lot more.' What does that mean?"

"The first thing I want is immediate safety for my client and her child, and by safety I mean placing her somewhere where she's out of jeopardy.

After that, we can discuss compensation." "Your client?" "I advised Juanita tonight that she needs legal help.

She asked me to represent her." Alex grinned and sipped his scotch.

"So you and I are now adversaries, Bracken." "In that sense, I suppose so." Margot's voice softened. "Except you know I won't take advantage of our private conversations."

"Yes, I do. That's why I'll tell you privately we will do something immediately, tomorrow for Mrs. Nunez. If it means sendin,gher out of town for a while, to be certain she's safe, then I'll approve it.

As to compensation, I won't commit us on that, but after I hear the whole story, and if it agrees with yours and hers, we'll consider it."

What Alex left unsaid was his intention to send for Nolan Wainwright in the morning and order the entire undercover operation terminated.

That would include safeguarding the girl, as he had promised Margot; also,

Eastin must be paid off.

Alex wished fervently he had stayed firm by his original judgment and forbidden the entire plan; all his instincts had been against it and he had been wrong in backing down under Wainwright's persuasion. The risks, in every way, were far too great.

Fortunately it was not too late to remedy the error, since nothing harmful had occurred, either to Eastin or Nunez. Margot regarded him. "One of the things I like about you is that you're a fair man. So you do concede the bank has a liability to Juanita Nunez?" "Oh, Christ!" Alex said, and drained his scotch. "Right now we're liable for so much, what the hell is one thing more?"

19

Only one more piece. Just one more needed to complete the tantalizing jigsaw. A single lucky break could yield it, and answer the question: Where was the counterfeiter's base? When Nolan Wainwright conceived the second undercover mission, he did not anticipate spectacular results.

He considered Miles liastin a long shot from whom some minor information might accrue, and even that could take months.

But instead, Eastin had moved quickly from one revelation to another. Wainwright wondered if Eastin himself realized how outstandingly successful he had been. On Tuesday at midmorning, alone in his plainly furnished at FMA Headquarters Tower,

Wainwright once more reviewed the progress made:

The first report from Eastin had been to say "I'm in" at the Double-Seven Health Club. In light of later developments that, in itself, had been important.

Confirmation followed that the Double-Seven was a hangout for criminals, including the loan shark, Ominsky, and Tony Bear Marina.

By gaining access to the illegal gambling rooms, Eastin had improved his infiltration.

Soon after, Eastin had made a "buy" of ten counterfeft S20 bills.

These, when examined by Wainwright and others, proved to be of the same high quality as those circulating in the area over the past several months and were undoubtedly from the same source. Eastin had reported his supplier's name and the man was being watched.

Next, a three-pronged report: the forged driver's license; the license number of the Chevrolet Impala which Eastin had driven to Louisville, apparently with a consignment of counterfeit money in the trunk; and the counterfoil of the airline ticket given Eastin for his return journey.

Of the three items, the airline ticket had proven the most useful. It had been purchased, along with others, with a Keycharge bank credit card, counterfeit.

At last the bank security chief had a sense of closing in on his main objective the conspiracy which had, and still was, defrauding the Keycharge system of huge amounts.

The fake driver's license confirmed the existence of a versatile, efficient organization to which there was now an additional lead the ex-con, Jules LaRocca.

The Impala, inquiry showed, had been stolen. A few days after Eastin's iourney it was found abandoned in Louisville.

Finally, and most important, had been identifying the counterfeiter,

Danny, along with a cornucopia of information including the fact that the source of the counterfeit Keycharge credit cards was now known with certainty. As Wainwright's knowledge had accumulated because of his pipeline from Miles Eastin, So had an obligation grown to share what he knew. Therefore a week ago he had invited agents of the FBI and U. S. Secret Service to a conference at the bank.

The Secret Service had to be included because money counterfeiting was involved, and theirs was the constitutional responsibility for protecting the U.S. money system. The FBI special agents who came were the same team Innes and Dalrymple who investigated the FMA cash loss and arrested Miles Eastin almost a year ago.

The Secret Service men Jordan and Quimby, Wainwright had not met before. Innes and Dalrymple were complimentary and appreciative about the information Wainwright gave them, the Secret Service men less so.

Their beef was that Wainwright should have notified them sooner as soon as he received the first counterfeit bills from Eastin and that Eastin, through Wainwright, ought to have advised them in advance about the Louisville journey.

The Secret Service agent Jordan, a dour, hard-eyed, runtish man whose stomach rumbled constantly, complained, "If we'd been warned, we could have made an intercept. As it is, your man Eastin may be guilty of a felony, with you as an accessory."

Wainwright pointed out patiently, "I already explained there was no chance for Eastin to notify anybody, including me.

He took a risk and knew it; I happen to think he did the right thing.

As to a felony, we don't even know for sure there was counterfeit money in that car." "It was there all right," Jordan grumbled.

"It's been surfacing in Louisville ever since. What we didn't know was how it came in."

"Well, you do now," the FBI agent Innes injected. "And thanks to Nolan, we're all that much further ahead." Wainright added, "If you'd made an intercept, sure you might have got a batch of counterfeit.

But not much else, and Eastin's usefulness would have been ended."

In a way, Wainwright sympathized with the Secret Service point of view. The agents were overworked, harassed, their service understaffed, yet the quantity of counterfeit money in circulation had increased by staggering amounts in recent years. They were fighting a hydra-headed monster. No sooner did they locate one source of supply than another sprang up; others remained permanently elusive.

For public purposes the fiction was maintained that counterfeiters were always caught, that their kind of crime didn't pay. In reality, Wainwright knew, it paid plenty.

Despite the initial friction, a big plus from involving law enforcement agencies was recourse to their records. Individuals whom Eastin had named were identified and dossiers assembled against the time when a series of arrests could be made.

The counterfeiter, Danny, was identified as Daniel Kerrigan, age seventy-three. "Long ago," Innes reported,

"Kerrigan had three arrests and two convictions for forgery, but we haven't heard of him in Sfteen years. He's either been legit, lucky, or clever."

Wainwright recalled and repeated a remark of Danny's relayed by Eastin to the effect that he had been working with an efficient organization.

"Could be," Innes said. After their first conference Wainwright and the four agents maintained frequent contact and he promised to inform them immediately of any new report from Eastin.

All were agreed that the remaining key piece of information was the location of the counterfeiters' headquarters. So far, no one had any idea where that Night be. Yet hopes of obtaining a further lead were high, and if and when it happened the FBI and Secret Service were ready to close in.

Abruptly, as Nolan Wainwright meditated, his telephone jangled. A secretary said that Mr. Vandervoort would like to see him as soon as possible. Wainwright was incredulous.

Facing Alex Vandervoort, across the latter s desk, he protested, "You can't be serious"

"I'm serious," Alex said. "Though I have trouble believing you were, making use of the Nunez girl the way you have. Of all the insane notions.," "Insane or not, it worked." Alex ignored the comment. "You put the girl in jeopardy, consulting no one. As a result we're obligated to take care of her, and may even have a lawsuit on our hands."

"I worked on the assumption," Wainwright argued, "that the fewer people who knew what she was doing, the safer she would be."

"No! That's your rationalization now, Nolan. What you really thought was that if I had known, or Edwina D'Orsey, we'd have stopped you. I knew about Eastin.

Was I likely to be less discreet about the girl?" Wainwright rubbed a knuckle along the surface of his chin. "Well, I guess you have a point."

"Damn right I do!" "But that's still no reason, Alex, for abandoning the entire operation.

For the first time in investigating Keycharge frauds we're close to a big breakthrough.

Okay, my judgment was wrong in using Nunez. I admit it. But it wasn't wrong about Eastin, and we've got results to prove it."

Alex shook his head decisively. "Nolan, I let you change my mind once before.

This time I won't. Our business here is banking, not crime busting. We'll seek help from law enforcement agencies and co-operate with them all we can.

But we will not sustain aggressive crime-fighting programs of our own. So I tell you end the arrangement with Eastin, today if possible." "Look, Alex…"

"I already have looked, and don't like what I see. I will not have FMA responsible for risking human lives even Eastin's.

That's definite, so let's not waste time in further argument."

As Wainwright looked sourly despondent, Alex went on, "The other thing I want done is a conference set up this afternoon between you, Edwina D'Orsey, me, to discuss what to do about Mrs. Nunez.

You can start considering ideas. What may be necessary…"

A secretary appeared in the office doorway. Alex said irritably, "Whatever it is - later!" The girl shook her head. "Mr. Vandervoort, Miss Bracken's on the line. She said it's extremely urgent and you'd want to be interrupted, whatever you were doing."

Alex sighed. He picked up a phone. "Yes, Bracken?"

"Alex," Margot's voice said, "it's about Juanita Nunez." "What about her?" "She's disappeared." "Wait." Alex moved a switch, transferring the call to a speaker phone so that Wainwright could hear.

"Go ahead." "I'm terribly worried.

When I left Juanita last night, and knowing I was going to see you later, I arranged to telephone her at work today.

She was deeply concerned. I hoped to be able to give some reassurance."

"Yes?" "Alex, she didn't get to work." Margot's voice sounded strained. "Well, maybe…" "Please listen. I'm at Forum East now. I went there when I learned she wasn't at the bank and I couldn't get an answer on Juanita's home phone either.

Since then I've talked to some other people in the building where she lives.

Two of them say Juanita left her apartment this morning, at her usual time, with her little girl Estela. Juanita always takes Estela to nursery school on her way to the bank.

I found out the name of the school and phoned. Estela isn't there. Neither she nor her mother arrived this morning."

There was a silence. Margot's voice asked,

"Alex, are you still listening?" "Yes, I'm here."

"After that, I phoned the bank again and this time talked to Edwina. She's checked personally. Not only has Juanita not appeared, she hasn't phoned in, which isn't like her.

That's why I'm worried. I'm convinced something's gone terribly, terribly wrong."

"Do you have any ideas?"

"Yes," Margot said. "The same one you have."

"Wait," he told her. "Nolan's here." Wainwright had hunched forward, listening.

Now he straightened and said quietly, "Nunez has been picked up.

There isn't any doubt of it." "By?"

"By someone from that Double-Seven crowd.

They're probably on to Eastin, too." "You think they've taken her to that club?"

"No. That's the last thing they'll do. She's somewhere else."

"Do you have any idea where?" “No” "And whoever it is has the child, too?"

"I'm afraid so."

There was anguish in Wainwright's eyes.

"I'm sorry, Alex." "You got us into this," Alex said fiercely.

"Now, for God's sake, you've got to get Juanita and the kid out of it!" Wainwright was concentrating, thinking as he spoke.

"The first thing is to see if there's a chance of warning Eastin.

If we can get to him, and get him out, he might know something which could lead us to the girl."

He had a small black notebook open and was already reaching for another phone.

20

It happened so swiftly and was so totally unexpected that car doors had slammed, the big black limousine was moving, before she had a chance to cry out.

By then Juanita knew instinctively it was too late, but screamed just the same

"Help! Help!" until a fist slammed savagely into her face, followed by a gloved hand clamped across her mouth.

Even then, hearing Estela's shriek of terror alongside her, Juanita went on struggling until the fist hit hard a second time and vision blurred while sounds receded far away.

The day a clear, fresh, early-November morning had begun normally. Juanita and Estela were up in time to have breakfast, then watch the NBC Today news on their small black and white portable.

After that, they hurried to leave as usual at 7:30, which allowed Juanita just enough time to accompany Estela to nursery school before catching a bus to downtown and the bank.

Juanita always liked mornings, and being with Estela was a joyous way to start any day. Coming out of the building, Estela had skipped ahead, calling back,

"Mommy, I'm missing all the lines," and Juanita smiled because evading lines and cracks in the sidewalk was a game they often played. It was about then that Juanita took vague notice of the dark-windowed limousine parked just ahead, with its rear curbside door open.

She had taken more notice, though, as Estela neared the car and someone inside it spoke to her. Estela moved closer.

As she did, a hand reached out and yanked the little girl inside.

Instantly, Juanita had run to the car door. Then, from behind, a figure whom she hadn't seen dosed in and shoved Juanita hard, making her trip and fall forward into the car, scraping her legs painfully.

Before she could recover, Juanita was dragged inside and pushed to the floor with Estela.

The door behind her slammed, also a door in front, and the car was moving.

Now, as her head cleared and full consciousness returned, she heard a voice say,

"For chrissakes, why ya bring the goddammed kid?"

"Hadda do it. If we don't, the kid's gonna make a big fat fuss, then some jerk hollers cops.

This way we got away clear, fast, no sweat."

Juanita stirred. Hot knives of pain, originating where she had been hit, surged through her head.

