HARRISON MARLOWE INDICTED 1 page

FIFTH-GENERATION BOSTON BANKER

CRIMINALLY IMPLICATED IN FAILURE

OF FAMILY BANK

Below was a three-column picture of Harrison Marlowe.

He caught her shoulders. "Oh, my darling!" he said.

He could barely hear her whispered, "And I wanted this baby so."

He knew better than to argue with her. One thing he understood as a Frenchman — filial duty. "We'll have another baby," he said. "When this is over, you'll return to France."

He could feel her move within the circle of his arms. "No," she cried, "Doctor Fornay told me there will never be another child!"

The large overhead fan droned on and the August heat lay heavy and humid in the Governor's office. The slightly built, nervous male secretary showed Rina to a chair in front of the massive desk.

She sat down and watched the young man, standing nervously next to the Governor, pick up sheet after sheet of paper as the Governor signed each one. At last he was finished and the secretary picked up the last sheet of paper and hurried out, closing the door behind him.

She looked at the Governor as he reached across the desk and took a cigar from a humidor. For a moment, she caught a glimpse of piercing dark eyes, set deep in a handsome face. His voice was slightly husky. "Do you mind if I smoke, Miss Marlowe?"

She shook her head.

He smiled, taking a small knife and carefully trimming the end of the cigar. He placed it in his mouth and struck a match. The flame burned brightly yellow, large and small, with his breath as he drew on the cigar. She was conscious of the faintly pleasant smell of Havana leaf as he dropped the match into an ash tray.

He smiled again. "One of the few pleasures my physician still allows me," he said. He had a simple yet extraordinary clear voice that easily filled the room, though he spoke quietly, like an actor trained to have his whispers heard in the far reaches of the second balcony. He leaned across the desk, his voice lowering to a confidential whisper. "You know, I expect to live to be a hundred and twenty-five and even my physician thinks I might make it if I cut down on my smoking."

She felt the convincing warmth and intensity flow toward her and for the moment, she believed it, too. "I’m sure you will, Governor."

He leaned back in his chair, a faintly pleased look on his face. "Just between us, I don't really care whether I live that long or not," he said. "It's just that when I die, I don't want to leave any enemies, and I figure the only way I’ll ever do that is to outlive them all."

He laughed and she joined him, for the moment forgetting her reason for being there. There was something incredibly young and vital about him that belied the already liberal sprinkling of gray in his thick, lustrous black hair.

He looked across the massive desk at her, feeling once again the rushing of time against him. He drew on his cigar and let the smoke out slowly. He liked what he saw. None of this modern nonsense about dieting and boyish bobs for her. Her hair fell long and full to her shoulders.

He looked up and suddenly met her eyes. Almost instantly, he knew that she had been aware that he was studying her. He smiled without embarrassment. "You were a child when I approved your adoption papers."

Her words put him at ease. "My mother and father often told me how kind you were and how you made it possible for them to adopt me."

He nodded slowly. It was smart of them to tell her the truth. Sooner or later, she'd have found out, anyway. "You're eighteen now?"

"Nineteen next month," she said quickly.

"You've grown a little since I saw you." Then his face turned serious as he placed the cigar carefully in the ash tray. "I know why you've come to see me," he said in his resonant voice. "And I'd like to express my sympathy for the predicament your father is in."

"Have you studied the charges that are being made against him?" Rina asked quickly.

"I've looked over the papers," he admitted.

"Do you think he's guilty?"

The Governor looked at her. "Banking is like politics," he said. "There are many things which are morally right and legally wrong. That they may be one and the same thing doesn't matter. Judgment is rendered only on the end result."

"You mean," she said quickly, "the trick is — not to get caught!"

He felt a glow of satisfaction. He liked quick, bright people, he liked the free exchange of ideas that came from them. Too bad that politics attracted so few of that kind. "I wouldn't be cynical," he said quietly. "It isn't as simple as that. The law is not an inflexible thing. It is alive and reflects the hopes and desires of the people. That's why laws are so often changed or amended. In the long run, we trust that eventually the legal and the moral will come together like parallel lines which meet in infinity."

"Infinity is a long time for a man my father's age to wait," she said. "No one has that much time. Not even you if you live to the hundred and twenty-five."

"Unfortunately, decision will always remain the greatest hazard of leadership," he answered. "Your father assumed that hazard when he authorized those loans. He justified it to himself because without them, certain mills might be forced to close, throwing many people out of work, and causing others to lose their investment or principal means of support. So your father was completely right morally in what he did.

