‘I don’t trust anyone anymore. God is the one who takes care of everything.’

It was her smile--a deceptively sweet one--that Mary Menchaca said lured her into the web.

“She was so kind,” Menchaca said, describing the smart-dressing teller at a branch of Sumitomo Bank in Monterey Park. “That’s the way she looked, like a nice lady.”

At first, the teller just smiled, saying a few words in Spanish, said Menchaca, a 75-year-old widow who lives in East Los Angeles.

But as the months wore on, the smiles were joined by sad tales of problems that always needed money to cure: her daughter’s ailing baby, an abusive husband she wanted to divorce.

Over a two-year period, the teller, Mamie Rodriguez, borrowed at least $20,000 from Menchaca and then disappeared last April, according to Menchaca’s attorneys. No one knows where Rodriguez is.

Menchaca filed a suit last month in Los Angeles Superior Court against Rodriguez and Sumitomo Bank seeking unspecified damages. She claims the bank is partly responsible because it should have been paying more attention to the transactions between a teller and a customer. Bruce Ishimatsu, the attorney representing Sumitomo Bank, denies that the bank is responsible for the lost money. The bank has discussed settling the case out of court with Menchaca, but its offer was nowhere near the millions of dollars that Menchaca’s attorneys have suggested as just compensation, Ishimatsu said.

“Her attorneys are not treating this as a $15,000 to 20,000 matter,” he said.

The trial is scheduled for August, but Menchaca said regardless of the outcome, her encounter with the teller has left her scarred for life.

What she once thought would be a comfortable retirement has become a nervous ordeal to protect the few thousand dollars she has left. She relies on a monthly $480 Social Security check to pay for rent and food.

“I don’t trust anyone anymore,” she said. “I pray now. God is the one who takes care of everything.”

Menchaca said she had banked for years at Sumitomo Bank before she and Rodriguez spoke to each other.

She had noticed the teller before, but it wasn’t until late 1985, when Rodriguez helped her deposit $18,000, that they became friends, Menchaca said. From that point on the teller seemed to take a special interest in Menchaca, telling her to always come to her window at the bank, Menchaca said.

At first, they just chatted with each other in Spanish about small things in their lives. But one day, Rodriguez told Menchaca the story of her daughter’s sick baby, Menchaca said.

“She said she needed $2,000 because the baby needed an operation and the husband wouldn’t pay,” Menchaca said.

Menchaca didn’t hesitate to lend her the money, she said.

A year and a half later, Menchaca said Rodriguez asked for an additional $1,500, saying the baby needed more operations. Then last February, she went to Menchaca’s house and pleaded for a $15,000 loan so she could get a divorce.

Although Menchaca had received only $1,545 in repayment from Rodriguez, she agreed to the loan because the teller had a steady job and seemed trustworthy, Menchaca said.

Rodriguez used the money as collateral for a $15,000 loan from Community Thrift & Loan in Monterey Park that has not been repaid, according to Menchaca’s lawyers. Menchaca paid the $1,650 loan fee, they said.

Although she asked Rodriguez every month when she was going to return the money, she did not worry until her nieces went to the bank last spring to talk with Rodriguez about the loans.

Menchaca said Rodriguez rebuffed them and refused to talk with her again.

Sumitomo Bank fired Rodriguez in April for unspecified reasons. Menchaca said she has not seen her since.

Menchaca’s attorneys, Lawrence J. Hanna and Barry Levin, say they doubt they will have much success in finding Rodriguez or recovering the money.

But they believe Sumitomo Bank bears some of the responsibility for Menchaca’s plight.

Hanna said the bank approved the checks that Menchaca wrote to Rodriguez, although loans from customers to bank employees are prohibited by federal law.

Ishimatsu said that the federal law is open to interpretation and that the bank did nothing wrong. He added that although the bank regrets that Menchaca lost money, the bank should not be blamed.

“Unfortunately, it is a case where someone running their own affairs made some mistakes,” Ishimatsu said. “We’re sorry that happened, but she took her own money and did what she wanted.”

Since Rodriguez’s disappearance, Menchaca said she has been beset by stomach pains, insomnia and a constant nervousness about her surroundings.

Her medical bills for shingles, a viral infection, have begun to add up, but she has no idea how much she owes.

“I don’t know how much and I don’t want to think about it,” she said. “There’s too much pain.”

Jeanette Aguilar, Menchaca’s niece, said her aunt has also become more confused and disoriented.

She is afraid of going outside by herself, she has relatives handle her finances and occasionally, she calls friends in the middle of the night to ask the time, Aguilar said.

“She used to be able to do everything by herself, but she’s really gone down fast,” Aguilar said. “She’s not the same person she was.”