The Moneychangers

  Vandervoort looked surprised. “You think you can get someone?”

  This time Wainwright smiled. “Well, you don’t begin by advertising in ‘help wanted’ columns. But I’m willing to try.”

  “I’ll look carefully at what you’ve suggested and do my best. That’s all I can promise. May I keep these cards?”

  The security chief nodded.

  “Anything else on your mind?”

  “Only this: I don’t think anyone around here, including you, Alex, is taking this whole credit card fraud problem seriously. Okay, so we congratulate ourselves that we’ve held losses down to three quarters of one percent of total business, but business has grown enormously while the percentage has stayed steady, even increased. As I understand it, Keycharge billings next year are expected to be three billion dollars.”

  “That’s what we’re hoping for.”

  “Then—at the same percentage—fraud losses could be more than twenty-two million.”

  Vandervoort said drily, “We prefer to speak of it in percentages. That way it doesn’t sound as much, and the directors don’t get alarmed.”

  “That’s pretty cynical.

  “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  And yet, Alex reasoned, it was an attitude which banks—all banks—took. They played down, deliberately, credit-card crime, accepting such losses as a cost of doing business. If any other bank department showed a seven-and-a-half million dollar loss in a single year, all hell would erupt before the board. But where credit cards were concerned, “three quarters of one percent” for criminality was accepted or conveniently ignored. The alternative—an all-out fight against crime—would be more costly by far. It could be said, of course, that the bankers’ attitude was indefensible because in the end it was customers—credit-card holders—who paid for fraud through increased charges. But, from a financial point of view, the attitude made business sense.

  “There are times,” Alex said, “when the credit-card system sticks in my gullet, or rather parts of it do. But I live within the limits of what I think I can accomplish in the way of change, and what I know I can’t. The same goes for budget priorities.” He touched the manila folder which Wainwright had put down. “Leave it with me. I’ve already promised I’ll do what I can.”

  “If I don’t hear, I’ll be along to pound the desk.”

  Alex Vandervoort left but Nolan Wainwright was delayed by a message. It asked the security chief to contact Mrs. D’Orsey, manager of the main downtown branch, at once.

  7

  “I’ve spoken to the FBI,” Nolan Wainwright informed Edwina D’Orsey. “They’ll have two special agents here tomorrow.”

  “Why not today?”

  He grinned. “We’ve no dead body; there wasn’t even any shooting. Besides, they have a problem over there. A thing called manpower shortage.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  “Then can I let the staff go home?” asked Miles Eastin.

  Wainwright answered, “All except the girl. I’d like to talk with her again.”

  It was early evening, two hours since Wainwright had responded to Edwina’s summons and taken over investigation of the cash loss. In the meantime he had covered the same ground the branch officers had gone over earlier, interviewing the teller, Juanita Núñez, Edwina D’Orsey, Tottenhoe, the operations officer, and young Miles Eastin, the operations assistant.

  He had also spoken with other tellers who had been working near the Núñez girl.

  Not wanting to be a focus of attention on the platform, Wainwright had taken over a conference room at the rear of the bank. He was there now with Edwina D’Orsey and Miles Eastin.

  Nothing new had emerged except that theft appeared likely; therefore, under federal law the FBI must be called in. The law, on such occasions, was not always applied painstakingly, as Wainwright was well aware. First Mercantile American and other banks often labeled thefts of money as “mysterious disappearances” and, that way, such incidents could be handled internally, avoiding prosecution and publicity. Thus a member of the bank’s staff suspected of theft might suffer dismissal only—ostensibly for some other reason. And since the guilty individuals were not inclined to talk, a surprisingly large number of theft cases were kept secret, even within the bank itself.

  But the present loss—assuming it to be theft—was too large and flagrant to be concealed.

  Nor was it a good idea to wait, hoping for more information. Wainwright knew the FBI would be angry if called in several days after the event to investigate a cold trail. Until the Bureau agents arrived, he intended to do what he could himself.

  As Edwina and Miles Eastin left the small office, the operations assistant said helpfully, “I’ll send Mrs. Núñez in.”

  A moment later the small, slight figure of Juanita Núñez appeared at the office doorway. “Come in,” Nolan Wainwright instructed. “Shut the door. Sit down.”

  He made his tone official and businesslike. Instinct told him that phony friendliness would not deceive this girl.

  “I want to hear your whole story again. We’ll take it step by step.”

  Juanita Núñez looked sulky and defiant, as she had earlier, but now there were traces of fatigue. With a sudden flash of spirit, though, she objected, “Three times I have already done that. Everything!”

  “Perhaps you forgot something the other times.”

  “I forgot nothing!”

  “Then this time will make a fourth, and when the FBI arrive there’ll be a fifth, and maybe after that a sixth.” He held her eyes with his own and kept authority in his voice but didn’t raise it. If he were a police officer, Wainwright thought, he’d have had to caution her about her rights. But he wasn’t, and wouldn’t. Sometimes, in a situation like this, private security forces had advantages which police were not allowed.