She moaned. "Listen, bitchI" a third voice said.

"Ya make trouble, y'll get hurt plenty more.

And don't get ideas about anyone outside seeint in. This car's got one-way glass."

Juanita lay still, fighting off panic, forcing herself to think.

There were three men in the car, two on the back seat above her, one in front.

The remark about one-way glass explained her earlier impression of a big car with dark windows. So what had been said was right: It was no good trying to attract attention.

Where were she and Estela being taken?

And why? Juanita had not the least doubt that the answer to the second question had something to do with her arrangement with Miles. What she had dreaded had come true.

She was, she realized, in gravest peril.

But, Mother of God.' why Estela?

The two of them were sandwiched together on the car floor,

Estela's body heaving in desperate sobs. Juanita moved, trying to hold and comfort her.

"There, amorcito! Be brave, little one."

"Shaddup!" one of the men commanded. Another voice she believed the driver's said,

"Better gag and blindfold 'em." Juanita felt movements, heard a cloth-like substance tear.

She pleaded frantically, "Please, no! I’ll…"

The remaining words were lost as a wide adhesive tape was slapped over her mouth and pressed down. Moments later a dark cloth covered her eyes; she felt it being fastened tightly.

Next her hands were seized and tied behind her.

Cords cut her wrists. There had been dust on the car floor which filled Juanita's nostrils; unable to see or move, choking under the gag, she blew frantically to clear her nose and breathe.

From other movements beside her she sensed the same treatment was being meted out to Estela.

Despair enveloped her.

Tears of rage, frustration filled her eyes.

Damn you, Wainwrightl Damn you, Miles

Where are you now?.. . Why had she ever agreed… made it possible…

Oh, why? Why?.. . Mother of God, please help me

And if not me, save Estelal As time passed, with pain and helplessness increasing,

Juanita's thoughts drifted. She was aware vaguely of the car moving slowly, stopping and starting as if in traffic, then of a long burst of speed followed by more slowness, twists, and turns.

The journey, wherever it was to, seemed endless. After perhaps an hour or was it much more or even much less?

Juanita felt the force of brakes applied fully.

Momentarily the car's motor was louder, as if in a confined space.

Then the motor stopped. She heard an electric hum, a rumble as if a heavy door was closing mechanically,a "thunk" as the rumble stopped.

SimultaneousIy the limousine's doors clicked open, hinges creaked and she was pulled roughly to her feet and impelled forward.

Juanita stumbled, striking her legs painfully again, and would have fallen, but hands seized her.

One of the voices she had already heard ordered,

"Goddamn' walk"

With the blindfold still in place, moving clumsily, her fears remained centered on Estela.

She was conscious of footsteps her own, others resounding on concrete.

Suddenly the floor fell away and she stumbled, partly held, partly shoved down stairs.

At the bottom, more walking.

Abruptly she was pushed backward off balance, her legs shooting out until the fall was stopped by a hard wooden chair.

The same voice as before told someone,

"Take off the shade and tape."

She felt the movement of hands, and fresh pain as the tape was pulled carelessly away from her mouth. The blindfold loosened, then Juanita blinked as darkness gave way to a bright light directed into her eyes. She gasped only, ''Por Dios! where is my…" when a fist struck her.

"Save the singing," one of the car voices said.

"When we tell ye, y'll spill plenty."

There were certain things which Tony Bear Marino liked.

One was erotic sex by his standards, erotic meant things women did to him which made him feel superior and themselves degraded.

Another was cockfighting the bloodier the better.

He enjoyed detailed, graphic reports of gangland beatings and executions which he ordered, though he was careful to stay away from evidential involvement.

Another, though milder, taste was for one-way glass.

Tony Bear Marina so liked one-way (or mirror pane) glass, which permitted him to observe without being seen, that he had it installed in multiple places his cars, business premises, hangouts including the Double-Seven Health Club, and his secluded, guarded home.

In the house, a bathroom and toilet which women visitors used had an entire wall of one-way glass.

From the bathroom side it was a handsome mirror, but on the other was a small closed room in which Tony Bear would sit, enjoying a cigar and the personal privacies unknowingly revealed to him.

Because of his obsession, some one-way glass had been installed at the counterfeiting center and though, out of normal caution, he seldom went there, it had proved useful occasionally, as was the case now.

The glass was built into a half-wall in effect a screen.

Through it he could see the Nunez woman, facing him and tied to a chair.

Her face was bruised and bleeding, and she was disheveled.

Beside her was her child, secured to another chair, the little girl's face chalk white.

A few minutes ago, when Marino learned the child had been brought in, he exploded angrily, not because he cared about children he didn't but because he smelled trouble.

An adult could be eliminated, if necessary, with virtually no risk, but killing a child was something else.

It would cause squeamishness among his own people, and emotion and danger afterward if rumors leaked.

Tony Bear had already made a decision on the subject; it related to the blindfold precautions taken while coming here.

He was also satisfied to be out of sight himself.

Now he lit a cigar and watched.

Angelo, one of Tony Bear's bodyguards who had been in charge of the pick-up operation, leaned over the woman.

Angelo was an ex-prize fighter who had never made the big time but was built like a rhino. He had thick, protruding lips, was a bully and enjoyed what he was doing.

"Okay, you two-bit hooker, start talkie'."

Juanita, who had been straining to see Estela, turned her head toward him. "De que'? Talk, what about?" "Whassa name o' da guy who phoned ya from the Double-Seven?"

A flicker of understanding crossed Juanita's face. Tony Bear saw it and knew it would be only a matter of time, not long at that, before they had the information.

"You bastard!… Animal" Juanita spat at Angelo. ''Canalla! I know of no Double-Seven."

Angelo hit her hard, so that blood ran from her nose and the corner of her mouth. Juanita's head drooped. He seized her hair, holding her face up while he repeated,

"Who's the guy who phoned you from the Double-Seven?" She answered thickly through swollen lips. "Maricon, I will tell you nothing until you let my little girl go."

The broad had spirit, Tony Bear conceded.

If she had been built differently he might have amused himself breaking her in other ways. But she was too scrawny for his taste no hips worth a damn, half a handful of ass, and little peanut tits.

Angelo drew back his arm and punched her in the stomach. Juanita gasped and doubled forward as far as her bonds allowed.

Beside her, Estela, who could see and hear, was sobbing hysterically.

The sound annoyed Tony Bear.

This was taking too long. There was a quicker way.

He beckoned a second bodyguard, Lou, and whispered.

Lou looked as if he didn't like what he was being told, but nodded. Tony Bear handed over the cigar he was smoking.

While Lou stepped out past the partition and spoke in an undertone to Angelo,

Tony Bear Marino glanced around him.

They were in a basement with all doors dosed, eliminating the chance of sounds escaping, though even if they did it wouldn't matter.

The fifty-year-old house, of which this was part, stood in its own grounds in a high-class residential district and was protected like a fortress.

A syndicate which Tony Bear Marino headed had bought the house eight months ago and moved the counterfeiting operation in.

Soon, as a precaution, they would sell the house and move on elsewhere; in fact, a new location was already chosen. It would have the same kind of innocuous, innocent-appearing background as this one. That, Tony Bear sometimes thought with satisfaction, had been the secret of the long, successful run: frequent moves to quiet, respectable neighborhoods, with traffic to and from the center kept to a minimum.

The ultra-caution had two advantages only a handful of people knew exactly where the center was; also, with everything buttoned down, neighbors weren't suspicious.

They had even worked out elaborate precautions for moving from one place to the next. One of them: wooden covers, designed to look like household furniture, which fitted over every piece of machinery, so to a casual watcher all that was happening was a domestic move.

And a regular house moving van, from one of the organization's outwardly legit trucking companies, was brought in for the job. There were even stand-by arrangements for an emergency, extra-fast trucking move if ever needed.

The fake furniture gimmick had been one of Danny Kerrigan's notions.

The old man had had some other good ones, as well as proving a champion counterfeiter since Tony Bear Marino brought him into the organization a dozen years ago.

Shortly before that time, Tony Bear heard about Kerrigan's reputation as a craftsman, and that he had become an alcoholic, skid row bum.

On Tony Bear's orders the old man had been rescued, dried out, and later put to work with spectacular results.

There seemed to be nothing, Tony Bear had come to believe, that Danny couldn't print successfully money, postage stamps, share certificates, checks, drivers' licenses, Social Security cards, you name it.

It had been Danny's idea to manufacture thousands of fake bank credit cards.

Through bribery and a carefully planned raid, they had been able to obtain blank plastic sheets from which Keycharge cards were made, and the quantity was enough to last for years.

Profit so far had been immense.

The only beef about the old man was that once in a while he went back to hitting the sauce and could be out of business for a week or more.

When it happened there was danger of him talking, so he was kept confined.

But he could be crafty and sometimes managed to slip away, as happened last time. Lately, though, the lapses had been fewer, mostly because Danny was happily stashing away his share of the dough in a Swiss bank account and dreamed of going there in a year or two to pick up his loot, then retire.

Except that Tony Bear knew that was one move of the old drunk's which wouldn't happen.

He intended to use the old man as long as he could function.

Also Danny knew too much ever to be let go. But while Danny Kerrigan was important, it had been the organization which protected him and made the most of what he produced.

Without an efficient distribution system the old man would have been like most others of his breed small time or a nothing.

Therefore it was the threat to the organization which concerned Tony Bear most.

Had it been infiltrated by a spy, a stool pigeon?

If "yes," from where? And how much had he or she learned? His attention swung back to what was happening on the other side of the one-way glass. Angelo had the lighted cigar.

His thick lips were twisted in a grin.

With the side of his foot he shoved the two chairs so the Nuliez woman and her brat now faced each other.

Angelo puffed on the cigar until its tip was glowing.

Casually he moved to the chair where the child was seated and bound. Estela looked up, visibly trembling, eyes wild with fright.

Without hurrying, Angelo took her small right hand, lifted it, inspected the palm, then turned it over.

Still slowly he removed the glowing cigar from his mouth and ground it, as if into an ashtray, on the back of her hand. Estela cried out a piercing shriek of agony.

Opposite her, Juanita, frantic, weeping, shouting incoherently, struggled desperately against her bonds. The cigar was not out.

Angelo puffed it into fresh redness then, with the same leisureliness as before, lifted Estela's other hand. Juanita screamed,

"No, no, dejela . I win tell you." Angelo waited, the cigar poised as Juanita gasped,

"The man you want. .. is Miles Eastin." "Who's he work for?" Her voice a despairing whisper, she answered, "First Mercantile American Bank."

Angelo dropped the cigar and ground it out with his heel. He looked interrogatively at where he knew Tony Bear Marino to be, then came around the screen. Tony Bear's face was tight. He said softly,

"Get him. Go get that fink. Bring him here." l

21

"Milesy,"Nate Nathanson said with unusual grouchiness, "whoever your friend is keeps phoning, tell him this place ain't run for the staff, it's run for members."

"What friend?" Miles Eastin, who had been away from the Double-Seven for part of the morning talking care of club errands, looked uncertainly at the manager.

"How in hell would I know? Same guy's phoned four times, asking for you. Wouldn't leave a name; no message." Nathanson said impatiently,

"Where's the deposit book?" Miles handed it over.

Among his calls had been one to a bank to deposit checks. "Shipment of canned goods came in just now," Nathanson said. "Cases in the storeroom.

Check 'em against the invoices." He handed Miles some papers and a key.

"Sure, Nate. And I'm sorry about the calls."

But the manager had already turned awayj heading for his office on the third floor.

Miles felt some sympathy for him. He knew that Tony Bear Marino and Russian Ominsky, who owned the Double-Seven jointly, had been leaning hard on Nathanson lately with complaints about running of the club.

On his way to the storeroom, which was on the main floor at the rear of the building,

Miles wondered about those phone calls.

Who would be calling him? And insistently. As far as he knew, only three people connected with his former life were aware that he was here his probation officer; Juanita; Nolan Wainwright.

The probation officer? Highly unlikely. Last time Miles made his required monthly visit and report, the p.o. had been rushed and indifferent; all he seemed to care about was that he wouldn't be caused trouble. The probation man had made a note of where Miles was working and that was that. Juanita then?

No. She knew better, besides, Nathanson had said a man.

That left Wainwright. But Wainwright wouldn't call either

… Or would he? Might he not take the risk if it were something truly urgent… like a warning?

A warning of what? That Miles was in danger?

That he had been exposed as a spy, or might be? Abruptly, icy fear seized him. His heart hammered faster. Miles realized:

Lately he had assumed an invulnerability, had taken his safety for granted.

But in reality there was no safety here, never had been; only danger even greater now than in the beginning, for now he knew too much.

