Chapter 8 #6
He swore slightly at that. This was the last damn thing he needed right now.
He looked around. The place was busy, lots of people coming and going. He had no idea what this was, doing God-only-knew what or why, but considering Kate had set off a scenario during the night about telling the woman to ask for what she needed, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do here.
He glanced around to see if anything or anyone in particular was causing this or was showing any interest, but he couldn’t see anything. Matter of fact, absolutely nothing as far as he could tell was triggering this event.
When he went to stand up again, once again that hand slapped him back down again. He slowly picked up his phone and sent Kate a message. Just got slapped back into place twice and got no clue why.
She sent him a question mark in her reply text, which, honest to God, was a really good answer on her part because he had no freaking idea either.
He sat here and waited, studying the people around him.
One woman looked downcast, sad even, and she had a scarf wrapped around her head and tucked into her jacket.
He glanced outside, but, even for mid-to-late January, it wasn’t that cold out.
Then again, a lot of people had different concepts of what cold was.
He was always on the warmer side, whereas a lot of women seemed to always feel colder than he felt.
But still, it seemed a little bit much for this woman to handle.
Unless …
His gaze zipped back toward her; unless she was hiding scars of abuse.
He frowned as he watched her. She ordered coffee, waited without any movement at all, as in she just stood at the side and didn’t fidget, didn’t fuss, didn’t look around.
She kept her gaze downcast, yet staring all around her, almost daring anybody to recognize her or to say anything to her.
That seemed unlikely, since everybody was ignoring everybody.
The coffee shop was busy, and there was no room for people to be too bothered about anything going on right now.
He wanted to get up and try leaving again, but it would look strange if it happened a third time.
Just as he was about to try again, the woman lifted her gaze and locked onto his.
Her eyes widened as if she knew him from somewhere, and Simon couldn’t do anything but stare back.
She quickly snatched up her coffee, and, with one more final, almost scared glance in his direction, she booked it right out of the coffee shop.
Immediately the pressure in his chest eased up, and he could now get up.
He raced outside to look for her but saw no sign of her anywhere.
He had to stop again, as pressure built in his chest by some invisible hand again.
He muttered under his breath, “It would be really helpful if you would give me more of a warning, or at least some idea of what you want me to do about this.”
But absolutely no answer came.
Of course there was no answer, and he was just talking to thin air.
But that woman, whoever she was, had a moment of recognition when seeing Simon, and he hadn’t expected that because he’d never seen her before in his life.
A hard mental shake had him reorienting himself back to the business at hand, and he slowly turned and walked down the street toward the bank.
He had an appointment to keep and a business to run.
As he walked into the bank, that same woman was in line for the next available teller. She took one look at him, her gaze widened, almost in fear, and she turned around and escaped out the front door. He stood here, frozen, and watched her retreat.
The bank manager walked over and greeted him in a playful tone. “That’s an unusual reaction when, most of the time, the women are all over you.”
He turned to face David, an old friend. “It’s certainly not a reaction I was expecting. I hope she’s okay,” he added. “Her reaction just looked off.”
“Yeah, you know, that’s true. It did look off.” He shrugged. “Come on in. Let’s go to my office.”
Simon frowned, as he stared back at where she had been. “I don’t know who she is, so I have no clue how to help her.”
As they both settled in David’s office, Simon asked, “So, what bad news are you thinking of giving me?”
David stared at him, and then his gaze dropped to the files on his desktop. “The bank, my manager precisely, is a little concerned that you’re … overextended.”
Simon stared at him, something lighting up his cortex. “And are you concerned too?”
“No.” There was a rueful note in his tone. “I’m not, but I don’t run the bank,” David explained, with a wry look, “at least not alone and most certainly not unsupervised.”
“And what is it they want me to do?”
“They want you to put up more collateral.”
“Why?” he asked, his tone businesslike. “I’ve already secured the loans. They’ve already approved the loans. I’ve been repaying those very loans.”
David winced at that. “Yes,” he agreed, with a nod, “you have, and they’ve all been approved, but upper management is concerned that you’ll turn into a bad investment.”
“So, what is this that we are doing here?”
“It’s just a friendly warning.”
“I don’t think we need to go there. I have the finances secured, work is steadily coming along, everything’s on schedule, so that warning makes no sense.”
“I know,” David admitted. “I’m just telling you that they don’t like your current position.”
“That’s nice,” Simon deadpanned, measuring the look on his friend’s face.
“Are you telling me that we’ll go a legal route because you guys are causing trouble with the financing I already have?
” His tone was cool. “Or is this a warning that you won’t support me when I get more financing for my buildings and work orders? ”
“It is not my idea, but that’s where management is at,” he acknowledged.
Simon studied him and asked, “And is this a position that’s likely to continue?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You know that we have one big job finishing within”—he stared off in the distance—“less than six months. And I don’t need a last-minute curve ball thrown my way.”
“Yes, we know,” David replied. “And that was part of the argument I used to try and get them off your case. However, they don’t like a lot of the inflation rates and real estate prices and all the rest of that right now. So, I’m just giving you a warning.”
“No,” Simon argued. “You brought me into your office. That is more than just giving me a warning.”
“And it’s also what I had to do to get them off your case,” David added. “So, I brought you in, and it is a friendly warning at the moment. Yet, as far as they’re concerned, you’re overextended and will not be granted any more money at this time.”
Simon nodded. “Good to know.” He stood up because he could not really say anything to change this bank’s position. David may be interested in playing games and covering his own behind, but Simon wasn’t ready to kiss anybody’s ass—not at this moment or ever.
“Wait, is that all you’ve got to say?” David asked.
“Sure, it’s all I got to say because, at the end of the day, you’re forgetting one thing.”
“What’s that?” David asked.
“You aren’t the only bank around. I can pull all my money out of here today and have it all refinanced immediately somewhere else,” he stated, staring at David. “So, consider me warned, but you might also want to remind your bosses that I have options too.”
With that, he turned and walked out, not listening to any of the panicked cries from somebody he used to trust and no longer did.
Going through the revolving doors, he stepped into the bright sunshine, glanced around, and headed in the direction of his rehab project, where he could at least focus his energy on something doable—not banks panicked about signed paperwork and all this crap where everybody wanted to make illogical and unreasonable power plays.
Simon already had all the lines secured. The bank could try to cause trouble, and he could certainly get out of those loans and out of that bank if he needed to. But what he didn’t need was the particular power play currently going on. All he could do was deal with it when it came.
And he would deal with that, and, as such, he would have to make some changes, even though he didn’t want to.
But there would never be a day when somebody pulled his chain without his say-so.