[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

the wall."
"We'd better use one of the small conference rooms upstairs," Willow said.
Upstairs was 1910 banking, as opposed to 1984 version in the lobby. Oak
paneling, green rugs, leather libraries. The computers were hidden offstage.
Park your Mercer under the elm trees and come in and talk about buying a block
of Postal Telegraph.
There were six chairs around the table in the small conference room. There
were two framed prints of clipper ships and a seventeen-pound glass ashtray on
the polished walnut. As soon as the door was shut, I shed the ranch hat,
Page 98
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
shades, and camera.
"Enjoying your stay?" Kathy asked me with a quick wink.
"Little gal, when I come across those Everglades in that big old
air-conditioned Greyhound bus, I said to the little woman, I said, Mother, we
shoulda-"
Kathy guffawed, stopping me. Willow rang the big glass ashtray with his pipe
in authoritarian tempo, silencing everybody. "Please! This is a very serious
matter. If I have your attention, Miss Marcus, we would like to find out to
what extent you are involved-"
"Whoa, friend," she said sharply, no laughter in her voice or her level stare.
"Now you will listen to me, Miss Marcus! I was saying-"
She got up and went to the door and smiled and said, "When you go home to the
wife and kiddies tonight, Woodie, tell her that nice Miss Marcus quit the bank
and went right down the street to another bank. Some loyalty, huh?"
"Come back and-"
"Woodie dear, the banks are so hard up for anybody who is worth a damn, it's
pathetic. They've been hiring people here if they're ambulatory and feel warm
to the touch. And I am one very damned good teller, and I have been here four
years, and I am not now, nor have I ever been, involved in anything hanky or
panky."
"Please, come back and-"
"Woodie dear, you just can't have it both ways. You can't call me Kathy and
fun around with me when we're alone in an elevator and give me a friendly
little grab in the ass and a chummy little arm pressure on the tit and then
expect me to sit meek and mild in front of these gentlemen and take some kind
of accusatory shit from you. No thanks. I'll tell them downstairs who ran me
out of this bank."
"Kathy," he said.
With her hand on the knob she looked at him with narrowed eyes and said,
"That's a start at least. Say the rest of it."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply-"
"Do you want me to come back and sit down, Woodie?"
"Please. I would appreciate it very much."
She came slowly back to the chair, sat, and smiled and said, "If these men had
been strangers, Woodie, I would have let you go on being a jackass, and I
would have cooked you later. But I'm among friends. Friends who rescued an
eerie blonde from the oldest floating houseparty in the world."
"I remember already," Meyer said.
I looked at her more closely. "Delmonica Pennypacker?"
"Just a little name I made up for my vacation. Anyway, as I understand it,
Woodie, you want a play-by-play account of cashing the check for Mr. Harry
Broll."
Woodrow Willow was coming out of shock. He cleared his throat and told how a
Mr. Winkler, a vice president of the bank, had received a telephone request
last Wednesday at closing time from Harry Broll, stating that he would be in
at about eleven on Thursday to cash a check for three hundred thousand on his
personal account. He wanted to make certain the bank would have cash available
in hundred-dollar bills. This is not an unusual request in an area where large
real estate deals are made.
Kathy took over and said, "The way our system works, everything has to go
through teller records, or we're out of balance. The cashier is Herman Falck,
and I suppose Mr. Winkler told Herm to have the cash on hand. Herm told me he
would run it through my balance, and he said Mr. Broll would probably bring in
a dispatch case for the money. That amount would fit with no trouble. We run a
minimum cash balance in the drawer at all times to make the place less
appealing to the knockover boys. We signal the vault for more cash or to come
make a pickup when we get too fat. They come zipping in a little electric
money cart.
"So at ten after eleven Herm brings these two men over to me. I put out my
closed sign so that a line won't build behind them. He takes the dispatch case
Page 99
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
from the man with Mr. Broll and hands it around to me. Mr. Broll gives me the
check, and Herm initials it. Then Herm goes back and brings the cash cart
behind the cage. It's just a matter of packing the sixty wrapped stacks of
hundreds into the case. A black plastic case, imitation lizard. I counted them
out as I packed them. Five, ten, fifteen, on up to three hundred. The case was
below eye-level looking from the floor of the bank. I snapped the snaps and
slid it up onto the counter, and the other man took it, and they walked
away."
"Had you ever seen Mr. Broll before?" I asked.
°I think so. He looked sort of familiar. Maybe I waited on him. The name seems
familiar."
"How did he act?"
"Well, I guess he's really a pretty sick man. I don't think he could have
managed without the other man helping him."
"In what way did he seem to you to be sick?"
"Well, he was very sweaty. His complexion was gray, and his face was wet. He
kind of wheezed. Like asthma sometimes. He didn't have much to say. Usually,
men joke about lots of money when they put it in or take it out. They joke [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]