The Immigrants (53 page)

“Frank’s cashing in our government bonds. We’ll pay everyone.”

“We can’t pay everyone. It’s eleven-fifteen, and that crowd outside is growing.”

“By two o’clock, we’ll have two million dollars.”

“And then? What then?”

Anthony Cassala shook his head. “We pay.”

“And we destroy ourselves.”

“No. They will take confidence. The run will stop.”

At noontime, Stephan was in Dan’s office, pleading with him and Mark. “Here’s a hundred thousand in government bonds. The city’s dried up. The run’s on us, but every bank in the city has a case of the jitters, and they’re hanging onto their cash as if it were blood. We can’t even move our treasuries for cash. If you can give me cash for these bonds—”

“The hell with the bonds,” Dan said. “We don’t carry cash, Steve. You know that.”

“But the store does. You got to take in forty, fifty thousand in a day. Mark, if you can let me have it for just twenty-four hours—or take the bonds for collateral. Either way. But I got to have it now—”

“What about that?” Dan asked.

“Whatever we got, Steve. There’s about ten thousand in the safe

4 2 4

H o w a r d F a s t

out of yesterday’s receipts—we’ll clean out the registers. Maybe thirty, forty thousand.”

“God bless you both.”

Again, Stephan raced back to the bank with a brief case stuffed with money, but it was like trying to stem the tide with a single outstretched hand. At three o’clock, the Cassala bank closed its doors. At nine-thirty in the morning, it opened them again. At two o’clock, it closed its doors again—its total reserves washed out. It was never to reopen. On the third day after the run began, Anthony Cassala suffered a major coronary infarction while sitting in his office at the Bank of Sonoma. By the time the ambulance reached the hospital, he was dead.

After the funeral, standing with Dan and Mark in the house at San Mateo, Stephan said to them, “It was the morning of the second day of the run, and there must have been four hundred people in front of the bank. We were pushing our way through, Pop and me, and this man says, ‘Hey, please, Mr. Cassala,’ to Pop, you un derstand, not loud but painful, like the voice of a man with a knife cutting him, and he’s talking in Italian. I know him slightly, Sicilian, a laborer, hod carrier in construction or something like that, and Pop stops, and he says to Pop, not angry, but just soft, ‘Mr. Cassala, I don’t want to trouble you. You have problems.

I have problems. No work for three months. I have a wife and five children. Little ones. Each week I take ten dollars out of the bank. So we live. I got seven hundred and sixty-two dollars in the bank, Mr. Cassala, savings from the day I got married. That’s all I have in the world. Without it, we will starve.’ Just like that. He wasn’t an gry. You know, I was never hungry. It’s hard for me to understand hunger with my lousy stomach. Pop looked at the man.

t H e I m m I g r a n t s

4 2 5

His name was John Galeno. Then Pop took him by the arm and led him into the bank. ‘Pay him first, Stephan,’ he said to me. Then he said to Galeno, ‘You don’t take that money home and hide it, you un derstand? You take it to Giannini’s bank, you under stand?

Put it there. It’s safe.’ That’s not a banker. God Almighty, why did he ever decide to be a banker? The last damn thing in the world he should have been is a banker.”

Cold in San Francisco can be as cold as anyplace on earth. It’s a wet, damp cold that rides in on eddies of fog and thin rain and eats into the marrow of the bone. It was like that today, and Dan wrapped his coat around him and thrust his hands into its pockets while he stood on the corner of California Street on Nob Hill watching the wreckers take the Seldon mansion apart, stone by stone, brick by brick, beam by beam. The big dining room, where he had sat the first time so long ago, his own Mount Olympus where he had first tasted the food of the gods, stood naked and exposed, the wallpaper peeling away, all the ghosts of the past un-sheltered and whimpering in the wind.

There he stood and watched, gripped by the sight, held by some magnet out of a past that was without sense or meaning. Finally he tore himself away and walked down the steep hill toward Montgomery Street, passing the apple vendors and the panhandlers—there but for the grace of God goes Dan Lavette—and emptying his pockets. He was an easy touch. Once, years ago, Jean had said to him with some asperity, “Why must you give money to every bum who ap proaches you?” But he had always been the other per son, a fact which he understood only vaguely. His sense of himself had always been ill defined; only now that things were coming to an end did he begin to feel and sense and touch the person who was Daniel Lavette.

