the phone back up and thumbed through some of the other images. “You think it’s a bank.”
Jorgenson looked both worried and aggressive, like a bear about to strike. “You tell me.”
JW finished thumbing through the images. The structure did seem to have preparations for a drive-through canopy. “We’d lose the tribal deposits,” he said, setting the phone back on the table.
Jorgenson nodded. “Yeah, and that would probably put this branch out of business. I bet that’s his intent. Do you know how much Capitol Bank Holdings paid for this branch?”
“No.” He wanted to sit, but Jorgenson hadn’t asked him to, and he sensed that it would anger him.
“Eight million dollars. And you built it higher since.”
JW suddenly realized how damaging such a development would be to Jorgenson’s CEO campaign. If a tribal bank put Jorgenson’s flagship branch out of business, they would lose millions of dollars and his entire strategy for growth near casinos would be called into question. JW and everyone who worked here would be out of a job, and permanently blemished by the failure. It would be a blow to the entire community.
“You’re the expert on this, John. Christ, you teach it,” said Jorgenson. “How many tribe-owned banks are there?”
“Not many. They’d need a state or federal charter to do it.”
Jorgenson looked at him for a moment as if contemplating something, then nodded faintly.
“If you took a leave, do you think you could get your arms around this thing for us?”
“A leave?” JW was shocked. “Frank, I’ve got my hands full as branch president—”
“Well, actually—”
Jorgenson slid a piece of paper out from beneath the stack of financial reports he had been reviewing and pushed it across the table to JW.
“I’ve been looking into some of your loans. One in particular.”
JW picked it up, noticing how the embossed recorder’s seal caught the light. He saw his signature along with the forgeries of Sam’s and Sandy’s as the notary public. It was the second mortgage on his home. The $100,000 figure suddenly looked staggering. He felt a wave of nausea.
“What’s the problem? It’s my second mortgage. That’s what banks do, they improve people’s lives.”
“John, come on, okay? You’ve been waiving your payments for almost a year.”
JW laughed. “You know Carol. Her redecorating—”
“Bullshit! Okay? Bullshit.” Jorgenson slapped the table. “Everybody knows you’ve got a gambling problem, and that you and Carol are separated over it. Christ, I used to run this branch! You think I don’t still have connections? I also know you’re being evicted from your apartment. So let’s cut the shit, and you give me some honest answers.”
“Frank, it’s just a little gaming.”
“This is embezzling,” Jorgenson said, stabbing the papers with his fingers. “Put your keys on the table. I’m going to call the FBI.”
JW hesitated.
“Now!”
JW felt sick and paralyzed. The enormity of what was happening was surreal. He started to reach for his keys, but somehow he found the presence of mind to push back.
“Just, now just, wait,” he said, his voice shaking. “Okay? I’ve made you a lot of money. I’ve turned this into the most profitable branch in your territory.”
“That’s why I was offering you a deal,” said Jorgenson.
“Well, let me—” JW stared at him, but words eluded him.
“What, do you think I’m fucking around?”
JW swallowed and forced himself to focus. “No. It’s just, sudden. You want me to investigate him.”
“Without alerting him, yes.” Jorgenson seemed to calm. “You figure out what it is and if it’s a real threat.” He leaned back again. “We’ll tell people you’re taking a leave to deal with your gambling problem. You get yourself one of those twelve-step books and you carry it around with you. Might even do you some good.”
JW turned away and looked through the blinds, out at the fields behind the bank, breathing deeply in a conscious effort to get hold of himself. He looked down. Sunlight cast dark stripes across his new suit and his hands. He felt his jaw muscles bulging, and he willed them to relax.
“Okay,” he said, barely audible.
“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”
“Okay!” JW had a sudden impulse to strangle him.
“Wise man,” said Jorgenson. “Whispering Pines manages some trailer homes out on the reservation, near where this Johnny Eagle lives,” he said. “Go take one. I’ll cover your rent.”
JW stood motionless, staring out the window. “And if it is a bank?” He turned back and presented a composed face to Jorgenson, who rose from his chair and walked toward him. He stopped and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Then I want you to stop him.”
The sides of JW’s white Caprice became caked with ocher dust as he drove. The reservation road cut through a vast landscape that alternated between trees and meadows. Stands of birch, maple, and aspen ran along high hills on the left, surrounded by sweeping tracts of Norway pine. Meadows of fall wildflowers and scrub pastures ran on the right. Scattered groupings of jack pine towered over everything, their thin trunks shooting high into the air before branching out into heads of shaggy greenery. Barbed wire sagged between ancient wooden posts pitched cockeyed in the soil. A barn collapsed into itself, its gray wood tinged with faint remnants of red paint, its blue-shingled roof folding in at crazy angles and frilled with green moss and lichens. A Model-A Ford sank into a wetland on the left.
The day was warm, but he kept his windows closed and the air conditioner on to keep his belongings from getting covered with dust. Still, the air coming in through the vents smelled like chalk, and the dashboard became coated with a fine powder. His clothes bulged in gleaming black lawn-and-leaf bags, which filled the back seat. He had once heard such bags called Indian suitcases, and now here he was, his car packed full of them, heading into Indian country. His business suits hung pressed against the doors. The front passenger seat and footwell were piled high with stuffed banker’s boxes, while his briefcase rode tucked under his knees. He turned on the radio and sang along with Boz Scaggs.
The wilderness eventually crumbled into a collection of scattered prefab houses whose windows were draped with sheets and blankets. Derelict cars rusted into the yards. A trailer home stood on cinderblocks between the road and a rocky lake. Its siding was mostly stripped from its ribs, exposing a gaping hole clear through its middle. In the opening he could see the lake beyond, and inside the trailer four green-webbed lawn chairs standing in a circle around a grill with sawed-off legs. A ways farther on, a woman in office clothes pushed a sputtering lawn mower with a spindly chrome handle, its small engine spewing clouds of blue smoke. She looked at him, but didn’t wave back at his gesture.
Then woods sprang up again on either side, and the houses were gone. The elevation began to climb and after a mile or so the road turned north and the forest fell away into a high oak savanna. Then it narrowed before plunging into a woodier area. He traveled through more oak interspersed with buckthorn and birch, then a wetland full of bright yellow tamarack trees