Chapter 15 #4
Several feet in front of us, a pretty redheaded young lady sat at a desk, writing.
Behind her were several other larger desks with older women secretaries, and along the right wall, three tellers, all men, stood behind gold-barred windows with a sign overhead that read Now FDIC Insured.
Along the back and left walls were a few offices with glass fronts. Nobody came forward to greet us.
“Heavens to Betsy, I don’t see a one of Henry’s people here,” Mrs. Tartt said. And then, to herself, “Nothing but Baptists working here anymore.”
After a few seconds, Mrs. Tartt walked up to the first desk, and the pretty redhead looked up. “May I help you?”
“I’m Mrs. Henry Tartt,” she said and left it at that.
The young woman’s eyes widened slightly and she stood up. “Oh. How nice to meet you, Mrs. Tartt. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Of course you have, dear,” Mrs. Tartt said.
“Alright, um—please follow me.” She led us to some curved wooden chairs near the back wall of offices. Then she went and whispered to an older lady, and they both looked over at us.
We sat down and Mrs. Tartt perched her black shiny pocketbook in her lap and held the handle tight like a ride.
Sitting in the chairs across from us was a couple on the high end of middle-aged, both sitting very upright.
She had on a sagging hat with a faded purple paper flower pinned to it.
There was a tattered red ribbon on the lapel of his old brown suit, maybe an old war medal of some kind.
I could see the faint whites of his knees through his pants.
“If Rory was in today, we wouldn’t have to wait,” Mrs. Tartt said.
The man across from us pulled a watch chain out of his pocket, then shut his eyes a second before he tucked it back in. No watch was attached to it anymore. I looked away. Daddy was probably right, nothing good could happen in this place.
The older couple stood up quickly, watching behind us, and the husband touched the red ribbon on his lapel, maybe for luck, and I looked back to see a man as tall and barrel-chested as Henry Tartt walk out of one of the offices behind me.
He looked to be in his mid-thirties, with a soft dusting of short blond hair.
He surveyed the four of us in the seating area and said, “I’ll be right with you, Mr. and Mrs. Davis.
” He gave me and Mrs. Tartt what I assumed was a very well-paid smile.
“Mrs. Tartt,” he said. “I’m Jack Walsh, I don’t think we’ve met.
” I stood up, but Mrs. Tartt stayed seated.
“Mr. Allison’s out this morning, but he asked me to see to anybody that came in.
” As he shook her hand, the seams of his gray suit coat strained a little.
Then he took my hand. His was big and warm.
“Nice to meet you,” I lied. “I’m Birdie Calhoun.”
“Mr. Walsh, I came to collect my dividend since Rory’s working from home today,” Mrs. Tartt said. “I’d like it in small bills, please.”
He looked from me to Mrs. Tartt. He had the build of a lumberjack, and my guess was he’d probably have pretty serious back pain later in life. He frowned. “I believe you’ll need to talk to Rory about that, Mrs. Tartt.”
“But he’s not in today,” she said and smiled. “So I’d like you to help me.”
He nodded. It took him a second to answer. “You would need to wait and speak to Rory about the dividend.”
“But I don’t want to wait.” Mrs. Tartt smiled harder. “I’d like it now, please.”
Jack Walsh started to say something but reconsidered it. Then: “I’m afraid Rory’s not employed here anymore, Mrs. Tartt.”
We both stared up at him. Then Mrs. Tartt stood and looked around, maybe for someone smarter, but gave up. “Rory Tartt,” she said more clearly. “My son works here, but he’s working from home today.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but Mr. Tartt was—he was let go, three weeks ago.”
Mrs. Tartt looked at me like Could I please help this man understand what she was asking?
I said, “He was here at work yesterday, Henry Tartt’s son.”
“I’m sorry, but—” He shook his head. “Rory’s been let go.” He pressed his lips together. “I take it he didn’t tell you?”
