could live better without: his wife, or the Bank. Not that he’d thought of it much, until the last few weeks, when the auditors from the Federal Reserve had begun to raise disconcerting questions about the Bank’s lending practices.
Now, as he sat in his office with Ed Becker, trying to concentrate on what his attorney was saying, his eyes fell on the desk calendar and the small notation in the box marking off this entire evening: “Dinner Party for Celeste and Andrew.”
It was a party he’d been looking forward to for weeks, ever since Andrew Sterling had formally requested permission to marry his daughter. To ask for Celeste’s hand in marriage was exactly the kind of endearingly anachronistic gesture Jules had come to expect of Andrew, who had been working at the Bank for almost five years, rising from teller to Chief Loan Officer not only on the merit of his work—which was considerable—but because Andrew, like Jules himself, preferred the old-fashioned way of banking.
“I know it’s an idea the business schools don’t approve of,” he’d told Jules when they were discussing his promotion to the job he now held, “but I think there are far better ways to judge a man’s worth than by his credit application.”
It was precisely the philosophy upon which the Hartwicks had founded the Blackstone bank, and it confirmed Jules’s judgment that Andrew, though only five years out of college, was perfectly qualified for the loan officer’s job.
Now, the engagement of Andrew and Celeste was to be formally announced that night, though Jules suspected there were few people in Blackstone who weren’t already aware of it. The bethrothal of his only daughter to this upstanding young man was the frosting on Jules’s cake: a few more years and he might be able to consider the possibility of retirement, knowing the Bank would be in Andrew’s capable hands, and that Andrew would be part of the family.
The continuity of First National of Blackstone would be ensured.
“Jules?”
Ed Becker’s voice jerked the banker out of his reverie. When Jules shifted his eyes back from the calendar to his attorney, he saw the lawyer looking at him with a worried frown.
“Are you all right, Jules?”
“I’d be a lot lighter if this audit were behind us,” Hartwick replied, leaning forward. “Going to be some party tonight, isn’t it? It should be one of the happiest nights of my life, and now I have this ruining it.” He gestured to the stack of papers in front of them. The auditors were questioning nearly one hundred loans—and they were still at work. Jules could see no end in sight.
“But it’s nothing more than a nuisance, when you get right down to it,” Ed Becker said. “I’ve been over every one of these loans, and I haven’t found anything illegal in any of them.”
“And you won’t,” Jules Hartwick replied. He leaned forward in his chair, folding his hands on his desk. “Maybe,” he said with a smile, “you were down there in Boston a little too long.”
Becker grinned. “About five years too long, at least,” he agreed. “But who knew I was going to get sick of—what did you used to call them?”
“ ‘Slimeballs,’ ” Jules Hartwick instantly replied. “And that’s what they were, Ed. Murderers and rapists and gangsters. I’ll never understand how—”
Ed Becker held up a hand in protest. “I know, I know. But everyone deserves a defense, no matter what we might think of him. And I did get fed up with the whole thing, remember? I quit. I came back home to set up a nice quiet little practice, with nothing messier than the occasional divorce to deal with. But Jules, you probably know more than I do about business law. Sue me, or educate me. Why are you so worried about this? If there really isn’t anything illegal about any of these loans, why are you making yourself sick over this?”
A brief and hollow chuckle emerged from Jules Hartwick. “If this weren’t an independent bank, it wouldn’t matter a damn,” he said. “And maybe I’ve been wrong all these years. Maybe I should have sold out to one of the big interstate banks. God knows, it would have made Madeline and me far richer than we are today.”
“I’ve seen your accounts, Jules, remember?” the lawyer put in archly. “You’re not exactly suffering.”
“And I haven’t cashed out for a few hundred million like a lot of other bankers I won’t name,” Hartwick replied, the last trace of good humor