SEDUCED (eBook)

CHAPTER 9

Monday, after Rian’s intensive weekend of studying, the first light drew into sight; it became a swirling watercolor sky in pale shades of apricot, edging the mountain’s stony spires. Longer days of unrelenting sunlight in late March with moderating temperatures made good ski days.

Walking to work, Rian saw the crew running the lifts. He felt for the underpaid lift operators. He knew in a month they’d be scattering, soon to find other marginal jobs, many out of town, until the next season’s ski camaraderie began again. When the ski season ended, the locals had a brief respite from the energetic skiers’ pounding slopes, then pounding each other. Few merchants, however, objected to their filling the local watering holes with money. Unsuccessful ones not finding a companion liquored up, then fought each other in frustration.

By early May, Rian was filling his days with small loans for things like cars or vacations. He was looking forward to making new loans with enthusiasm. He showered, shaved, had breakfast, and walked to the bank in fine spirits under a warming day of sunshine. His cheerful reverie came to a screeching halt with one buzz on the intercom. It came from the bank manager’s hot young executive assistant, Darlene, who asked, “Can you meet with Manager Ansom Dullshott?”

It was an unscheduled meeting. It rattled him. Had he done something wrong? Would they praise him for landing the big loan so soon after getting the job? Was he getting a raise or a bonus because of it? His thoughts raced; his heart hammered to keep up. The suddenness worried him. Maybe, maybe...on and on. Unshackled, his mind went through myriad possibilities.

“Right now?” he asked.

“Yes, now,” she said.

“Sure, I’ll be right there, Darlene.”

He walked with deliberation to her desk. Her space was corporately bland. It could have been anywhere. Two cream-colored walls had framed prints of rodeos and cowboys roping and riding. Emotionless, she said, “Please have a seat,” motioning to the unupholstered oak chairs in the reception space. “He’s finishing a phone call.” With scarcely an interruption, she continued typing.

Noticing long-haired Darlene was wearing a too-tight short red skirt and flower-print blouse cut to reveal her ample bra-filling wares, he sat.

He picked up the American Banker magazine and gazed at her shapely figure. Lurid thoughts of her raged. His anxiety grew. He spent ten anxiety-laden minutes squirming in the rigid chair. The time felt like an eternity.

At long last, the intercom buzzed. She answered, “Yes, sir, he’s here. I’ll send him right in.”

All business, she stood and adjusted her skirt to show off her figure and opened the door for him. After he entered, she sealed his fate by closing the door.

The otherwise undistinguished office had humdrum walls. They displayed photos of the manager on ski slopes and his ski-jumping competition medals.

Not looking up from the documents on his desk, manager Dullshott, in a bland dark suit and tieless white shirt, with no trace of emotion, said, “Sit down, Reston.”

His heart pounded and armpits were wet as he drew a chair up to the large wood desk opposite Dullshott. The room was as quiet as a bank vault on a weekend at midnight.

Dullshott didn’t rise from the tall, overstuffed, imitation-leather swivel chair nor lift his gaze from the papers on his desk. Finally, after what seemed an excruciating long time, he looked up at Rian, and said, “Reston, you’ve only been with us a few months. You’ve been making excellent progress, according to your supervisor.”

Rian relaxed. He was getting worked up either over a review or a commendation for landing such a sizable loan with an old, important family in Steamboat so soon. The deal had put him way over his assigned loan quota for the quarter already.

His tension grew hearing the damnable word foretelling doom, “However...a serious matter has arisen. Satzwell…your customer, has drawn down all the funds in his corporate loan after making but one payment. What’s going on?”

Chills shot down his back. Shocked, he stuttered, “I—, I—, I don’t know, Mr. Dullshott, sir, I will…ah…”

With malice in his voice, his intense, deep-set eyes bored holes in him, when he said, “Have you been monitoring the loan? It is past due! Have you kept in touch with Satzwell? What are you doing, Reston?”

Rian was numb. His gut roiled. His throat was dry. He mumbled, “I, I don’t understand, sir. I’ll check on it. Immediately, sir.”

