Free The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey Page A

regarded the younger man, usually so full of banter and joviality. At this moment, the security chief saw, there was distress in Eastin's eyes.
    Wainwright realized that the investigation had driven all thought of Ben Rosselli from his mind. Now, remembering, he experienced new anger that thievery should leave i t’ s ugly mark at such a time.
    With a murmured acknowledgment and a good night to East n, he walked through the tunnel from the branch bank, using his passkey to re-enter the FMA Headquarters T ower.
    8
    Across the street, Juanita Nunez a tiny figure against the soaring city block complex of First American Bank and Rosselli Plaza was still waiting for her bus.
    She had seen the security offi cer's face watching her from a window of the bank, and had a sense of relief when the face disappeared, though commonsense told her the relief was only temporary, and the wretchedness of today would resume and be as bad, or even worse, tomorrow.
    A cold wind, knifing through downtown streets, penetrated the thin coat she had on, and she shivered as she waited. Her regular bus had gone. She hoped another would come soon.
    The shivering, Juanita knew, was par tly from fear because, at this moment, she was more frightened, more terror-stricken, than ever before in all her life. Frightened and perplexed.
    Perplexed because she had no idea how the money had been lost.
    Juanita knew that she had neither stolen the money, nor handed it across the counter in error, or disposed of it in any other way. The trouble was: no one would believe her.
    In other circumstances, she realized, she might not have believed herself.
    How could six thousand dollars have vanished? It was impossible, impossible. And yet it had.
    Time after time this afternoon she had searched her recollection of every single moment of the day to find some explanation. There w as none. She had thought back over cash transactions at the counter during the morning and early afternoon, using the remarkable memory she knew she had, but no solution came to her. Not even the wildest possibility made any sense.
    She was positive, too, that she had locked her cash drawer securely before taking it to the vault while she had lunch, and it was still locked when she returned. As to the combination, which Juanita had chosen and set herself, she had never discussed it with anyone else or even written it down, relying as usual on her memory.
    In one way it was her memory which had added to her troubles.
    Juanita knew she had not been believed, either by Mrs. D'Orsey, Mr. Tottenhoe, or Miles, who at least had been friendlier than the others, when she claimed to know, at two o'clock, the exact amount of money which was gone. They said it was impossible she could know.
    But she had known. Just as she always knew how much cash she had when she was working as a teller, although she found it impossible to explain to others how or why.
    She was not even sure herself how she kept the running tally in her head. It was simply there. It happened without effort, so that she was scarcely aware of the arithmetic involved. For almost as long as Juanita could remember, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing seemed as easy as breathing, and as natural.
    She did it automatically at the bank counter as she took money in from customers or paid it out. And she had learned to glance at her cash drawer, checking that the cash she had on hand was what it should be, that venous denominations of notes were in their right order, and in sufficient numbers. Even with coins, while not knowing the total so precisely, she could estimate the amount closely at any time. Occasionally, at the end of a busy day when she balanced her cash, her mental figure might prove to be in error by a few dollars, but never more. Where had the ability come from? She had no idea.
    She had never excelled in school During her sketchy high school education in New York, she seldom achieved more than a low average in most subjects.