JW sped into the bank parking lot and pulled into the spot marked President, his strategy becoming clearer by the minute. The wild rice truck’s front bumper bent the President signpost back, but he didn’t care. Clapton fell quiet and the engine churned as he got out. He looked down at Sam’s black car with its red NRA bumper sticker and noticed the camo and deer hunting gear inside. The deer opener wasn’t for another month and a half. The guy was a nut, a survival fetishist. Schmeaker’s macho fascination had always struck him as playacting, considering the man’s fragile jaw, slender frame, and feathered hair.
He threw open the main door and marched inside toward his old office.
“Sandy,” he said as he passed the reception desk.
“Mr. White!” She rose, alarmed, and began to follow him through the open area under the large log trusses as he headed for one of the glassed-in offices around the perimeter. “Mr. White, he’s busy!”
He heard her clacking heels step off the tile and onto the carpet. “He’ll make time,” JW said, and kept walking.
Other employees looked up as he passed through the open area, Sandy trailing him. Through the glass wall of his former office he could see Jorgenson at his old desk, meeting with Sam Schmeaker, who stood to intercept him as he opened the door.
“John, we’re in conference,” Schmeaker said.
“Out of my way, Sam.” He pushed the door farther open and shouldered past. He tossed the foreclosure notice and the hand-scrawled note on Jorgenson’s desk.
“Seriously?” His voice was loud. Confident. For the first time in ages, it seemed, things were becoming clear to him. “This is your idea of communication and management?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Jorgenson,” Sandy said, arriving at the door, “he walked right past me—”
JW turned and raised his arms wide, herding both her and Sam out the door. “Okay, okay, thank you, you can leave now, Frank and I are now having a conference—” They looked to Jorgenson for guidance. He lifted a hand.
“It’s fine. We forgot to set up a meeting this morning.”
“See? Out.” JW closed the door behind them and turned back to Jorgenson. Fire burned in his lungs, but he held his anger in abeyance, to see what he could learn. He regarded the man who had given him his career.
“What the hell are you thinking, coming in here like this?” Jorgenson said.
“That’s what I thought you’d say. No responsibility. But I don’t respond well to personal threats. You want to communicate, do it like a man.”
“John, get ahold of yourself—”
“Oh, I am ahold of myself, for the first time in a long time.” He put a hand on the desk and leaned in, pointing. “I told you I would check on him—”
“It’s simply a legal procedure—”
“Bullshit! It’s childish intimidation and it’s in bad faith. Did you set that fire?”
Jorgenson glanced out his office window at the employees, who were watching the confrontation.
“It’s a simple question.” JW went to the window wall and closed the wooden louver blinds.
“Did you set that fire?” he asked again.
“You have no idea how much damage you’re doing.”
“Oh, I have a pretty good idea of what I’m doing. The problem is, there’s nothing wrong with the guy!”
“You said he smokes pot.”
“It’s organic tobacco! And I’ll tell you what else. The man doesn’t do drugs, he cares about his kid, and he’s trying to do right by his people. There’s nothing wrong with him.” He was leaning in again, high with a sense of righteousness and control he hadn’t enjoyed since before Chris’s death.
Jorgenson pushed back in his chair. “Well, that changes things,” he said, thinking. “How do you know it’s not pot?”
“Because I have the combination to his safe,” said JW, waving his spiral notepad. “I found the bag, and it’s organic Indian tobacco. Now you listen to me. I’m done screwing around. I understand what you’re holding over me, but I am sick of living in a fucking trailer and being your personal hatchet man. And it doesn’t help matters when I get this kind of threat.”
“You want to quiet down, please?”
“Will you play fairly?”
“Of course.”
JW took a seat. The same seat, he noted, that Johnny Eagle had once taken in this very office. But this time it was the power seat, because Jorgenson was about to start playing by his rules. “You want to stop Johnny Eagle?” he asked.
Jorgenson didn’t answer, and JW figured he was probably worried it might be some kind of trap. So JW enunciated.
“I said, do you want to stop Johnny Eagle?” He sat with both arms laid wide on the chair arms.
“Then you have to set him up.”
Jorgenson looked relieved. His jaw loosened and he leaned back. “Okay,” he said, “how can we do that?”
“The only way it’s going to work at this point is to plant something on him. Something incriminating. I’m the only one close enough to him to do that, and that brilliant fire has made him extremely wary, even of me. Fortunately, I still have the trust of his son.”
JW knew Jorgenson would be attracted by the logic of this perspective. If there were no drugs, then framing Eagle would be the next best option and, short of killing him, possibly the only option. At the very least it would buy them time and cast doubt, which might well be enough under the circumstances. And JW was indeed the man for the job. There was no one closer. He watched Jorgenson come to the realization that he, JW, held the fate of the bank, and perhaps Jorgenson’s entire career, in his hands.
