The Immigrants (52 page)

“How much do we owe them?” Dan wanted to know. “Not a hell of a lot—twenty-five thousand for this payment.”

“We’ve got it. Pay it.”

“And then what? The way the hotel stands, we’re los ing forty thousand dollars a month. We’ve junked the sailing schedules. The ships are tied up, and we’re still meeting a payroll. We’ve got a tax bill of forty-two thousand on the undeveloped land, and that’s three days overdue, and we’ve got twelve planes on order. There’s two million in escrow on the planes, and we’re flying to Los Angeles at less than twenty-five percent capacity. Dan, we’re not even making gasoline costs. Without the store and its cash flow, we’d be in over our heads.”

“The whole fuckin’ empire,” Dan said. “What hap pened?”

“That’s what they’re all asking. You’ve got to have money to ride

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a ship or a plane—and our customers have had the shit scared out of them. It’s falling apart.”

“I think we ought to start selling land,” Dan said. “We’ve got at least a thousand acres of the best damn property on the Peninsula.

We paid more than a million for it, and the price doubled a year after we bought it. So we sell?”

“To whom?” Mark asked sourly. “Would you buy an acre of land today?”

“There’s still money. It hasn’t disappeared.”

“There’s still that damn hotel in Hawaii. I think you ought to go there and talk to the Noels.”

It was a very different trip without May Ling. He booked passage on Whittier’s ship,
Oahu
, and the voy age took forever. Day after day, he paced the deck like a caged animal. He regretted that he had allowed Mark to talk him into this, and when finally he arrived in Honolulu, the Noels proved to be absolutely unyielding.

“Dan,” Christopher Noel said to him, “you’re asking the impossible.” They had been removed from the world, but the world had intruded. They sat on the vel vet green lawn in front of Noel’s sprawling bungalow, the cool trade wind gently blowing, the sea thundering in across the sand, out of space and time but not unconnected with something called the New York Stock Exchange. “We took one hell of a beating in New York, and now you’re asking us to ride the mortgage without interest. We’ve got half a million dollars tied up in that hotel and the two hundred acres of Waikiki Beach. We can’t throw it away.”

“Just give the world a chance to breathe. This is panic,” Dan insisted, “and panic burns itself out. You know what we’ve got.

We’ve got the richest and the goddamn strongest country on the face of the earth.”

“We’re an island, Dan. If we don’t survive, we sink into the sea.

Who the hell gives a damn about Hawaii? We do. No one else.”

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“Now look,” Dan said, “the hotel’s only part of the problem. We own the ships—and without our ships the hotel wouldn’t exist. We believed in this and we created it together. We brought you the people. Don’t pull the stopper on us now.”

“Dan, you’ve canceled your sailing schedules. Why don’t you face this?”

“For a few weeks, yes. I’m leveling with you. We’re pinched.

We built an airline—one of the pioneers in the industry. That may not mean anything to you now, but some day airlines will connect these islands with the mainland—a few hours, not days. And God damn it to hell, if you can’t ride a dream, where are we?”

“You want a free ride, Dan, and we can’t afford it.”

“Will you give me time to get back and discuss this with Mark?”

“Dan, it’s a lousy twenty-five thousand dollars. You’re running a multimillion dollar empire, and here we are arguing about a few thousand dollars. What does that say?”

“It says that we’re short of cash. That’s all it says.”

“All right,” Noel agreed. “Another two weeks.”

Listening dispiritedly to Dan’s report of the Hawaiian journey, Mark asked, “Two weeks from now or from when you left him?

Ah, it really doesn’t matter.”

“Why?”

“Because in two weeks or ten weeks, nothing is going to change. Do you know what that ass Hoover is doing? Promoting the sale of apples. You’re out of a job, get a crate of apples and sell them on the street. At a nickel an apple, you’re elevating the nation’s health. In less than a year, we’ve descended to the level of lunatics.”

“What about Hawaii?” Dan persisted.

“You tell me.”

“Suppose we send them twenty-five thousand. That gives us another six months.”

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“For Christ’s sake,” Mark exploded, “where is your head? In one month of operation, we drop more than twenty-five thousand.