Icily, he replied, “See that you do, Reston.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned and walked out without noticing Darlene’s prickly eyes piercing his back. He walked to the bathroom feeling ill. His stomach felt hollow. His head felt fevered. He wondered if losing his mother had sent him into such a fog that he’d not seen a past-due loan payment.

Eyes closed, face burning, he splashed water on his face and stood, holding onto the sink’s counter so tightly his fingers were white. Slowly he opened his despairing blue eyes to see how agonized they were in the mirror.

Back from the bathroom at his desk, focused, Rian called the Elk Valley rancher. Ringing...ringing. No answer. No voicemail. With sweaty hands, he put the phone down and opened the computer to look at the Satzwell corporate account. The balance: $00.00! It had to be a mistake. Carefully, he retyped the account number. No change. Nothing.

Pulse pounding, he walked across the lobby to the head of operations to double check Satzwell’s balance. She verified it. Nothing in the account. He asked her to look and see if an unposted check had arrived. Same results. With her, he looked at the account’s transactions. It showed one payment. Satzwell wired the lump sum to another bank account...in Colorado. Checking that he found they wired it all to a receiving bank in Europe on an island in the English Channel.

He let out a deep, slow breath as he returned to his desk. There, he contacted the offshore bank in Saint Helier on the island of Jersey. The Lloyds Bank International Limited subsidiary on the island, as expected, wouldn’t disclose a thing about the account. Satzwell had sent the funds over the SWIFT banking system, with an instantaneous settlement.

Desperate, hopelessly, he started a “bank error recovery process.” No success. It was disappointing to Rian that Satzwell had not written a single check for a can of paint or anything. It was obvious to Rian. Someone had diverted the funds from Satzwell’s account or he himself had stolen them.

His mouth was dry as his stomach twisted itself into a pretzel. Regulators, bank examiners, and federal investigators would ask questions. They would suspect him of collusion or fraud. It was a nightmare. He lost his mom, now this. His mind froze. He felt sick. How could he tell his manager of the loss, if that’s what happened? Desperate, he dreamed that somehow or other, Satzwell could explain it or would pay the loan, or it would be a nightmare. Or what?

In disbelief, not knowing what to do, Rian knew he needed to get on top of the unfolding situation. No friends to seek advice or consolation from. He borrowed a fellow employee’s old Dodge pickup to drive out and confront Satzwell.

The stubborn engine refused to start. No matter how he pumped the gas pedal, he reset the manual choke again. He turned the ignition key repeatedly, grinding down the battery. His anxiety was cranking up to an explosion. With the accelerator crushed flat to the floor, without warning, the flooded engine suddenly sputtered and coughed feebly to life. It began running rough.

Relieved, he waited for the engine to settle into a regular rhythm; as it did, impatiently, he ground the gears shifting into first gear. Unaccustomed to a stick shift, he let the clutch out too quickly. The truck made a jackrabbit start, wheels squealing on the pavement, and he jolted off down Lincoln Street.

It was half an hour’s dangerous drive over slippery roads from a May downpour to the ranch, with his mind not focused on the road. The unstable pickup was all over the road, with him anxious and overreacting to every patch of mud. Several times, he slid close to the riverbank. Each time he kept from plunging into the powerful splashing water in its annual rush down the valley to join the Colorado River.

After a mud-splashing, fishtailing stop, he was in front of the old ranch house, adrenaline gushing. Getting out of the truck, he didn’t notice the muck on his shoes as he walked to the house.

Up on the porch, angry, athletically he pounded strongly on the front door, almost knocking it off rusted hinges. No answer. He opened the unlocked ramshackle door and walked in. No electricity, a rancid, putrefying, stinking mess in the refrigerator.

The old, corroded sink faucets he creaked open had not a drop of water. The house phone was flat-out dead. They’d repaired none of the windows in the sun-blistered paint siding. Nothing was done. The house was barren.

He knew the response he’d get, but in exasperation, he hollered anyway, “Is anyone here?” Silence.

He walked into the yard. No dogs barking, no sounds of cattle. Nothing. Not a single one; no calves in sight.

Ranch hands...gone! It didn’t matter; there were no cows to tend. The bunkhouse had broken furnishings, tattered sheets and blankets. The cowhands had filled a...