The Moneychangers

by Arthur Hailey

  “Because ya buttoned up,” LaRocca now informed him, “Ominsky says to tell ya he stopped the clock while you’re inside.”

  What that meant, Miles knew, was the interest on what he owed was no longer accumulating during his time in prison. He had learned enough of loan sharks to know the concession was a large one. The message also explained how Mafia Row, with its outside connections, knew of Miles’s existence.

  “Tell Mr. Ominsky thanks,” Miles said. He had no idea, though, how he would repay the capital sum when he left prison, or even earn enough to live on.

  LaRocca acknowledged, “Someone’ll be in touch before ya get sprung. Maybe we can work a deal.” With a nod which included Karl, he slipped away.

  In the weeks which followed, Miles saw more of the weasel-faced LaRocca who several times sought out his company, along with Karl’s, in the prison yard. Something which appeared to fascinate LaRocca and other prisoners was Miles’s knowledge about the history of money. In a way, what had once been an interest and hobby achieved for Miles the kind of respect which prison inmates have for those whose background and crimes are cerebral, as opposed to the merely violent. Under the system a mugger is at the bottom of the prison social scale, an embezzler or con artist near the top.

  What intrigued LaRocca, in particular, was Miles’s description of massive counterfeiting, by governments, of other countries’ money. “Those have always been the biggest counterfeit jobs of all,” Miles told an interested audience of half a dozen one day.

  He described how the British government sanctioned forgery of great quantities of French assignats in an attempt to undermine the French Revolution. This, despite the fact that the same crime by individuals was punishable by hanging, a penalty which continued in Britain until 1821. The American Revolution began with official forgery of British banknotes. But the greatest counterfeit venture of all, Miles reported, was during World War II when Germany forged £140 million in British money and unknown amounts of U.S. dollars, all of highest quality. The British also printed German money and so, rumor said, did most of the other Allies.

  “Wouncha know it!” LaRocca declared. “Them’s the kinda bastards put us in here. Betcha they’re doing some o’ the same right now.”

  LaRocca was appreciative of the cachet which attached to himself as a result of Miles’s knowledge. He also made it clear that he was relaying some of the information to Mafia Row.

  “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 LaRocca’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—it 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? No! 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 to normalcy 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 Núñez 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 him. 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 Núñez?

  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 it 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’ll 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 ambitious, 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 uninvested, even for a day.

  Therefore banks maintained a continual tally of all money moving in and out. A central cashier’s department kept a finger on the flow like a physician on a pulse. If deposits within a banking system such as First Mercantile American’s were heavier than anticipated, the bank—through its money trader—promptly loaned surplus funds to other banks who might be short of their reserve requirements. Conversely, if customer withdrawals were unusually heavy, FMA would borrow.

  A bank’s position changed from hour to hour, so that a bank which was a lender in the morning could be a borrower at midday and a lender again before the close of business. This way, a large bank might trade better than a billion dollars in a day.

  Two other things could be said—and often were—about the system. First, banks were usually faster in pursuing earnings for themselves than for their clients. Second, banks did far, far better in the way of profit for themselves than they achieved for outsiders who entrusted money to them.

  Alex Vandervoort’s presence in the Money Trading Center had been partly to keep in touch with money flow, which he often did, partly to discuss bank developments in recent weeks which had distressed him.

  He was with Tom Straughan, a senior vice-president and fellow member of FMA’s money policy committee. Straughan’s office was immediately outside. He had walked into the Money Trading Center with Alex. It was young Straughan who, back in January, had opposed a cutback of Forum East funds but now welcomed the proposed loan to Supranational Corporation.

  They were discussing Supranational now.

  “You’re worrying too much, Alex,” Tom Straughan insisted. “Besides being a nil-risk situation, SuNatCo will be good for us. I’m convinced of it.”

  Alex said impatiently, “There’s no such thing as nil-risk. Even so, I’m less concerned about Supranational than I am about the taps we’ll have to turn off elsewhere.”