Approaching the storeroom, as the thought persisted, his hands were trembling. He had to steady himself to put the key in the lock.

He wondered: Was he becoming frightened about nothing, reacting cravenly to shadows?

Perhaps. But a sense of foreboding warned him no.

So what should he do?

Whoever had telephoned would probably try again. But was it wise to wait?

Miles decided:

Risk or not, he would call Wainwright directly.

He had pushed the storeroom door open.

Now he began to close it, to go to a pay phone nearby the one from which he had called Juanita a week and a half ago.

At that moment he heard activity in the club's front lobby at the other end of the main floor corridor which ran from front to rear.

Several men were entering from the street. They seemed in a hurry. Without knowing why, Miles reversed direction and slipped into the storeroom, out of sight

. He heard a mix of voices, then one ask loudly,

"Where's that punk, Eastin?" He recognized the voice. Angelo, one of Marino's bodyguards.

"Up in the office, I guess."

That was Jules LaRocca. Miles heard him say, "What's with…" "Tony Bear wants…"

The voices faded as the men hurried upstairs. But Miles had heard enough, knowing that what he feared had come true.

In a minute, maybe less, Nate Nathanson would tell Angelo and the others where he was. Then they would be down here.

He felt his entire body quaking, yet forced himself to think.

To leave by the front lobby was impossible.

Even if he didn't encounter the men returning from upstairs, they had probably left someone on guard outside.

The rear exit, then?

It was seldom used and opened near an abandoned building.

Beyond that was a vacant lot, then an elevated railway arch. On the far side of the rail line was a maze of small, mean streets.

He could try dodging through those streets, though the chance of eluding a pursuit was slim.

There could be several pursuers; some would have a car or cars;

Miles had none. His mind flashed the message:

Your only chance! Don't lose more time! Go now!

He slammed the storeroom door closed and took the key; perhaps the others would waste precious minutes battering the door down, believing him to be inside.

Then he ran. Through the small rear door, fumbling first with a bolt… Outside, stopping to close the door; no sense in advertising the way he had gone…

Then down a lane beside the disused building…

The building had been a factory once; the lane was littered with debris, old packing cases, cans, the rusty skeleton of a truck beside a caved-in loading dock.

It was like running an obstacle course. Rats scampered away… Across the vacant lot, stumbling over bricks, garbage, a dead dog…

Once Miles tripped and felt an ankle twist; it pained him sharply, but he kept on… So far he had heard no one following…

Then as he reached the railway arch, with comparative safety of the streets ahead, there were running feet behind, a shout,

"There's the son of a bitch!' Miles increased his speed. He was now on the firmer ground of streets and sidewalks. He took the first turning he came to sharply left; then right; almost at once, left again. Behind him he could still hear the pounding feet…

These streets were new to him but his sense of direction told him he was headed for the city center.

If he could only make it there he would disappear in midday crowds,giving him time to think, to telephone Wainwright, perhaps, and ask for help.

Meanwhile he was running hard and well, his wind good. His ankle hurt a little; not too much.

Miles's fitness, the hours spent on the Double-Seven handball court, were paying off…

The sounds of running behind him receded, but their absence didn't fool him.

While a car could not travel the route he had come down the blocked lane and over the vacant lot there were ways around.

A detour of several blocks to cross the railway line would create delay.

Not much, though. Probably, even now, someone in a car was trying to outguess him, head him off. He doubled left and right again, hoping, as he had from the beginning, for any kind of transportation.

A bus.

A taxi better still. But neither came…

When you needed a taxi badly, why was there never one around?… Or a cop. He wished the streets he was passing through were busier. Running made him conspicuous, but he could not afford to slow down yet. A few people whom Miles passed looked at him curiously, but citizens here were used to minding their own business.

The nature of the area, though, was changing as he ran. Now it was less ghetto-like, showing signs of more prosperity. He passed several sizable stores.

Ahead were larger buildings still, the city skyline coming into view. But before getting there, two major intersecting streets would have to be crossed.

He could see the first one now wide, busy with traffic, divided by a center boulevard.

Then he saw something else on the far side of the boulevard a long black Cadillac with dark windows, cruising slowly. Marino's.

As the car crossed the street which Miles was on, it seemed to hesitate, then speeded up, passing quickly out of sight. There had been no time to try to hide.

Had he been seen? Had the car gone on to switch lanes and come back, or had he stayed lucky and been unobserved? Again fear struck him. Though he was sweating, Miles shivered but kept on. There was nothing else to do. He moved close to buildings, slowing his pace as much as he dared.

A minute and a half later, with the intersection only fifty yards away, a Cadilla~the same car nosed around the corner. He knew that luck had run out.

Whoever was in the car most likely Angelo, for one could not fail to see him, probably had already. So was anything to be gained by more resistance? Wouldn't it be simpler to give up, to allow himself to be taken, to let what was going to happen, happen?

No! Because he had seen enough of Tony Bear Marino and his kind, in prison and since, to know what happened to people who incurred their vengeance.

The black car was slowing. They had seen him. Desperation. One of the stores Miles had noticed moments earlier was immediately alongside.

Breaking his stride, he turned left, pushed open a glass door and went in. Inside, he saw it was a sporting goods store.

A pale, spindly clerk, about Miles's own age, stepped forward.

"Good day, sir. Is there something I can show you?" "Er… yes." He said the first thing that came into his head. "I'd like to see bowling balls."

"Certainly. What kind of price and weight?" "The best. About sixteen pounds." "Color?" "Doesn't matter." Miles was watching the few yards of sidewalk outside the street door.

Several pedestrians had gone by. None had paused or looked in. "If you come this way, I'll show you what we have."

He followed the clerk past racks of skis, glass cases, a display of handguns.

Then, glancing back, Miles saw the silhouette of a single figure, stopped outside and peering in the window.

Now a second figure joined the first. They stood together, not moving from the storefront. Miles wondered: Could he get out through the back?

Even as the thought occurred to him, he discarded it. The men who were after him would not make the same error twice. Any rear exit would already have been located and guarded. "This is an excellent ball. It sells for forty-two dollars." ;

"I'll take it." "We'll need your hand measurement for the…"

"Never mind." Should he try to phone Wainwright from here?

But Miles was sure if he went near a phone the men outside would come in instantly.

The clerk looked puzzled. "You don't warn' us to drill…" "I said never mind." "As you wish, sir. How about a bag for the ball? Perhaps some bowling shoes?" "Yes," Miles said. "Yes, okay." It would help postpone the moment of returning to the street.

Scarcely aware of what he was doing, he inspected bags put in front of him, chose one at random, then sat down to try on shoes. It was while slipping on a pair that the idea occurred to him.

The Keycharge card which Wainwright had sent through Juanita… the card in the name of H. E. Lyncolp… H-E-L-P.

He motioned to the bowling ball, bag, and the shoes he had chosen. "How much?" The clerk looked up from an invoice. "Eighty-six dollars and ninety-five cents, plus tax." "Listen," Miles said, "I want to put it on my Keycharge."

He took out his wallet and offered the LYNCOLP card, trying to stop his hands from trembling. "That's okay, but…" "I know, you need authorization.

Go ahead. Phone for it." The clerk took the card and invoice to a glassed-in office area. He was gone several minutes, then returned. Miles asked anxiously,

"Get through?" "Sure. Everything's okay, Mr. Lyncolp." Miles wondered what was happening now at the Keycharge Center in FMA Headquarters Tower.

Would it help him? Could anything help?… Then he remembered the second instruction relayed by Juanita After using the card, dawdle as much as possible. Give Wainwright time to move.

"Sign here, please, Mr. Lyncolp."

A Keycharge account slip was filled in for the amount he had spent. Miles leaned over the counter to add a signature.

Straightening up, he felt a hand touch his shoulder lightly. A voice said quietly, "Milesy." As he turned, Jules LaRocca said, "Don't make no fuss. It won't do no good and you'll get hurt the worse."

Behind LaRocca, their faces impassive, were Angelo and Lou, and a fourth man another bruiser type whom Miles hadn't seen before.

The four moved around him, seizing him, pinioning his arms. "Move, shitass." The order was from Angelo, low-voiced. Miles considered crying out, but who was there to help him?

The milquetoast clerk, watching open-mouthed, could not.

The hunt was ended. The pressure on his arms tightened.

He felt himself propelled helplessly toward the outer door. The bewildered salesclerk ran after them. "Mr. Lyncolpl You've forgotten your bowling ball"

It was LaRocca who told him, "You keep it, buster.

This guy don't even need the balls he's got."

The black Cadillac was parked a few yards down the street

They pushed Miles roughly into it and drove off.

Business in the Keycharge authorization center was near its daily peak.

A normal shift of fifty operators was on duty in the semidarkened auditorium-style center, each seated at a keyboard with a TV-like cathode ray tube above it. To the young operator who received the call, the H. E. LYNCOLP credit query was simply one of thousands dealt with routinely during a working day.

All were totally impersonal.

Neither she nor others like her ever knew where the calls they handled came from not even which city or state. The credit sought might be to pay a New York housewife's grocery bill, provide clothing for a Kansas farmer, allow a rich Chicago dowager to load herself with unneeded jewelry, advance a Princeton undergrad's tuition fees, or help a Cleveland alcoholic buy the case of liquor which finally would kill him. But the operator was never told details.

If really needed later, the specifics of a purchase could be traced back, though it seldom happened. The reason: No one cared.

The money mattered, the money changing hands, the ability to repay the credit granted; that was all. The call began with a flashing light on the operator's console. She touched a switch and spoke into her headset mike. "What is your merchant number, please?" The caller a sporting goods clerk attending to Miles Eastin gave it.

As he did, the operator typed the number. Simultaneously it appeared on her cathode ray screen. She asked, "Card number and date of expiry?" Another answer. Again, details on the screen. "Amount of purchase?" "Ninety dollars, forty-three." Typed. On screen.

The operator pressed a key, alerting a computer several floors below. Within a millisecond the computer digested the information, searched its records and flashed an answer.

APPROVED.

AUTH.No.7416984 ~

URGENT…EMERGENCY…DO..NOT..REPEAT DO

NOTALERT MERCHANT…ADVISE YOUR

SUPERVISOR…EXECUTE…IM MEDIATELY

EMERGENCY….INSTRUCTION 17…

"The purchase is approved," the operator told the caller. "Authorization number…" She was speaking more slowly than usual. Even before she began, she had flashed a signal to an elevated supervisors' booth. Now in the booth another young woman, one of six supervisors on duty, was already reading her own duplication of the cathode ray tube display.

She reached for a card index, seeking emergency instruction 17. The original operator deliberately stumbled over the authorization number and began again.

Emergency signals were not flashed often, but when it happened there were standard procedures which operators knew. Slowing down was one. In the past, murderers had been caught, a kidnap victim saved, disappearances solved, stolen art treasures recovered, a son brought to his dying mother's bedside all because a computer had been alerted to the possibility that a particular credit card might be used, and if and when it was, prompt action was essential.

At such moments, while others took the needed action, a few seconds' foot-dragging by an operator could help significantly. The supervisor was already implementing instruction 17 which informed her that N. Wainwright, v/p Security, was to be advised immediately by telephone that the special Keycharge card issued in the name H. E. LYNCOLP had been presented, and where.

By depressing keys on her own keyboard, the supervisor summoned from the computer the additional information:

PETE'S SPORTING GOODS

and a street address. Meanwhile she had dialed the office number of Mr. Wainwright who answered personally.

His interest was instant.

He responded crisply to the supervisor's information and she sensed his tension while he copied details down. Seconds later, for the Keycharge supervisor, operator, and computer, the brief emergency was over.

Not so for Nolan Wainwright. Since the explosive session an hour and a half ago with Alex Vandervoort, when he learned of the disappearance of Juanita Nunez and her child,

Wainwright had been tensely and continuously on telephones, sometimes two at once.

He had tried four times to reach Miles Eastin at the Double-Seven Health Club to warn him of his danger. He had had consultations with the FBI and U.S. Secret Service.

As a result the FBI was now actively investigating the apparent Nunez kidnapping, and had alerted city and state police with descriptions of the missing pair. It had been arranged that an FBI surveillance team would watch comings and goings at the Double-Seven as soon as the manpower could be spared, probably by this afternoon.

That was all that would be done concerning the Double-Seven for the time being. As FBI Special Agent Innes expressed it, "If we go in there with questions, we tip our hand about knowing the connection, and as for a search, we've no grounds to seek a warrant.

Besides, according to your man Eastin, it's mostly a meeting place with nothing illegal except some gambling going on."

Innes agreed with Wainwright's conclusion that Juanita Nunez and her daughter would not have been taken to the Double-Seven.