"But legally, it's another story. A bank's principal obligation is to its depositors. The law takes this into account and the state has rules governing such loans. Under the law, your father should never have made those loans because they were inadequately collateralized. Of course, if the mills hadn't closed and the loans had been repaid, he'd have been called a public benefactor, a farseeing businessman. But the opposite happened and now these same people who might have praised him are screaming for his head."

"Doesn't it make any difference that he lost his entire fortune trying to save the bank?" Rina asked.

The Governor shook his head. "Unfortunately, no."

"Then, is there nothing you can do for him?" she asked desperately.

"A good politician doesn't go against the tide of public opinion," he said slowly. "And right now the public is yelling for a scapegoat. If your father puts up a defense, he'll lose and get ten to fifteen years. In that case, I'd be long out of office before he was eligible for parole."

He picked up the cigar from the ash tray and rolled it gently between his strong white fingers. "If you could convince your father to plead guilty and waive jury trial, I’ll arrange for a judge to give him one to three years. In fifteen months, I’ll grant him a pardon."

She stared at him. "But what if something happens to you?"

He smiled. "I’m going to live to be a hundred and twenty-five, remember? But even if I weren't around, your father couldn't lose. He'd still be eligible for parole in twenty months."

Rina got to her feet and held out her hand. "Thank you very much for seeing me," she said, meeting his eyes squarely. "No matter what happens, I hope you live to be a hundred and twenty-five."

From her side of the wire partition, she watched her father walk toward her. His eyes were dull, his hair had gone gray, even his face seemed to have taken on a grayish hue that blended softly into the drab gray prison uniform.

"Hello, Father," she said softly as he slipped into the chair opposite her.

He forced a smile. "Hello, Rina."

"Is it all right, Father?" she asked anxiously. "Are they— "

"They're treating me fine," he said quickly. "I have a job in the library. I'm in charge of setting up a new inventory control. They have been losing too many books."

She glanced at him. Surely he was joking.

An awkward silence came over them. "I received a letter from Stan White," he said finally. "They have an offer of sixty thousand dollars for the house."

Stan White was her father's lawyer. "That's good," she said. "From what they told me, I didn't think we'd get that much. Big houses are a glut on the market."

"Some Jews want it," he said without rancor. "That's why they'll pay that much."

"It was much too big for us and we wouldn't live there when you come home, anyway."

He looked at her. "There won't be very much left. Perhaps ten thousand after we take care of the creditors and Stan."

"We won't need very much," she said. "We'll manage until you're active again."

This time his voice was bitter. "Who would take a chance on me? I'm not a banker any more, I'm a convict."

"Don't talk like that!" she said sharply. "Everyone knows that what happened wasn't your fault. They know you took nothing for yourself."

"That makes it even worse," he said wryly. "It's one thing to be condemned for a thief, quite another for being a fool."

"I shouldn't have gone to Europe. I should have stayed at home with you. Then perhaps none of this would have happened."

"It was I who failed in my obligation to you."

"You never did that, Father."

"I've had a lot of time to think up here. I lay awake nights wondering what you're going to do now."

"I’ll manage, Father," she said. "I'll get a job."

"Doing what?"

"I don't know," she replied quickly. "I’ll find something."

"It's not as easy as that. You're not trained for anything." He looked down at his hands. "I've even spoiled your chances for a good marriage."

She laughed. "I wasn't thinking of getting married. All the young men in Boston are just that — young men. They seem like boys to me; I haven't the patience for them. When I get married, it will be to a mature man, like you."

"What you need is a vacation," he said. "You look tired and drawn."

"We'll both take a vacation when you come home," she said. "We'll go to Europe. I know a place on the Riviera where we could live a whole year on less than two thousand dollars."

"That's still a long way off," he said. "You need a vacation now."

"What are you getting at, Father?" she asked.

"I wrote to my cousin Foster," he said. "He and his wife, Betty, want you to come out and stay with them. They say it's beautiful out there and you could stay with them until I could come out to join you."

"But then I wouldn't be able to visit you," she said quickly, reaching for his hands in the narrow space beneath the bars.

He pressed her fingers. "It will be better that way. Both of us will have less painful things to remember."

"But, Father— " she began to protest.

The guard started over and her father got to his feet. "I’ve already given Stan White instructions," he said. "Now, you do as I say and go out there."

He turned away and she watched him walk off through eyes that were beginning to mist over with tears. She didn't see him again until many months later, when she was on her way to Europe again on her honeymoon. She brought her husband out to the prison.