  Both men knew which taps, within First Mercantile American, Alex was referring to. A memorandum of proposals, drafted by Roscoe Heyward and approved by the bank’s president, Jerome Patterton, had been circulated to members of the money policy committee a few days earlier. To make possible the fifty million dollar Supranational line of credit, it was proposed to cut back drastically on small loans, home mortgages and municipal bond financing.

  “If the loan goes through and we make those cutbacks,” Tom Straughan argued, “they’ll be only temporary. In three months, maybe less, our funding can revert to what it was before.”

  “You may believe that, Tom. I don’t.”

  Alex was dispirited before he came here. His conversation with young Straughan now depressed him further.

  The Heyward-Patterton proposals ran counter, not only to Alex’s beliefs, but also his financial instincts. It was wrong, he believed, to channel the bank’s funds so substantially into one industrial loan at the expense of public service, even though the industrial financing would be far more profitable. But even from a solely business viewpoint, the extent of the bank’s commitment to Supranational—through SuNatCo subsidiaries—made him uneasy.

  On the last point, he realized, he was a minority of one. Everyone else in the bank’s top management was delighted with the new Supranational connection and Roscoe Heyward had been congratulated effusively for achieving it. Yet Alex’s uneasiness persisted, though he was unable to say why. Certainly Supranational seemed to be sound financially; its balance sheets showed the giant conglomerate radiating fiscal health. And in prestige, SuNatCo rated alongside companies like General Motors, IBM, Exxon, Du Pont, and U. S. Steel.

  Perhaps, Alex thought, his doubts and depression stemmed from bis own declining influence within the bank. And it was declining. That had become evident in recent weeks.

  In contrast, Roscoe Heyward’s star was high in the ascendant. He had the ear and confidence of Patterton, a confidence expanded by the dazzling success of Heyward’s two-day sojourn in the Bahamas with G. G. Quartermain. Alex’s own reservations about that success were, he knew, regarded as sour grapes.

  Alex sensed, too, that he had lost his personal influence with Straughan and others who formerly considered themselves on the Vandervoort bandwagon.

  “You have to admit,” Straughan was saying, “that the Supranational deal is sweet. You’ve heard that Roscoe made them agree to a compensating balance of ten percent?”

  A compensating balance was an arrangement, arrived at after tough bargaining between banks and borrowers. A bank insisted that a predetermined portion of any loan be kept on deposit in current account, where it earned no interest for the depositor yet was available to the bank for its own use and investment. Thus a borr
ower failed to have full use of all of his loan, making the real rate of interest substantially higher than the apparent rate. In the case of Supranational, as Tom Straughan had pointed out, five million dollars would remain in new SuNatCo checking accounts—very much to FMA’s advantage.

  “I presume,” Alex said tautly, “you’re aware of the other side of that cozy deal.”

  Tom Straughan appeared uncomfortable. “Well, I’ve been advised there was an understanding. I’m not sure we should call it ‘the other side.’”

  “Dammit, that’s what it is! We both know that SuNatCo insisted, and Roscoe agreed, our trust department would invest heavily in Supranational common stock.”

  “If they did, there’s nothing down on paper.”

  “Of course not. No one would be that foolish.” Alex eyed the younger man. “You’ve access to the figures. How much have we bought so far?”

  Straughan hesitated, then walked to the desk of one of the Trading Center supervisors. He returned with a penciled notation on a slip of paper.

  “As of today, ninety-seven thousand shares.” Straughan added, “The latest quote was at fifty-two.”

  Alex said dourly, “There’ll be a rubbing of hands at Supranational. Our buying has already pushed up their price five dollars a share.” He calculated mentally. “So in the past week we’ve bulldozed nearly five million dollars of trust clients’ money into Supranational. Why?”

  “It’s an excellent investment.” Straughan tried a light touch. “We’ll make capital gains for all those widows and orphans and educational foundations whose money we take care of.”

  “Or erode it—while abusing our trust. What do we know about SuNatCo, Tom—any of us—that we didn’t two weeks ago? Why, until this week, has the trust department never bought a single Supranational share?”

  The younger man was silent, then said defensively, “I suppose Roscoe feels that now he’ll be on the board he can watch the company more closely.”