Mrs. Tartt leaned back on her heels a little. “You’re not—this doesn’t make any sense.” Mr. Walsh looked up over our heads and nodded. “Here he is—Mr. Allison just came in.”
We turned to see a much older man coming through the front door.
He was tall but only half the weight of the lumberjack.
When he saw Mrs. Tartt, he sort of startled.
Then he took his hat off and walked toward us.
“Viktoria, how good to see you,” he said, clasping her hand.
“So good, so good. I hope you’re faring alright out at the house?
” He was smiling so hard now he looked apt to break a tooth, which were thin and yellow, like him.
“Mr. Allison, I came in to collect my dividend, and this man’s trying to tell me Rory was let go?”
Mr. Allison’s wrinkly neck turned pink. “Please know how sorry we all are that it turned out this way. We’ve been expecting you to come in for some time now …”
It was finally starting to sink in enough for me to give it some credit. They’d fired Rory? Where the heck had he been these past three weeks?
“But Rory handles our holdings.” Mrs. Tartt’s voice rose a few octaves. “What in the devil’s going on here?”
“Mrs. Tartt.” She was Mrs. Tartt again. “We thought—we were sure you were aware of the situation. Please …” Mr. Allison licked his lips. “Why don’t you come in my office a minute, where we can speak in private.”
Mrs. Tartt turned to me, looking astonished.
I nodded: This is preposterous. “I’ll be right here,” I said and watched as he led Mrs. Tartt gently by the elbow into his office and shut the door.
Through the glass I could see Mrs. Tartt lower herself into the chair, tucking her skirt under her rear.
Mr. Allison sat at his desk, facing her.
Rory’d been lying to his mother and Frances this whole time?
Every morning after pancakes, he was just, what—driving around town?
I shuddered, thinking of the Studebaker that had driven past the fruit truck that morning. I should’ve told Frances.
Mr. Allison reached across the desk and held Mrs. Tartt’s hands. He looked like he was telling her a bedtime story.
This Jack Walsh fellow had gone back into his own office with the older couple.
After only a few minutes, his door opened and the couple walked out.
Their mouths looked sunken, toothless, their faces ashen.
Mr. Walsh escorted them up to the front door and stepped ahead to hold it open for them as they left.
He watched them go before letting it close again.
As he walked back to his office, I stepped in his way. “Can you tell me what’s going on here? My sister, Frances, is married to Rory Tartt.” That was my only credential.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I—don’t really know.” He rubbed his cheek and it made a scratchy sound. When he glanced over at Mr. Allison’s office, I studied him close. Golden stubble was already coming in at eleven in the morning.
“Yes, you do,” I said. “I can tell you do.”
“Ma’am. Miss—”
“Calhoun.”
He considered his response before speaking. “All I can say is the officers here asked it be kept quiet out of respect for the Tartt family, and considering the—” He stopped short on that. “I, we all assumed Rory’d told his family.”
It still made no sense. Rory was constantly working. What was he working on? Maybe he had other prospects or was still handling the family business?
“Does Rory have—” I was a little embarrassed to ask this. “Does he still have bank clients down in Jackson?”
Jack Walsh let out a low, gravelly sound, not really a laugh, but I found it inappropriate. “Ma’am, we’d be so lucky if somebody in Jackson wanted to deposit money in this bank. Most folks right now don’t have a cent.” Again that dark laugh.
“Well, I’m glad these hard times are so amusing to you, Mr. Walsh.”
He looked straight into my eyes. “Oh no, ma’am, I don’t find it amusing at all.” His tone had turned dead. “This is one of the saddest years of my working life.”
He turned to Mr. Allison’s office. Mrs. Tartt stood up quickly from her chair, and so did Mr. Allison. She opened the door herself, and he followed her out. She was blinking, an odd, lopsided smile on her face.
“… we have all the papers with your signature, Mrs. Tartt. Eleanor, find the papers—”
Eleanor, the pretty redhead, hurried over to a set of wooden file drawers and pulled open a high one. On tiptoe, she walked her fingers through the files. Mrs. Tartt set her hand down on the closest desk, to steady herself. Jack Walsh watched her, standing close, like he was ready to catch her.