The Secret Service, with fewer facilities than the FBI, was working the hideout angle, contacting informers, probing for any scintilla of fact or rumor which might prove to be a lead the combined law enforcement agencies could use.

For the moment, unusually, inter-force rivalry and jealousies were put aside.

When Wainwright received the Keycharge H. E. LYNCOLP alert, he promptly dialed the FBI. Special Agents Innes and Dalrymple were out, he was informed, but could be contacted by radio.

He dictated an urgent message and waited.

The reply came back: The agents were downtown, not far from the address given, and were on their way there. Would Wainwright meet them? Action was a relief. He hurried through the building to his car. Outside Pete's Sporting Goods, Innes was questioning bystanders when Wainwright arrived. Dalrymple was still inside, completing a statement by the clerk. Innes broke off and joined the bank security chief. "A dry hole," he reported glumly.

"It was all over when we got here." He related the little they had learned. Wainwright asked, "Descriptions?" The FBI man shook his head.

"The store guy who served Eastin was so shit scared, he's not sure if there were four men came in or three. Says it all happened so fast, he can't describe or identify anyone. And no one, inside the store or out, remembers seeing a car."

Wainwright's face was drawn, the strain of anxiety and conscience showing. "So what comes next?" "You were a cop," Innes said. "You know how it is in real life. We wait, hoping something else will turn up."

22

She heard scuffling and voices. Now she knew they had Miles and were bringing him in. For Juanita, time had drifted.

She had no idea how long it was since she had gasped out Miles Eastin's name, betraying him, to end the horror of Estela's torture.

Soon after that she had been gagged again and the bonds holding her to the chair were checked and tightened. Then the men left. For a while, she knew, she had dozed or, more accurately, her body had released her from awareness since any real rest was impossible, bound as she was.

Alerted by the new noise, her constricted limbs protested agonizingly, so that she wanted to cry out, though the gag prevented it.

Juanita willed herself not to panic, not to struggle against her bonds, knowing both would be futile and make her situation worse.

She could still see Estela. The chairs they were bound to had been left facing each other. The little girl's eyes were closed in sleep, her small head drooping; the noises which awakened Juanita had not disturbed her. Estela, too, was gagged. Juanita hoped that sheer exhaustion would spare her from reality for as long as possible. Estela's right hand showed the ugly red burn from the cigar. Shortly after the men had left, one of them Juanita had heard him addressed as Lou come back briefly.

He had a tube of ointment of some kind. Squeezing the tube, he covered Estela's burn, glancing quickly at Juanita as if to tell her it was the best he could do.

Then he, too, had gone. Estela had jumped while the ointment was being applied, then whimpered for a while behind her gag, but soon after sleep had mercifully come.

The sounds Juanita had been hearing were behind her.

Probably in an adjoining room, and she guessed a connecting door was open. Briefly she heard Miles's voice protesting, then a thud, a grunt, and silence. Perhaps a minute passed. Miles's voice again, this time more distinct.

"No! Oh, God, no! Please! I'll…"

She heard a sound like hammer blows, metal on metal. Miles's words stopped, changing to a high-pitched, piercing, frenzied scream.

The screaming, worse than anything she had ever heard, went on and on. If Miles could have killed himself in the car, he would have done so willingly.

He had known from the beginning of his deal with Wainwright it had been the root of his fears ever since that straightforward dying would be easy compared with what awaited an exposed informer. Even so, what he had feared was nothing beside the umbelievably awful, excoriating punishment being meted to him now.

His legs and thighs were strapped tightly, cruelly together.

His arms had been forced down onto a rough wooden table. His hands and wrists were being nailed to the table… nailed with carpenter's nails… hammered hard…a nail was already in the left wrist, two more in the wide part of the hand between the wrist and fingers, fastening it tightly down… The last few strokes of the hammer had smashed bone… One nail was in the right hand, another poised to tear, to hack through flesh arid muscle… No pain was ever, could be ever.. . Oh, God, help me.. would be ever greater. Miles writhed, screamed, pleaded, screamed again. But the hands holding his body tightened. The hammer blows, which had briefly paused, resumed. "He ain't yelping loud enough,'' Marino told Angelo, who was wielding the hammer.

"When you get through with that, try nailing down a couple of the bastard's fingers." Tony Bear, who was puffing on a cigar while he watched and listened, had not bothered concealing himself this time. There would be no possibility of Eastin identifying him because Eastin would soon be dead.

First, though, it was necessary to remind him and others to whom the news of what had happened here would filter out that for a stool pigeon there was never any easy death.

"That's more like it," Tony Bear conceded. Miles's agonized shrieks rose in volume while a fresh nail penetrated the center finger of his left hand, midway between the two knuckles, and was hammered home. Audibly, the bone in the finger split apart.

As Angelo was about to repeat the process with the middle finger of the right hand,

Tony Bear ordered, "Hold ill" He told Eastin,

"Stop the goddam noisel Start singing." Miles's screaming turned to racking sobs, his body heaving.

The hands holding him had been removed.

They were no longer needed. "Okay," Tony Bear told Angelo, "he ain't stopped, so go right ahead." "No! No! I’ll talk! I will I will!" Somehow Miles choked back his sobs.

The loudest sound was now his heavy, rasping breathing. Tony Bear waved Angelo back.

The others in the room remained grouped around the table.

They were Lou; Punch Clancy, the extra bodyguard who had been one of the four in the sporting goods store an hour earlier; LaRocca, scowling, worried about how much he would be blamed for sponsoring Miles; and the old printer, Danny Kerrigan, in at ease and nervous.

Although this was normally Danny's domain they were in the main printing and engraving shop he preferred to keep out of the way at moments such as this, but Tony Bear had sent for him. Tony Bear snarled at Eastin, "So all the time you were a stoolie for a stinking bank?"

Miles gasped out, "Yes." "First Mercantile?' "Yes."

"Who'd you report to?" "Wainwright."

"How much you found out? What'd you tell him?"

"About… the club… the games… who went there."

"Including me?" "Yes." 'You son of a bitch!"

Tony Bear reached over and dammed his clenched fistic Miles's face.

Miles's body sagged away with the force of the blow, but the strain tore at his hands and he pulled back desperately to the painful, bent-over position he was in before.

A silence followed, broken only by his labored sobs and groans. Tony Bear puffed his cigar several times, then resumed the questioning.

"What else you find out, you stinking turd?" "Nothing… nothing!"

Every part of Miles was shaking uncontrollably.

"You're lying." Tony Bear turned to Danny Kerrigan.

"Get me that juice you use for the engravings." During the questioning until now, the old printer had been eying Miles with hatred.

Now he nodded. "Sure thing, Mr. Marina."

Danny crossed to a shelf and hefted down a gallon jug with a plastic cap.

The jar was labeled NITRIC ACID: Use for Etching Only. Removing the cap,

Danny poured carefully from the jar into a half-pint glass beaker.

Being careful not to spill the beaker's contents, he carried it to the table where Tony Bear faced Miles. He put it down, then laid a small engraver's brush beside it.

Tony Bear picked up the brush and dipped it in the nitric acid. Casually he reached over and dabbed the brush down one side of Eastin's face.

For a second or two, while the acid penetrated surface skin, there was no reaction.

Then Miles cried out with a new and different agony as the burning spread and deepened. While the others watched in fascination, the flesh under the acid smoldered, turning from pink to brownish black. Tony Bear dipped the brush in the beaker again.

"I'll ask you one more time, asshole.

If I don't get answers, this goes on the other side.

What else did you find out and tell?" Miles's eyes were wild, like a cornered animal's. He spluttered,

"The counterfeit… money." "What about it?"

"I bought some… sent it to the bank… then drove the car… took more to Louisville."

"And?" 'Credit cards… drivers' licenses' "You know who made them?

Printed the phony money?" Miles motioned his head as best he could. "Danny."

"Who told you?" "He… told me." "And afterwards you spilled your guts to that cop at the bank? He knows all that?"

"Yes." Tony Bear swung savagely to Kerrigan.

"You drunken stupid fact! You're no better than him." The old man stood quaking.

"Mr. Marina, I wasn't drunk. I just thought he…"

"Shaddup!" Tony Bear seemed about to hit the old man, then changed his mind. He returned to Miles. "What else do they know?"

"Nothing elsel" "Do they know where the printing's done? Where this place is?"

"No." Tony Bear returned the brush to the acid and withdrew it.

Miles followed every movement.

Experience told him the expected answer. He shouted, "Yesl Yes, they know!"

"You told that bank security bum?" Despairingly, Miles lied. "Yes, yes" "How'd you find out?" The brush stayed poised above the acid.

Miles knew he had to find an answer. Any answer which would satisfy.

He turned his head to Danny. "He told me." "You're a liar! You lousy, stinking goddammed liarl"

The old man's face was working, his mouth opening and closing and jaw quivering as emotion gripped him. He appealed to Tony Bear.

"Mr. Marino, he's Iyingl I swear he's Iyingl It isn't true."

But what he saw in Marino's eyes increased his desperation. Now Danny rushed at Miles.

"Tell him the truth, you bastard! Tell him!" Demented, knowing the potential penalty for himself, the old man looked around him for a weapon.

He saw the acid beaker.

Seizing it, he tossed the contents in Miles's face. A fresh scream started, then abruptly stilled.

As the odor of acid and the sickly smell of burning flesh mingled,

Miles fell forward, unconscious, across the table where his mangled, bleeding hands were nailed. Though not wholly understanding what was happening to Miles, Juanita suffered through his cries and pleadings and finally the extinction of his voice.

She wondered dispassionately, because her feelings were now dulled beyond the point where more emotion could affect her if he were dead.

She speculated on how long it would be before she and Estela shared Miles's fate.

That they would both die now seemed inevitable. Juanita was grateful for one thing: Estela had not stirred, despite the uproar.

If sleep would only stay with her, perhaps she would be spared whatever awfulness remained before the end. As she had not done in many years, Juanita prayed to the Virgin Mary to make death easy for Estela Juanita was aware of new activity in the adjoining room.

It sounded as if furniture was being moved, drawers opened and slammed, containers set down heavily. Once there was the jangle of metal cascading on cement and curses afterward.

Then, to her surprise, the man she had come to recognize as Lou appeared beside her and began unfastening her bonds. She supposed she was being taken somewhere, exchanging one perdition for another.

When he had finished, he left her where she was and started to untie Estela.

"Stand upl" he ordered both of them. Estela, coming awake, complied, though sleepily.

She began crying softly, the sound muffled by her gag. Juanita wanted to go to her but could not yet move forward; she supported her weight against the chair, suffering as blood flowed through her cramped limbs.

"Listen to me," Lou told Juanita.

"You got lucky because of your kid. The boss is gonna let you go.

You'll be blindfolded, taken in a car a long ways from here, and then let QUt. You don't know where you've bin, so you can't bring nobody back.

But if you blab, tell anybody, we'll find you wherever you are and kill your kid. Understand?" Hardly able to believe what she was being told, Juanita nodded. 'When get gain'." Lou pointed to a door.

Evidently it was not his intention to blindfold her yet.

Despite her inertia of moments earlier, she found her normal mental sharpness coming backs Partway up a flight of concrete stairs, she leaned against the wall and wanted to be sick. In the outer room they had just passed through, she had seen Miles or what was left of him his body slumped across a table, his hands a bloody pulp, his face, hair, and scalp burned beyond recognition.

Lou had pushed Juanita and Estela quickly past, but not fast enough to prevent Juanita taking in the grim reality. She had also learned that Miles was not dead, though he was surely dying.

He had stirred slightly and moaned. "Move ill" Lou urged. They continued up the stairs. The horror of Miles as she had seen him filled Juanita's mind.

What could she do to help him? Clearly, nothing here. But if she and Estela were to be released, was there some way she could bring aid back?

She doubted it. She had no idea where they were; there seemed no chance of finding out. Yet she must do something. Something to expiate at least a little her terrible sense of guilt. She had betrayed Miles. Whatever the motivation, she had spoken his name, and he was caught and brought here with the consequence she had seen. T

he seed of an idea, not wholly thought out, came to her. She concentrated, developing the notion, blotting other things from her mind, even Estela for the moment.

Juanita reasoned: it might not work, yet there was a slim chance. Success depended on the acuity of her senses and her memory.

It was also important that she not be blindfolded until after getting in the car.

At the head of the stairway they turned right and entered a garage. With cement block walls, it looked like an ordinary two-car garage belonging to a house or business and, remembering the sounds she had heard on arrival Juanita guessed they had come in this same way. There was one car inside not the big car in which they had arrived this morning, but a dark green Pord.

She wanted to see the license number but it was beyond her view.

