Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“You’ve done well,” Pamela praised at once. “I’ll see it’s properly noted. The delay was ours, in Washington. That’s been noted, too.”

“I appreciate it,” said Anne, who didn’t, particularly. Anne was driving, Pamela twisted toward her in the passenger seat. “It could still be nothing: normal bank discrepancies, as they all say.”

“And it could be everything, hidden behind reluctance to admit they’re either fallible or can be robbed or both.”

A little more of Anne’s remaining uncertainty went. “How’s Terry getting on?”

“He’s doing a great job, too. Got the incident room running like an engine.”

“You close to anything?”

“Not close enough.” But they would be, soon enough. The Chicago street phone on Lake Shore Drive and 14th Boulevard had been under total surveillance for the last two hours, the control car permanently linked to the Manhattan office to be notified the moment a call was initiated from Brooklyn. Pamela had already decided to go up to Chicago when the arrest was made to conduct the interrogation personally. She’d packed enough clothes to go on from Albany if it happened soon enough. The instructions were for her to be told on her cell phone the moment a call was made.

“Maybe this will get us somewhere.”

“If it’s there, I’ll find it,” said Pamela. If she established the finance route as well as the Chicago arrest, virtually everything would be down to her. She wished she’d said “we” instead of “I.” The other woman appeared not to have noticed.

When she’d called to arrange the second meeting, Anne Stovey had been referred to Christopher Jackson, the senior vice president of Clarence Snelling’s bank, not the security chief, Hank Hewitt. Hewitt emerged from the building with a second man when Anne pulled into the slot reserved for them. Pamela had already decided that the involvement of a vice president was intriguing. So, too, was the effusive greeting before they were led into the building through a side door, avoiding the crowded main hall. Jackson was an urbane, white-haired man whom Pamela guessed spent more time on golf courses, encouraging customers, than in his bank office, luxurious though this one was. In the other man’s presence, Hewitt’s blinking was even more pronounced.

Jackson said, “I want to thank you for bringing this to the bank’s notice.

“I thought it was a customer, Clarence Snelling, who did that,” said Pamela. There was no purpose in-or time for-verbal niceties. She didn’t like the man or his unctuous attitude.

“Quite so,” agreed Jackson, smiling. “The extent, I mean.”

He hadn’t meant to say that, Pamela knew. “That’s what we’ve come here to learn about, the extent.”

Jackson looked at his security chief, shaking his head, before saying, “Our internal auditors would have picked it up, of course.”

“Why haven’t they already?” asked Pamela.

“No books balance out with total accuracy at the end of any day’s trading,” the bank executive lectured patiently. “Some days there’s a shortfall, sometimes a slight excess. That’s why we have internal audits. As I think Hank explained, shortfalls are made good. It’s the way it works.”

Anne Stovey said, “Are you telling us you still think these differences are the few cents you’re accustomed to being short in normal bank business?”

“We’ve no reason to think otherwise, have we?” Jackson’s question was addressed to his security official.

“I don’t believe so,” Hewitt said dutifully.

“How many cases have you discovered in addition to Mr. Snelling?” demanded the local agent.

“A few. Again only pennies. The sort of differences Mr. Jackson is talking about.”

Pamela allowed the silence, hoping Anne wouldn’t break it. Only when the security man shifted uncomfortably did she say, “Mr. Hewitt-Hank-I’m not getting the feeling you’re offering us the cooperation we should expect. How many? And how much?”

“Just twenty-eight dollars in total. From thirty accounts,” said Hewitt, a faint note of triumph in his voice.

“Nothing to worry about?” coaxed Pamela, at once.

“On the contrary, we consider it too high,” insisted Jackson. “That’s why I’ve already thanked you for bringing it to our attention. We’re taking the proper steps, I can assure you.”

“Doing what?” persisted Pamela.

“The internal audit I talked about.”

“You familiar with the famous case of the teller here in New York State who stole a million in pennies, nickels, and dimes?” said Anne.

Jackson’s smile was vaguely patronizing. “Of course.”

“You don’t think history could be repeating itself?” broke in Pamela. She curbed her anger, convinced now of the way the bank, in the person of the smoothly persuading Christopher Jackson, imagined the matter was going to be resolved. As the other banks doubtless imagined.

“Of course not.”

“Hank, when Anne first spoke to you a few days ago, she asked you to check other branches?”

“Yes?”

“Did you?”

“The larger ones in town.” He stopped himself from looking toward Jackson.

“How many?”

“Three.”

“What’s the shortfall in each?”

“The highest is forty dollars.”

“The other two?”

“Twenty-three and thirty-one.”

She’d had enough condescension, Pamela decided: enough of men thinking they were superior because she couldn’t piss up the wall like they could. “Mr. Jackson. You’re the victim of a clever thief. You know it and we know. We also know that you intend making up the pennies he embezzles, hoping to find him in an internal audit and fire him. That way there’s no publicity and your bank customers don’t lose confidence and move their accounts elsewhere. But there’s a problem you’re not aware of, not yet. You haven’t got a clue how long he’s been doing it and how much money he’s stolen from you alone. But it isn’t from you alone. We’re checking out losses in three other banks-two your primary competitors-with branches all over the state and links with other financial institutions beyond the state ….” She paused, expecting an attempted contradiction that didn’t come. “The FBI has a highly trained and expert fraud division. I want to move investigators and auditors into all the regional offices that handle accounts from your smaller branches, which I intend asking all other involved banks to agree to my doing. I would like that to be at your-and their-invitation, but if it’s not I can-and will-do it by court order. Which unfortunately could result in your bank being publicly named, something I do not seek nor want to do.”

“All you’ve told me about is, I repeat, normal end-of-day shortages!” protested the senior vice president. “I certainly don’t intend giving that permission. In fact, I think it is something my board will have to take it up with Washington.”

“I’d like you to do that as soon as possible,” said Pamela. “It’s urgent. I still have the other banks to meet.”

“Urgent! The FBI considers the loss of exactly one hundred fourteen dollars, in nickels and dimes, urgent!”

“If the losses are far greater than that and are being used to finance even bigger crime.”

“What evidence have you got for that!”

“That’s what we want to find, evidence. And why we want your cooperation,” said Pamela. “Why don’t we have my director talk to your chairman right away? Save a lot of time.”

Jackson tilted his head to one side, frowning. “You’re quite serious, aren’t you? Imagine you can make that happen?”

“Quite serious,” agreed Pamela. “Can I use that phone?”