A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism (3 page)

The room's main feature was a large framed reproduction of a de Kooning painting mounted on the wall opposite the window. It came into Gabriel's vision like a giant fireball, all fuchsia and burgundy and canary, but forced flat. It was evidently meant to be taken as an advertisement of Grayson's unique manliness. The only other flair on display was a complementarily reddish world map on an adjacent wall. On closer inspection, Gabriel saw that the countries in the map were shaded by their infant-mortality rates. Africa was brick red; Asia a wacky multihued camouflage; and most of South America a healthy, if variegated, pink—except for Bolivia, which was arterial crimson (seventy to a hundred deaths per one thousand births). The map was doubtlessly intended to convey Grayson's concern for humanity, and provide something to contrast and complement the de Kooning. Grayson could, if outflanked by a journalist, point to the map and talk earnestly about how he put it there to remind himself of the mission's importance. Gabriel was still staring at the map when he heard "Hello!" and turned to shake Grayson's extended hand, noticing, with relief, that Fiona was not with him. She had probably dashed off to another lunch with another VIP.

Gabriel had found that when interviewing a man older and more accomplished than he, it was best to stare into his eyes during the handshake and say, "A pleasure," and nothing else. He did this now. Grayson nodded once in reply and moved swiftly to his chair while motioning for Gabriel to sit. Every gesture was impatient and alert; he whizzed, he zoomed, but the commotion didn't disturb his crisp appearance. He wore a dark suit with a bright yellow pocket square and a matching tie, its double Windsor indecently engorged. His face was aquiline, almost aerodynamic, a human javelin. His hair had that uncanny quality common among politicians of looking dry but remaining set in a perfect part; if there was no gel, Gabriel wondered, what kept it in place?

"Are you adjusting to the altitude? It can be a killer!" Grayson flashed a row of teeth that were as pale and shapely as dominoes. He had a powerful, orangey tan. Gabriel recognized beneath the glossy veneer a blinkered austerity baked into the man; the impression issued, specifically, from the healthy and grim folds in his brow. He had been at it for a while, and had learned to marshal his sympathies carefully.

"The altitude was painful on the first day, but I'm fine now," Gabriel said.

"Well, you're extremely young. Midtwenties?" he asked, but did not wait for a response. "Me, I've been here two years and I still get headaches all the time."

"Are you sure it's the altitude?"

The coif shook when he chuckled. Grayson was Irish, but with all his years in D.C. and the years abroad on mission, his accent was neutral. Like Pierce Brosnan's. Grayson pursed his lips. "And you're with—"

"I'm freelance, actually," Gabriel said. "I used to write for IBI."

"That's right! I just had lunch with Fiona; she said that you're a very serious young journalist and I should watch myself with you." The creases at the sides of his eyes folded in another grin. Gabriel detected a hint of alcohol on Grayson's breath and wondered what they were drinking at lunch.

Grayson glanced at his monitor and clicked his mouse. "Excuse me, I'm expecting an e-mail." He clicked the mouse again, squinted at the screen. "Nope! Still not there! So"—he turned back to Gabriel—"what do you want to know?"

"I was wondering if you have a copy of the Article Four report?"

"I practically wrote it."

"Can you show it to me?"

Grayson smiled calmly. "As you probably already know, the only people with the power to disseminate it are the president, vice president, finance minister, and head of the central bank. There might be a couple other copies floating around, but I wouldn't know how to find them."

"Would you be willing to tell me which one of those four men you think I should focus my energies on?"

"To be honest, I don't think any of them will collapse under the pressure of your charm. If you had impressive credentials, maybe. Fiona probably has a copy."

"She does," Gabriel said. Then, switching gears, he asked, "What about this rumor of a revolution? You think Rodríguez will manage to finish his term?"

"It's funny you mention that. Yesterday, I had no idea. But now I can say that there is almost zero chance that Rodríguez will get kicked out."

"What makes you so certain?"

"Again, I can't say, but Fiona can. She didn't tell you?"

Gabriel shook his head.

"Well," Grayson said and took a deep breath. He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. "What else do you want to know?"

