Sins of Our Fathers (9781571319128) Read Online Free Page A

soul.” JW faced the audience, his hands in his pockets.
    â€œIs this redlining? Is it a crime?”
    His shirt was a brilliant white, his tie a lavender slash.He was almost done, and on time. Just a few minutes left for them to understand, his lessons slipping into their thinking, their mental scales tilting. Finally the balding banker replied in a voice that was barely audible.
    â€œNo,” he said. “It isn’t.”
    His look admitted the truth of this, but nevertheless he seemed defeated by it. JW saw Jorgenson make a note in his cell phone as he watched the man’s reticence. Jorgenson viewed anyone who wasn’t adamantly in support as a bitter enemy, and someone to purge. It was his one major weakness.
    JW gave a slow, gentle nod.
    â€œNo. The gentleman is right. He is absolutely correct. This is not redlining. This is business. You have left the choice up to the customer. Remember, this is the free market. You are using an inherent conflict in federal law to protect your assets, which you are obligated to do as a fiduciary. And, incidentally, any choice the customer makes, you win. You can protect your bank, which is your depositors’ funds, your community’s funds, and you can make money. You have reduced your exposure to risk, and hung onto your casino deposits.”
    The room was silent. A tone sounded and a female announcer’s voice came on over the room’s speakers.
    â€œThis concludes our afternoon breakout sessions,” she said. “Please join us for a wine and cheese reception in the Pocahontas Room.”
    For a moment, the bankers remained in their chairs, mulling ethics, profits, and legality. It was, as JW had said, a new era. The buzzword at the conference was aggregation, which meant cobbling many small victories together into larger portfolio gains. It’s what the big boys were doing, and it required intelligence and agility at the margins—the very qualities JW was talking about. The law was no longer a simpleset of boundaries to the playing field; it was sports equipment to be used in the game. Community bankers needed to get more aggressive or they were going to get eaten for lunch. They had to remember their role. They weren’t legislators or social workers. They weren’t there to right the greater wrongs of society. They were bankers. And as the plenary speaker had said in the morning keynote, “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
    Jorgenson shifted off the wall. He drew his hands from his pockets and started to clap. The bankers glanced over at him and then joined in. He walked down the steps along the wall as the applause continued. The bankers gathered up their briefcases and swag bags and began to mill out.
    â€œJohn White,” he said, stepping up to the table, “you are a strategic genius.”
    JW smiled wryly and coiled his power cord. “I guess that’s why you made me branch president.”
    Jorgenson laughed. “Guilty as charged. You got time for a Grain Belt?”
    JW looked at the clock and winced. “I told Carol I’d be home for dinner. It’s a four-hour drive. Can I take a rain check?”
    He saw a cloud pass briefly across Jorgenson’s face, then it was gone. Jorgenson smiled and nodded. “Yeah, sure. How is that beauty queen?”
    â€œOh, you know Carol. Always into something.”
    The two of them walked out onto the mezzanine, where conference-goers were congregating in small groups or speaking with industry reps at display tables along the walls. Like royals, they strolled toward the glass balcony and rode the escalator to the vast atrium below.
    They shook hands at the bottom, and then JW pushedhis way out into the afternoon sun. It was bright and hot, and as he turned he could still see Jorgenson, a ghost beyond the glare of the plate glass, standing there watching, with a hand in his pocket. For an instant, his expression seemed