In a quick glance around, something puzzled Juanita

Against a wall of the garage was a chest of drawers of dark polished wood, but like no other chest that she had seen before. It appeared to have been sawn vertically in half, with the two halves standing separated and she could see the inside was hollow.

Beside the chest was what looked like a dining-room sideboard cut in the same peculiar way, except that half the sideboard was being carried out of another doorway by two men, one shielded by the door, the other with his back to her.

Lou opened a rear door of the Ford. "Get in," he ordered. In his hands were two thick dark cloths the blindfolds. Juanita entered first.

Doing so, she tripped intentionally and fell forward, supporting herself by grabbing the back of the car's front seat. It gave her the opportunity she wanted to look toward the front on the driver's side and read the odometer mileage. She had a second only to take in the figures: 25714.8. She dosed her eyes, committing them she hoped to memory.

Estela followed Juanita. Lou came in after them, fastened the blindfolds and sat on the rear seat. lIe pushed Juanita's shoulder.

"Down on the floor, botha ye. Make no trouble, ya won't get hurt."

Squatting on the floor with Estela close beside her, Juanita curled her legs and managed to keep facing forward.

She heard someone else get in the car, the motor start, the garage doors rumble open.

Then they were moving.

From the instant the car moved, Juanita concentrated as she had never done before.

Her intention was to memorize time and direction if she could.

She began to count seconds as a photographer friend had once taught her. A thousand and ONE; a thousand and TWO; a thousand and THREE; a thousand and FOUR… She felt the car reverse and turn, then counted eight seconds while it moved in a straight line forward. Then it slowed almost to a stop. Had it been a driveway? Probably. A longish one? The car was again moving slowly, most likely easing out into a street

… Turning left. Now faster forward. She recommenced counting. Ten seconds. Slowing. Turnrng right

… A thousand and ONE; a thousand and TWO; a thousand and THREE… Turning left… Speed faster.. . A longer stretch… A thousand PORTY-NINE; a thousand FIFTY… No sign of slowing… Yes, slowing now. A four-second wait, then straight on. It could have been a traffic light… A thousand and EIGHT… Dear God! For Miles's sake help me to remember!

… A thousand and NINE; a thousand and TEN. Turning right.. .

Banish other thoughts. React to every movement of the car. Count the time hoping, praying that the same strong memory which helped her keep track of money at the bank… which once saved her from Miles's duplicity… would now save hire.

… A thousand TWENTY; One thousand aruf twenty dollars. Nol. .. Mother of Godl Keep my thoughts from wandering… A long straight stretch, smooth road, high speed…

She felt her body sway… The road was curving to the left; a long curve, gentle. .. Stopping, stopping. It had been sixty-eight seconds… Turning right. Begin again. A thousand and ONE; a thousand and TWO…

On and on. As time went by, the likelihood of remembering, of reconstructing, seemed increasingly less likely. 'This's Sergeant Gladstone, Central Communications Bureau, City Police," the flat, nasal voice on the phone announced.

"Says here to immediately notify you people if Juanita NCnez or child Estela Nunez located."

Special Agent Innes sat up taut and straight. Instinctively he moved the phone closer.

"What do you have, Sergeant?"

"Car radio report just in.

Woman and child answering description and names found wandering near junction of Cheviot Township and Shawnee Lake Road.

Taken into protective custody. Officers bringing 'em to 12th Precinct now." Innes covered the mouthpiece with his hand. To Nolan Wainwright, seated across the desk at FBI Headquarters, lie said softly,

"City Police. They've got Nunez and the kid." Wainwright gripped the desk edge tightly. "Ask what condition they're in." "Sergeant," Innes said, "are they okay"

"Told you all we know, chief. Want more dope, you better call the 12th." Innes took down the 12th Precinct number and dialed it.

He was connected with a Lieutenant Faiackerly. "Sure, we got the word," Fazackerly acknowledged crisply. "Hold it. Follow-up phone report just coming in." The FBI man waited. .~

"According to our guys, the woman's been beaten up some," Fazackerly said.

"Face bruised and cut. Child has a bad burn on one hand.

Officers have given first aid. No other injuries reported." - Innes relayed the news to Wainwright who covered his face with a hand as if in prayer.

The lieutenant was speaking again. "Something kind of queer here." "What is it?" "Officers in the car say the Nunez woman won’t talk`. All she wants is pencil and paper.

They've given it to her. She's scribbling like mad. Said something about things being in her memory she has to get out." Special Agent Innes breathed, "Jesus Christ!" He remembered the bank cash loss, the story behind it, the incredible accuracy of Juanita Nunez's circus freak memory.

"Listen," he said. "Please take this from me, I'll explain it later, and we're coming out to you. But radio your car right now.

Tell your officers not to talk to Nunez, not to disturb her, help her in any way she wants.

And when she gets to the precinct house, the same thing goes. Humor her. Let her go on writing if she wants.

Handle her like she was something special." He stopped, then added,

"Which she is."

Short reverse. Prom garage. Forward. 8 sees. Almost stop. (Driveway.7) Turn left. 10 sees. Med. speed. Turn right. 3 sees. Turn left. 55 sees. Smooth, fast. Stop. 4 sees. (Traffic light?) Straight on. 10 sees. Med. speed. Turn right. Rough road (short dist.) then smooth. 18 sees Slowing. Stop. Start immed. Curve to right. Stop-start. 25 sees. Turn left. Straight, smooth. 47secs. Slow. Turn right… Juanita's finished summation ran to seven handwritten pages. , . -.

***

They worked intensively for an hour in a rear room at the precinct house, using large-scale maps, but the result was inconclusive. Juanita's scribbled notes had amazed them all Innes and Dalrymple, Jordan and Quimby of the U. S. Secret Service who had joined the others after a hurry-up call, and Nolan Wainwright.

The notes were incredibly complete and, Juanita maintained, entirely accurate.

She explained she was never confident that whatever her mind stored away could be recalled until the moment came to do so.

But once the effort had been made, she knew with certainty if her recollections had been correct.

She was convinced they were now.

Besides the notes, they had something else to go on. Mileage. The gags and blindfolds had been removed from Juanita and Estela moments before they were pushed from the car on a lonely suburban road. By contrived clumsiness and luck, Juanita had managed to catch a second glimpse of the odometer. 25738.5. They had traveled 23.7 miles. But was it a consistent direction, or had the car donbled back, making the journey seem longer than it was, merely to confuse? Even with Juanita's summary, it was impossible to be certain.

They did the best they could, working painstakingly backwards, estimating that the car might have come this way or that, turned here or there, traveled thus far on this road.

Everyone, though, knew how inexact it was since speeds could only be guessed at and Juanita's senses while she was blindfolded might have deceived her so that error could be piled on error, making their present exercise futile, a waste of time.

But there was a chance they could trace the route back to where she had been captive, or come close. And, significantly, a general consistency existed between the various possibilities worked out so far. It was Secret Service Agent Jordan who made an assessment for them all.

On an area map he drew a series of lines representing the most likely directions in which the car carrying Juanita and Estela would have traveled.

Then, around the origins of the lines, he drew a circle. "In there." He prodded with a finger. "Somewhere in there."

In the ensuing silence, Wainwright heard Jordan's stomach rumble, as on all the occasions they had met before.

Wainwright wondered how Jordan made out on assignments where he had to stay concealed and silent. Or did his noisy stomach preclude him from that kind of work?

"That area," Dalrymple pointed out, "is at least five square miles." "Then let's comb it," Jordan answered. "In teams, in cars.

Our shop and yours, and we'll ask help from the city police." Lieutenant Pazackerly, who had joined them asked, "

And what will we all be looking for, gentlemen?" "If you want the truth," Jordan said, "damned if I know."

Juanita rode in an FBI car with Innes and Wainwright.

Wainwright drove, leaving Innes free to work two radios a portable unit, one of five supplied by the FBI, which could communicate directly with the other cars, and a regular transmitter-receiver linked directly to FBI Headquarters.

Beforehand, under the city police lieutenant's direction, they had sectored the area and five cars were now crisscrossing it. Two were FBI, one Secret Service, and two from the city.

The personnel had split up. Jordan and Dalrymple were each riding with a city detective, filling in details for the newcomers as they drove. If necessary, other patrols of the city force would be called for backup. One thing they were all sure of:

Where Juanita had been held was the counterfeit center. Her general description and some details she had noticed made it close to a certainty.

Therefore, instructions to all special units were the same: Look for, and report, any unusual activity which might relate to an organized crime center specializing in counterfeiting. All concerned conceded the instructions were vague, but no one had been able to come up with anything more specific. As Innes put it:

"What else have we got?" Juanita sat in the rear seat of the FBI car.

It was almost two hours since she and lasted had been set down abruptly, ordered to face away, and the dark green Ford had sped off with a screech of burned rubber.

Since then Juanita had refused treatment other than immediate first aid for her badly bruised and cut face, and the cuts and lacerations on her legs.

She was aware that she looked a mess, her clothing stained and torn, but knew too that if Miles was to be reached in time to save him, everything else must wait, even her own attention to Estela, who had been taken to a hospital for treatment of her burn and for observation.

While Juanita did what she had to, Margot Bracken who arrived at the precinct home shortly after Wainwright and the FBI was comforting Estela. It was now midafternoon. Earlier, getting the sequence of her journey down on paper, clearing her mind as if purging an overburdened message center, had exhausted Juanita.

Yet, afterward, she had responded to what seemed endless questioning by the FBI and Secret Service men who kept on probing for the smallest details of her experience in the hope that some unconsidered fragment might bring them closer to what they wanted most a specific locale.

So far nothing had. But it was not details Juanita thought about now, seated behind Wainwright and Innes, but Miles as she had last seen him.

The picture remained etched with guilt and anguish sharply on her mind. She doubted it would ever wholly disappear. The question haunted her: If the counterfeit center were discovered, would it be too late to save Miles?

Was it already too late? The area within the circle Agent Jordan had drawn located near the city's eastern edge was mixed in character. In part, it was commercial, with some factories, warehouses, and a large industrial tract devoted to light industry. This last, the most likely area, was the segment to which the patrolling forces were paying most attention.

There were several shopping areas. The rest was residential, running the gamut from regiments of box bungalows to a clutch of sizable mansion-type dwellings.

To the eyes of the dozen roving searchers, who cam, municated frequently through the portable radios, activity everywhere was average and routine. Even a few out-ofthe-ordinary happenings had commonplace overtones.

In one of the shopping districts a man buying a painter's safety harness had tripped over it and broken a leg. Not far away a car with a stuck accelerator had crashed into an empty theater lobby.

"Maybe someone thought it was a drive-in movie," Innes said, but no one laughed. In the industrial tract the fire department responded to a small plant blaze and quickly put it out.

The plant was making waterbeds; one of the city detectives inspected it to be sure. At a residential mansion a charity tea was beginning.

At another, an Alliance Van Lines tractor-trailer was loading household furniture. Over amid the bungalows a repair crew was coping with a leaky water main.

Two neighbors had quarreled and were fistfighting on the sidewallc. Secret Service Agent Jordan got out and separated them. And so on.

For an hour. At the end of it, they were no further ahead than when they started. "I've a funny feeling," Wainwright said.

"A feeling I used to get in police work sometimes when I'd missed something." Innes glanced sideways. "I know what you mean.

You get to believe there's something right under your nose if you could only see it." "Juanita," Wainwright said over his shoulder, "is there anything, any little thing you haven't told usI" She said firmly, "I told you everything." "Then let's go over it again." After a while Wainwright said, "Around the time Eastin stopped crying out, and while you were still bound, you told us something about there being a lot of noise." She corrected him, "No, una conmocion. Noise and acttivity. I could hear people moving, things being shifted, drawers opening and dosing, that sort of thing."

"Maybe they were searching for something," Innes suggested. "But what?" "When you were on the way out," Wainwright asked, "did you get any idea what the activity was about?" "for ultima vez, yo no se." Juanita shook her head.

"I told you I was too shocked at seeing Miles to see anything else." She hesitated. "Well, there were those men in the garage moving that funny furniture."

"Yes," Innes said. "You told us about that. It's odd, all right, but we haven't thought of an explanation for it." "Wait a minutel Maybe there is one."

Innes and Juanita looked at Wainwright. He was frowning. He appeared to be concentrating, working something out. "That activity Juanita heard…

Supposing they weren't searching for something but were packing up, preparing to move?"

"Could be," Innes acknowledged. "But what they'd be moving would be machinery.

Printing machines, supplies. Not furniture." "Unless,', Wainwright said, "the furniture was a cover. Hollow furniture."

