Ghosts of Manhattan (29 page)

I nod. It's incredible an entire industry could be in on something this extreme. I can imagine individuals doing crazy stuff, but not institutions all at once.

“The worst is yet to come. So far you have lenders making bad loans because they're greedy and shortsighted. Then you have banks packaging bad loans together and reselling them because they're greedy and stupid. Finally you get credit default swaps. These are so complicated, it took a while for me to understand, but they're basically like insurance and allow two things. First, people who have positions in these mortgage securities that tie up their need for collateral will buy insurance for cheap on the securities so they free up collateral for more leverage. The second thing is more interesting. It allows people to make a bet against
the mortgage market. Right now, for about a hundred grand, I can buy insurance on a one-hundred-million-dollar security. If it fails—when it fails—for a hundred-grand bet, I get paid a hundred million.”

I kind of know this but hadn't thought it all the way through.

“There are a bunch of hedge funds catching on to this already. And the guy at Deutsche Bank too. Part of the reason this can happen is the guys at Moody's and S&P are asleep. They should be rating these securities as high-risk, but they're putting A ratings on them. These may be the worst idiots of all.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Nothing for now. There are a few people who know all this, but mostly people who refuse to believe it.”

“Like Dale.”

He nods. “One thing more. You're sitting on a time bomb. Most of the bad loans started the first half of 2005. These loans typically had a two-year teaser rate on the interest. At the end of two years, the real and much higher interest payments kick in. I'd say around May 2007 the bomb goes off. Things won't be the same around here after that. You should be prepared.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'd like to invest in one of the hedge funds betting against Bear, but I don't care enough about making money to get involved and risk what might happen if I do. I could talk to a journalist, but I won't for the same reason. I'm going to swallow it and walk away just like they want me to.”

Somewhere, someone at Bear has sized Freddie up and knows he's not a fighter. They know he studies risk for a living and never takes any. They didn't care if he discovered his phones were tapped. All the better. That and a compromising photograph from an anonymous source would send him under a rock. “I'm sorry,
Freddie.” He looks battle-weary but not broken. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I just need someone to know. It doesn't matter if it's only one person. I just needed someone to know the things I've told you.”

Thanks a lot. “Okay, Freddie.”

I walk back to the office realizing that I shouldn't be surprised that an industry made up of sleazy people would act sleazy on an institutional level.

I get back to my desk feeling exhausted before the day has even begun. Jerry is in my personal space before I can sit.

“Nick, Jesus. I have the story of the week for you. Maybe the year.”

Jerry never has good stories. I don't know if it's in his retelling or if he just isn't clever enough to recognize the truly good ones. He grabs the back of a chair with one hand and rolls it around in a wide arc toward me in the motion of a rodeo cowboy getting a lasso started, and he plops into the chair flush-faced. All his movements and expressions are happening in double time. “What have you got?”

“You know Oliver Bennett? Investment banker?” Something odd happens in my stomach. The muscles of my midsection grip down tight on whatever it is, trying to control it, like hands clenching a slippery snake.

“Yeah, sure. I know who he is.” I feel confident that whatever is happening to my expression Jerry will interpret as my effort to recall the name Oliver Bennett and put a face with the name.

“My wife's best friend and her husband live next door to Bennett and his wife. Somewhere on Fifth Avenue. And this gal and Bennett's wife have become pretty good friends. They've shared a wall for a bunch of years.”

“Yup.” I try to sound impatient for the story to end but am hanging on each word.

“So late last night my wife's talking with her friend because the friend had just spent a few hours with Bennett's wife, who was beside herself.”

The snake is squirming fiercely in my clenched fists. I know vomiting would help me feel better. “At some point this story starts to get interesting?”

“Believe me.” He leans forward as though someone put a strip steak in front of him. “Bennett's wife gets home last night and there's a voicemail from Bennett calling from his cell phone. He says all the normal stuff—honey I miss you, I love you, be home late tonight, don't wait up. Then he says bye and hangs up the phone, only the moron doesn't hang up his cell phone. The line's still connected and he has no idea.”

This is starting to get good. No wonder Jerry's so excited. He's come across his first good story. “And so he started reading out loud from Verizon's income statement.”

“No. He was with another woman.”

I feel the blood drain from my face as though an SOS had been sent and all the blood raced back to my heart to try to save it. I let out a low whistle and lean back into my chair. I'm light-headed and have lost my balance and need the support of the seat back.

“Not only was he with another woman, but he starts getting into it with the other woman. Immediately.”

Like a punch-drunk prizefighter after a blow, I try to keep my hands up and recover before the next words put me down for good. “Everything into the wife's voicemail?”

“Yup.” Jerry nods, satisfied that he's impressed me.

The image of Oliver with Julia that comes to me is so real and
vivid that I know it had to have happened. There is a level of detail in the clothing and the placement of limbs that I couldn't have painted myself but had to come to me from across the universe. For a moment I wonder if Jerry knows the identity of the other woman and he's come here to torture me or to find out if I even know I've been made a cuckolded man. I look at him with a new interest, as though discovering the rumor of something extraordinary about an ordinary person. But all I see is genuine enthusiasm for chaos. Jerry isn't so sinister as to come torture me under a pretense of ignorance. He doesn't know the woman is Julia. For the moment only I hold that information. “What happened?”

“Right after the dope does his non-hang-up, there's some rustling around and some kissing, heavy panting.” I think of a split screen on TV capturing the simultaneous moments, one side with me at the Cedar Tavern behind a ring of empty pint glasses and the other side of the screen with Oliver and Julia throwing their clothes into piles around the room. I manage to say, “Huh.”

“Then they go on to say they wish they had all night and it's the best sex they've ever had.”

For Oliver this I can believe. Whatever Julia said had to have been just bluster. “This whole thing sounds like an urban myth.”

