Free Ride a Cockhorse by Raymond Kennedy Page A

market.”
    Mrs. Fitzgibbons brushed a thread from her skirt. “We don’t do enough business,” she said. “Some people ought to be fired.”
    The chairman glanced round instantly. “You believe that?”
    â€œYou know it as well as I do.” The grimace that twisted Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s lips bespoke a world of shared understandings.
    â€œI am surprised.”
    Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s manic capabilities here shifted into overdrive, enabling her to express herself without significant forethought. “I’m not happy with it,” she said, “and you’re not, either. If you were, I wouldn’t be here. It isn’t like a few years ago, when Sam Cochran was cracking the whip downstairs. People came to work with clean fingernails and their hair brushed and combed. Everything went off like clockwork.” She reverted to the memory of the bank’s most celebrated past employee. Her voice hardened. “Sam did business!”
    As she grew accustomed to the daylight shining behind Mr. Zabac’s head, she was able to make out the unworried smile on his face.
    â€œAren’t you exaggerating?” he inquired gently, in a melodious tone of voice.
    â€œAm I?” She had an impulse to stand up and give him some sound advice but checked herself. Instead, she offered Mr. Zabac an ironical observation. “Is our share of the market bigger than it was back then?”
    Mr. Zabac lifted an instructive finger. His black silhouette against the white glare of the autumn light, with his finger up, was like that of a little mountain gnome cautioning a heedless traveler. “The nature of the business has changed since then, Mrs. Fitzgibbons. Your point is well taken, but remember, there has been a significant relaxation of controls upon us at the federal level. Today there are a lot of players in the business whose questionable loans are no less safeguarded by the government than our own solid investments. They take chances with their deposits that would have been unconscionable in the days of Mr. Cochran’s tenure.”
    â€œWould you have any coffee?” Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s sudden interruption came out not as an avoidance of the chairman’s considered opinion on changing bank regulations, but rather in the spirit of a trusted colleague settling in for a serious tête-à-tête. Sometimes she liked talking about banking; she was especially in the mood to do so right now, as she and the man before her had reached what seemed a proper appreciation of one another. She was quite used to the idea now that the remote chairman, with his austere ways and impeccable bearing, esteemed her satisfactorily. While he went to the door and told Jeannine Mielke to telephone the Phoenix Lunch, Mrs. Fitzgibbons had turned around attractively in her chair and was apprising him of certain timeless fundamentals in the business. She had decided that she would wait until Mr. Zabac had seated himself once more before getting up herself and speaking on her feet, as she did not want to embarrass the little man.
    â€œNo matter what takes place at the Federal Reserve, or the Federal Home Loan Board,” she said, “or in the back rooms of our unscrupulous competitors, there’s no excuse for sloth and incompetence downstairs. In the end, efficiency makes the difference. That’s always true, and you know it.” She liked the fine timbre of her voice as she articulated this truism. “Efficiency alone,” she stressed, “will win us back our share of the market.”
    Mr. Zabac could not conceal the charm he felt at Mrs. Fitzgibbons’s surprisingly hard-nosed views and obvious good horse sense, as well as the results of her glamorous grooming. While he was returning to his desk, stepping blithely across the carpet on the balls of his feet, Mrs. Fitzgibbons smiled to realize how the sight of their coffee being carried up the hallowed staircase