“Rory handled all the accounts, your personal holdings and the family’s,” Mr. Allison was saying. “Stocks and bonds, you assigned him as such—”
Eleanor laid two folders open on the desk, turning pages fast and noisily. Mrs. Tartt peered down at one with her handbag dangling from her elbow. “Yes, that’s my signature, but I had no idea …”
“Rory brought home statements to you.” Mr. Allison lowered his voice. “He never discussed them or the mortgage he took out?”
“He told me we’d lost a fair amount back in ’29 from the crash but said our holdings were still fine on account of a—a trust Henry’d set up—”
“So you are aware that the mortgage payments are overdue?” At those words, my heart felt like it stopped.
“What?” Mrs. Tartt looked around like she wasn’t sure where she was, a frozen smile still on her face. “Wait a minute, what about all the land we sold, behind the house? What happened to that money?”
“There was money from a land sale, yes, there was, but Rory stopped making mortgage payments, so we required he put a good portion of it down on the principal, and the rest he had to use to cover his draw in the market.” He picked up a folder and shook it in the air.
“He acted very perilously with his investments—very perilously. He didn’t just lose on the big boys like most people did—his portfolio was full of risky businesses, silver mines in Mexico, a luxury cruise liner, expensive car companies.
Nobody in their right mind’s buying luxury goods right now.
We tried to advise him, but he wouldn’t listen. ”
“You’re not … looking at all the accounts, you can’t be. What’s the total on all these?” She tap-tapped a page. “Add it up for me, young lady.”
Mr. Allison nodded to Eleanor. She sat down and started adding on a little noisy machine.
While we waited, Jack Walsh ran his hand over his blond hair, thin to where I’d bet it would probably be gone in a decade.
One day he’d be a bald banker with back pain, but for now he was still a good-looking man.
Eleanor whispered something up to Mr. Allison.
“Thirty-six dollars and fourteen cents.” Overhead, a wooden fan on the ceiling squeaked in a lazy circle.
Mrs. Tartt dipped in the knees, and we all stepped up quick, but I got my arm under hers first. She looked around her, for somebody, anybody, but all she saw was me.
“He lost it? Is he saying he lost it all?” Light as dust, those words blew that smile right off her face, leaving nothing but a red cut of lipstick.
“Let me—I’ll get you a chair,” Mr. Allison said, but she shook her head, leaning on me.
“How much is due on this mortgage?” I asked him, holding on to her. I could feel her sweating through her silk dress.
Mr. Allison ran a long finger down the page on the desk.
“Two thousand seven hundred fifty-four dollars is what the Tartts owe.” My mouth opened in sheer awe and he continued in a whisper, “That needs to be paid right away.” This man …
he was a coward. He should’ve told Mrs. Tartt this a year ago.
I couldn’t tell if Mrs. Tartt had heard any of this.
“Viktoria, what you need to do is contact your lawyer, ask does he know of any other holdings in Henry’s name.
” Mr. Allison placed his hand on her shoulder in a gesture that, if you didn’t understand the situation, might look courtly.
“If I recollect—Harry Holtzman, yes, that’s who Henry used.
” He nodded, he felt better to tell her this.
“Harry Holtzman down in Jackson, that’s who it is. ”
“I want to go home,” Mrs. Tartt said. I could feel her shaking. “Please take me home, Birdie.”
Slowly, Mrs. Tartt let me guide her to the front door.
The telegram to Footely would have to wait.
I didn’t know what it would say anyway. We needed to collect Frances and tell Mr. Binny, who was waiting at the taxi stand, to drive us home to Rory.
Trailing behind us, Jack Walsh held the heavy door open for us.
When I looked back, this time everyone in the bank was watching us, and huge Jack Walsh raised the flat of his hand in a silent goodbye.