'Me and my people'll take care of ya outside,' he announced one day, amplifying his earlier promise. Miles already knew that his own release from prison, and La Rocca's, could occur about the same time.
Talking money was a form of mental suspension for Miles, pushing away, however briefly, the horror of the present. He supposed, too, he should feel relief about the stopping of the loan clock. Yet neither talking nor thinking of other things was sufficient to exclude, except momentarily, his general wretchedness and self-disgust. Because of it, he began to consider suicide.
The self-loathing focused on his relationship with Karl. The big man had declared he wanted, 'Your sweet white ass, baby. Your body just for me. Any time I need it.' Since their agreement, he had made the promise come true with an appetite which seemed insatiable.
At the beginning Miles tried to anesthetize his mind, telling himself that what was happening was preferable to gang rape, which because of Karl's instinctive gentleness fit was. Yet disgust and consciousness remained. But what had developed since was worse.
Even in his own mind Miles found it hard to accept, but the fact was: he was beginning to enjoy what was occurring between himself and Karl. Furthermore, Miles was regarding his protector with new feelings… Affection? Yes… Love? Sol He dared not, for the moment, go that far.
The realizations shattered him. Yet he followed new suggestions which Karl made, even when these caused Miles's homosexual role to become more positive.
After each occasion questions haunted him. Was he a man any longer? He knew he had been before, but now could not be sure. Had he become perverted totally? Was this a way it happened? Could there ever be a turnabout, a reversion later, canceling out the tasting, savoring, here and now? If not, was life worth living? He doubted it.
It was then that despair enveloped him and that suicide seemed logical a panacea, an ending, a release. Though difficult in the crowded prison, it could be done by hanging. Five times since Miles's arrival there had been cries of 'hang-up!' usually in the night when guards would rush like storm troopers, cursing, pulling levers to unlock tiers, 'cracking' a cell open, racing to cut down a would be suicide before he died. On three of the five occasions, cheered on by prisoners' raucous cries and laughter, they were too late. Immediately after, because suicides were an embarrassment to the prison, night guard patrols were increased, but the effort seldom lasted.
Miles knew how it was done. You soaked a length of sheet or blanket so it wouldn't tear urinating on it would be quieter then secured it to an overhead beam which could be reached from a top bunk. It would have to be done silently while others in the cell were sleeping.. .
In the end one thing, and one thing only, stopped him. No other factor swayed Miles's decision to hang on.
He wanted, when his time in prison was done, to tell Juanita Nunez he was sorry.
Miles Eastin's penitence at his time of sentencing had been genuine. He had felt remorse at having stolen from First Mercantile American Bank where he had been treated honorably, and had given dishonor in return. In retrospect he wondered how he could have stifled his conscience as he did.
Sometimes, when he thought about it now, it seemed as if a fever had possessed hirn. The betting, socializing, sporting events, living beyond his means, the insanity of borrowing from a loan shark, and the stealing, appeared in hindsight like crazily mismated parts of a distemper. He had lost touch with reality and, as with a fever in advanced stages, his mind had been distorted until decency and moral values disappeared. How else, he had asked himself a thousand times, could he have stooped so despicably, have been guilty of such vileness, as to cast blame for his own offense on Juanita Nunez?
At the trial, so great had been his shame, he could not bear to look Juanita's way.
Now, six months later, Miles's concern about the bank was less. He had wronged FMA but in prison would have paid his debt in full. By God, he had paid!
But not even Drummonburg in all its awfulness made up for what he owed Juanita. Nothing ever would. It was why he must seek her out and beg forgiveness. Thus, since he needed life to do it, he endured.
10
'This is First Mercantile American Bank,' the FMA money trader snapped crisply into the telephone; he had it cradled expertly between his shoulder and left ear so his hands were free. 'I want six million dollars overnight. What's your rate?'
From the California West Coast the voice of a money trader in the giant Bank of America drawled, 'Thirteen and five eighths.' 'that's high,' the FMA man said. 'Tough titty.'
The FMA trader hesitated, trying to outguess the other, wondering which way the rate would go. From habit he filtered out the persistent drone of voices around him in First Mercantile American's Money Trading Center a sensitive, security-guarded nerve core in FMA Headquarters Tower, which few of the bank's customers knew about and only a privileged handful ever saw. But it was in centers like this that much of a big bank's profit was made or could be lost.
Reserve requirements made necessary for a bank to hold specific amounts of cash against possible demand, but no bank wanted too much idle money or too little. Bank money traders kept amounts in balance.
'Hold, please,' the FMA trader said to San Francisco. He pressed a 'hold' button on his phone console, then another button near it.
A new voice announced, 'Manufacturers Hanover Trust, New York.' 'I need six million overnight. What's your rate?' 'Thirteen and three quarters.' On the East Coast the rate was rising.
'Thanks, no thanks.' The FMA trader broke the connection with New York and released the 'hold' button where San Francisco was waiting. He said, 'I guess I’l1 take it.'
'Six million sold to you at thirteen and five eighths,' Bank of America said. 'Right.'
The trade had taken twenty seconds. It was one of thousands daily between rival banks in a contest of nerve and wits, with stakes in seven figures. Bank money traders were invariably young men in their thirties bright and ambition, quick-minded, unflustered under pressure. Yet, since a record of success in trading could advance a young man's career and mistakes blight it, tension was constant so that three years on a money-trading desk was considered a maximum. After that, the strain began to show.
At this moment, in San Francisco and at First Mercantile American Bank the latest transaction was being recorded, fed to a computer, then transmitted to the Federal Reserve System. At the 'Fed,' for the next twenty- four hours, reserves of Bank of America would be debited by six million dollars, the reserves of FMA credited with the same amount. FMA would pay Bank of America for the use of its money for that time.
All over the country similar transactions between other banks were taking place. It was a Wednesday, in mid-April.
Alex Vandervoort, visiting the Money Trading Center, a part of his domain within the bank, nodded a greeting to the trader who was seated on an elevated platform surrounded by assistants, the latter funneling information and completing paper work. The young man, already immersed in another trade, returned the greeting with a wave and cheerful smile.
Elsewhere in the room the size of an auditorium and with similarities to the control center of a busy airport were other traders in securities and bonds, flanked by aides, accountants, secretaries. All were engaged in deploying the bank's money lending, borrowing, investing, selling, reinvesting.
Beyond the traders, a half-dozen financial supervisors worked at larger, plusher desks.
Traders and supervisors alike faced a huge board, running the trading center's length and giving quotations, interest rates and other information. The remote-controlled figures on the board changed constantly.
A bond trader at a desk not far from where Alex was standing rose to his feet and announced loudly, 'Ford and United Auto Workers just announced a two-year contract.' Several other traders reached for telephones. Important industrial and political news, because of its instant effect on securities prices, was always shared this way by the first in the room to hear of it.
Seconds later, a green light above the information board winked off and was replaced by flashing amber. It was a signal to traders not to commit themselves because new quotations, presumably resulting from the auto industry settlement, were coming in. A flashing red light, used rarely, was a warning of more cataclysmic change.
Yet the money-trading desk, whose operation Alex had been watching, remained a pivot point.
Federal regulations required banks to have seventeen and a half percent of their demand deposits available in liquid cash. Penalties for non-compliance were severe. Yet it was equally poor banking to leave large sums