"Father," she said, almost shyly, "this is Jonas Cord."

What Harrison Marlowe saw was a man his own age, perhaps even older, but with a height and youthful vitality that seemed characteristic of the Westerner.

"Is there anything we can get you, Father?" she asked.

"Anything we can do at all, Mr. Marlowe?" Jonas Cord added.

"No. No, thank you."

Cord looked at him and Harrison Marlowe caught a glimpse of deep-set, penetrating blue eyes. "My business is expanding, Mr. Marlowe," he said. "Before you make any plans after leaving here, I'd appreciate your speaking with me. I need a man with just your experience to help me in refinancing my expansion."

"You're very kind, Mr. Cord."

Jonas Cord turned to Rina. "If you'll excuse me," he said, "I know you want some time alone with your father. I'll be waiting outside."

Rina nodded and the two men said good-by. For a short time, father and daughter looked at each other, then Rina spoke. "What do you think of him, Father?"

"Why, he's as old as I am!"

Rina smiled. "I told you I'd marry a mature man, Father. I never could stand boys."

"But— but— " her father stammered. "You're a young woman. You have your whole life ahead of you. Why did you marry him?"

Rina smiled gently. "He's an extremely wealthy man, Father," she said softly. "And very lonely."

"You mean you married him for that?" Then suddenly he understood the reason for her husband's offer. "Or so he could take care of me?" he asked.

"No, Father," she said quickly. "That isn't why I married him at all."

"Then why?" he asked. "Why?"

"To take care of me, Father," she said simply.

"But, Rina— " he began to protest.

She cut him off quickly. "After all, Father," she said, "you yourself said there wasn't anything I could do to take care of myself. Wasn't that why you sent me out there?"

He didn't answer. There wasn't anything left for him to say. After a few more awkward moments, they parted. He stretched out on the narrow cot in his cell and stared up at the ceiling. He felt a cold chill creeping through him. He shivered slightly and pulled the thin blanket across his legs. How had he failed her? Where had he gone wrong?

He turned his face into the hard straw pillow and the hot tears began to course down his cheeks. He began to shiver as the chill grew deeper within him. Later that night, they came and took him to the prison hospital, with a fever of a hundred and two. He died of bronchial pneumonia three days later, while Rina and Jonas Cord were still on the high seas.

The pain began to echo in her temples, cutting like a sharp knife into the dream. She felt it begin to slip away from her, and then the terrible loneliness of awakening. She stirred restlessly. Everyone was fading away, everyone except her. She held her breath for a moment, fighting the return to reality. But it was no use. The last warm traces of the dream were gone. She was awake.

She opened her eyes and stared unrecognizingly for a moment around the hospital room, then she remembered where she was. There were new flowers on the dresser opposite the foot of the bed. They must have brought them in while she slept.

She moved her head slowly. Ilene was dozing in the big easy chair near the window. It was night outside. She must have dozed the afternoon away.

"I have a terrible headache," she whispered softly. "May I have some aspirin, please?"

Ilene's head snapped forward. She looked at Rina questioningly.

Rina smiled. "I’ve slept away the whole afternoon."

"The whole afternoon?" It was the first time in almost a week that Rina had been conscious. "The whole afternoon," Ilene repeated. "Yes."

"I was so tired," Rina said. "And I always get a headache when I nap during the day. I'd like some aspirin."

"I’ll call the nurse."

"Never mind, I’ll call her," Rina said quickly. She started to raise her hand to the call button over her head. But she couldn't lift her arm.

She looked down at it. It was strapped to the side of the bed. There was a needle inserted into a vein on her forearm, attached to a long tube which led up to an inverted bottle suspended from a stand. "What's that for?"

"The doctor thought it would be better it they didn't disturb your rest to feed you," Ilene said quickly. She leaned across the bed and pressed the buzzer.

The nurse appeared almost instantly in the doorway. She walked quickly to the bed and stood next to Ilene, looking down at Rina. "Are we awake?" she asked with professional brightness.

Rina smiled slowly. "We're awake," she said faintly. "You're a new one, aren't you? I don't remember you."

The nurse flashed a quick look at Ilene. She had been on duty ever since Rina was checked into the hospital. "I’m the night nurse," she answered calmly. "I've just come on."

"I always get a headache when I sleep in the afternoon," Rina said. "I was wondering if I could have some aspirin?"

"I'll call the doctor," the nurse said.

Rina turned her head. "You must be exhausted," she said to Ilene. "Why don't you go home and get some rest? You've been here all day."

