Chapter 2 Creative Financing
Though she had been keenly interested in what the two young officers would have to say, Reason had not accompanied Dignity to talk with them, for she had found that too much discussion of cousin Guiles was hard on her emotions and blood pressure. Leasing House was simply an abomination to her, one to which she, like Dignity, was unfortunately bound by family ties. The Leasings were deceivers, spendthrifts, bullies, and thieves; and they were bad tempered, utterly selfish, and breathtakingly illogical. Nothing they did, said, or even felt made any sense. So she tried not to think about them. But she stood ready to help Dignity to bring Guiles to his senses if any method could be found.
After Dignity had explained to her that he wanted to try to discourage the Mammons from making further loans to Guiles, she, who worked in an office at the Mammon Mart, put forth the opinion that someone as exalted as Mammonette would be unwilling to meet with her cousin, let alone give him serious attention. Mammonette and her husband were, after all, owners of a colossal enterprise that included every kind of business, including Mammon Mart University and Mammon Mart Community Church (both located conveniently within the Mart). Nevertheless, Reason called her office manager, who in turn called Mammonette’s administrative assistant Mr. Greed. At that point, she lost sight of the forwarding of her request, but a mere day later a reply came from Mr. Greed. Mammonette would see Dignity at nine the next morning and would be ready to discuss anything he wished.
So at nine Dignity was there, sitting in the same office he had been in just once before, many years ago before he was a Heavenite. Across the desk from him was thin, blonde, well dressed Mammonette, looking not only older—now in her late fifties—but far more careworn. He remembered that she was burdened with the care of elderly Mr. Mammon, who was in an advanced stage of senile dementia.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Dignity?” she asked with a synthetic smile.
Dignity began to explain that he was Guiles Leasing’s cousin, that he felt Guiles had taken out loans from her, and that he wanted to warn her that Guiles was untrustworthy.
“Thanks for the warning, but if anyone is slow to pay us back, we make it up in extra interest,” she said mildly.
“Sure, I know. But I’m not talking about slow, I’m talking about a kind of fraud,” Dignity said. “Guiles has no income, and his house is almost falling down.”
Mammonette sighed. “You know he has to live somehow, don’t you? Of course, his credit rating will have tanked years ago, but he’s probably found ways around that, just as others do. Why don’t we take a look?” She asked Dignity for Guiles’ address and then turned away for a minute to type it into her desktop computer. “Oh, yes, I see. Hot damn, look at that screen fill up! And on and on. And on!” She turned her monitor so that Dignity could see the many rows of text that had poured onto the screen. “Each line here is a bad check we’ve received from someone living at that address. Offhand, I’d say we have at least fifteen people there who are on our red flag list, so that we’re taking no more checks from them. We have Guy Lessing, Lee Guessing, Guiles Lee, Guy Leasing, and so on. Do you know any of these people?”
“There aren’t any such people at his house,” Dignity said with some heat. “That would be Guiles using pseudonyms.”
“We have no proof of that,” she replied. “But lets check on loans to people with the same address. Just a minute. Yes, Guiles Leasing owes us a bundle. Hum, we took him to court, won, and—he’s paid us—exactly nothing of the court settlement. OK, I see here that we were loaning money to almost all of those others, same names as on the bad checks, but had to stop due to lack of minimum repayments. Nothing paid back at all, actually. More recently, we loaned money to a Gill Lessinger, also of that address, after he applied on our website.”
“Guiles again!” Dignity cried.
“Possibly.”
Dignity was red with emotion. “He’s still doing it. Don’t you care that he’s cheating you?”
“Please be calm. Look, normally I wouldn’t show you the record of anyone without his signed permission, but I’m counting on you not to make it known that I did, and I’m going out of my way here to help you understand some things. First, that Guiles exhausted his credit with us long ago, and we no longer loan money to him. Second, that his house has liens against it due to us taking Guiles to court and winning, but we can’t legally seize the house—not that it’s worth anything anyway. Finally, that a lot of other people living at his address are now doing the same thing he did, taking loans from us and paying back nothing. What I want you to understand is that there’s nothing really abnormal about all this, not in certain cases.”
“But why? Why do you let him do this?”
Mammonette laughed hollowly. “Because I haven’t been told not to. Remember that Guiles is a team player in this City; he has a City Seal on his house. If Mr. Power or the Mayor wants Guiles to do anything for him, he is prompt and energetic to do it, no questions asked. As for the cost to us, which I’ll admit is considerable, we factor that into our business plan; other people pay for it in higher interest rates.”
“People like me.”
She did not answer.
“And that’s why he got off so easy in court,” he added, “I mean about the logging in Founders Grove.”
“Perhaps. What they say is that it’s because the prison is full. With so many drug pushers and violent thugs, we’ve got no cells for white collar offenders.” She smiled ingratiatingly. “Mr. Dignity, Guiles may not be playing the game the way you do, but he’s hardly a master criminal. We just don’t worry about people like him.”
“But you could make so much more money if you would cut him off.”
