“It might be his father.” This was Osborne’s way of saying he had no intention of approving the loan until Molony had established that there was no link with the criminal case.
“I’ll get back to you,” said Molony, and found himself in the rather awkward position of having to ask a neurotic bookmaker what his father did for a living. In the bank you learn to get answers to delicate questions. That afternoon, while betting the baseball games, Molony was able to learn that Beck’s father was a truck driver. He informed Osborne, who, to Molony’s inestimable relief, authorized the loan.
Relief was short-lived. When Monday came around again Molony was back in the hole. Trying to recover the $22,300, he had lost another $16,500 to Beck and Colizzi. This was turning into a bad dream. What now? Since Alex Osborne had already approved the Beck loan account, it could be debited further. More crucial than how much he owed the bank was his standing with Beck and Colizzi. Refuse his action — as they’d threatened the day they walked into his office — and they’d remove his means of escape. What choice did he have but to use the fraudulent account again?
The second loan caused him almost as much anguish as the first, though for a different reason. This time he forged Beck’s signature and cashed the draft right there at the branch. His manner suggested that Beck was waiting, that he was doing the customer a courtesy. If the teller had happened to pass his empty office, he might have had some explaining to do. Terror gnawed at him, but it was no worse than after the first fraud. So long as Beck’s loan was within the branch limit…
A week after the second advance Molony had to bump the loan yet again. Another horrible week. The bad dream was becoming a nightmare. What could he do but continue until he hit the streak that would bail him out? The trick now was to control the panicky sensation that threatened, at times, to immobilize him. Stay on his feet, keep moving, persevere until his fortunes changed. He was in Ohio now, Michigan was unmistakably behind him, and he had to do whatever would get him back across the border. Only a big win would solve his problem; only money could make a big win possible. This time he tacked on $27,000 U.S.
Molony began putting in longer hours than ever at the branch, generating new loans, insatiably busy. Activity was the only defence against reflection. He saw less of his friends, spent more time among the familiar, anonymous faces at the racetrack. Not only did the track represent salvation, it was the one place he was able to put out of mind — if only for 120 seconds at a time — the secret buried in the bank’s books and the pit of his stomach. He saw Brenda only if they had made specific plans. He couldn’t bear to be idle, watch television, chat about banalities. To put himself anywhere that did not demand full concentration was to risk being reminded of the unbearable.
The unbearable idea was not that his career would be ruined — you make your own bed — but that his family would be hideously shamed, his friends appalled, his colleagues outraged, and his manager dragged down with him. Alex Osborne had been assigning him more responsibility, steering accounts his way and introducing him to higher-ups. To betray Osborne: that was the prospect that filled him with urgency and determination.
Osborne had brought another assistant manager to Bay and Richmond, and people at the branch thought of Rick King as Osborne’s protege. An unspoken rivalry developed between the two assistant managers. As Osborne took keener interest in Molony, he grew disenchanted with King. Bay and Richmond was King’s first stint as an assistant manager. His post was newly created, his credit officer was new, and his accounts were a mishmash of loans other managers didn’t want. He had a difficult post, in short, and Osborne expected him to whip it into shape. When he failed to meet Osborne’s expectations he began to feel the force of Osborne’s discontent. One Friday, at the meeting of assistant managers, Osborne asked him to stay behind. Behind closed doors he said something that made King storm out in a rage. Osborne was trying to light a fire under King, but the strategy backfired. A couple of weeks later the two men nearly came to blows. Their relations were irreparably damaged, and King was transferred out of the branch.
If downtown’s resistance to Molony’s promotion had given Osborne any doubts, they were soon dispelled. Brian Molony was his kind of banker. While other assistants read up on the theory of credit, Molony combed through the bad loans — four drawers full of dusty, yellowed files — looking for signals that had gone unnoticed. Each morning in The Globe and Mail he studied the Osgoode Hall proceedings, in case a branch customer turned up in a legal action. The activity at his post was increasing dramatically with no deterioration in service. On the contrary, customers seemed uniformly impressed by his handling of their business. If a loan account showed no activity for a couple of months, Molony called the customer. If he found a large balance in one of his accounts, he suggested putting the money in a term deposit. He handled several hundred accounts and kept on top of them all.
