Chapter 17 #4
When Mrs. Tartt had come down for supper, with a rather generous glass of bourbon in her hand, she still looked a little puffy and slumped from her headache.
But then she’d straightened up and actually smiled.
Charlie’d laid out the good white linen place mats and polished the silver-plate settings.
They were almost as pretty as the sterling Rory’d taken.
In the center of the table, Charlie had arranged a bowl of English ivy with tiny pink roses from the arbor.
Mrs. Tartt had nodded to Charlie like maybe they’d discussed those roses, and Charlie had nodded back.
“Thank you for doing that, Charlie,” I’d said.
“I chopped the ice,” Frances said.
When we’d sat down to eat and Charlie was gone, Mrs. Tartt had whispered, “Frances, you reckon you might give her something to wear other than that old dress?”
“You mean something of mine?”
“I’m sure there a few pieces you don’t wear anymore. Look see tomorrow.”
“I can’t tomorrow, I’m having my hair set at the Unique. It’ll take a while.”
“Oh no you’re not,” I’d said.
“Why?”
I’d looked at her and laughed, I couldn’t help it. “You are broker than the Ten Commandments, Franny.”
Mrs. Tartt had choked on a laugh and covered her mouth with her napkin. Thank God she had a good sense of humor.
I arrived fifteen minutes early to meet Jack Walsh for lunch at Buffaloe’s Café.
Painted on the glass door were the words Everybody eats at Buffaloe’s!
and below that, a handwritten sign: Whites Only.
I went inside thinking, Lord, all these contradictions nobody even sees, and chose a table in the rear by the marble-topped lunch counter.
Half a dozen men sat with their backs to me in shirtsleeves or overalls, dirty boots or shined shoes.
It smelled good, like roast beef, in here, which I could not afford, since in the straw pocketbook I’d borrowed from Frances were a dime, my best white gloves, a tube of her red lipstick, and a letter that terrified me and brought me here today.
I studied the menu on the wall—acid phosphates for a nickel, meat and two vegetables for fifteen cents, roast beef for a quarter.
I could hear a man at the lunch counter behind me—“Heck, ’at old jalopy didn’t even have no headlamps, them boys coulda been killed.
” Another chuckled and said, “Sweetwater, Sweetwater.” I wasn’t sure if it was in reverence or disgust. Sweetwater was a town, I was pretty sure, about an hour and a half’s drive north of here, so about thirty or forty miles.
A louder, nasal voice said, “She’s lucky Sweetwater ain’t in my jurisdiction. Or I’d shut that place down. To. Day.”
I glanced back at that obnoxious voice; it was from a small man dressed in khaki with a gun belt around his waist. The sheriff. I wondered if he’d been the one to arrest Charlie—was it at the train depot, she’d said? When I turned back around I saw Jack Walsh walking in.
He moved his huge self through the tables slowly, measuredly. One bump from a man his size could unglass an entire table’s iced tea.
He smiled at me, took his blue suit coat off, and hung it on the back of a chair next to mine. “Hope I’m not late. I was waiting outside.”
“Sorry I—didn’t know.” I wasn’t going to tell him I’d never met anyone for lunch before.
In fact, I intended to tell this banker as little as possible.
He sat down across from me and then set both his elbows on the table and leaned forward.
From here I could smell clean, simple soap and something musky, none of that expensive aftershave Rory wore.
The sunburn across his nose had already faded to a suntan.
So I’d stop staring, I reminded myself, This man ruins lives for a living.
Before he could say what he was about to say, a waitress in a pink paper hat nodded to us. “Hey, Jack. What’ll it be, ma’am?”
“Um—I’ll have a grilled cheese sandwich, please.” They were only seven cents. “And a glass of water.” I was hoping it was free.
“I’ll take two of those, Betty,” Jack Walsh said and to me, “I’m buying.”
“Thank you, but I can pay for myself.” I didn’t want to owe any banker a penny more than the Tartts already did. I carefully unfolded my napkin in my lap.
“I understand you’re up here visiting from Warren County, down in the Delta?” he asked.
I nodded. I hadn’t told him that. “A little town called Footely,” I said. “One store, one telephone, two churches, and zero banks.” I smiled to show I was proud of that last one.
“I also heard you’re a bookkeeper who’s right handy with a … hammer and a paintbrush?” His brown eyes glinted like he thought he was real clever to know this.
“I see you’ve been talking to Miss Yancey.” Gossipy Pripp’s gossipy relation.