"Let's see." Gabriel opened his steno pad and started flipping pages. While surveying Grayson's office, he had noticed that the windows were made of tinted two-inch-thick bulletproof glass, and he wanted to ask why, if the IMF was there to help, its representatives needed bulletproof glass, but that wouldn't have been useful. Instead, he glanced over his questions. None of them looked remotely interesting. As he sat there trying to think of something else to say, he could hear through the thick glass, very faintly, nine stories below, a mob chanting for death to the IMF.

"What about natural gas, will it—" He was about to ask if it would be renationalized, but he knew the answer. It was precisely the kind of question that would be valuable to a journalist, because it elicited concise and information-rich quotes, but it just invited another well-educated guess about what might happen, so in the end it was irrelevant to a hedge fund. If Grayson couldn't provide Gabriel with any real information, any otherwise unavailable information, they had nothing else to discuss. Gabriel had come to find out if Grayson could help him get the A-IV, and he had his answer.

"Will it what?" Grayson said.

"Do you know the vice president?"

Grayson chuckled, glanced at his monitor again; this time he checked the time in the lower right-hand corner. "He's not going to want to talk to you either."

Fiona answered the door in her bathrobe again, her BlackBerry back at her ear. She stepped aside and Gabriel entered. She threw her robe off, as before, and wandered the room. She was talking to the person on the other end about Grayson McMillan, who was, she said, "an impeccably dressed divorcé from Northern Ireland. He's a doll, flirtatious, and witty as hell."

The Grayson gossip continued thusly while Gabriel sat on the sofa, looking over notes and pretending not to eavesdrop. When he glanced up, he could see that there was a little cellulite on her thighs after all, though no more than he would expect on a girl his own age. For a forty-five-year-old lush, she looked remarkably, almost unbelievably, fit. She had an impressive strut too, he thought, and he wondered if her success as a journalist had anything to do with her sexual prowess. There had to be a reason other than talent and hard work; he hoped there was another reason. Fiona certainly brandished her sexuality in a bold way. She wore candy-colored thongs and had a fresh Brazilian wax, but it all registered several shades sadder than sexy. In bed she whimpered.

Eventually, she hung up and flopped across her bed. Gabriel didn't look up from his pad.

"Romeo, O Romeo?" she called.

"Are you doing a bachelor-of-the-year piece on Grayson?"

"
Jealousy!
" she chirped, as if locating a lost earring. She jumped up and bounded over. She tossed herself into the nearby armchair and planted her feet up on the edge of the coffee table. Her eggs were still there, still untouched. If the ashtray had been emptied, it had filled back up. Fiona put her face into a fake frown. "Tell me more, Gaby."

He smiled, put the pad aside. "It's not jealousy."

"Well, lover boy, if you insist on knowing, my boss is a bachelorette as well, and I like to let her know when there's a peacock in the chicken coop."

"Oh. So why aren't you telling her about the young freelance writer?"

She winced a little, as if noticing an unidentified foul odor emanating from the refrigerator. She wasn't going to answer, or he didn't want to wait for her answer, so he said, "And how else was Grayson?"

"Fun, but useless. He's a pro. And you? How did he treat you?"

"Same." He made himself smile. "No, it was bland, really—my fault, though; I had nothing I wanted to ask him. But he had this map on his wall that caught my attention."

"Oh, is
that
what you're writing about, his map?"

"I am," he said and laughed at himself. It was true: he had managed to squeeze a description of the map into his report, despite the fact that there was probably nothing on earth that the hedge fund could care less about.

"By the way," he said, "Grayson mentioned that you have it on good authority that there isn't going to be a revolution."

"He said that?"

He was tempted to ask her why she was telling Grayson her secrets, not sharing them with him, but he didn't want to seem insecure. And having been rebuffed twice already that day, he knew she was his last hope of finding out something valuable. He needed to placate her. He swallowed his pride and went for a flip tone. "He did say that. Why would he say that?"

"I don't know. Because he's a mind reader?" She threw her sinewy legs over his thighs. Her body language was adolescent. The exuberance came off as prepubescent, and her flirtation was often PG-13, but she was doubtlessly aiming for a pornographic conclusion. That seemed to be the nature of the transaction. It was his duty to negotiate this maze of innuendo without embarrassing himself or her, but it was his job—put bluntly—to extract information from her at any cost. So he said, "Now, Ms. Musgrave, I would be sorely disappointed if I found out you were withholding something."