“So what do you need?” Jorgenson said finally.
“Partnership.”
“Partnership?”
“I’ll make it simple for you. Capitol Bank Holdings gives me fifteen percent ownership of this branch, which is just half of the value I’ve added under my leadership, and you forgive the second mortgage—not the first—and give me five thousand now so I can pay my bills. In exchange, Johnny Eagle and his bank go away, and you get a highly motivated partner.”
Jorgenson’s face looked sad. “No way I could get that approved by the brass, you know that.”
“Then you better think carefully about what you are going to do in your next career, because the man offered me a job. Think about what I could do for him. What the tribe pulling their deposits out of this bank would mean to its solvency and to your bid to become CEO. I want that for you as much as you do, Frank. There is nobody who deserves to lead this bank chain more than you do, and I’ve been your most loyal soldier for more than twenty years. I’d like to continue that career.”
Jorgenson studied him like an animal backed into a corner. JW’s gambit had taken the game to an entirely new level, but this time he was the house. He held all the best cards.
“All right, you have a deal,” said Jorgenson. He looked bitter and his face was ashen. “It’ll take me a little while to sell it to the brass. You’ll have to trust me, and you’ll have to deliver.”
“Oh, I’ll deliver,” said JW, extending a hand.
Jorgenson looked at it, then pushed back and stood.
“Save the handshake for when we close on this fucker,” he said. JW withdrew his hand, feeling cautious and unfulfilled. Jorgenson walked around the desk, passed behind him, and went to the door. He opened it to reveal Sandy and Schmeaker hovering nearby.
“Sandy, be a good girl and cut a check for me to sign to Mr. White for five thousand dollars—”
“Cash,” said JW.
“All right. Cash.”
“Of course,” said Sandy, stumbling on her high heels as she turned to head for the tellers.
Jorgenson looked at Schmeaker. “It’s all right,” he said. “Everything’s fine. You can go back to your office.” He closed the door and walked back around his desk, loosening his tie.
“You never answered my question,” said JW as he made a steeple out of his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” said Jorgenson as he sat back in his chair. “You flustered me. Well played, by the way. It’s a move I might have made. What was the question?” Despite his congratulatory tone, he had the air of a murderer, and JW remained cautious. Again, he enunciated very clearly and slowly.
“Did you burn down the bank?”
Jorgenson sat back in his chair and snorted as if JW had asked something so obvious as to be foolish. JW stared at him over his steepled fingers until he answered. “What? Is that a surprise? Of course I did! This isn’t a fucking dinner party. You should thank me for buying you more time.”
JW kept his knowing smile and nodded. Jorgenson had just admitted to a crime that was worse than embezzlement.
There was a soft knock and Sandy entered. She moved hesitantly, and had to lean in close to JW to place the stack of cash on the desk. He smelled her perfume and saw the form of her breasts moving inside her silk blouse. Jorgenson nodded and smiled reassuringly at her, and she withdrew awkwardly past JW and exited.
Jorgenson placed the money near JW, but kept his hand on it. “I trust our agreement means you’ll return your focus to saving this branch,” he said, holding JW with his eyes, “and forget about all this history shit.”
“It’s my number one priority,” said JW.
Jorgenson nodded softly and sat back. He took up the crumpled foreclosure notice. “I’ll ask the lawyers to hold off on this for now.”
“For now? Well, in that case I’m sorry, Frank, but the deal is off.” JW moved to stand. “I don’t work with a gun to my head.”
“Fine!” Jorgenson cut him off with a raised hand. “I’ll stop the action.”
JW nodded. “Good.”
He stood and took the stack of cash off the desk. He hefted it before he slipped it into his suit-jacket pocket. It was a parlor trick he had perfected some years ago.
“Aren’t you going to count it?” asked Jorgenson.
“I just did,” he said with a smile. “Besides, we’re partners.” And he left the office.
Jorgenson snorted, then reached up and pressed the intercom. “Sam, come in here.”
JW made his way through the silent bank, the log trusses soaring over him, feeling victorious. He pushed his way through the doors.
Outside the air was dry and warm, and he picked up the faint smell of wood smoke. He got into the pickup, reached into his shirt pocket, and took out the digital mini recorder. He looked down at it and pressed stop, then rewind and play to test the recording. He heard Jorgenson’s voice and pressed stop. He had what he came for—a renegotiated deal and, more importantly, evidence to protect himself.
He slipped the recorder back into his pants pocket and backed out, leaving the President sign crooked in the grass.