“Money isn’t everything, Mr. Dignity. Love of money is. Guiles loves money as much as anyone in this town, and I for one don’t want to embitter a man so deeply in love. Think what an example his infatuation is to others! You see I’m being very forthright with you.”
Forthright indeed! Dignity struggled to assimilate her words, knowing that flabbergasting paradoxes such as this were the daily norm in the City. Apparently it was more important to Mammonette to keep a loyal City man like Guiles in a state of materialistic drunkenness than it was to get her loans back. Getting her money was not the point; spreading pecuniary idolatry was. So clearly he was wasting his time here. He thanked her bitterly and stood up.
Mammonette also stood and, with eyes averted, said, “By the way, you have pretty strong connections with the Heavenly Embassy, don’t you? I wonder why it is that they never call me or shoot me an email or anything?”
This was strange enough that Dignity stopped and stared at her. “About what?”
“Just whatever. It isn’t like we don’t have things in common, both the Embassy and Mammon concerned about making the City a better place. No need to think of each other as competitors. I made time for you today, didn’t I, though I’m very busy, and I’ve shared private records that, strictly, you shouldn’t see? I’m being very friendly and cooperative, wouldn’t you say?”
Dignity gave her a cautious nod. What was this? Was the iniquitous Mammonette putting out feelers to Ambassador Grace of Heaven?
“So let’s not assume that doors are closed,” she added lightly. “Nothing is off the table, nothing is impossible. Thank you for coming. Give my best to that little cousin of yours, Reason, who works for me. I’m afraid I don’t often get over to that office. Here’s my card. If there’s anything more I can do for you, just call.”
Back in Grace House, Dignity read his mail and then, carrying one letter with him, went to Ambassador Grace’s suite to tell him about the interview with Mammonette. The keen eyed, white haired old man commiserated with him about Guiles’ seeming invincibility against any consequences of his frauds. He also agreed that Mammonette was talking strangely about possible friendliness between Mammon and the servants of Heaven’s King. He advised Dignity not
to worry himself about anything whatsoever but to concentrate on what might be done for Guiles in the way of winning him to Heaven.
“I sent agent Prayer into Leasing House by your suggestion,” Dignity said, “but that was years ago and still no result I can see. She does her best, but what a family to try to convert!”
Grace nodded. “Her work is excellent, very unlikely to be successful in this case, and nevertheless rightly to be continued.”
Dignity bleakly agreed concerning the continuation, though he presently would prefer that the Heavenite agent be employed in protecting him from the Leasings rather than in saving them from their sins.
He was almost ready to leave when he remembered his letter. “I have something here from the City Park Department,” he said, showing it to the old man. “It says Guiles has failed to name anyone as his successor as Marshal of Founders Grove, so since his kids aren’t old enough, it passes to me as his first cousin. They want me to be the new Marshal. I don’t much care for all the meetings and decision making involved, but I suppose I would be doing some good. Maybe I could get some trees planted and guide the Park Department in replacing the park benches.”
Grace nodded. “You will no doubt do some good.”
“Really? I thought you might discourage me from accepting it since it’s a City connection.”
Grace was looking at a small pamphlet that had accompanied the letter, a brief history of the Grove. “They have this wrong by the way. It says that the City’s founders planted the trees that became Founders Grove. Quite wrong. I was there of course and remember it all. At that time not just the Grove but the entire site that was to become the City was covered entirely with a wilderness of beautiful, healthy trees that never grew old and died. Our illustrious founders cut down most of them, and though they left the Grove standing, managed to initiate death even in it. You’ll find a great many dead and dying trees there among the healthy ones. Actually, the Grove contains the only old growth trees remaining in the City, those the founders didn’t cut down.”
“And Guiles logged a lot of them!”
“Yes, I’m afraid the Grove is now looking a little sparse.”
“Sir, how long ago did the Founders live?”
“In ancient times, my friend. The Adams’s built the first log cabin on the site of the present day City Hall, and the City was incorporated about a hundred years later.”
Pondering the Ambassador’s incredible longevity, Dignity was at a loss to reply.
“Very well, then,” Grace said with a pat on Dignity’s shoulder. “You go on and don’t worry. I’d chat with you longer but I have a little inspection to make in the lower basement.”
The younger man was a bit surprised at this. Why would Grace want to go down into that stiflingly hot, frightening, and unexplored area, the sub-basement below Grace House’s basement? But it was clearly time for the interview to end, and so he left without asking further questions.
Dignity was not sure he wanted to be Marshal of the Grove and so first put off answering the letter and then, not unusually for him, forgot about it. But a month later came another official letter informing him that he as Marshal was expected to attend a Park Department meeting the following week. A quick phone call to the Park Superintendent revealed to him that, if he had wanted to turn down the honor, he had had a month to do so. Perhaps it had not been stated in the letter, said Superintendent Greens, but the deadline was past nevertheless. No, he was not allowed to step down now but was legally bound.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Greens said. “It’s mostly just honorary anyway, just signing a few things and generally keeping an eye on the Grove to see what the City can do for it. It’s fun, you’ll enjoy it.”