That goddamn hotel can bank rupt us. It’s over. Can’t you understand that? We dropped a hundred thousand dollars in the market be cause you don’t throw good money after bad. People are not going to Hawaii. They’re not going to Europe. They’re not going to fly on the damned airplanes. It’s over.”

Dan stared at Mark and watched his face crumble as he covered it with his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’ve been coming apart since Martha died. I’m sorry.”

“It’s O.K.,” Dan said gently.

“Where do I come off talking to you like that?”

“It’s O.K., old sport,” Dan said. “I’ve got a skin like a rhinoceros, you know that. If you don’t yell, I don’t hear.”

“We’ve been together twenty years. We never had a fight before.”

“So we needed one. I know how you feel. If I wasn’t fat and middle-aged, I’d go out and get drunk and bust up a saloon.”

Mark shook his head. “We can’t afford that anymore, Danny.”

“Right. It costs too much. You know something, I never felt like such a total horse’s ass as I did out there in the Islands pleading with Chris Noel. Two words would have been enough.”

“Oh?”

“‘Fuck you, Christopher.’ No. I should have been explicit. I should have said, ‘Take the hotel and shove it up your ass.’ You’re absolutely right, old sport. We clean house. And don’t write off the planes. We’ll cut every expense to the bone, reschedule the ships, and concentrate on the airline and the store. We’re not licked yet, old buddy. Hell, for two grubby kids from Fisherman’s Wharf, we haven’t done too badly. We’re two interesting citizens, Levy and Lavette. Don’t under estimate us.”

“We’ve had our moments,” Mark agreed, managing a smile.

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Stephan Cassala played with his son, Ralph. The little boy, in his woolly Dr. Dentons, with his black curly hair and huge black eyes, was almost too perfect to be true. Stephan always regarded him with amazement, as if he were seeing him for the first time. At six o’clock in the morning, the child would crawl into his bed and awaken him.

It was a wonderful way to wake up. “Raphalo,” Stephan would growl softly. The little boy would dis solve in laughter. Then the two of them would crawl around the bedroom floor, growling and laughing at each other, while Joanna watched happily. For the past six months, life had been good to her. She was a giving soul and had accepted Stephan’s terrible grief at the death of Martha Levy. They had been childhood friends, and he had the right to grieve. Then, when his grief was over, he had been kinder to her than ever be fore.

She had married a good man, she told her mother.

Now, on this day, Stephan played with Ralph, was late for breakfast, and had only a cup of coffee with Maria, who was lamenting the fact that he should leave the house without nourishment, without the strength to take him through the day. His father brooded over the morning paper, oblivious to the world. At half-past seven, they were in the car, driving north to San Fran cisco. It was a morning like any other morning.

In the car, without looking up from his paper, An thony said, “Over five hundred banks.”

“What?”

“Closed. Destroyed.”

“It happens.”

“It could happen to us,” Anthony said.

“Not likely.”

More or less, it was the same conversation they had every morning; the difference this morning lay in the crowd that had gathered in

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front of the Bank of Sonoma on Montgomery Street. It was only nine o’clock, still a half-hour before opening, yet there were more than a hundred quiet, worried-looking men and women in front of the bank, and the crowd was increasing. An thony and Stephan pushed through into the bank, where Frank Massetti, Anthony’s son-in-law and the manager, greeted them unhappily.

“It looks like a run,” he said.

“Why?” demanded Anthony. “Name of God, why?”

“Didn’t you see the paper?”

“So two banks close on the Peninsula? What it has to do with us?” Stephan said. “Stop arguing. There’s a panic, Pop, and that’s that. Do you want to pay?”

“I die before I stop paying,” Anthony said dramati cally. “Is the money mine? We are a bank, and I will pay every penny.”

“Pop, think about it. We’re in no condition to pay every penny.

No bank is. We have total deposits that amount to about sixty million. We have close to forty-five million in loans, and we can’t call those loans to day—or tomorrow—or the next day.”

“Why not?”

“My God, Pop, don’t ask me why not. You know. We got eight hundred thousand with Consuelo Oil. There’s no better or more honest man that Sol Con suelo, but he hasn’t got twenty cents in cash. And that’s only one case. This whole damn country is hanging on a shoestring. You can’t call a mortgage today. You just can’t.”