They stared at each other. The answer hit them both at the same time. "For God's sake," Innes shouted. "That moving vanl" Wainwright was already reversing the car, spinning the wheel hard in a tight, fast turn. Innes seized the portable radio. He transmitted tensely,

"Strongthrust group leader to all special units. Converge on large gray house, stands back near east end Earlham Avenue.

Look for Alliance Van Lines moving van. Halt and detain occupants. City limits call in ad cars in vicinity. Code 10-13." Code 10-13 meant: Maximum speed, wide open, lights and siren. Innes switched on their own siren. Wainwright put his foot down hard. "Christ!" Innes said; he sounded close to tears. "We went by it twice. And last time they were almost loaded."

***

"When you leave here," Marino instructed the driver of the tractor-semi, "head for the West Coast. Take it easy, do everything the way you would with a regular load, and rest up every night. But keep in touch, you know where to call.

And if you don't get fresh orders on the way, you'll get them in L.A." "Okay, Mr. Marino,"

the driver said.

He was a reliable foe who knew the score, also that he would get a kingsized bonus for the personal risk he was running.

But he had done the same thing other times before, when Tony Bear had kept the counterfeit center equipment on the road and out of harm's way, moving it around the country like a floating crap game until any heat was off.

"Well then," the driver said, "everything's loaded. I guess I'll roll. So long, Mr. Marino."

Tony Bear nodded, feeling relief. He had been unusually antsy during the packing and loading operation, a feeling which had kept him here, overseeing and keeping the pressure on, though he knew he was being un-smart to stay.

Normally he kept safely distant from the working front line of any of his operations, making sure there was no evidence to connect him in the event that something fouled up.

Others were paid to take those kinds of risks and raps if necessary.

The thing was, though, the counterfeit caper, starting as chickenshit, had become such a big-time moneymaker in the real sense that from once having been the least of his interests, it was now near the top of the list. Good organization had made it that way; that and taking uItra-precautions a description Tony Bear liked such as moving out now.

Strictly speaking, he didn't believe this present move was necessary at least not yet because he was sure Eastin had been lying when he said he had found out this location from Danny Kerrigan and had passed the information on. Tony Bear believed Kerrigan on that one, though the old fart had talked too much, and was going to have some unpleasant surprises soon which would cure him of a loose tongue. If Eastin had known what he said he did, and passed it on, the cops and bank clicks would have swarmed here long ago, Tony Bear wasn't surprised it, at the lie. He knew how people under torture passed through successive mental doors of desperation, switching from lies to truth, then back to lies again if they thought it was something their torturers wanted to hear.

It was always an interesting game outguessing them. Tony Bear enjoyed those kinds of games.

Despite all that, moving out, using the emergency rush arrangements set up with the mob-owned trucking company, was the smart thing to do.

As usual ultra-smart. If in doubt, move. And now the loading was done, it was time to get rid of what was left of the stoolie.

A detail Angelo would attend to. Meanwhile, Tony Bear decided, it was high time he got the hell away from here himself.

In exceptional good humor, he chuckled. Ultra-smart. It was then he heard the faint but growing sound of converging sirens and, minutes later, knew he had not been smart at all.

"Better move it, Harryl" the young ambulance steward called forward to the driver.

"This one doesn't have time to spare." "From the look of the guy," the driver said he kept his eyes directed ahead, using flashers and warbling siren to weave daringly through early rush hour traffic "from the look of him, we'd both be doing the poor bastard a favor if we pulled over for a beer."

"Knock it off, Harry." The steward, whose qualifications were somewhat less than those of a male nurse, glanced toward Juanita. She was perched on a jump seat, straining around him to see Miles, her face intent, lips moving. "Sorry, miss. Guess we forgot you were there. On this job we get a bit case-hardened." It took her a moment to absorb what was said. She asked,

"How is he?" "In bad shape. No sense fooling you." The young paramedic had injected a quarter grain of morphine subcutaneously.

He had a blood-pressure cuff in place and now was sloshing water on Miles's face. Miles was semiconscious and, despite the morphine, moaning in pain. All the time the steward went on talking. "He's in shock. That can kill him, if the burns don't.

This water's to wash the acid away, though it's late. As to his eyes, I wouldn't want. .. Say, what the hell happened in therel"

Juanita shook her head, not wanting to waste time and effort in talk. She reached out, seeking to touch Miles, even through the blanket covering him.

Tears fined her eyes. She pleaded, uncertain she was being heard, "Forgive met Oh, forgive met" "He your husband?" the steward asked. He began putting splints, secured by cotton bandages, around Miles's hands. "No." "Boyfriend?"

"Yes." The tears were flowing faster. Was she still his friend? Need she have betrayed him? Here and now she wanted forgiveness, just as he had once asked forgiveness of her it seemed long ago, though it was not. She knew it was no use.

"Hold this," the steward said. He placed a mask over Miles's face and handed her a portable oxygen bottle. She heard a hiss as the oxygen went on and grasped the bottle as if, through her touch, she could communicate, as she had wanted to communicate ever since they had found Miles, unconscious, bleeding, burned, still nailed to the table in the house.

Juanita and Nolan Wainwright had followed the federal agents and local police into the big gray mansion, Wainwright having held her back until he made sure there was not going to be any shooting.

There had been none; not even any resistance apparently, the people inside having decided they were outflanked and outnumbered.

It was Wainwright, his face more strained than she had ever seen it, who carefully, as gently as he could, pried loose the nails and released Miles's mangled hands.

Dalrymple, ashen, cursing softly, held Eastin while, one by one, the nails came out. Juanita had been vaguely aware of other men, who had been in the house, lined up and handcuffed, but she hadn't cared. When the ambulance came she stayed close to the stretcher brought for Miles.

She followed it out and into the ambulance. No one tried to stop her. Now she began praying. The words came readily; words from long ago. ..

“Virgen Maria… that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercessfon was left unaided. Inspired by that confidence I by unto you… Something the ambulance steward had said, but she hadn't taken in, played back in her subconscious. Miles's eyes. They were burned with the remainder of his face. Her voice trembled. "Will he be blind?" "The specialists will have to answer that. Soon's we get to Emergency he'll get the best treatment.

There isn't a lot more I can do right here." Juanita thought: there wasn't anything she could do either. Except to stay with Miles, as she would, with love and devotion for as long as he wanted and needed her. That, and pray… Oh Virgen Madre de las virgines!… To thee I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions but hear and answer me. Amen. Some colonnaded buildings flashed by. "We're almost there," the steward said. He had his fingers on Miles's pulse. "He's still alive "

24

In the fifteen days since official investigation was begun by the SEC into the labyrinthine finances of Supranational, Roscoe Heyward had prayed for a miracle to avert total catastrophe. Heyward himself attended meetings with other SuNatCo creditors, their objective to keep the multinational giant operating and viable if they could. It had proven impossible.

The more deeply investigators probed, the worse the financial debacle appeared. It seemed probable, too, that criminal charges of fraud would eventually be laid against some of Supranational's officers, including G. G. Quartermain, assuming Big George could ever be enticed back from his Costa Rica hideaway at the moment an unlikely prospect.

Therefore, in early November, a petition of bankruptcy under Section 77 of the Bankruptcy Act was filed on behalf of Supranational Corporation.

Though it had been expected and feared, the immediate repercussions were worldwide. Several large creditors, as well as associated companies and many individuals, were considered likely to go down the drain along with SuNatCo.

Whether First Mercantile American Bank would be one of them, or if the bank could survive its enormous loss, was still an open question.

No longer an open question as Heyward fully realized was the subject of his own career. At FMA, as the author of the greatest calamity in the bank's one-hundred year history, he was virtually finished. What remained at issue was whether he, personally, would be legally liable under regulations of the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the SEC.

Obviously, there were those who thought so. Yesterday, an SEC official, whom Heyward knew well, advised him,

"Roscoe, as a friend, I suggest you get yourself a lawyer." In his office, soon after the opening of the business day, Heyward's hands trembled as he read The Wall Street Journal's page one story on the Supranational bankruptcy petition.

He was interrupted by his senior secretary, Mrs. Callaghan. "Mr. Heyward Mr. Austin is here." Without waiting to be told, Harold Austin hurried in. In contrast to his normal role, the aging playboy today merely looked an overdressed old man. His face was drawn, serious, and pale; pouches beneath his eyes were rings of age and lack of sleep.

He wasted no time in preliminaries. "Have you heard anything from Quartermain?" Heyward motioned to the Journal.

"Only what I read." In the past two weeks he had tried several times to telephone Big George in Costa Rica, without success.

The SuNatCo chairman was staying incommunicado. Reports filtering out described him as living in feudal splendor, with a small army of thugs to guard him, and said he had no intention, ever, of returning to the United States.

It was accepted that Costa Rica would not respond to U.S. extradition proceedings, as other swindlers and fugitives had already proved.

"I'm going down the tube," the Honorable Harold said. His voice was close to breaking. "I put the family trust heavily into SuNatCo and I'm in hock myself for money I raised to buy Q-Investments."

"What about Q-Investments?" Heyward had tried to find out earlier the status of Ouartermain's private group which owed two million dollars to FMA in addition to the fifty million owing by Supranational. "You mean you didn't hear?" Heyward flared, "If I did, would I be asking?" "I found out last night from Inchbeck. That son of a bitch Quartermain sold out all Q-Investments holdings mostly stock in SuNatCo subsidiaries when the group share prices were at their peak.

There must have been a swimming pool full of cash."

Including FMA's two million, Heyward thought. He asked,

"What happened to it?" "The bastard transferred everything into offshore shell companies of his own, then moved the money out of them, so all Q-Investments is left with is shares in the shells just worthless paper."

To Heyward's disgust, Austin began to blubber. "The real money… my money… could be in Costa Rica, the Bahamas, Switzerland… Roscoe, you've got to help me get it back… Otherwise I'm floished… broke." Heyward said tersely, "There's no way I can help you,

Harold." He was worried enough about his own part in Q-Investments without concerning himself with Austin's. "But if you hear anything new… if there's any hope…" "If there is, I'll let you know." As quickly as he could, Heyward eased Austin out of the office. He had no sooner gone than Mrs. Callaghan said on the intercom, "There's a reporter calling from Newsday.

His name is Endicott. It's about Supranational and he says it's important that he speak to you personally." "Tell him I have nothing to say, and to call the PR department."

Heyward remembered Dick French's admonition to the senior officers:

The press win try to contact you individually… refer every caller to me. At least that was one burden he need not bear. Moments later he heard Dora Callaghan's voice again.

''I'm sorry, Mr. Heyward." "What is it?" "Mr. Endicott is still on the line.

He asked me to say to you: Do you wish him to discuss Miss Avril Deveraux with the PR department, or would you prefer to talk about her yourself?" Heyward snatched up a phone.

"What is all this?" "Good morning, sir," a quiet voice said. "I apologize for disturbing you. This is Bruce Endicott of Newsday."

"You told my secretary…" "I told her, sir, that I thought there were some things you'd prefer me to check with you personally, rather than lay them out for Dick French." Was there a subtle emphasis on the word "lay"? Heyward wasn't sure.

He said, "I'm extremely busy. I can spare a few minutes, that's all." "Thank you, Mr. Heyward. I'll be as brief as I can. Our paper has been doing some investigating of Supranational Corporation. As you know, there's a good deal of public interest and we're running a major story on the subject tomorrow. Among other things, we're aware of the big loan to SuNatCo by your bank. I've talked to Dick French about that." "Then you have all the information you need."

"Not quite, sir. We understand from other sources that you personally negotiated the Supranational loan, and there's a question of when the subject first came up.

By that I mean when did SuNatCo first ask for the money? Do you happen to remember?" "I'm afraid I don't. I deal with many large loans."

"Surely not too many for fifty million dollars." "I think I already answered your question." "I wonder if I could help, sir. Could it have been on a trip to the Bahamas in March?

A trip you were on with Mr. Quartermain, Vice-President-Stonebridge, and some others?" Heyward hesitated. "Yes, it might have been."

"Could you say definitely that it was?" The reporter's tone was deferential, but it was clear he would not be put off with evasive answers.

"Yes, I remember now. It was." "Thank you, sir. On that particular trip, I believe, you traveled in Mr. Quartermain's private jet a 707?" "Yes."

"With a number of young lady escorts." "I'd hardly say they were escorts. I vaguely recall several stewardesses being aboard." "Was one of them Miss Avril Deveraux? Did you meet her then, and also in the several days which followed in the Bahamas?"

"I may have done. The name you mentioned seems familiar." "Mr. Heyward, forgive me for putting it this way, but was Miss Deveraux offered to you sexually in return for your sponsorship of the Supranational loan?"

