Word: plannersbanc
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Unfortunately, our Charlie Croker is also a man in trouble. His latest development, a grandiose tower named Croker Concourse, is undertenanted and hemorrhaging money. He owes PlannersBanc in Atlanta $515 million and an assortment of other lenders $285 million more, and he can't even meet interest on all that debt, never mind repay the principal...
...Charlie is hauled into PlannersBanc for a humiliating session known as a "workout." What follows is probably the most riveting fictional scene ever set in a bank conference room, although the competition is admittedly scarce. From his former status as one of PlannersBanc's most-courted customers, Charlie has fallen to the level of "s___head," an arrogant deadbeat who must be bullied out of his profligate habits and set on the course of fiscal prudence. As a grudging sop to the ravenous bankers, Charlie decrees a 15% cut in the work force of another of his enterprises, Croker Global...
Wolfe's novel is bound by the inevitably intertwining paths of Charlie and Conrad, but that circumference is swollen by a series of related subplots, conveyed through the thoughts of three other characters. Raymond Peepgass, 46, a senior loan officer at PlannersBanc, has an inside view of Charlie's financial mess and thinks he may be able to dip surreptitiously into all that sloshing debt. Then there is Martha Croker, 53, still reeling from the breakup of her nearly 30-year marriage to Charlie. Now that she is no longer seen on the arm of her husband, her old Atlanta...
...earth would Charlie do that? Roger explains: "Once you've met with Fareek, you decide whether or not to go ahead with the press conference. If you say yes, then you let us know, and immediately all pressure from PlannersBanc will cease. If you then do your part at the press conference, it will cease for good, and the bank will restructure the loans on the most generous terms imaginable...
...native Richmond, Va., still audible in his vowels. "I also spent some time, although not much time, in a zero-degree freezer unit like the one Conrad works in in the novel." Did he actually witness firsthand a "workout" session such as the one Charlie endures at PlannersBanc? "No," he says in the tone of a reporter stymied. "I tried everything, promised to dress like a banker and keep quiet, but I never could get into one. Still, I have five sources for that scene, and I know I'm right...
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