After Leslie Waller. Palmer was about to ask Burckhardt if he were having some kind of attack, then decided to remain silent

(to be continued)

Palmer was about to ask Burckhardt if he were having some kind of attack, then decided to remain silent. The urge to speak, simply to fill a soundless void, had been one of the hardest of his youthful habits to break. The real­ization that more trouble was caused by talking than by not talking — a view of life his father had lectured him about since Palmer had been twelve years old — had come very slowly to him in his mid-thirties.

Now, in his mid-forties, he often wondered how sound the idea had been. It was true, he reflected as the Rolls sped northward, that you did avoid trou­ble by avoiding speech. There was very little question of that. But as he grew older, he had begun to wonder what “trouble” really was and whether, regardless of its identity, it was something to be avoided at all costs.

Sitting beside Burckhardt now, he saw that, in this case, “trouble” was simply a further involvement with the man who was to be his superior for many years to come. Although the nature of the involvement was unknown, was it necessarily to be avoided?

Palmer moistened his lips very slightly. He was about to break training, revert to a habit of his youth, and the anticipation made him feel suddenly uneasy. He turned to the older man and —

“Damned old fool!” Burckhardt burst out.

Palmer blinked and checked back quickly the lines along which Burckhardt might have been thinking. “Joe Loomis?” he asked finally.

“He’s a stubborn, senile, fuzzy-headed old coot and I wish to God he hadn’t called me this morning.”

“What did he want?” Palmer asked.

“Why, the earth itself on a silver platter.”

“Something to do with this savings-banks business?”

“That’s what hurts most, I think,” Burckhardt said. “He’s a widower now, you know. We may have him out for the weekend once a year. He and I may lunch every few months, if that often. We may see each other at the club for a drink now and then. He may or may not attend an Ubco board meet­ing. The bulk of our contact is purely social. 1 don’t believe I’ve ever asked a favor of him that wasn’t in his own interest, too, and I’m quite sure that the same applies to those he’s asked of me. But, God damn it, today he called me up direct from a trustees’ meeting of the Murray Hill Savings Bank and wanted my pledge that we wouldn’t oppose one of their bills up at the state legislature this year.”

“That’s hardly what I call a confidential request.”

“Even that doesn’t irk me.” Burckhardt snapped. “I don’t relish the idea of the rest of the trustees sitting around listening to him ask me for such a favor, of course not. But the thing that absolutely violates my... my...” He paused, struggling for words, and glared angrily at Palmer for help.

Ethics, Palmer suggested silently, conscience, morality, way of life. He said none of these, but waited and endured the glare.

“The thing that angers me most,” Burckhardt finished lamely, “is the irrational gall of the man, squeezing me in this impossible position between what I know is right for Ubco and my friendship for him. It’s intolerable!”

“What did you tell him?” Palmer wanted to know.

“Tell him? What could I tell him? I stalled.”

“You’ll have to give him an answer eventually.”

“Oh,” he said then, “and don’t think I’m Joe’s only friend to be asked for a commitment. Nor is he the only savings-bank trustee with commercial- bank friends. All over town they’ll be asking this particular favor. It’s a com­pletely untenable position and I won’t be forced into it.”

“What particular bill does he want you not to oppose?”

“I don’t even remember,” the older man said. The realization seemed to release him from the peculiar trance into which he had fallen, reading, in the entrails of his relationship with a friend, the death of friendship.

“One of their perennial branch bills?”

Burckhardt snorted, then turned slowly to Palmer. “Just how well are you briefed, Woody?” he asked in an irritated tone. “You seem to know as much about this as I do.”

“Never. Just moderately up on things.”

“You’re crapping the old man, aren’t you?” Burckhardt’s voice had grown very cold. “Let’s put it this way, Woody: you’re entitled to be ignorant when you really want information. But don’t let me catch you faking it just to make me feel good. Understand?” “I don’t-”

“And don’t let me catch you lying about it,” Burckhardt interrupted. “If I don’t have a clear picture of the full extent of your knowledge at all times, I’m working at a handicap. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly. Sorry.”

Burckhardt’s mouth turned up slightly at the corners...

“As a matter of fact,” the older man said after a long silence, “it did have something to do with branches for savings banks. I’m not sure what.”

“More of them, no doubt.”

Burckhardt shrugged. “In the suburbs, something like that. They can’t go out in the suburbs now and it’s driving them crazy.”

“Their depositors are moving out of the city, I suppose.”

“By and large.” Burckhardt agreed. “The savings banks have no one to blame but themselves. They’ve been investing heavily in mortgages since the war. It’s the only kind of loan they can make and, of course, they’ve really plunged into it feet first. They’ve made it possible for people to move out into the suburbs, but the savings banks can’t follow them.”

“Then why all the excitement?” Palmer asked. “If they’re hoist by their own petard, let them, dangle. Why worry about them?”

“Because they don’t intend to dangle. They want more rope and they’ll move heaven and earth to get it.”

Palmer nodded. “Vicious circle”. He glanced out the window at the traf­fic jam...

“These savings banks have the money. They have it right in their hands. Their assets are cash or the next thing to it — governments — and mortgages. It’s... it’s like...” Burckhardt sputtered out.

“Like money in the bank,” Palmer suggested with a small laugh. Burckhardt favored him with a stony glance. “Now, look,” he began, “I’m all for a sense of humor, Woody. A man has to have it in the world or he can crack up. But some things are simply no laughing matter. This is one of them.”

Palmer turned slightly toward him, not eagerly but slowly. “What’s more upsetting?” he asked then, “the savings bank mess or Joe Loomis putting the squeeze on you?”

“You can’t separate one from the other, I’ve lived with this thing for years now. The mutuals are getting desperate and the heat’s on. If I do one thing, I lose volume. If I do another, I lose a friend. It’s just that brutally simple.”...

Burckhardt shrugged. “Naturally, if anybody has to shaft Joe Loomis, I’d rather it weren’t me. But that’s only part of the reason.” He sighed heavily. “You’re about to meet the other part, Mac Bums.”

Palmer watched the Rolls swing smoothly west again on Fifty-fifth and head across Madison toward Fifth. “He’s a pretty high-powered guy,” Palmer mused. “Hb... I heard him at a convention once in Chicago. Good speaker.”

“One of the best. Started on the Coast as one of these show-business press agents.”

“Now he’s a public-relations consultant or something? I think he has some Chicago clients.”

Burckhardt sighed. “So the fame of Mac Bums has traveled out to Chicago, has it?”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing. He’s just what we need, unfortunately.”

“But he’s partly the reason you’ve dumped it all on me.”

“That’s right,” Burckhardt said. “I’ve got nothing against Greeks or Syrians or whatever Burns is,” Burckhardt said, getting out of the car. “It’s just that I can’t get along with this particular one. So you can have the dubi­ous pleasure of working with Mac Burns or whatever his name used to be.” He stood on the sidewalk and waited for Palmer to follow him.

“And one thing more,” Burckhardt said sotto voce, detaining Palmer from entering the huge plate glass doors of the intensely modem bank.

Palmer tuned toward him. “Yes?”

“ Bums knows how I feel about him. I can’t hide it. That’s why you’re going to have to get very chummy with him, to counteract me. Can you do it?”

“Why not?”

“It’d better be a damned sight more certain than that,” Burckhardt snapped. Then, keeping his voice down again, “You’re going to live with this man for quite a while. Can you do it?”

“I can do it.”

“Because without Mac Bums, we’re dead.”

The two men stared at each other without speaking.