"No," Travis agreed. "You don't. That's the whole point of mercy. If you deserved it, it'd just be a transaction."
He turned to Daniel. "Draft the investment terms tonight and get Meridian's general counsel on the phone. I want that loan forgiven before the markets open Monday, before they can move on those accounts." "On it, sir."
Travis turned back to his chairman, and the warmth drained out of his face again. "Howard." Lassiter straightened. He knew what was coming, and he'd known it from the moment he opened his mouth.
"Yes." "You're a good man who did a coward's thing," Travis said. "I've known you 14 years, and I'd have trusted you with my life right up until an hour ago."
"The worst part is, you didn't do it for money. You did it because you were scared of how a soft quarter would make you look." He shook his head slowly. "You're sitting on my board telling other people how to run honest businesses, and you waived my own ethics policy to juice a number."
"I can't, Howard. I can't unsee that." "I know," Lassiter said. "I'm not going to fight it."
"I came here to confess because I couldn't live with it anymore. Whatever you decide, I'll—" "Here's what I decide," Travis said. "You resign from the board tonight, effective immediately."
He paused. "And then tomorrow you go to work as a regular employee, no title, no committee, on the team that unwinds every bad loan Meridian wrote. Every one. You're going to spend the next year personally calling every Whitmore we trapped and telling them you're forgiving their debt."
"You're going to look each one of them in the eye, and you're going to know exactly what you did. Not as punishment." Travis's voice dropped. "As penance."
"Because you're a good man, Howard, and a good man doesn't need to be destroyed. He needs to be put back in front of the people he hurt until he remembers who he was supposed to be." Lassiter's eyes filled. "That's... Travis, that's more than fair."
"That's more than I—" "It's the same thing the man in 1983 did for me," Travis said. "He didn't destroy the loan shark. He just made me pay attention to what mercy costs, so I'd spend it carefully for the rest of my life."
He almost smiled. "I'm not going to throw away 14 good years over one bad month. But you're going to earn your way back every single day." The courtyard had gone from a place of spectacle to something almost like a church.