Jack Baxter’s money was gone. At his usual bank branch a teller squinted as she stared at her computer screen. She tapped the keys with that special violence we use when something goes wrong. It’s as if we think that being a bit harsh with the plastic will restore order and help us achieve our goal. She kept up this display for a good few breaths. Then she sighed and looked up from the screen, her gaze met, not my inquiring eyes, not Jack’s drooping gaze, but a space in the air between Jack and I. If we had brought a third ghostly companion along she would have been looking him square in his face.

“I’m sorry. It’s like I told you. All these accounts have been closed.” She was a young woman wearing a sensible blue sweater.  A dress shirt’s tight white collar points were folded neatly above the sweater’s collar line. She exhaled through her closed mouth and pushed a sleek curve of brown hair off her forehead. The strands slipped back to their normal place, slowly, a few at a time, then all at once, while she waited for us to respond. Again she blew out a breath through pursed lips. Her message was clear. I’ve done what I can do. Don’t make me stare at my screen and horse around with this situation anymore. Don’t make me pretend there’s hope for a different outcome.

Jack Baxter stood at my right side, leaning a bit on my shoulder, leaning a bit too hard actually. The day spent trekking around Portland with a near stranger was weighing on him, reminding him of each step of his eighty seven years. A few hours ago we set out from the nursing home where he had been staying. He had been smiling, full of optimism and stories about the successes of his life. Now my shoulder was holding him up. If I were to move quickly Jack would probably fall. If he started to tumble there was no way he could catch his balance and save himself. It was my job to keep Jack upright. To get him through the day we found out the truth. That was my gig; helping out elderly people who had been tricked or influenced out of their savings. When a retired longshoreman had a nest of meth heads living off his pensions while they kept him locked in his bedroom I got the call. When a former beauty queen tricked a 93 year old logger living in a cabin in the mountains to adopt him as his daughter so she could inherit his two point three  million dollar bank account, I got that call. (She also offered to have sex with him as part of the adoption process. I wish I could say that was the creepiest thing I had encountered.) And when Jack Baxter bounced his rent check at the skilled nursing facility where he was staying while he recovered from a fall, Portland Police Bureau Elder Crimes Officer Judy McFarlane smelled a rat and called her favorite rat-catcher. This day was proving McFarlane’s suspicions well founded. Unfortunately, in addition to it looking like he was a victim of a crime, Jack suffered from an immune condition that attacked his joints and tendons. My next task was keeping Jack standing while I asked all the wrong questions.

The teller moved away from her computer and went to sorting some papers. Jack stood up straight and started to tell again his story about running an army kitchen back in the slow forgotten days between the end of World War II and the commie invasion that kicked off the Korean War.  He had already told me this story three times since I picked him up at the nursing home. He had a flair for telling it, garnishing each telling with righteous indignation at the stupidity of the world in general and in particular the foolishness of the nitwit corporals and privates from backwoods towns he had to mold into a team that could feed a base of thousands. “Half the time they nearly burnt the place down!” He would laugh at his own delivery when he got to that final line. But as he launched into this latest telling his voice faltered. Maybe the words tasted stale, or he was having one of those moments of embarrassment when we realize we are talking on and on because we are afraid of what we will happen when we stop.

Trust our Seven Bold Points of Customer Service! Proclaimed signs and banners around the lobby. These signs promised that Trust, Thrift, Accuracy and Promptness were the gateways to Success, Comfort and Peace.

“Is there any way to get a history of the accounts?”  I asked.

She frowned and looked behind her station like she was hoping help would come from some unknown quarter. Jack poked my bicep with an index finger, wanting to make sure I took note of his story. “I learned a few things. A few tricks. The army was a pretty good life. You always knew what to do, what was expected of you. But I’ve done a few things since then. I always have my eye out for a good thing.” Jack said.

“The funds were withdrawn in cash over the last six months,” the teller said.

“…. a real good thing.”

“Mr. Baxter’s money is not here.”

“We had to cook five hundred biscuits with sausage gravy every morning,” Jack was smiling at the teller, still ready to share a tale with a sweet young thing.

“Jack, your money is gone,” I said. The teller looked over Jack’s shoulder to the line of customers waiting for her to call next. She seemed anxious that we move on, that this not become more of an incident in her day.

“It’s right here,” Jack said. “This is my bank.”

“It’s gone, Jack. She just told us you took it all out.”

“That’s ridiculous! I’ve been banking here since the nineteen sixties!”  Jack said. Color rose on Jack’s forehead and cheeks.  His hands gripped the black plastic of the counter at the teller’s window, perhaps for emphasis, more likely to help hold himself up.   

“That may be, sir. But there’s nothing I can do. It shows here that you took all your money out. A cashier’s check. Six weeks ago,” the teller said.

“That can’t be!”  Jack’s voice barked at the teller, but his eyes immediately sought mine, craving reassurance. I put a hand on Jack’s shoulder.   

“Jack seems sure he has some money here. Can you check again? Make sure there’s been no mistake?’

“Let me get a personal banker,” the teller said

“I just don’t know what is going on,” Jack said.

Jack had a carefully trimmed goatee and mustache that, together with his elegantly arched nose, brown tweed jacket and black wool pants, leant him a sophisticated and vaguely risqué air; he would have been the daring uncle telling his nieces and nephews there was more to the world than school and parents were letting on. “ I have some things going on, a few plans in the works,” Jack had told me earlier, when we were walking out from the nursing home. We were men of business heading out to check on his affairs on a sunny day. He had smiled. That smile was the last I would see from Jack for a long time. Before he would smile to greet me again he would lose everything he ever owned, face that he had been more than foolish with his own destiny and at the end almost die from shame and sadness.

William K. Burke