Only once did the bank receive a complaint about Molony, and Osborne stood firm behind him. Reviewing overdrafts in the personal chequing accounts, Molony had to deal with a woman who had bounced a $300 cheque to a finance company. Molony told the girl to take the money from the woman’s Visa. But the customer hadn’t made a payment in months: Visa wouldn’t accept further charges. Molony told the girl to tell the customer to come in and make a deposit. The customer demanded to speak to Molony, who told her the bank was unable to honour her $300 cheque.
“I can’t get down there this afternoon. I have a baby. There’s no one to look after her.”
“Tomorrow morning, then,” said Molony. “If we don’t have your deposit by noon, we’ll have to return your cheque.”
The woman said she’d be there. When, at three the next afternoon, she still hadn’t appeared, Molony phoned again.
“I couldn’t make it this morning,” the woman said, “and I can’t get there this afternoon.”
“I’m sorry, we can’t honour your cheque.”
A couple of days later the branch got a call from Customer Relations. The woman had lodged a complaint, claiming Molony had ordered her to come in immediately, leaving the baby untended. Osborne had to reply in writing to Customer Relations. He’d been out of the branch at the time, and asked Molony for an explanation. Molony wrote a memo to the effect that he had deliberately used the overdraft as an excuse to separate the woman from her baby, seeking to harm its development. He had wanted to provide the baby with future grounds for a lawsuit against the bank, since the bank’s lawyers seemed in need of fresh challenges.
Osborne laughed aloud.
Brenda and her father both enjoyed the races, and one night Molony invited them to Greenwood. He was on a roll. Two good weeks had left him just short of the $70,000 he had borrowed. A decent night would give him the $70,000, plus interest. Brenda and her father didn’t know it, but the evening was meant to be a celebration.
Before each race they made their picks. Molony hurried off to buy the tickets. Beck, a frenzied gambler himself, was waiting at one end of the grandstand. Colizzi, cool and deliberate, was waiting at the other. Mark Epstein, another bookmaker, was waiting downstairs. Over the evening Brian and Brenda each won $10.40 on their shared tickets. Her father grinned with delight; he had won more than thirty dollars. But Molony had dropped $8,000 to Beck, Colizzi, and Epstein, and the late scores on the car radio nauseated him. Depression nearly overwhelmed him. To have got so tantalizingly near…
The following week he again came close to recovering what he owed; then a losing streak ate his winnings and sank him even further in debt. A month after debiting the Beck account by $27,000 U.S. he had to take another $10,000 to settle up at his Monday meeting.
The bad luck was unrelenting. A week later he put another $20,000 in Beck’s name and gave it to the bookies. Disconsolate, he walked back to Bay and Richmond wondering how long he could hold up. He had to do something — anything — to relieve the burden or he’d collapse beneath its unremitting weight. He phoned Brenda at her branch. Sorry, he said, but he wouldn’t be able
to see her that night after all. Could they maybe go out next Wednesday instead?
God, Brian could be infuriating! Brenda sometimes wondered why she’d ever got involved with him. They’d met while he worked on the audit at her branch. Someone had warned him, “You’ll be fine, as long as you don’t get Mr. Major.” The first morning, a bald, paunchy fellow said, “I’m Major. You’re with me.” He was a crusty man who wore a rubber thimble to turn pages and told people who swore to keep a civil tongue in their heads. When a girl walked by trailing an odour of perfume, Major, a bachelor, shook his head: “Those damn womanly smells.” He asked for a file and was told it was in the manager’s office. “Of course,” said Major, “we wouldn’t want to disturb him.” An hour later he asked for another file, got the same answer, and said, “I don’t care where it is! I want it and I want it now!” He was a character, all right, but he was also a fund of knowledge. Molony liked him.
One of the girls asked if they wanted coffee. Major, without looking up, snapped, “Can’t you see I’m working?” Molony smiled at the girl and pulled a face. Brenda had long dark hair, lovely brown eyes, and an air of quiet competence. She returned his smile, and Mr. Major became the basis of an understanding between them.