"Certainly not!" Heyward was sweating now, the hand holding the telephone shaking. He wondered how much this smooth-voiced inquisitor really knew. Of course, he could end the conversation here and now; perhaps he should, though if he did he would go on wondering, not knowing. "But did you, sir, as a result of that trip to the Bahamas, form a friendship with Miss Deveraux?"

"I suppose you could can it that. She is a pleasant, charming person."

"Then you do remember her?" He had walked into a trap. He conceded, "Yes." "Thank you, sir. By the way, have you met Miss Deveraux subsequently?"

The question was asked casually. But this man Endicott knew. Trying to keep a tremor out of his voice, Heyward insisted, "I've answered all the questions I intend to. As I told you, I'm extremely busy."

"As you wish, sir. But I think I should tell you that we've talked with Miss Deveraux and she's been extremely co-operative." Extremely co-operative? Avril would be,

Heyward thought. Especially if the newspaper paid her, and he supposed they had. But he felt no bitterness toward her; Avril was what she was, and nothing could ever change the sweetness she had given him. The reporter was continuing.

"She's supplied details of her meetings with you and we have some of the Columbia Hilton hotel bills your bills, which Supranational paid. Do you wish to reconsider your statement, sir, that none of that had anything to do with the loan from First Mercantile American Bank to Supranational?"

Heyward was silent. What could he say? Confound an newspapers and writers, their obsession with invading privacy, their eternal digging, digging!

Obviously someone inside SuNatCo had been induced to talk, had filched or copied papers. He remembered something Avril had said about "the list" a confidential roster of those who could be entertained at Supranational's expense.

For a while, his own name had been on it. Probably they had that information, too.

The irony, of course, was that Avril had not in any way influenced his decision about the SuNatCo loan. He had made up his mind to recommend it long before involvement with her.

But who would believe him? "There's just one other thing, sir." Endicott obviously assumed there would be no answer to the last question. "May I ask about a private investment company called Q-Investments? To save time, I’ll tell you we've managed to get copies of some of the records and you are shown as holding two thousand shares. Is that correct?"

"I have no comment to make." "Mr. Heyward, were those shares given to you as a payoff for arranging the Supranational loan, and further loans totaling two million dollars to Q-Investments?" Without speaking, Roscoe Heyward slowly hung up the phone.

Tomorrow's newspaper. That was what the caller had said. They would print it all, since obviously they had the evidence, and what one newspaper initiated, the rest of the media would repeat.

He had no illusions, no doubts about what would follow. One newspaper story, one reporter, meant disgrace total, absolute. Not only at the bank, but among friends, family.

At his church, elsewhere.

His prestige, influence, pride would be dissolved; for the first time he realized what a fragile mask they were.

Even worse was the certainty of criminal prosecution for accepting bribes, the likelihood of other charges, the probability of prison.

He had sometimes wondered how the once-proud Nixon henchmen felt, brought low from their high places to be criminally charged, fingerprinted, stripped of dignity, judged by jurors whom not long before they would have treated with contempt. Now he knew. Or shortly would.

A quotation from Genesis came to him: My punishment is greater than I can bear.

A telephone rang on his desk. He ignored it. There was nothing more to be done here. Ever. Almost without knowing it, he rose and walked out of the office, past Mrs. Callaghan who regarded him strangely and asked a question which he neither absorbed nor would have answered if he had.

He walked down the 36th floor corridor, past the boardroom, so short a time ago an arena for his own ambitions. Several people spoke to him. He took no notice of them. Not far beyond the boardroom was a small door, seldom used. He opened it. There were stairs going upward and he ascended them, through several flights and sums, climbing steadily, neither hurrying nor pausing on the way.

Once, when FMA Headquarters Tower was new, Ben Rosselli had brought his executives this way. Heyward was one of them, and they had exited by another small door, which he could see ahead. Heyward opened it and went out, onto a narrow balcony almost at the building's peak, high above the city. A raw November wind struck him with blustering force.

He leaned against it and found it somehow reassuring, as if enfolding him. It was on that other occasion, he remembered, that Ben Rosselli had held out his arms toward the city and said: "Gentlemen, what was once here was my grandfather's promised land.

What you see today is ours. Remember as he did that to profit in the truest sense, we must give to it, as well as take." It seemed long ago, in precept as well as time.

Now Heyward looked downward. He could see smaller buildings, the winding, omnipresent river, traffic, people moving like ants on Rosselli Plaza far below.

The sounds of them all came to him, muted and blended, on the wind. He put a leg over the waist-high railing, separating the balcony from a narrow, unprotected ledge.

His second leg followed. Until this moment he had felt no fear, but now all of his body trembled with it, and his hands grasped the railing at his back tightly. Somewhere behind him he heard agitated voices, feet racing on the stairs. Someone shouted, "Roscoe!" His last thought but one was a line from I Samuel: Go, and the Lord be with thee. The very last was of Avril. O thou fairest among women… Rise up, my love, my fair one and come away… Then, as figures burst through the door behind him, he closed his eyes and stepped forward into the void.

25

There were a handful of days in your life, Alex Vandervoort thought, which, as long as you breathed and remembered anything, would stay sharply and painfully engraved in memory.

The day little more than a year ago on which Ben Rosselli announced his impending death was one. Today would be another. It was evening.

At home in his apartment, Alex stin shocked from what had happened earlier, uncertain and dispirited was waiting for Margot. She would be here soon. He mixed himself a second scotch and soda and tossed a log on the fire, which had burned low. This morning he had been first through the door to the high tower balcony, having raced up the stairs after hearing worry expressed about Heyward's state of mind and deducing from swift questioning of others where Roscoe might have gone.

Alex had cried out as he hurled himself through the doorway into the open, but was too late. The sight of Roscoe, seeming to hang for an instant in air, then disappear from view with a terrible scream which faded quickly, left Alex horrified, shaking, and for moments unable to speak.

It was Tom Straughan, who was right behind him on the stairway, who had taken charge, ordering the balcony cleared, an order with which Alex had complied. Later, in an act of futility, the door to the balcony had been locked. Below, returning to the 36th floor, Alex had pulled himself together and gone to report to Jerome Patterton.

After that, the rest of the day was a melange of events, decisions, details, succeeding and merging with each other until the whole became a Heyward epitaph, which even now was not conduded, and there would be more of the same tomorrow.

But, for today, Roscoe's wife and son had been contacted and consoled; police inquiries answered at least, in part; funeral arrangements overseen since the body was unrecognizable, the coffin would be sealed as soon as the coroner agreed; a press statement drafted by Dick French and approved by Alex; and still more questions dealt with or postponed. Answers to other questions became clearer to Alex in the late afternoon, shortly after Dick French advised him that he should accept a telephone call from a Newsda:y reporter named Endicott.

When Alex talked to him, the reporter seemed upset. He explained that just a few minutes earlier he had read on the AP wire of Roscoe Heyward's apparent suicide. Endicott went on to describe his call to Heyward this morning and what transpired. "If I'd had any idea…" he ended lamely. Alex made no attempt to help the reporter feel better.

The moralities of his profession were something he would have to work out for himself. But Alex did ask, "Is your paper still going to run the story?" "Yes, sir. The desk is writing a new lead. Apart from that, it will run tomorrow as intended."

'When why did you call?' "I guess I just wanted to say to somebody I'm sorry." "Yes," Alex said. "So am I." This evening Alex reflected again on the conversation, pitying Roscoe for the agony of mind he must have suffered in those final minutes.

On another level there was no doubt that the Newsday story, when it appeared tomorrow, would do the bank great harm. It would be harm piled on harm. Despite Alex's success in halting the run at Tylersville, and the absence of other visible runs elsewhere, there had been a public lessening of confidence in First Mercantile American and an erosion of deposits. Nearly forty million dollars in withdrawals had flowed out in the past ten days and incoming funds were far below their usual level. At the same time, FMA's share price had sagged badly on the New York Stock Exchange. FMA, of course, was not alone in that. Since the original news of Supranational's insolvency, a miasma of melancholy had gripped investors and the business community, including bankers; had sent stock prices generally on a downhill slide; had created fresh doubts internationally about the value of the dollar; and now appeared to some as the last clear warning before the major storm of world depression.

It was, Alex thought, as if the toppling of a giant had brought home the realization that other giants, once thought invulnerable, could topple, too; that neither individuals, nor corporations, nor governments at any level, could escape forever the simplest accounting law of all that what you owed you must one day pay. Lewis D'Orsey, who had preached that doctrine for two decades, had written much the same thing in his latest Newsletter.

Alex had received a new issue in the mail this morning, had glanced at it, then put it in his pocket to read more carefully tonight. Now, he took it out. Do not believe the glibly touted myth [Lewis wrote] that there is something complex and elusive, defying easy analysis, about corporate, national or international finance.

All are simply housekeeping ordinary housekeeping, on a larger scale. The alleged intricacies, the obfuscations and sinuosities are an imaginary thicket.

They do not, in reality, exist, but have been created by vote-buying politicians (which means all politicians), manipulators, and Keynesian-diseased "economists." Together they use their witch doctor mumbo-jumbo to conceal what they are doing, and have done. What these bumblers fear most is our simple scrutiny of their activities in the clear and honest light of commonsense.

For what they the politicians, mostly on one hand have created is Himalayas of debt which neither they, we, nor our great-great-great-grandchildren can ever pay. And, on the other hand, they have printed, as if producing toilet tissue, a cascade of currency, debasing our good money especially the honest, gold-backed dollars which Americans once owned.

We repeat: It is all simply housekeeping the most flagrantly incompetent, dishonest housekeeping in human history. This, and this alone, is the basic reason for inflation. There was more. Lewis preferred too many words, rather than too few. Also, as usual, Lewis offered a solution to financial ills. Like a beaker of water for a parched and dying wayfarer, a solution is ready and available, as it has always been, and as it always will be.

Gold. Gold as a base, once more, for the world's money systems. Gold, the oldest, the only bastion of monetary integrity. Gold, the one source, incorruptible, of fiscal discipline. Gold, which politicians cannot print, or make, or fake, or otherwise debase. Gold which, because of its severely limited supply, establishes its own real, lasting value. Gold which, because of this consistent value and when a base for money, protects the honest savings of all people from pillaging by knaves, charlatans, incompetents and dreamers in public office.

Gold which, over centuries, has demonstrated: without it as a monetary base, there is inevitable inflation, followed by anarchy; with it, inflation can be curbed and cured, stability retained. Gold which God, in His wisdom, may have created for the purpose of curtailing man's excess.

Gold of which Americans once stated proudly their dollar was "as good as." Gold to which, someday soon, America must honorably return as its standard of exchange. The alternative becoming clearer daily is fiscal and national disintegration.

Fortunately, even now, despite skepticism and anti-gold fanatics, there are signs of maturing views in government, of sanity returning… Alex put The D'Orsey Newsletter down. Like many in banking and elsewhere he had sometimes scoffed at the vociferous gold bugs Lewis D'Orsey, Harry Schultz, James Dines, Congressman Crane, Exter, Browne, Pick, a handful more.

Recently, though, he had begun wondering if their simplistic views might not after all be right. As well as gold, they believed in laissez-faire, the free, unhampered function of the marketplace where inefficient companies were allowed to fail and efficient ones succeed.

The obverse of the coin were the Keynesian theorists, who hated gold and believed in tinkering with the economy, induding subsidies and controls, calling it all "fine tuning."

Could the Keynesians be the heretics, Alex wondered, and D'Orsey, Schultz, et al, true prophets? Perhaps. Prophets in other eras had been lonely and derided, yet some lived to see their prophecies fulfilled. One view Alex shared in totality with Lewis and the others was that grimmer times were close ahead. lodeed, for FMA they were already here.

He heard the sound of a key turning. The outer door of the apartment opened and Margot came in. She removed a belted camel's-hair coat and tossed it on a chair. "Oh God, Alex. I can't get Roscoe out of my mind. How could he do it? Why" She went directly to the bar and mixed a drink.

"It seems there were some reasons," he said slowly. "They're beginning to come out. If you don't mind, Bracken, I don't feel like talking about it yet." "I understand." She came to him He held her tightly as they kissed.

After a while he said, 'Tell me about Eastin, Juanita, the little girl." Since yesterday Margot had masterminded arrangements concerning all three. She sat facing him, sipping her drink. "It's all so much; coming together…"

"Often things seem to happen that way." He wondered what else, if anything, There would be before this day was done. "Miles first," Margot began. "He's out of danger and the best news is that by a miracle he won't be blind.

What the doctors believe is that he must have closed his eyes an instant before the acid hit, so the eyelids saved him.

They're terribly burned, of course, like the rest of his face, and he'll be having plastic surgery for a long time." "What about his hands?" Margot took a notebook from her purse and opened it. 'The hospital has been in touch with a surgeon on the West Coast a Dr. Jack Tupper in Oakland. He has the reputation of being one of the best men in the country for surgical repair of hands.

