21

Mark’s face flushed violet. “Do you think we sit around and dream up policies for fun? They’re there for a reason, Jason. And this one . . . we can’t have lenders winging commitments out in the market without any oversight from the credit side of the bank!”

Jason stared at the wording of the letter and searched for the right thing to say. How could he have missed this? “These commitment letters look just like our proposal letters. We’ve got to change the format.”

“Oh, come on.” Mark shot out of his chair. “You’re running the biggest profit center in the bank, and I have to explain this to you?” He wrenched his tie loose and unbuttoned his collar. “What don’t you understand about the word commitment? And ten million—on these terms?” He turned his back.

Scotty, sitting in the other chair before Mark’s desk, didn’t say a word. He just sat there, eyeing Jason, tapping together the tips of the arms of his reading glasses like pincers. No emotion registered on his face.

Mark snatched the commitment letter off his desk and reread it. He snorted, shook his head, and flipped it back onto his desk.

“Listen, I’ll explain to them—”

Mark drilled his finger at him. “No. No. You’re not even talking to them again. I’ll handle this. This conversation has to happen CEO to CEO. I just hope I can control the damage in the market.” He plopped into his chair.

“Jason,” Scotty said, “how did this happen?”

Jason couldn’t look at him. Outside the window, the fall air had taken on a gloomy cast. The bright days of summer felt long gone. Jason had authorized a proposal on these terms, but how could Billy have used the commitment-letter format instead? Proposal letters had outs; they were subject to extensive due diligence. BTB wouldn’t be blamed for shifting the terms issued in a proposal letter. Not much, anyway. But a commitment was different. It was legally binding. The only negotiating point was the form of the loan documents.

Scotty waited for an answer, but Jason couldn’t throw Billy under the bus. A mistake like this could ruin a young career. Jason would have to take this whipping like a man.

Mark fidgeted in his seat as if it was on fire. “And to think Scotty wanted to put you on loan committee.”

Scotty glanced at Mark and back to Jason. The eyeglasses went into his shirt pocket and he leaned over in his seat and crossed his legs.

Jason had a vision of sitting at the boardroom table, a pile of loan reports before him, with Vince waiting across the table to be voted down.

Scotty shrugged. “It was supposed to be a rotating membership. Ninety days on, then off. You were going to be next in line after Vince. Maybe I should have told you.”

“Well, Jason’s not going on loan committee. Not with stuff like this flying around.” Mark shook the commitment letter in the air and flipped it down again.

“All right, guys. I get it. It won’t happen again. Give me a chance to make it right. Don’t cut me out of the process with the company, Mark. It’ll look awful.”

“You get it? That’s good. You get it.” Mark came out of his chair again. “This is not something you should have to get. Not in the position you’re in. You should be the one enforcing this stuff, not violating it.” Mark stood over him. “I don’t think you do get it. This is about more than this loan commitment, Jason. I might be able to fix that. This is about who you are in this organization.”

“No, it’s not.” Jason rose to face him. “It’s one mistake, Mark. One. In the five years I’ve been in this position, we haven’t had one conversation like this. You can’t—”

“It’s not a ‘mistake.’ This was a willful violation. I will not have the head of our home office intentionally ignoring bank policy. If you’re doing this kind of thing yourself, I can imagine what your team’s doing under your leadership.”

“What are you saying?”

“What am I saying? I guess I have to spell this out for you too. I’m saying I’m going to make some changes. Clearly you need more oversight.”

“Now hold on just a minute.”

“No. No, I’m not holding on. I will not have this. You’ve got a new boss. Effective immediately. You need supervision, and I don’t have time to babysit you.”

Vince.

“And this isn’t going to be some passive thing, either. I’m going to make sure he’s on you like a cheap suit. Every solicitation. Your pipeline of new deals. All your major clients.”

“You can’t do this.”

Mark’s face reddened even deeper. It looked as if it might erupt. “What? What? This is grounds for termination, boy. You put this bank’s reputation at risk. I always knew you were a loose cannon, but I never thought you were dumb enough to do something like this.” He turned away.

Jason watched him round the desk and sit. “You wanted to put Vince in charge all along, didn’t you?”

Mark’s eyes narrowed. “I gave you every chance. Every opportunity to make something happen for yourself.” He pointed at Jason. “This is your doing, Jason. You can’t deflect this onto me.”

Jason looked to Scotty. “Scotty . . .”

“Don’t, Jason.” The CCO shook his head. “You know what’s going on around here. Our default rates are through the roof. I’m staring down the barrel of $75 million in substandard credits. We’re in a dogfight every second of every day to get out of bad deals. I can’t support you on this.”

Jason stood alone in the center of the room. Mark’s desk was a wall between them. Scotty wouldn’t even return his stare.

Mark clicked on his keyboard. “Did you put the CEO’s phone number in our system?”

“It’s in there.”

He entered a few more letters and turned from his monitor. “Congratulations. You did something right. Now if you don’t mind, why don’t you go back to your office so the bankers in the room can try to figure out how to talk our way out of this?”

“I do mind. You’re blowing this way out of proportion, Mark. We’ve done deals more aggressive than this.”

“Not in this market we haven’t.”

“I’m not going to sit still for this. I told you before, I won’t report to Vince. It’s not going to happen.”

“It is.”

“No. You think I won’t walk across the street to Wells Fargo and take half my team with me? We’ll pull our best customers out and leave you with nothing but nonperforming loans. Is that what you want? You’ll have your man Vince running things around here all right. There just won’t be anything left to run except workouts.”

Mark’s color began to drain, as if his blood flow were being siphoned out by the snarling grin that spread across his face. “Listen to you. Big shot. You’re not keeping up with the times, Jason. Pick up a newspaper sometime. The big boys won’t give you the time of day. Maybe eighteen months ago you could have played that card, but in this market you should be glad to have a paycheck coming in.”

“Guys, guys.” Scotty leaned forward. “This has gone far enough. We’ve got a lot of work to do around here. The last thing we need is to be shooting at one another. We need to concentrate on getting this ship back on an even keel. Let’s calm down.”

Mark frowned at him. “Don’t tell me to calm down. While we’re at it, we should talk about the credit culture of this institution. Your credit culture. Your boy here’s the poster child for everything that’s going wrong at BTB.” He thumbed at Jason. “His portfolio’s shrinking; delinquencies are skyrocketing. Twenty percent of his borrowers are out of compliance. We’ve never had worse numbers. What do you have to say about that, Scotty?”

“We have an action plan in place. We’re working it.”

“Action plan? I want results!” Mark slammed his desk. “All the trends are going in the wrong direction. I want to see these numbers turning around, Scotty. Unless you can show me something before quarter-end, I’m going to have an action plan of my own and it’s going to include a new chief credit officer.”

He glared at Scotty, then back at Jason. “Am I getting through to anybody?”

“Sure,” Scotty said. “I know the buck stops at my desk for credit quality. You don’t have to remind me.”

“Then show me the results.”

Scotty was silent. Mark stood and faced Jason. They stared at one another over the loan commitment Jason had issued without approval. Desperation hung in the air like smog.

Jason folded his arms. “You’ll see results, all right. You can count on it.”

Mark squinted. For a moment, it appeared that the CEO would scream at Jason for making another threat. He waved his arm. “Get out. Both of you.”