William Lashner - Bitter Truth

“It’s policy, ma’am,” said the concierge. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ve been sloughed off by worse places than this,” I said. “But still…”

The concierge stepped to the side and opened the door graciously for us to leave. “I hope we can be of service another time.”

“But the check I wanted to cash,” I said in a loud voice, “was drawn on this very bank.” And then I raised my voice even louder, not in anger, my tone still kindly, but the voice high enough and the syllables distinct enough so that I could have been heard in the rear of the balcony, had there been one. “You don’t mean to say that you won’t honor a check drawn on this bank?”

Heads reared, a personal banker stood, an old lady turned slowly to look at me and grabbed tightly to her purse. The concierge put a hand on my forearm, his face registering as much shock as if I had started babbling in Yiddish right there in that gilded tomb of a bank building.

Before he could say anything else a wonderfully dressed older man with nervous hands and razored gray hair was at his side.

“Thank you, James,” the older man said, his pale blue eyes fixed on my brown ones. “I’ll take it from here.” The young concierge bowed and backed away. “Follow me, please.”

We walked in a column to a desk in the middle of the bank’s dark-carpeted main room and were seated on the tapestry seats of claw-and-ball chairs. Atop the desk was a bronze name plate that read: “Mr. Jeffries.” “Now,” said the impeccably dressed Jeffries with an impeccably false smile, “you said you wished to cash a check drawn on an account at this bank?”

I reached into my jacket pocket and Jeffries flinched ever so slightly. Not the main man in this bank, I figured, if he was flinching from so minimally an imagined threat. From my jacket I pulled out Caroline Shaw’s check, unfolded it, read it once again, and handed it over.

Jeffries’s eyes rose in surprise when he examined the check. “And you’re Mr. Carl?”

“The very same. Is the check any good?”

There was a computer on his desk and I expected him to make a quick review of the account balance, of which I hoped to grab a peek, but that’s not what he did. What he did instead was to simply say, “I’ll need identification.”

I dug for my wallet and pulled out my driver’s license.

“And a credit card.”

I pulled that out, too. “So the check is good?”

He examined my license and MasterCard. “If you’ll just endorse the check, Mr. Carl.”

I signed the back. He compared my signature to the license and the credit card, making some notations beneath my signature on the check.

“And how would you like this paid, Mr. Carl, cash or cashier’s check?”

“Cash.”

“Are hundreds satisfactory?”

“Perfectly.”

“One moment, please,” and then with my license and credit card and check he stood and turned and walked out of the room to somewhere in the rear of the building.

“Your Miss Shaw seems to be known in this bank,” said Beth.

“Yes, either she has a substantial account or she is a known forger and the police will be out presently.”

“Which do you expect?”

“Oh the police,” I said. “I have found it is always safest to expect the worst. Anything else is mere accident.”

It took a good long time, far too long a time. I waited, first patiently, then impatiently, and then angrily. I was about to stand and make another scene when Jeffries finally returned. Behind him came another man, about my age, handsome enough and tall enough and blond enough so that he seemed as much a part of the bank as the paneling on the walls and the portraits in their gilded frames. I wondered to which eating club at Princeton he had belonged.

As Jeffries sat back down at the desk and fiddled with the paperwork, the blond man stood behind him looking over his shoulder. Jeffries took out an envelope and extracted a thick wad of bills, hundred-dollar bills. Slowly he began to count.

“I didn’t know cashing a check was such a production,” I said.

The blond man lifted his head and smiled at me. It was a warm, generous smile and completely ungenuine. “We’ll have this for you in just a moment, Mr. Carl,” he said. “By the way, what kind of business are you in?”

“This and that,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

“Our loan department is always on the lookout for clients. We handle the accounts for many lawyers. I was just hoping our business loan department could be of help to your firm.”

So that was why they spent so much time in the back, they were checking me out, and he wanted me to know it, too. “I believe our line of credit is presently sufficient,” I said. “Miss Derringer is the partner in charge of finances. How are we doing with our loans, Beth?”

“I’m still under my MasterCard limit,” said Beth.

“Now you’re bragging,” I said.

“It helps if you pay more than the minimum each month, Victor.”

“Well then, with Beth under her limit, we’re sitting pretty for the next month at least.”

“How good for you,” said the blond man.

Jeffries finished counting the bills. He neatened the pile, tapping it gently first on one side, then another, and proceeded to count it again. There was about Jeffries, as he counted the bills with the blond man behind him, the tense air of a blackjack dealer with the pit boss looking over his shoulder. They were taking quite a bit of care, the two of them, for ten thousand dollars, a pittance to a bank that considered anything under a million small change.

“What type of law is it that you two practice?” asked the blond man.

“Oh this and that,” I said.

“No specialty?”

“Not really. We take pretty much whatever comes in the door.”

“Do you do any banking work? Sometimes we have work our primary counsel can’t handle due to conflicts.”

“Is that a fact? And who exactly is your primary counsel?”

“Talbott, Kittredge & Chase.”

“Of course it is,” I said. Talbott, Kittredge & Chase was the richest, most prestigious, most powerful firm in the city.

“Oh, so they would know of you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Very well.”

“Then maybe we can do some business after all.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. They had checked me out all right, and it was interesting as hell that they were so interested, but their scouting report was old. I might have gone for the bait one time or another, given much to garner the business of an old and revered client like the First Mercantile Bank of the Main Line, but not anymore. “You see, we once sued Talbott, Kittredge & Chase and won a large settlement. They hate me there, in fact a memo has been circulated to have their lawyers harass me at every turn, so I don’t think they’d agree to your giving me any work.”

“Well of course,” said the blond man, “it’s our choice really.”

“Thank you for the offer,” I said, “but no. We don’t really represent banks.”

“It’s sort of a moral quirk of ours,” said Beth. “They’re so big and rich and unkind.”

“We sue them, of course,” I said. “That’s always good for a laugh or two, but we don’t represent them. We sometimes represent murderers and tax cheats and crack mothers who have deserted their babies, but we will only sink so low. Are you finished counting, Jeffries, or do you think Ben Franklin will start to smile if you keep tickling him like that?”

“Give Mr. Carl his money,” said the blond man.

Jeffries put the bills back in the envelope and handed it to me. “Thank you for banking with us, sir.”

“My pleasure,” I said as I tapped the envelope to my forehead in a salute. “I’m a little surprised though at how much interest you both seem to take in Miss Shaw’s affairs. She must be someone very special.”