She shrugged, batted her eyelashes. "Can I really tell you?"

Holding on to his composure, he said, "I won't breathe a word."

Her smile lost its innocence in two steps; it departed her eyes first, and then the rest of her face. She was back within her professional station, even with her StairMastered legs slung across his lap. She blinked once, twice, considering it. He recalibrated his own attitude to meet her at this new place. "I guess it doesn't matter," she said, to his immense relief. "The article will be in tomorrow's paper." She pulled her legs off his lap, sat straight up, lit a cigarette. She had a long drag, exhaled a long cone of smoke across the room. "We did a poll."

"The
Journal
? In Bolivia?"

She nodded. "Evo Morales has a fifteen-point lead."

"Evo?" He was stunned.

She winked. "Didn't see that coming, did you?"

He stood. "Jesus. I thought he'd be, if anything, fifteen points behind."

"Likewise."

"Are you sure?"

She had a drag, nodding. "And tomorrow," she said, smoke jetting from her mouth, "once we publish the results, and his angry constituents realize that their man is going to win, they'll stop rioting. So that's why there won't be any revolution. Not now, anyway."

Aware that the election was in mid-December, the inauguration in January, Gabriel—aiming for nonchalance—said, "You going to stick around to see it through?"

"Would you miss me if I went?" she said, and laughed hard, and her laughter disintegrated into a tar-shifting cough. He waited, watching her curl inward, flexing. It was a brutal event and he had a merciless vantage point. Watching it made him feel more compassion for her, if less desire. She was withered within, he knew, damaged right beneath the skin and straight through to her core. Once she'd recovered, she looked at him as if nothing had happened and said, "Let's get a drink."

Severo poured, and Gabriel excused himself, went to the empty side of the restaurant. His report was only half finished and wouldn't be done in time. Fiona's piece would render his findings obsolete anyway. A bitter consolation. Regardless, he needed to tell Priya the results of the poll. When word got out that Evo Morales was going to win the election, stock prices for mining and gas companies with significant operations in Bolivia would take a hit on the fear that Evo would nationalize the industries. If Priya found out about it first, she could start short-selling the vulnerable companies before anyone else and make a profit.

He pushed Call. A long hissing pause, then it rang. She picked up immediately. "Gabriel?"

"Yes."

"And bearing exciting news, I presume."

"Yes. Evo Morales is going to win the election."

A pause. She was typing. Eventually, she stopped typing and said, "What makes you think that?"

He told her the rest. She resumed typing and kept it up as they talked, which made the rhythm of the conversation strange. During the pauses, he just stood there, staring out across the valley, listening to the clacking keys. At the end, she said, "We'll see how this plays. Let's talk tomorrow."

He put the cell phone back in his pocket and went to the bar, where Severo was howling with laughter at something Fiona had said. Gabriel sat down and felt her hand slide up his thigh.

The cocaine belonged to a Canadian journalist named Trent who smoked thick cigars, wore an immaculate Panama hat, and seemed to aspire to be a bland Hunter'S. Thompson. He wrangled five male and two female journalists from the Lookout, including Gabriel and Fiona, and they adjourned to Fiona's suite. Gabriel spent the next several hours watching the others snort rocky lines off Fiona's glass coffee table. He talked to whichever wide-eyed enthusiast happened to be sitting in the armchair nearest his spot on the sofa, a list of people that at no point included Fiona herself.

"Straight from the source," Trent had said of the cocaine. "Completely organic too; we're supporting local farmers." This was a joke, of sorts—the joke being that it was a tree-hugging liberal thing to do, snort cocaine in the plush suite of a five-star hotel in the poorest country in South America. Buried shallowly within the joke, Gabriel saw a squirmy urge to make nice with the journalists' tricky white-liberal guilt and the sense that they were only the latest foreign buccaneers to raid that terrain. And if it seemed like hyperbole to consider journalism a kind of plundering, the purity of that distinction was smudged by the constant presence of Bolivian poverty and the equally constant reminders of the journalists' own relative prosperity.