  “I know what you are thinking,” the girl said. “You think I will say something different this time, so you can prove that I was lying.”

  “Are you lying?”

  “No!”

  “Then why worry about that?”

  Her voice quavered. “Because I am tired. I would like to go.”

  “I would, too. And if it wasn’t for a missing six thousand dollars—which you admit you had in your possession earlier—I’d be finished work for the day and driving home. But the money is gone and we’d like to find it. So tell me about this afternoon again—when you say you first saw something wrong.”

  “It was like I told you—twenty minutes after lunch.”

  He read contempt in her eyes. Earlier, when he began asking questions, he had sensed the girl’s attitude as being easier toward him than the others. No doubt because he was black and she was Puerto Rican, she assumed they might be allies or, if not that, that he would be a softer touch. What she didn’t know was that where investigative work was concerned he was color-blind. Nor could he concern himself about any personal problems the girl might have. Edwina D’Orsey had mentioned these, but no personal circumstance, in Wainwright’s view, ever justified stealing or dishonesty.

  The Núñez girl had been right, of course, about his wanting to catch her out in some variation of her story. And it could happen, despite her obvious caution. She had complained of being tired. As an experienced investigator, Wainwright knew that guilty people, when tired, were apt to make mistakes during interrogation, a small one first, then another and another, until they became trapped in a web of lies and inconsistency.

  Wondering if it would happen now, he pressed on.

  It took three quarters of an hour, during which Juanita Núñez’s version of events remained identical with what she had stated earlier. While disappointed at having uncovered nothing new, Wainwright was not overly impressed with the girl’s consistency. His police background made him realize that such exactitude could have two interpretations: Either she was speaking the truth or she had rehearsed her story so carefully that she was perfect in it. The latter seemed a probability because innocent people usually had
a few slight variations between one recounting and the next. It was a symptom which detectives learned to look for.

  At the end, Wainwright said, “All right, that’s everything for now. Tomorrow you can take a lie detector test. The bank will arrange it.”

  He made the announcement casually, though watching for a reaction. What he had not expected was one as sudden or as fierce.

  The girl’s small dark face flushed red. She shot upright in her chair.

  “No, I will not! I will not take such a test!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it is an insult!”

  “It’s no insult. Lots of people take the test. If you’re innocent, the machine will prove it.”

  “I do not trust such a machine. Or you. ¡Basta con mi palabra!”

  He ignored the Spanish, suspecting it was abusive. “You’ve no reason not to trust me. All I’m interested in is getting to the truth.”

  “You have heard truth! You do not recognize it! You, like the others, believe I took the money. It is useless to tell you I did not.”

  Wainwright stood up. He opened the door of the tiny office for the girl to go. “Between now and tomorrow,” he advised, “I suggest you reconsider your attitude about that test. If you refuse to take it, it will look bad for you.”

  She looked him fully in the face. “I do not have to take such a test, do I?”

  “No.”

  “Then I will not.”

  She marched from the office with short, quick steps. After a moment, unhurriedly, Wainwright followed.

  Within the bank’s main working area, though a few people were still at desks, the majority of staff had gone and overhead lights were dimmed. Outside, darkness had descended on the raw fall day.

  Juanita Núñez went to a locker room for her street clothes, and returned. She ignored Wainwright. Miles Eastin, who had been waiting with a key, let her out through the main street door.

  “Juanita,” Eastin said, “is there anything I can do? Shall I drive you home?”

  She shook her head without speaking and went out.

  Nolan Wainwright, watching from a window, saw her walk to a bus stop across the street. If he had had a larger security force, he thought, he might have had her followed, though he doubted it would do any good. Mrs. Núñez was clever and she would not give herself away, either by handing the money to someone else in public or even storing it in a predictable place.

  He was convinced the girl did not have the money on her. She was too astute to run that risk; also, the amount of cash would be too bulky to conceal. He had looked at her closely during their talk and afterward, observing that her clothes clung tightly to her small body and there were no suspicious bulges. The purse she carried from the bank was tiny. She had no packages.

  Wainwright felt certain that an accomplice was involved.

  He had little remaining doubt, if any, that Juanita Núñez was guilty. Her refusal to submit to a lie detector test, considered with all other facts and indications, had convinced him. Remembering her emotional outburst of a few minutes ago, he suspected it was planned, perhaps rehearsed. Bank employees were well aware that in cases of suspected theft a lie detector was employed; the Núñez girl was likely to have known that, too. Therefore she could have guessed the subject would come up and been ready for it.

  Remembering how she had looked at him with contempt and, before that, her unspoken assumption of alliance, Wainwright felt a surge of anger. With an unusual intensity he found himself hoping that tomorrow the FBI team would give her a hard time and shake her down. But it would not be easy. She was tough.

  Miles Eastin had relocked the main street door and now returned.

  “Well,” he said cheerfully, “time to head for the showers.”

  The security chief nodded. “It’s been quite a day.”

  Eastin seemed about to say something else, then apparently decided otherwise.

  Wainwright asked him, “Something on your mind?”