4 2 6

H o w a r d F a s t

The department store was almost empty. Business had been falling off steadily through 1930, and on a cold, wet morning such as this, the people who still had money to buy stayed at home. He took the elevator up to the offices and heard a bright, cheerful good morning from his secretary. She was a new girl, very young. Her name was Marion something or other. He had always been rotten with names. “Mr. Levy is waiting for you. In his office,” she said brightly. “You had a call from New York, from Mr. Anderson.

He’ll call back. I couldn’t say what was keeping you.”

Martin Clancy, from the Seldon Bank, rose to his feet as Dan entered Mark’s office. “Good to see you, Dan. You’re looking fit.”

Mark, staring out of the win dow, turned as Dan entered. “A filthy day,” he said. Dan apologized for being late. He had stopped to look at the Seldon house.

“A sorry thing to see the old houses go, one by one,” Clancy agreed. “But that’s progress. You can’t stop it.”

“Yes, they’re selling apples on California Street,” Dan agreed.

“That’s progress too.”

“We’ve been talking about the credit line,” Mark put in quickly.

“Mr. Clancy’s troubled by our delinquency.”

“It’s only eighteen days,” Dan said. “In this best of all possible worlds, Martin, eighteen days are not any thing to lose sleep over.”

“That’s a gratifying thought, Dan. I assure you that the past eighteen days caused me no sleeplessness. What about the next eighteen days?”

“We’re talking about a half a million dollars interest. If you’re asking me flat out, ‘Do we have it?’ the answer is no. We don’t.”

“And when will you have it?”

Dan looked at Mark, who sat down at his desk and stared at Clancy. “Mr. Clancy,” he began.

“Yes.”

Mark cleared his throat. “We’ve decided to ask you for a

t H e I m m I g r a n t s

4 2 7

moratorium. We didn’t come to this decision lightly. You know our condition as well as we do. Even at today’s depressed prices, we have a net worth of twenty-five million dollars. I’m not talking about our stock, but about our assets. We have one of the best-run and best-situated airlines in the country. We have twelve magnificent new planes on order. We have a fleet of ships, a department store, and some of the best land around this city. Two years ago, that net worth would have been thirty-five million, so when I say twenty-five million, I’m putting the lowest figure possi ble on our capital. However, we’re a part of what has happened to the country.

Dan and I spent our lives building this thing, and we think we can see it through this crisis. That should be in your interest as well as ours. In a sense, the Seldon Bank is our partner.”

“Hardly. The Seldon Bank is your lender.”

Dan realized that Mark had rehearsed his speech carefully. Clancy was cold and untouched, and Dan felt that he would have given five years of his life to be able to say, “You cold, lousy little bastard.

Get out of here before I throw you out.” Instead, he heard himself say ing, “Martin, Martin—we’ve known each other a long time.

Certainly, you’re our lender. And the bank means something to me, a damn sight more than you might imagine. It goes to my kids.

What Mark and I want and propose is best for the bank.”

“How do you see that, Dan? You want a morato rium. The bank surrenders a million a year in interest for the dubious pleasure of tying up sixteen million dol lars of its capital. Or are you suggesting that the interest become cumulative?”

“That would be unreal,” Mark put in. “Unreal and impossible.

You know that as well as we do.”

“If we can sell our land holdings,” Dan said, “we can reduce the debt considerably.”

“Why haven’t you sold the land?”

“You know why. Martin, we’re fighting for our lives. We know

4 2 8

H o w a r d F a s t

what we have. We created it. If you call our loans, what happens to this enterprise?”

“We haven’t discussed that. But even if we liqui dated, it might be a better situation. The essence of banking is money. I’m sure you know that, and I expect you also know that no bank is exempt from what is happening today. If we declare a moratorium on your loan, the plain fact of the matter is that sixteen million dollars of our money ceases to exist.”

“No, no,” Mark said. “You can’t take that position, Mr. Clancy.”

“But I must. You ask for a gift of a million dollars a year. I don’t want to appear heartless or cruel, but gifts have no place in banking.”

“I’m not appealing to your generosity, Martin. I’m appealing to your common sense. We’ve lived with this company.”

“You’ve lived too high on the hog, Dan. If you had been content to grow within the bounds of reason, you wouldn’t be in this situation today. Well, I’ll take it up with the board. It’s not my decision in any case.”

After he had left, Dan said to Mark, “You know, old sport, if Tony were alive, if there hadn’t been that run on his bank—well, Tony’s dead. And sure as hell, there’s no one else going to give us half a million on our statement.”

