Free Ride a Cockhorse by Raymond Kennedy

to appreciate the diminutive man on a level she had not considered before. Till now, Louis Zabac was a very remote personage, rather like the dictator of some small, far-off country, as he came stepping his way into the bank each morning, his little shoes gleaming like glass, a benign glow to his face. He spoke to no one on the floor, but proceeded upstairs to his office with an air of propriety so complete that he seemed almost an apparition. Had he ever actually stopped and spoken to someone downstairs, that person—and Mrs. Fitzgibbons was no exception—would have been thoroughly discombobulated. It was known, too, that the chairman never lost his temper. He never raised his voice to scold or correct someone. He never got flustered. He dictated his desires in a clear, uncompromising manner, whether in ordering the dismissal of a hapless employee or in ordering an increase in someone’s year-end bonus.
    The fact that Mr. Zabac opened his interview this morning with a smoothly put pleasantry, remarking cheerfully on Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s enchanting appearance, did not, she knew, guarantee happy intentions on his part. The story of Mr. Zabac’s having complimented the bank’s erstwhile chief financial officer, Mrs. Ida Manning, on her mathematical brilliance just a minute before firing her was legendary in the bank. Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s response to his compliment was consistent with her own intention, however.
    â€œYou don’t suppose I’d come up here looking like a shoeshine girl,” she said.
    It was at this point that Mr. Zabac had given out the deep, throaty laugh that registered with those working downstairs, and which was followed immediately by Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s own mirthful outburst.
    â€œHow on earth you could have fixed yourself up like this in two minutes,” he said, “will remain a mystery to me, Mrs. Fitzgibbons.”
    â€œI don’t fix myself up,” she came right back. “Others do that.”
    The briskness of her retort fixated the man for a split second. He rubbed his palms together lightly. “I see, I see,” he muttered. He was clearly unprepared for the prepossessing figure before him. To aggravate matters, Mrs. Fitzgibbons, who was never lately at a loss for words, now remained scrupulously silent. She eyed the little man levelly. She didn’t move a muscle.
    â€œYou and I have not had the opportunity to speak for quite a long while,” he remarked at last, agreeably.
    â€œWe’ve never spoken,” said Mrs. Fitzgibbons.
    â€œNever?” He affected surprise. “In all these years?”
    As before, Mrs. Fitzgibbons allowed his remark to go unanswered, but in the interim changed her position in her chair, while consciously regulating her breathing and making a point of lifting her chin speculatively. She was studying him all the while, but had already concluded that this godlike man, in his exquisite cadet-size Italian silk suit, intended to please her in some way. Besides his having received her trenchant little memorandum of last Friday, she guessed that word of her more forceful behavior, not to mention the amount and quality of the mortgage loans amassed in her portfolio, had finally caught his notice. She couldn’t help herself, but at the moment her estimation of the entire staff of bank employees working downstairs was that they were a collection of knuckleheads. Waiting no longer, Mrs. Fitzgibbons spoke up. She didn’t beat about the bush. She put the question firmly.
    â€œWhat do you want me to do for you?” she said.
    Mr. Zabac reacted with a nervous laugh and got to his feet. His diminutive silhouette against the big plate glass window that looked out on the city hall struck Mrs. Fitzgibbons as both sinister and comic.
    â€œI would like to get your impression,” said Mr. Zabac, making the point with nice precision, “of the Parish Bank’s current position in the mortgage