  Again Eastin hesitated, then admitted, “Well, yes, there is. It’s a thing I haven’t mentioned to anyone because it could be just a wild pitch.”

  “Does it relate in any way to the missing money?”

  “I suppose it could.”

  Wainwright said sternly, “Then whether you’re sure or not, you have to tell me.”

  The assistant operations officer nodded. “All right.”

  Wainwright waited.

  “It was mentioned to you—by Mrs. D’Orsey, I think—that Juanita Núñez is married. Her husband deserted her. He left her with their child.”

  “I remember.”

  “When the husband was living with Juanita he used to come in here occasionally. To meet her, I guess. I spoke to him a couple of times. I’m pretty sure his name is Carlos.”

  “What about him?”

  “I believe he was in the bank today.”

  Wainwright asked sharply, “Are you sure?”

  “Fairly sure, though not enough so I could swear to it in court. I just noticed someone, thought it was him, then put it out of mind. I was busy. There was no reason for me to think about it—at least not until a long time later.”

  “What time of day was it when you saw him?”

  “About midmorning.”

  “This man you thought was the Núñez girl’s husband—did you see him go to the counter where she was working?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Eastin’s handsome young face was troubled. “As I say, I didn’t think about it much. The only thing is, if I saw him, he couldn’t have been far away from Juanita.”

  “And that’s everything?”

  That’s it.” Miles Eastin added apologetically, “I’m sorry it isn’t more.”

  “You were right to tell me. It could be important.”

  If Eastin were right, Wainwright reasoned, the presence of the husband could tie in with Wainwright’s own theory of an outside accomplice. Possibly the girl and her husband were together again or, if not, had some arrangement. Perhaps she had passed the money over the counter to him, and he had taken it from the bank, to divide it with her later. The possibility was certainly something for the FBI to work on.

  “Quite apart from the missing money,” Eastin said, “everybody in the bank is talking about Mr. Rosselli—we heard about the announcement yesterday, his illness. Most of us are pretty sad.”

  It was a sudden, painful reminder as Wainwright regarded the younger man, usually so full of banter and joviality. At this moment, the security chief saw, there was distress in Eastin’s eyes.

  Wainwright realized that the investigation had driven all thought of Ben Rosselli from his mind. Now, remembering, he experienced new anger that thievery should leave its ugly mark at such a time.

  With a murmured acknowledgment and a good night to Eastin, he walked through the tunnel from the branch bank, using his passkey to re-enter the FMA Headquarters Tower.

  8

  Across the street, Juanita Núñez—a tiny figure against the soaring city block complex of First Mercantile American Bank and Rosselli Plaza—was still waiting for her bus.

  She had seen the security officer’s face watching her from a window of the bank, and had a sense of relief when the face disappeared, though commonsense told her the relief was only temporary, and the wretchedness of today would resume and be as bad, or even worse, tomorrow.

  A cold wind, knifing through downtown streets, penetrated the thin coat she had on, and she shivered as she waited. Her regular bus had gone. She hoped another would come soon.

  The shivering, Juanita knew, was partly from fear because, at this moment, she was more frightened, more terror-stricken, then ever before in all her life.

  Frightened and perplexed.

  Perplexed because she had no idea how the money had been lost.

  Juanita knew that she had neither stolen the money, nor handed it across the counter in error, or disposed of it in any other way.

  The trouble was: no one would believe her. r />
  In other circumstances, she realized, she might not have believed herself.

  How could six thousand dollars have vanished? It was impossible, impossible. And yet it had.

  Time after time this afternoon she had searched her recollection of every single moment of the day to find some explanation. There was none. She had thought back over cash transactions at the counter during the morning and early afternoon, using the remarkable memory she knew she had, but no solution came to her. Not even the wildest possibility made any sense.

  She was positive, too, that she had locked her cash drawer securely before taking it to the vault while she had lunch, and it was still locked when she returned. As to the combination, which Juanita had chosen and set herself, she had never discussed it with anyone else or even written it down, relying as usual on her memory.

  In one way it was her memory which had added to her troubles.

  Juanita knew she had not been believed, either by Mrs. D’Orsey, Mr. Tottenhoe, or Miles, who at least had been friendlier than the others, when she claimed to know, at two o’clock, the exact amount of money which was gone. They said it was impossible she could know.

  But she had known. Just as she always knew how much cash she had when she was working as a teller, although she found it impossible to explain to others how or why.

  She was not even sure herself how she kept the running tally in her head. It was simply there. It happened without effort, so that she was scarcely aware of the arithmetic involved. For almost as long as Juanita could remember, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing seemed as easy as breathing, and as natural.

  She did it automatically at the bank counter as she took money in from customers or paid it out. And she had learned to glance at her cash drawer, checking that the cash she had on hand was what it should be, that various denominations of notes were in their right order, and in sufficient numbers. Even with coins, while not knowing the total so precisely, she could estimate the amount closely at any time. Occasionally, at the end of a busy day when she balanced her cash, her mental figure might prove to be in error by a few dollars, but never more.