He's been consulted by phone. He's agreed to fly here and operate the middle of next week. I assume the bank will pay."

"Yes," Alex said. "It will." "I've had a talk," Margot continued, "with Agent Innes of the FBI. He says that in return for Miles Eastin's testifying in court, They'll offer him protection and a new identity somewhere else in the country."

She put down her notebook. "Has Nolan talked to you today?" Alex shook his head. 'There hasn't been much chance." "He's going to. He wants you to use your influence in helping Miles get a job. Nolan says if necessary he’ll pound on your desk to make you do it."

"He won't need to," Alex said. "Our holding company owns consumer finance shops in Texas and in California We'll find something for Eastin in one or the other." "Maybe they'll hire Juanita as well. She says wherever he goes, she's going with him. Estela, too." Alex sighed. He was glad there would be at least one happy ending.

He asked, "What did Tim McCartney say about the child?" It had been Alex's idea to send Estela Nunez to Dr. McCartney, the Remedial Center psychiatrist.

What mental harm, if any, Alex wondered, had befallen the little girl as a result of her kidnapping and torture? But the thought of the Remedial Center now was a dismal reminder to him of Celia "I'll tell you one thing," Margot said. "If you and I were as sane and balanced as little Estela, we'd both be better people.

Dr. McCartney says the two of them talked the whole thing out. As a result, Estela won't bury the experience in her subconscious; she'll remember it clearly as a bad nightmare, nothing more."

Alex felt tears spring to his eyes. "I'm glad of that," he said softly. "Really glad." "It's been a busy day." Margot stretched, kicking off her shoes.

"One of the other things I did was taL1c with your legal department about compensation for Juanita. I think we can work something out without taking you to court."

"Thanks, Bracken." He took her drink, and his own, to refill them. While he did, the telephone rang. Margot got up and answered it. "It's Leonard Kingswood. For you." Alex crossed the living room and took the phone. "Yes, Len?" "I know you're relaxing after a rough day," the Northam Steel chairman said, "and I'm shook up about Roscoe, too. But what I have to say can't wait." Alex grimaced. "Go ahead." "There's been a caucus of directors.

Since this afternoon we've had two conference calls, with other calls between. A full meeting of the FMA board is being summoned for noon tomorrow." "And?" "The first order of business will be to accept the resignation of Jerome as president. Some of us demanded it. Jerome agreed. In fact, I think he was relieved." Yes, Alex thought, Patterton would be He clearly had no stomach for the sudden avalanche of problems, along with the critical decisions needed now.

"After that," Kingswood said with his usual blunt directness, "you will be elected president, Alex. The appointment to take effect immediately."

While talking, Alex had cradled the telephone against his shoulder and lit his pipe. Now he puffed it while he considered.

"At this point, Len, I'm not sure I want the job." "There was a feeling you might say that, which is why I was elected as the one to call you.

You could say I'm pleading, Alex; for myself and the rest of the board." Kingswood paused, and Alex sensed he was having a hard time. Beseeching did not come easily to a man of Leonard L. Kingswood's stature, but he plowed on just the same. "We all know you warned us about Supranational, but we thought we were wiser.

Well, we weren't. We ignored your advice and now what you predicted has come true. So - we're asking you, Alex belatedly, I admit to help us out of this mess we're in. I might say that some of the directors are worried about their personal liability.

All of us remember your cautioning about that, too." "Let me think a minute, Len." '`Take your time." Alex supposed he should feel some personal satisfaction, a sense of superiority, perhaps, at being vindicated, able to say, I told you so; a conviction of power at holding as he knew he did trump cards. ~ He felt none of those things.

Only a great sadness at the futility and waste, when the best that could happen for a long time to CDme, assuming he succeeded, was for the bank to regain the state in which Ben Rosselli left it. Was it worth it? What was it all about? Could the extraordinary effort, deep personal involvement and sacrifice, the stress and strain, be justified? And for what?

To save a bank, a money store, a money machine, from failure.

Wasn't Margot's work among the poor and disadvantaged far more important than his own, a greater contribution to their times? Yet it wasn't all that simple because banks were necessary, in their way as essential and immediate as food. Civilization would break down without a money

…

system. Banks, though imperfect, made the money system work.

Those were abstract considerations; there was a practical one. Even if Alex accepted the leadership of First Mercantile American at this late stage, there was no assurance of success. He might merely preside, ignominiously, over FMA's demise or take-over by another bank. If so, he would be remembered for it, his reputation as a banker liquidated, too.

On the other hand, if anyone could save FMA, Alex knew he was the one. As well as ability, he possessed the inside knowledge which an outsider would not have time to learn. Even more important:

Despite all the problems, even now, he believed that he could do it.

"If I accepted, Len," he said, "I'd insist on a free hand to make changes, including changes on the board." "You'd get your free hand," Kingswood answered. "I personally guarantee it." Alex drew on his pipe, then put it down.

"Let me sleep on it. I'll give you my decision in the morning." He hung up the phone and retrieved his drink from the bar. Margot had already taken hers. She regarded him quizzically. "Why didn't you accept? When both of us know you're going to."

"You guessed what that was all about?" 4'Of course." "Why are you so certain I'll accept?" "Because you can't resist the challenge. Because your whole life is banking. Everything else takes second place." "I'm not sure," he said slowly, "that I want that to be true." Yet it had been true, he thought, when he and Celia were together.

Was it still? Possibly the answer was yes, as Margot said. Probably, too, no one ever changed his basic nature. "There's something I've been wanting to ask you," Margot said. "This seems as good a time as any." He nodded. "Go ahead." "That night in Tylersville, the day of the bank run, when the old couple with their life savings in that shopping bag asked you the question: Is our money absolutely safe in your bank? You answered yes. Were you really sure?"

"I've asked myself that," Alex said. "Right afterwards, and since. If I own up, I suppose I wasn't." "But you were saving the bank. Right? And that came first.

Ahead of those old people, and all the others; ahead of honesty even, because 'business as usual' was more important." Suddenly there was emotion in Margot's voice. "It's why you'll go on trying to save the bank, Alex ahead of everything else. It's the way it was with you and Celia. And," she said slowly, "as it would be if you had to make the choice with you and me."

Alex was silent. What could you say, what could anyone say, confronted with the naked truth? "So in the end," Margot said, "you aren't all that different from Roscoe. Or Lewis either."

She picked up The D'Orsey Newsletter with distaste. "Business stability, sound money, gold, high share prices. All those things first. People especially little, unimportant people a long way after. It's the big gulf between us, Alex. It will always be there.' He saw that she was crying. A buzzer sounded in the hallway beyond the living room.

Alex swore. "Goddam the interruptions!" He strode toward an intercom unit connecting with a doorman on the street floor. "Yes, what is it?" "Mr. Vandervoort, there's a lady here asking for you. Mrs. Callaghan."

"I don't know any…" He stopped. Heyward's secretary? "Ask if she's from the bank." A pause. "Yes, sir. She is." "All right. Send her up." Alex told Margot.

They waited curiously. When he heard the elevator on the landing outside, he went to the apartment door and opened it.

"Please come in, Mrs. Callaghan." Dora Callaghan was an attractive, well-groomed woman, nearing sixty. She had, Alex knew, worked at FMA for many years, at least ten of them for Roscoe Heyward.

Normally she was poised and confident, but tonight she looked tired and nervous.

She wore a fur-trimmed suede coat and carried a leather briefcase. Alex recognized it as belonging to the bank.

"Mr. Vandervoort, I'm sorry to intrude..." "I'm sure you have a good reason for coming." He introduced Margot, then asked,

"Could you use a drink?" "I really could." A martini. Margot mixed it. Alex took the suede coat. They all sat by the fire. "You can speak freely in front of Miss Bracken,"

Alex said. "Thank you." Dora Callaghan took a gulp of the martini, then put it down. "Mr. Vandervoort, this afternoon I went through Mr. Heyward's desk. I thought there would be some things to clear, papers perhaps that should be sent to someone else."

Her voice thickened and stopped. She whispered, "I'm sorry." Alex told her gently, "Please don't be. There's no hurry." As her composure returned, she continued,

"There were some locked drawers. Mr. Heyward and I both had keys, though I didn't use mine often. Today I did." Again a silence while they waited. "In one of the drawers… Mr. Vandervoort, I heard there would be investigators coming tomorrow morning. I thought… that you'd better see what was in there, that you'd know, better than I, what to do." Mrs. Callaghan opened the leather briefcase and took out two large envelopes.

As she handed them to Alex, he observed that both had been slit open previously. Curiously, he removed the contents.

The first envelope contained four share certificates, each for five hundred shares of Q-Investments common stock and signed by G. G. Quartermain. Though they were nominee certificates, there could be no doubt they had belonged to Heyward,

Alex thought. He remembered the Newsday reporter's allegations of this afternoon. This was confirmation. Further proof would be needed, of course, if the matter were pursued, but it seemed certain that Heyward, a trusted, high-ranking officer of the bank, had accepted a sordid bribe. Had he lived, exposure would have meant criminal prosecution.

Alex's earlier depression deepened. He had never liked Heyward.

They were antagonists, almost from the time that Alex was recruited into FMA. Yet never for an instant, until today, had he doubted Roscoe's personal integrity

. It demonstrated, he supposed, that however well you thought you knew another human being, you never really did. Wishing none of this was happening, Alex removed the contents from the second envelope. They proved to be enlarged photographs of a group of people beside a swimming pool four women and two men in the nude, and Roscoe Heyward dressed.

As an instant guess, Alex suspected the photos were a souvenir from Heyward's much vaunted trip to the Bahamas with Big George Quartermain. Alex counted twelve prints as he spread them out on a coffee table while Margot and Mrs. Callaghan watched. He caught a glimpse of Dora Callaghan's face.

Her cheeks were red; she was blushing. Blushing? He'd thought no one did that any more. His inclination, as he studied the photos, was to laugh.

Everyone in them looked there was no other word for it ridiculous. Roscoe, in one shot, was staring fascinated at the naked women; in another he was being kissed by one of them while his fingers touched her breasts.

Harold Austin exhibited a flabby body, drooping penis, and foolish smile.

Another man, with his behind to the camera, faced the women. As to the women well, Alex thought, some people might consider them attractive. For himself, he would take Margot, with her clothes on, any day. He didn't laugh, though out of deference to Dora Callaghan who had drained her martini and was standing up. "Mr. Vandervoort, I'd better go."

"You were right to bring these things to me," he told her. "I appreciate it, and I'll take care of them personally." "I'll see you out," Margot said. She retrieved Mrs. Callaghan's coat and went with her to the elevator. Alex was by a window, looking out at the city's lights, when Margot returned.

"A nice woman," she pronounced. "And loyal."

"Yes," he said, and thought: Whatever changes were made tomorrow and in ensuing days, he would see that Mrs. Callaghan was treated considerately.

There would be other people to think of, too. Alex would immediately promote Tom Straughan to Alex's own previous post as an executive vice-president. Orville Young could fill Heyward's shoes well. Edwina D'Orsey must move up to senior vice-president in charge of the trust department; it was a post Alex had had in mind for Edwina for some time, and soon he expected her to move higher still.

Meanwhile she must be named, at once, a member of the board. He realized suddenly: he was taking for granted that he himself would accept the bank presidency.

Well, Margot had just told him that. Obviously she was right. He turned away from the window and the outside darkness. Margot was standing at the coffee table, looking down at the photographs. Suddenly she giggled, and then he did what he had wanted to, and laughed with her.

"Oh, God!" Margot said. "Funny-sad!" When their laughter ended he bent down, collected the prints and returned them to their envelope. He was tempted to throw the package on the fire, but knew he mustn't. It would be destruction of evidence which might be needed. But he would do his best, he decided, to keep the photos from other eyes for Roscoe's sake.

"Funny-sad," Margot repeated. "Isn't it all?" "Yes," he agreed, and in that moment knew he needed her, and always would. He took her hands, remembering what they had been speaking of before Mrs. Callaghan came.

"Never mind any gulfs between us," Alex urged. "We have a lot of bridges, too. You and I are good for each other. Let's live together permanently, Bracken, starting now."

She objected, "It probably won't works or last. The odds are against us." "Then we'll try to prove them wrong." "Of course, there is one thing in our favor." Margot's eyes sparkled mischievously. "Most couples who pledge 'to love and to cherish, till death us do part,' wind up in divorce courts within a year. Maybe if we start out not believing or expecting much, we'll do better than the rest." As he took her in his arms, he told her, "Sometimes bankers and lawyers talk too much."