"I'm really not tired. I grabbed forty winks myself this afternoon."

The doctor came into the room just then and Rina turned toward the door. He stood there blinking his eyes behind his shining glasses. "Good evening, Miss Marlowe. Did you have a good rest?"

Rina smiled. "Too much, doctor. It's left me with a headache." Her brows knit. "It's a peculiar kind of a headache, though."

He came over to the side of the bed and put his fingers on her wrist, finding her pulse. "Peculiar?" he asked, looking down at his watch. "How do you mean peculiar?"

"It seems to hurt most when I try to remember names. I know you and I know my friend here" — she gestured to Ilene — "but when I try to say your name, the headache comes and I can't remember."

The doctor laughed as he let go of her wrist. "That's not at all unusual. There are some types of migraine headaches which make people forget their own name. Yours isn't that bad, is it?"

"No, it's not," Rina answered.

The doctor took an ophthalmoscope from his pocket and leaned over. "I'm going to look into your eyes with this," he said. "This makes it possible for me to see behind them and we may find out that your headache is due to nothing but simple eyestrain. Don't be frightened."

"I’m not frightened, doctor," Rina answered. "A doctor in Paris once looked at me with one of those. He thought I was in shock. But I wasn't. I was only hypnotized."

He placed his thumb in a corner of her eye and raised the eyelid. He pressed a button on the instrument and a bright light reflected through the pin-point hole. "What's your name?" he asked casually.

"Katrina Osterlaag," she answered quickly. Then she laughed. "See, doctor, I told you my headache wasn't that bad. I still know my name."

"What's your father's name?" he asked, moving the instrument to the other eye.

"Harrison Marlowe. See, I know that, too."

"What's your name?" he asked again, the light making a half circle in the upper corner of her eye.

"Rina Marlowe," she answered. She laughed aloud. "You can't trick me, doctor."

He turned off the light and straightened up. "No, I can't," he said, smiling down at her.

There was a movement at the door and two attendants wheeled in a large, square machine. They pushed it over to the side of the bed next to the doctor.

"This is an electroencephalograph," the doctor explained quietly. "It's used to measure the electrical impulses emanating from the brain. It's very helpful sometimes in locating the source of headaches so we can treat them."

"It looks very complicated," Rina said.

"It's not," he answered. "It's very simple, really. I'll explain it to you as we go along."

"And I thought all you had to do was take a few aspirins for a headache."

He laughed with her. "Well, you know how we doctors are," he said. "How can we ever justify our fees if all we do is recommend a few pills?"

She laughed again and the doctor turned toward Ilene. He nodded silently at her, his eyes gesturing to the door. He had already turned back to Rina by the time she had opened it.

"You'll come back later, won't you?" Rina asked.

Ilene turned around. The attendants were already plugging in the machine and the nurse was helping the doctor prepare Rina. "I’ll be back," Ilene promised. She walked out and closed the door gently behind her.

It was almost an hour later when the doctor came out of the room. He dropped into a chair opposite Ilene, his hand fishing in his pocket. It came out with a crumpled package of cigarettes, which he held out to her. She took one and he struck a match, holding it first for her, then for himself.

'Well?" she asked through stiff lips.

"We'll be able to tell more when we study the electroencephalogram," he said, dragging on his cigarette. "But there are already definite signs of deterioration in certain neural areas."

"Please, doctor," she said. "In words that I can understand."

"Of course," he said. He took a deep breath. "The brain already shows signs of damage in certain nerve areas. It is this damage that makes it difficult for her to remember things — simple, everyday things like names, places, time. Everything in her memory is present, there is no past, perhaps no today. It is an unconscious effort to recall these little things that causes the strain and brings on the headache."

"But isn't that a good sign?" she asked hopefully. "This is the first time in almost a week that she seems partly normal."

"I know how concerned you are," he said cautiously. "And I don't want to appear unduly pessimistic, but the human mechanism is a peculiar machine. It is a tribute to her physical stamina that she's holding up as well as she is. She's going through recurrent waves of extremely high fever, a fever that destroys everything in its path. It's almost a miracle that when it abates slightly, even for a moment, as it just has, she can return to a semblance of lucidity."

"You mean she's slipping back into delirium?"

"I mean that her temperature is beginning to climb again," he answered.

Ilene got to her feet quickly and crossed to the door. "Do you think I can speak to her again before she slips back?"

"I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head. He got to his feet. "Her temperature began to rise about twenty minutes after you left the room. I put her in sedation to ease the pain."