The auditors were in the branch for a week, and Brenda couldn’t help admiring the way the young audit assistant handled Major. So many men in the bank took everything so seriously. There was something different about Brian. Sure, he said the right things and wore the same dark suit and had a bushy moustache that made it hard to tell what he was feeling. But he took it all with a grain of salt and smiled in a sympathetic way. I’ll show you how to deal with Mr. Major, he seemed to say, and peppered the older man with questions. Major realized this wasn’t just another incompetent putting in his obligatory nine months on the audit and they got along like a house on fire.
Thursday afternoons the auditors went for a drink at the Nag’s Head, and Brian asked Brenda to join them. They gossiped about the bank and joked about Mr. Major. When the audit ended he made a point of thanking her for her help. They didn’t stay in touch, but a year later a girl from Brenda’s branch got transferred to Bay and Richmond, where Molony had been posted. Brenda dropped by to see her friend and there was Brian. She was wearing a godawful red thing on her head and he couldn’t resist a playful jab.
“Very nice hat. Most attractive.”
“Thank you,” she said, as if the compliment had been genuine.
“Get much sun under there?”
“Why do you think it’s called a sun hat?”
Brenda’s girlfriend invited them over to play euchre. Brian and Brenda were partners, and thanks to his skill they won every game. He had an easygoing manner but he put away the rum-and-Coke. She worried that he was overdoing it. “I never get sick on booze,” he assured her. When he stepped outside for a breath of air, she followed to see if he was okay. With his glasses off, on hands and knees, he looked as helpless as a little boy with the flu.
“Are you all right?”
“You must be pretty impressed.”
“Would you like a glass of water?” said Brenda. “Anything I can do?”
They started meeting for lunch or a drink after work. Brian kept things to himself but he was a good listener, sympathetic and helpful. He asked her to the races and she thought it a great idea. At Mohawk his uneasiness disappeared. There were no awkward silences to fill — something happened every thirty minutes. Brenda couldn’t decide which horse to bet and suggested going together on the one he chose. Bad luck, he told her. Close your eyes and bet the one your pen lands on. He had his own system, made all sorts of incomprehensible calculations and went to the windows by himself. She never knew how much he was betting or whether he won or lost.
They began seeing more of each other. She did most of the talking. She told him about her work, her family, the guy she’d been going with. He was understanding and supportive. If she asked for advice he offered it, otherwise he listened. Not that he wasn’t entertaining. He had a dry wit and was great fun to be around. It’s just that he never said much about himself. He thought you should leave work at the office and deal with your own problems. And she’d never met anybody with quite the same attitude toward money. He never bought anything because he liked it; he only bought what he definitely needed. He left tips so miserly she snuck back to leave more. One day he caught her. “Fifty cents is plenty,” he said, upset. “She didn’t have to slaughter the chicken. All she did was bring it to our table.”
Brenda got the idea he was seeing other women but didn’t pry. They were just friends, after all, that was his business. On weekends he saw Beth, who lived a couple of hours from Toronto. They had started going out just before he finished university. The first time she was a virgin; the next night she had a small library of how- to books by her bed. She was so eager to make love to him that sometimes she started in the car. What could be better? Driving to Mohawk for the evening card, carrying on to Kitchener, spending the night with Beth, leaving in time to catch the next day’s races. During the week he could always phone Daphne. She had her own apartment and he had only to say he was coming over. Trouble is, he’d say nine o’clock, figuring to catch a couple of races. He’d stay for another, then another, until there were none left. At midnight he’d have to invent some cock-and-bull story.
Brenda stood up to him in a way the others didn’t. They became close friends and, once she and her boyfriend split for good, lovers as well. She was the pitcher on the bank’s softball team and one afternoon Molony went out to watch. He wasn’t good at watching. Before long he suggested Sue ought to lead off because of her speed, Carol should hit cleanup because of her power, the centre-fielder and rightfielder ought to switch positions, and they should shift the defence when the other team’s heavy hitters were up. A couple of weeks later he was the coach.