He nodded and sat back. “I grew up just east of the Delta, in Panola County, before I moved to Jackson for a job,” he said.
“What’re you doing here?”
“The Bank of Lafayette County has asked Jackson Fidelity Bank, who I work for, for a loan. So I’m here to look at the bank’s books to decide if we give it to them or not. In the meantime, Mr. Allison’s asked me to help out with Rory’s remaining customers.”
The waitress set down our water glasses and looked surprised herself when she came straight back with my one grilled cheese and his two, saying, “’At was fast.” I bowed my head and said a silent blessing. Jack Walsh waited for me and did not say one himself. Heathen.
I’d told Frances I wouldn’t tell him what Rory’d done or that he’d left, so I chose my words carefully. “I want to help my sister and Mrs. Tartt any way I can,” I said. “But I don’t know all that much about banks or mortgages or how it all works.”
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t either.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I am”—he had to breathe a second—“so very sorry about what happened with the Tartts. Even if all the accounts had been transferred to Rory Tartt’s name, somebody at the bank should’ve been talking with Mrs. Tartt.”
“Considering everything that’s happened,” I said, “and Henry Tartt’s legacy, is there anything the bank could do to work something out with the mortgage?” The letter I’d brought along was radiating heat from Frances’s pocketbook.
He frowned at me, a ripple between his warm brown eyes. “Rory knows exactly the position he’s in. Have you talked to him about it?”
I didn’t answer that. “Do you think there’s any way Mrs. Tartt could maybe get a—second mortgage on the house, until this is sorted out?” I’d read there was such a thing in The Delta Dispatch.
“A second? The Tartts are already mortgaged up to their necks—what is Rory telling you?”
I didn’t answer that either. If he would just tell me something, even mediocre advice would do at this point. “Do you think the bank will give the Tartts more time before anything drastic happens?”
That ripple deepened between his eyes. He looked utterly confused. “Does Rory know you’re here? Did he send you to ask me this?”
I hadn’t answered any of his questions and it was getting me nowhere.
So I took the letter out and opened it on the table.
I probably should’ve led with it. This one was dated seven days ago, but there were many others.
He looked down at it, even though he surely knew what it said.
The overdue amount of $2,754 which includes penalties and interest accrued must be paid in full by September 15, 1933, or foreclosure proceedings will commence. Today’s date was August 19.
Jack Walsh leaned back and crossed his arms. He knew something was deeply wrong here, besides the obvious. His hands closed around his upper arms; maybe he was thinking I was wasting his time. In a quiet voice, he asked, “Does Rory have a plan of any kind for his family?”
“I—don’t think so.”
“Has he told any of you what’s about to happen?”
I looked down at my lap. I had no choice but to tell him the truth. Or at least some of it.
“Rory left. He took all the valuables and drove away.” I couldn’t stop now. “Mrs. Tartt and Frances have gone to pieces, and I’m the only one who knows about the letter.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Please, don’t tell anybody, Mr. Walsh. It’ll only make things worse—and my sister will kill me. We can’t even afford to go looking for him.”
He ran his hand over his short blond hair. “Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word about it. You’re right not to want that to get out or the Tartts won’t have a cent of credit left in this town.”
Now that he knew, I could quit being so civilized. I put my own elbows on the table. The counter stools behind us had emptied of men. The waitress in the pink hat came toward us with a dripping water pitcher, but when she saw our faces, she turned back.
“Do you think the bank would really foreclose on Mrs. Tartt?”
Both his sandwiches were already gone. I’d only had a few bites of mine. “It’s no secret that the Bank of Lafayette County needs to get any overdue mortgages off their books as soon as possible to get this loan.”
I nodded that I understood. “What happens in a foreclosure? Will they really throw Mrs. Tartt and my sister out of the house?”
He stared down at the letter and nodded.
“Unfortunately, yes. On September 15 or thereabouts, the sheriff and a bank officer will show up with a warrant and tell the Tartts they must remove their feet from the property immediately. They’ll lock the doors and start going through her belongings to either auction off separately or include with the house to raise the value when they have the foreclosure sale. ”
“You mean—the furniture … and their clothes? My sister’s clothes?”
He nodded but looked away and bit his bottom lip. “The bank’s asked me to stay out of this one, I guess because it’s the Tartts.” His left front tooth was slightly chipped. I thought he looked ashamed. “You really want my two cents on this?”
“Jack, I been trying to pry that out of you for the last half hour.”
He sort of smiled and looked at his palms. His hands were big and smooth and tan.