6

Jason flexed his neck to try to dispel his tension. The first thing he saw when he powered up his computer was an e-mail from Mark Cornwall, looking to meet with him as soon as loan committee was over. With Vince on the committee, there was no telling what would come next.

Ninety minutes later, through his open doorway and beyond Kathy’s desk and a dozen others, Jason saw Mark hurry from the chairman’s suite and out of view. His phone beeped, but before he could obey the impulse to reach for it, he rose and left his office and moved through the sea of desks to Mark’s door.

BTB’s president and CEO sat at his desk, phone pressed to his ear. He looked up and waved Jason in.

Jason went to the window rather than cooling his heels in one of the chairs in front of Mark’s desk. The traffic on Wilshire pocketed between stoplights, the cars at the front of the line inching forward into crosswalks as if that would speed up the change to green. He noticed a new BMW 730i, a black one that looked like it had just been detailed. Jason thought of the series of door dings on his own Bimmer. It wouldn’t hurt to swing by the dealer some afternoon and check out the new models.

Mark finished his call and swiveled to face him. “Sit down, Jason. You’re going to give me a crick in my neck.”

Jason picked the chair farthest from the open door and was ready with his opener. “We’re going to win the Triton business. Two million in loan-outs and a good seven-fifty in deposits.”

A smile yanked up the right edge of Mark’s mouth. “Good job.”

“It’s Patricia’s deal. The team’s a good one.”

Mark didn’t acknowledge the comment. His fingers entwined in front of his chest. It was his defensive pose. “Tell me about the runoff.”

“Deposits are up, so you’re talking about loans.”

Mark glanced at the sheet before him. Apparently Vince hadn’t mentioned the rise in Jason’s deposit numbers. “Right.”

“It’s just cyclical pay-downs. Loans will be up again this month. P. Lowell and Howe got some big collections in and paid down their lines. Blackstone sold a building, so that term loan paid off, but we’ve got two others queued up for him. We’ve booked five loans this month, but they don’t draw until after month-end.”

“Good. My other concern is your WALG.”

Jason wasn’t surprised. The bank assigned a risk grade to every loan, and the weighted average loan grade was the average grade of the whole portfolio. Mark watched it like a hawk, because downgrading a large loan would move the needle in the wrong direction quickly.

“I sent you my action plan last week. Did you get a chance to look at it?”

“I’ve got it here somewhere. Vince gave me the basics”

Jason didn’t have time to beat around this any longer. He stood and went to the open door. He slammed it and faced Mark. “Vince will not run this office.”

“I didn’t say he would.”

“I won’t report to him, and my teams won’t report to him. Let him run his little branches and his business-development officers. He’s good at keeping them scared enough to put up decent numbers. It won’t work here. Not with this team. Not with me.”

“What are you—?”

Jason leaned over Mark’s desk, his fingertips touching the wood surface. “This office is pulling its weight and then some. Almost every lender is on pace to hit their numbers for the year. Don’t mess with it, Mark. Nothing’s broken. There’s nothing to fix. I don’t care what spin Vince puts on the WALG or the one month this year we had a little loan runoff.”

“It’s not the only month this year.”

“We recovered from January in February, and we’ll recover from July in August. The trends are solid. You have no worries here.” Jason took a seat again and forced his face to relax. “Put me in charge of the branch network, and you’ll have the same trends out there.”

This brought a smile to Mark’s face. “The branches are doing fine.”

“Sure, if you like high expenses and low profit. We’re even carrying part of Vince’s salary in our numbers.”

Mark’s raised eyebrows said he didn’t know this.

“It’s in the financial detail. He’s got part of his salary and expenses allocated to us because we have one BDO that reports to him. I never said anything because we’re profitable enough to absorb it no problem. Personally, I think his whole salary’s putting a crimp in the bank’s return on investment. But it’s not my place to say so.”

A chuckle sizzled out of Mark’s nostrils. “Okay, okay. You’ve made your point.”

“I mean it, Mark. I could run the branch system in my sleep. It’d be like having a couple more teams reporting to me. You’d lose the worst performers overnight, and in six months every branch would be running as well as the home office. Why not give it a chance?”

Mark’s eyes narrowed, and his smile reminded Jason of a wolf sizing up dinner on the hoof. The CEO leaned forward, and his balding pate caught the gleam from the windows. “All right, cowboy. Here’s what I’m going to do. In three months, I’m going to look at the numbers. I’m going to look first at deposit growth, then loan growth, then WALG. Whoever moves the needle in the right direction in those categories in the next three months wins. You win, Vince is gone. Vince wins—” he held up his palm—“you’re not gone, but he’s earned the right to have the home office report to him. Fair enough?”

Saying no would mean Jason didn’t have confidence in the argument he’d just used. “I think you have enough data right now to make this call, Mark.”

Three fingers went into the air. “Three months. We sit together—you, Vince, and me—on November 2, and I let you know the decision. We’ll announce it in December, and it’ll go into effect at the first of the year.”

Jason held out his hand. “You won’t regret putting me in charge.”

Mark clasped his hand. “Make it happen.”