Not easy, seeing three women, none of whom knew about the others, while working long hours and holding down what amounted to a second job, the blood avocation of racetracks and ball games. But he dreaded idleness, and the complications sorted themselves out. One night in bed Beth asked him, “When are you going to marry me?” He thought she was joking. When he saw she was serious he explained he couldn’t even think about marriage until he’d established his career. It seemed to her his career was already established. That was the end of that. As he got more deeply involved with Brenda he lost interest in Daphne as well. Or, rather, as he made more excuses and called less frequently, she lost interest in him.
Brenda lived with her parents. She’d moved out once, taken a place in a raunchy neighbourhood and ended up returning home. Her parents were happy she did. Her father worked for a manufacturing company and her mother worked part-time at the bank. They felt a daughter ought to live at home until she married. She was free to come and go, of course, but she felt obliged to return at a decent hour. When Brian was picking her up she went down to the lobby to wait. When they were together, they always seemed to be running out of time.
Molony’s parents were staunchly Catholic; they attended Mass daily and placed their faith at the centre of their lives. The idea of their son living in sin was unthinkable. To find privacy, Brian and Brenda had to use a friend’s place or shell out thirty or forty dollars for a room. She hated feeling sleazy, he hated spending money. One afternoon, at a hotel, he said, “Wouldn’t it be great if you had your own place?” She had to admit it would be. Her mother would be upset, and it might be a financial strain, but she was twenty-four and had worked at the bank almost five years. She’d saved money, contributed to a retirement savings plan; she knew how to budget. Brian could help with the rent. After all, what was stopping him from getting a place? He had it so easy at home he’d hate to lose a good thing.
She heard about a one-bedroom near High Park, twenty-third floor, balcony, nice view, not a bad size, with underground parking. The rent was $395. Encouraged by Brian she took it, but once she’d moved in she began to feel cheated. He hardly
ever spent time there. Had he not implied they’d spend more time together? Had she misunderstood? He’d leave her with a clear expectation and then, when she wound up disappointed, he’d shrug — “Did I say that?” And he hadn’t exactly said it, of course, it was she who’d been at fault, making unwarranted assumptions.
She’d had the apartment two months now and he rarely spent more than a few hours. If she was lucky he might stay Saturday night. He seemed more preoccupied than ever. She wondered if something was bothering him but he wasn’t someone you could come out and ask. He had a way of deflecting questions, talking his way right past an answer. She’d bought a queen-sized bed and a sofa, a diningroom table and chairs, but the place still felt barren. She’d looked forward to decorating it, choosing curtains and lamps, placemats and wine glasses, imagining they’d do it together. He showed no interest. Not that he expected her to do it; he didn’t notice, didn’t care. During the day he was consumed by work. Evenings they had to be doing something — seeing people or going somewhere — otherwise he went to the track. He couldn’t bear just being with her. He studied the race results, watched the ball games, spoke to someone on the phone: “Give me two on the one, and wheel the double.”
Why wouldn’t he include her? She liked sports, too, knew all the players on the Blue Jays and was delighted when her father gave her a subscription to the sports network for her birthday. Brian was in another league. Sometimes, in bed, she wanted to be held. “Can’t we just cuddle for a minute?” But he didn’t like cuddling and a minute was all she got before he padded out to the livingroom and flicked back and forth through the channels. He didn’t like dancing, either, you couldn’t have got him onto the floor with a shotgun. Literally. You got the idea he’d choose being shot. Once he said he wasn’t going to do something, that was it. He was a man of his word. In many ways it was a wonderful quality. In many ways he was a wonderful guy — he was close to his family, as she was, and fun to be around, and well-mannered, highly principled, hardworking, achievement-oriented. He never lost his temper, always acted the perfect gentleman. On her birthday and on holidays he sent flowers and a card. Sometimes she sat in her half-empty apartment and listed his attributes, making the list go on as long as she could. But she always ended up wishing he’d give more of himself, wondering if she was making a terrible mistake.
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