“How much cash we got on hand?” Anthony asked Massetti.

“Sixty thousand.”

“And in the account at Crocker?”

“One hundred and fifty thousand.”

“And with Giannini?”

“Seventy-five thousand.”

“All right. We got ten thousand with the First Na tional in Chicago and fifteen thousand at the National City in New York.

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You wire them immediately, now. Stephan,” he said to his son, “you go to Crocker and get the hundred fifty thousand and then take the seventy-five thousand from Giannini. We have over three hundred thousand cash. Nine-thirty, Frank, you open the doors and start paying.”

“Pop, please,” Stephan begged him, “think. There’s no way Crocker will give us a hundred and fifty thou sand this morning.”

“It’s our money on deposit there. They got to pay.”

“No, they don’t!”

“Are you crazy?” Anthony shouted.

“Pop, please, will you think this thing through? It’s almost nine-thirty. Crocker’s a big bank, but how much cash do you think they have to open with? Maybe a hundred and fifty thousand, maybe two hundred thou sand. They don’t have to pay it out to me. If they give me fifty thousand, I’ll be lucky.”

“No, sir. They give you what we got on deposit there.”

“Papa, Papa, you know better. We don’t have to open at nine-thirty. We can post a sign saying we’re opening at noon today.”

“No! No! Is this how I built a name? A reputation? Is this what I am, Anthony Cassala? I take the sweat and blood of a poor working man, and now I say to him, ‘Go to hell! You can’t have the money you work for!’”

“For God’s sake, give me three or four hours.”

“No! Frank,” he said to Massetti, “it is half-past nine. Open the doors. We make payment in full.”

At the Crocker Bank, the manager told Stephan, “We know what you’re up against, Steve, but this damn thing is a disease, a contagion. It’s ten o’clock and we’ve put out fifty thousand dollars.

Not a run—yet. But if I give you a hundred and fifty thousand— considering that we still have that, I’ll start a run. All we need is one customer told that we’re out of cash.”

“You’ve been out of cash before. Every bank has.”

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“Yes, but not in nineteen thirty. Look, I’ll let you have twenty-five thousand.”

“Oh, no. No. That’s like signing a death warrant.”

“For God’s sake, why doesn’t your father close his doors?”

“Because he’s crazy. Because he’s a man of honor. How the hel do I know? The point is, he won’t close his doors. Now what do I have to do, get down on my knees and plead with you? Take it for granted.

I’m on my knees and pleading. Right down the street, some thing that I gave my life to is being destroyed. I’m beg ging for help.”

“Thirty thousand.”

“It’s not enough.”

“Steve, give me two or three hours and come back. I promise you I’ll find some cash.”

“Now. It’s got to be now.”

“All right. I’ll give you forty thousand, and sweet God, I hope it doesn’t cost me my job.”

“O.K., I’ll take it. But in three hours, I want a hundred and ten thousand more.”

“Steve, don’t force me to the wall. In three hours, everyone in San Francisco will know what is happening at your bank, and every bank in this city is going to hang onto its cash like Scrooge himself.

I’ll get what I can.” As an afterthought, he added, “We have fifty thousand on deposit in your bank. We’re not going to call it—for whatever that helps.”

“Fat lot of good. Well, get the money, small bills. You’ve never seen my father in a rage.”

With a briefcase bulging with money, Stephan raced back to the bank. If anything, the crowd in front was even larger, and now there were four policemen, trying to keep some kind of order among the nervous, pushing depositors. “I work here! Let me through!”

Stephan shouted, fighting and shoving to make his way, clinging to his bag of money. Inside the bank, he found his fa ther.

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“Forty thousand from Crocker. That’s all they’ll give me, and I had to get down on my knees and plead for it.”

“They must honor our deposit,” Anthony cried an grily.

“No law says so. There are a lot of deposits they have to honor.

I’m going to Giannini.”

He returned with thirty thousand dollars. They were still paying in full, but the cash bins were almost empty.

“Close the doors,” he begged his father.

Stony-faced, Anthony stared at him and shook his head.

“You’ve got to stop it,” Stephan pleaded.