She stared at the doctor. "Oh, my God!" she said in a low voice. "How long, doctor? How long must she suffer like this?"

"I don't know," he said slowly. He took her arm. "Why don't you let me drive you home? There's nothing you can do tonight, believe me. She's asleep."

"I’d— I'd like to look in on her just for a moment," she said hesitantly.

"It's all right, but let me warn you. Do not be upset by her appearance. We had to cut off most of her hair to make the electroencephalogram."

Ilene closed the door of her office and crossed to her desk. There were some preliminary sketches of the costumes for a new picture waiting for her approval. She flicked on the light and walked over to the built-in bar.

She took down a bottle of Scotch and filled a glass with ice cubes. Covering the ice with the whisky, she went back to her desk, sat down and picked up the sketches. She sipped at the drink as she studied them.

She pressed a button in the arm of her chair and an overhead spotlight set in the ceiling shone down onto the drawings. She turned her chair toward the pedestal on her left, trying to imagine the dress on the model.

But her eyes kept misting over with tears. The sketches seemed to disappear and all she could see was Rina standing there on the pedestal, the white light shining down on her long blond hair — the white-blond hair that still hung in angry clinging tufts to the pillow under her shorn head.

"Why did you have to do it, God?" she cried aloud angrily at the ceiling. "Why do you always have to destroy the beautiful things? Isn't there enough ugliness in the world?"

The tears kept blurring in her eyes, but through them, she could still see Rina as she stood on the pedestal for the first time, the white silk shimmering down over her body.

It wasn't long ago. Five years. And the white silk was for a wedding gown. It was just before Rina's marriage to Nevada Smith.

It started out as a quiet wedding but it turned into a circus, the biggest publicity stunt ever to come out of Hollywood. And all because David Woolf had finally made it into the bed of the redheaded extra who had a bit-role in The Renegade.

Though he was a junior publicist, just one step above the lowest clerk in the department, and made only thirty-five a week, David was a very big man with the girls. This could be explained in one word. Nepotism. Bernie Norman was his uncle.

Not that it did him much good. But the girls didn't know that. How could they know that Norman could scarcely stand the sight of his sister's son and had only given him the job to shut her up? Now, in order to keep his nephew from annoying him, he had given his three secretaries orders to bar David from his office, no matter what the emergency.

This annoyed David, but right now it was far from his mind. He was twenty-three and there were more important considerations at hand. What a difference between the broads out here and those back home. He thought of the usherettes back at the Bijou Theater in New York, the frightened little Italian girls and the big brassy Irish, and the quickies that took place in the deserted second balcony or out on the empty stage in back of the big screen while the picture unfurled itself over their nervous heads. Even back there, Bernie Norman's name had been a help to him. Why else would they take an eighteen-year-old kid off a junk wagon and make him an assistant manager?

The girl was talking. At first David didn't hear her. "What did you say?" he asked.

"I’d like to go to the Nevada Smith wedding."

Her position may have been oblique but her approach wasn't. He recognized it. "It's going to be a small affair," he said.

Her voice was clearer now as she looked up at him. "There'll still be a lot of important people there who'd never see me any other way."

"I’ll see what I can do," he said.

It was a little while later, when he was making his third greedy attempt to grab the brass ring, that the idea came to him. "Yeow!" he yelled suddenly as the far-reaching implications unfurled in his mind.

Startled, the girl looked up at him and saw a blindly rapt expression on his face. "Take it easy, honey. You'll wake the neighbors," she whispered softly, thinking he had reached his climax.

And, in a manner of speaking, he had.

Bernie Norman prided himself on being the first executive in the studio each day. Every morning at seven o'clock, his long black chauffeur-driven limousine would swirl through the massive steel gates of the executive entrance and draw to a stop in front of his office building. He liked to get in early, he always said, because it gave him a chance to go through his correspondence, which was at least twice as voluminous as that of anyone else in the studio, before his three secretaries came in. That way, the rest of his day could be left free for anyone who came to his door. His door was always open, he claimed.

Actually, he got there early because he was a born snoop. Though no one ever spoke about it, everyone in the studio knew what he did the moment the front door closed behind him. He would prowl through the silent offices, executive and secretary alike, looking at the papers lying on desks, peeking into whatever desk drawers happened to be unlocked and examining the contents of every letter and memo. It got so that whenever an executive wanted to be sure that something got to Norman's attention, he would leave a rough draft of his message lying innocently on his desk when he went home.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 527