In the Night Room

“All the more reason for Baltic to cover itself.” This time the look in Willy’s eye was of a gloomy intensity. He said, “One thing I can do for you is to play devil’s advocate here. But as you must know, basically I’ll do anything you want. However, I do have something to say to you, and you’re going to have to listen to me.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re done.”

“It’s important?”

“Yes. It is to me.”

“Tell me now.”

“When you’re through with your story, Willy.”

“Okay, but you’re a jerk. All right. I told you I spent the night in my office, right?”

He nodded.

“Have you ever tried to fall asleep when you’re scared out of your mind? Besides that, I realized that I’d trapped myself in that office, so stupid stupid stupid. I could have run out as soon as I saw the pictures, but after that, Giles would know I’d probably seen them, know what I mean? And he wouldn’t dream of letting me leave the estate until Mitchell got home. So I had to get out early in the morning, when those two creeps might not be waiting for me. Anyhow, at least I had plenty of time to think.

“Mitchell and I had our own checkbooks, naturally, but he had just had me transfer most of my accounts to the little bank in Hendersonia, and I had no idea what kind of cash I had available. What I wanted to do was clean him out, if I could, and take his money with me. I didn’t think I really could do that, but anyhow. It was worth a try, wasn’t it?”

“What did you do?” Tom asked.

“I managed to get out, for one thing. I had a little suitcase with some clothes in it, and this white leather bag, like a duffel bag, that Mitchell gave me once, that I was going to use for the money. It was like five-thirty in the morning. I went downstairs without seeing a soul. Then I got in my car and took off for Hendersonia. They weren’t following me; they weren’t even up yet. I drove into the Pathmark parking lot and fell asleep, out of sheer exhaustion. Just before the bank opened, I called and asked for Mr. Bender, the president. I told him my husband was out of town and I needed a lot of cash in a hurry, so what could he do for me? You have to understand, all this time I am barely keeping myself under control.”

“You were beginning to feel how angry you were.”

“And scared! I was just improvising, I don’t really know what I wanted to do.” She scooted backward on the bed and sat up with her back against the headboard. “So this Bender guy tells me that he’s been thinking of arranging a meeting between us for some time, and he’d like me to come in that morning.”

Willy gave Tom a look he could feel at the base of his spine.

“And the next thing I know, I’m there, in his office. Remember when I said that I knew I locked myself in my office? Well, that’s why I said it.”

“I don’t quite get you.”

“Tom, it’s just like yesterday. Don’t you remember anything? I lost two and a half hours between the Met and the St. Regis! And afterward, the whole trip back to New Jersey disappeared. I’m getting in the car, boom, I’m standing on our lawn in Hendersonia. There’s no transition—East Fifty-fifth Street, Guilderland Road, one right after the other.”

Tom’s gaze deepened.

“Weird, huh? As if I needed any more weird shit in my life. So the same thing happens all over again, and I’m not in my car anymore, I’m in Mr. Bender’s office, and evidently I just got there, because he’s waving me toward a chair and telling me he’s glad I could come in on such short notice.”

“It’s your selective amnesia.”

“It’s more like the in-between stuff never happened. Like it was just left out. Anyhow, here’s this portly guy with glasses and a bald head, and it strikes me that he looks a little nervous. Right away, I know— Mitchell makes him nervous. And the first thing he says to me is that he’s very happy I brought Mitch Faber back to his hometown.”

For it turned out that Mitchell Faber had been born and raised in Hendersonia. He had been on the local high school’s football team, and after graduation he’d gone to Seton Hall, but college had not worked out all that well, and in his second year he had enlisted in the army and qualified for Special Forces. His father, Henderson Faber, one of the Hendersons and a very, very important man in not only the town but that whole section of New Jersey, was happy to see him launched in a career in the military. Because Mitch had always been a bit wild. If truth be told, his father’s influence was the reason some of the boy’s escapades never went any farther than they did. Military service channeled his aggression and made a man of him.

What did the father do? Oh, he owned an auto-repair shop, but that didn’t cover half of it. Mr. Faber was a powerful man. He had a hand in almost every business in the county. In fact, Mr. Faber had been instrumental in founding the Continental Trust of New Jersey, the very bank they were in at that moment. Unfortunately, Mitch’s dad had died of a gunshot wound six, seven years back. Unknown assailant.

“His father was murdered?” Tom said. “Was he some kind of gangster?”

“Hang on,” Willy said. “We’re still getting to the good stuff.”

The bank was very grateful for all the business Mr. Faber and Ms. Patrick had brought to it, Mr. Bender said. Of course, with the gentleman’s connections to the institution a great degree of trust came into play, mutual trust he hoped he could say, and excellent customers such as Ms. Patrick, soon to be wed to the son of a sort of “silent partner” at the inception of that institution, could be granted a degree of latitude not permitted the general public. With that said, and Mr. Bender wished most heartily that his concerns should not be taken amiss, it would be less than perfectly responsible if the chief officer of a banking institution did not seek independent verification of financial arrangements said to be established between account-holding couples. For example. Let us say a significant sum of money has been transferred between accounts, and agreements exist to establish similar transfers of funds at regular intervals, said agreement to have been signed right on Mr. Bender’s desk here by one of the parties, then taken away by that party for the secondary signature to be affixed at a separate location. In such a case, Mr. Bender trusted that the question of verification would be seen as a simple formality entered into for the purpose of dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s.

And with that verbal flourish, the nervous Mr. Bender withdrew from a file on his desk an agreement that transferred an immediate $200,000 from various of Willy’s shiny new accounts into Mitchell’s savings account, and thereafter moved half that amount from hers to his on the first of each month for the next eight months. This document bore two signatures, Mitchell’s and one that came pretty close to Willy’s hasty scribble.

“I don’t believe it,” Tom said.

“He forged my signature on a document that moved one million dollars from my accounts into his over the next eight months.”

“I mean, I do believe it, but it’s incredible. How did he explain it to the banker?”

“He told him that I was nervous about investing money, and wanted him to do it for me. He said after we were married, we were going to have joint accounts anyhow.”

“Were you?”

“Do you think Mitchell ever discussed finances with me? It was taken for granted that he had tons of money. He certainly acted like a rich man—he bought me a Mercedes! With my money, it looks like. I guess I bought his Mercedes, too.”

“Willy, how much money do you have in that crappy little bank, anyhow?”

“Around three million,” she said. “Most of it was from Jim’s estate. If Baltic paid that kind of money to Jim, I thought Mitchell would earn pretty much the same thing.”

“Mitchell must be a long way down the totem pole. What did the banker do when you told him your signature was forged?”

“I thought he was going to commit hari-kari. You know the funny thing? He always knew there was something fishy about that agreement. He was afraid of Mitchell. Mitchell intimidated him. I bet Mitchell intimidated everyone in Hendersonia. And the arrangement didn’t take any money away from his bank, it just moved it around a little, so he didn’t ask any questions. He apologized for about half an hour and begged me to let him make things