“What if you went to Jean?”

“That’s an interesting notion, isn’t it? After I moved out, I served her with notice of intent.”

“And?”

“She’s not contesting the divorce.”

“I never knew Jean too well,” Mark said. “I always felt she was as tough as nails. But not vindictive.”

“She’s the president of a bank.”

“A bank your kids own.”

“Her kids.”

t H e I m m I g r a n t s

4 2 9

Mark shook his head. “I swear I don’t understand that situation, Danny. A child is a child.”

“Do you want me to talk to Jean?”

“If you think it will do any good.”

“It won’t.”

“Then what else?”

“I could go to see Gianinni. He was a friend of Tony’s.”

“Danny,” Mark said, smiling ruefully, “you always were lousy on questions of finance. We own fifty percent of the stock in this company, with ten shares to tip the balance to majority, so in a manner of speaking we say we own fifty-one percent. It’s the same thing. But when we went public, that fifty-one percent became col lateral for the loan. We can’t borrow a nickel from any bank.

We have no collateral left. Two years ago, I could have walked into Gianinni’s bank and said I want to pay off Seldon. He would have jumped at the chance. We were the white-haired wonders then.

Today, he’ll pour you a glass of wine, pat you on the back, and tell you how he loved Tony Cassala.”

They sat in silence for a while. Then Dan said, “I got an idea, old sport.”

“Oh?”

“Let’s you and me go out and get drunk.”

“It’s only eleven-thirty.”

“Which gives us the whole day.”

“Danny, I haven’t been drunk in twenty years.”

“Then it’s high time—right?”

“Right,” Mark agreed.

A week after this, Jean telephoned Dan and asked him to lunch with her.

4 3 0

H o w a r d F a s t

“I’ll be happy to,” Dan replied. “Where shall we meet?”

“We have our own dining room here at the bank. Just the two of us. We’ll have complete privacy, and the food is quite good, Dan.”

When he told Mark about the invitation, Mark asked what he thought it might mean.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“How long is it since you’ve seen her?”

“About three months.”

“I don’t know what to say to you,” Mark said. “I just don’t know what to say, Danny.”

“Don’t be so fuckin’ noble. Tell me to get down on my knees and plead.”

“No.”

“Do you mean that?”

“You know something, Danny, we got nothing to cry about.

When Martha died, I was hit as hard as any hu man being is hit in this life. After that—hell, there’s nothing worse. It’s all happened. Sarah and me, we talked about this, more than we ever talked before. I care and I don’t care. Yesterday, thirty-five thousand unemployed men demonstrated in New York, and the police beat the shit out of them. Today, a fine-looking old gentleman walked alongside of me, pleading that he’d had nothing to eat for two days. I gave him five dollars, and then I said to myself that what saved his life— five lousy dollars—is nothing to me. We’ve been in this together for twenty years, and we never took ten minutes to consider the insanity of the whole setup. Maybe a God I don’t really believe in works it out in His own way. Anyway, the long and short of it is that we stuck together. Maybe that’s the only decent thing we did, I never really questioned any decision of yours and you never really questioned any decision of mine. So I don’t want you to get down on your knees and plead with anyone. We never did it before, and this is no time to start.”

t H e I m m I g r a n t s

4 3 1

Dan nodded. “I’ll do whatever I can do.”

At home that evening, Dan told Sarah about Jean’s telephone call and his own response.

“Poor Danny,” she said. “There’s no way it can be any good. So don’t hope for anything, Mark.”

Even now, Dan could not look at Jean and remain un moved.

A part of him always responded, a gut feeling that was inexpli-cable and beyond his control, a cord tying him to her which could never be completely sev ered; nor had he ever been able to decide whether it was he who had rejected Jean or Jean who had rejected him. May Ling had once remarked rather bitterly, in reference to Jean, that only people who suffer show the ravages of age—a statement which Dan doubted. He had replied that Jean suffered; it was the manner of her suffering that he did not understand. Yet whether or not that was the case, she had reached her fortieth year with her beauty undiminished. There were no bags under her eyes, no wrinkles on her face; perhaps the skin was drawn a shade more tightly over the fine bones of her face, and the veins on the backs of her hands were more apparent, but otherwise she was little different from the young woman he had fallen in love with. She wore a blue serge suit with a thin white pinstripe, the jacket open to reveal a blouse of white silk, and her great mass of honey-colored hair had been bobbed, a change which contributed to her youthful look.