“Bennett's wife played the whole message for the neighbor.”

“Really.”

“Over and over.” Now Jerry leans back, swallowing the last bite of his strip steak, contented.

“What did the wife do last night?” I'm careful not to say the name Sybil.

“She dead-bolted the door and put a note outside that said, ‘I hope you had fun tonight and don't bother coming home again, you can speak with my divorce attorney.'” Jerry's laugh is the kind of full, loud laugh you hear at a comedy club, with his body
rocking back and his hands moving up as though trying to grab something for balance. Nobody turns to look though. There's already plenty of yelling and other noises on the trading floor.

This story is less than twelve hours old and already is racing around Bear. Jerry is so focused on the telling and not on my reaction that I'm in no danger of being identified as a character in this drama. And even so, the story is so bizarre that there is no inappropriate reaction. I could have passed out cold or jumped up and down on the table or anything between and Jerry would have laughed along with it. “Doesn't sound like there's any coming back from that. It's already playing out in public.”

“This guy Bennett is screwed. This is going to be like lead around his neck.”

“An albatross,” I mindlessly correct, for some reason wanting accuracy.

“Exactly. It'll be the first thing anyone thinks about him the rest of his life. It's that good a story.”

It is sensational, I think. Except for the part about my wife, it's sensational in every way. Oliver blew himself up, but I'm collateral damage.

I don't want Jerry in front of me anymore. I try to think of something to end our conversation and make him go away. “Wow, mission accomplished, Jerry. Good story.”

“Incredible. And the moral of the story is don't be a moron. Hang up your goddamn cell phone.”

Really? Is that the moral? “Yup. It's a new age.”

“Okay, buddy. See you later.” He starts his waddle back to his desk and I swivel my chair to change my view. I make several attempts to process the information and to conclude how I feel so I can pack it away like a fact I would write down and put in a filing cabinet where it can't touch me, but I can't reach an answer. I try
more scientific approaches to solving the puzzle—if-then statements, and
a
plus
b
equals
c.
If Julia slept with Oliver last night, then I am angry. Then I am depressed. Then I am suicidal. Then I am homicidal.

But every time I start down a train of thought, it is obliterated like a TV screen going to white fuzz. My mind isn't functioning right. It's compromised and I notice I'm sweating and my heart is beating fast but not hard. It's beating with quick and tiny pumps that don't seem to move the blood but just blow on it lightly.

I stand up without knowing where to go next, and so I just stand by my chair. My mind is working furiously and producing nothing. I think maybe I should sit back down, but I don't complete the thought and I stand rubbing my hands over the top of my thighs in a slight crouch like a toddler wetting himself.

“You okay?” William calls from across the desk, not with genuine concern but with genuine amusement and a half smile.

This is what I need. Like hearing the siren of an air raid, it means one preprogrammed thing. Evacuate—get to safety. “Fine, be right back.” My hands come off my thighs and start to swing in a steady cadence. I get to the elevators and my dizziness starts to pass and anger plants my two feet and straightens my back. I can remember our couples dinner with Oliver and Sybil when I lashed out at Julia by telling my version of her first sex. It was a weakness of mine to be so defensive and cruel.

Now I feel just as vicious but not weak. This time I'm an avenger. And this time I want Oliver first. I press the up button for the elevator and wait. None of the noise around me registers as anything. I take the elevator to the twenty-seventh floor and walk out to the right, where I know Oliver's office is. My walk is unhurried and my breathing is normal, but I can hear it like a scuba diver. My peripheral vision is gone. I can focus only on a
narrow band in front of me and the sides are a blur. My veins carrying an extra force of blood are squeezing my sight.

Oliver's door is closed and I open it and walk in. “We need to talk.”

His calm charade is stripped away and he looks up frightened and ten years younger. He's sitting in a lounge chair around the front of his desk. “Nick.” His voice cracks. He's panicking. I must look as crazy as I feel.

“Now.”

“Nick, I'm with people.” He gestures with palms up at two junior bankers sitting on his sofa with laps full of binders and loose papers. He offers them up, hoping for a human shield. I only barely notice them.

“They can stay. They'll enjoy this.” I sit on the edge of Oliver's desk. The three of them are sitting around the coffee table. The two junior guys look at each other and I'm looking only at Oliver. He's frozen. He's used to working with information and manipulating situations, but now he has no information. He has no idea what I'm capable of and I know he's worried I'll hurt him. I want to feign a punch and watch him leap out of his chair.

“Nick, please. This is out of line.”

“How was my wife?”

The kid on the sofa closer to the door shoves the papers from his lap to the coffee table. “We can just go.” He starts out of the room with the other right behind and they close the door after them.

Now I stand and walk slowly to Oliver with my arms crossed until I'm standing over him. “How was my wife?”

He's rigid and staring at me, waiting for the first punch and dreading it. I reach down and pull the glasses off his face. His eyes clench but he's otherwise still. With a lens in each hand, I start to bend them back and forth.

“I asked you a question.”

“Did you talk with Julia?”

“Shut up.” The wire bridge snaps and I toss the pieces of his glasses.

“Nick, what are you talking about? I—”

I cuff the back of his head, hard, the way I would hit a forehand. His head rocks forward and his shoulders hunch up, bracing for the next blow. He has gel in his hair, which holds it in an upright position like there's a steady wind blowing on the back of his head.

When another blow doesn't come, he lowers his shoulders and looks up at me. It felt so good to hit him that I know I'm going to do it again.

“Nick, please.”

“Do you love her?”

“What? Nick, wait a minute.”

“Do you?”

He doesn't know the right answer not to get hit. “Nick, I like Julia very much but there's been nothing.”

“You're pathetic. You're just a toy. A plaything to her.” God, I hope I'm right.