Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money (6 page)

He had, however, been given access to many
prison inmates, and there he’d found a large percentage of the
population to be, by his definition, psychopathic.

“As high as 25 percent. That’s no surprise,
of course. Our system is set up to flag psychopaths with an
everyday sort of criminal bent. A psychopath, you see, has no
loyalty to anyone or anything besides themselves. They are all
about ego, incredibly self-centered. And some even seem to believe
that everything they do is right, because what else is there
besides them, do you see?”

I glanced around theatrically at the people
sitting near us, lowered my voice, and, with a smile, said, “By
that definition, a lot of these people — film people — would be
psychopaths.”

He laughed, a good, clear sound. “You’re
right, if that’s all there was. But there’s so much more. We are
not talking about psychotic individuals. These are not people who
are dull-witted or give the appearance of such. The most successful
psychopaths — those that stay undetected throughout most of their
lives — are highly intelligent. They are most often very charming
and they have a knack for manipulating others, getting them to do
what they want and blaming them for their actions. Perhaps even
getting those others to believe that the psychopath is right.”

“And they eat people,” this was out of my
head before I even thought about it. And it earned another bout of
healthy laughter.

Alex nodded, “That is the common
misconception. Born, I think, of fiction. Fiction and films. But,
no, there is no evidence that psychopaths exhibit any more
cannibalistic tendencies than the rest of us. There are many
misconceptions around what constitutes psychopathic behavior. Some
of my colleagues go so far as so to insist that, in our enlightened
day, we can no longer even use the term: that psychopaths are, in
some way, learning or behavior deficient and should be treated as
such. I don’t agree. In my experience, the psychopath — the
true
psychopath — is untreatable. There is something
deficient in their makeup that can not simply be installed, like a
computer program. The true psychopath has no conscience, they are
incapable of feeling remorse or regret. They are predators and, as
such, they predate.”

I reached out absently, towards the rockwork
and plucked a yellow flower from the vine. It was small and
tenacious-looking, as well it must be to not only survive but to
thrive under such unlikely circumstances. When I crushed it
slightly in the palm of my hand I was surprised at the strong
fragrance the little flower released. It occurred to me that things
are not always what they seem. “How would you spot a psychopath?” I
said as I opened my palm and let what was left of the flower drop
to the deck.

If Alex had noticed my wandering attention,
he didn’t comment. “Most likely, you wouldn’t. Not in casual
acquaintance or conversation, such as you and I are having now. As
I’ve said, the psychopath is charming, sometimes even charismatic.
The functioning psychopath will often be married or have other
types of relationships, though they mostly won’t last. And though
they might give the appearance of outward calm, their personal
lives are often on the brink of collapse.” My attention was
beginning to wander, but I struggled not to let it show. Alex went
on.

“He’s often a pathological liar and, to make
matters worse, he’s often easily bored — with his relationships,
with his life. It’s not uncommon to see the individual psychopath’s
style changing drastically over the years, it’s that boredom
factor, I believe. In a psychopath with a criminal bent we’ll see
that manifest itself in a sort of career arc: perhaps stealing from
the corner store when he’s a child, then stealing from department
stores as an adolescent, perhaps moving to cars or other large
ticket items when he’s a teenager and then up to various types of
grand larceny as an adult.”

“But you said you specialize in corporate
psychopaths. How would they differ?”

“Well, they’re in corporations, for one,”
this was a joke, but I could see it was also the truth. “In general
psychopaths appear in society more readily at times of great change
and upheaval. This is true in corporate structures as well as
political ones. In times of crisis, for instance, or when a company
is undergoing great change, that’s when the corporate psychopaths
come to the fore, for fairly obvious reasons.”

We talked a bit longer, but after a while
the good food and the wonderful wine did their work and I began to
get dangerously tired. I told Alex how pleased I’d been to meet
him, he gave me two of his business cards, I wrote my number on the
back of one of them and handed it back. We said a warm and polite
good night, and then I went off to take my leave of Tyler, Tasya,
Emily and the few people with normally colored teeth I’d met and
made a connection with.

In my little house I delighted in the
relative quiet — the footsteps overhead were understandable and
couldn’t, in any case, be helped. I’d brought a full glass of a
lovely red wine downstairs with me, reasoning I could return the
glass at any time and the wine had been flowing freely enough that
I was sure no one would care.

I cracked the new box of candles I’d bought
and placed them strategically around the bathroom, ran myself a
pleasantly stinky bubble bath and sank into the tub with my red
wine and a sigh. I thought about the evening. This bath, sans the
red wine, had been my original Saturday night plan, but for the
interruption of several interesting hours of party going.

All things considered I’d had a pretty good
time. As odd as they were, Tyler and Tasya were very nice, not to
mention model landlords. It had been sweet of them to invite me to
one of their shindigs. Jennifer seemed to be rapidly forming
herself to some sort of little sister mode and I had a feeling I
had made a new friend in Emily with whom, though we didn’t have a
lot in common, I seemed to share a biting sense of humor and a
respect for the ridiculous. I found myself looking forward to a
sort of girl’s night out with Emily and Jennifer and the
possibility of an evening with Alex flitted through my mind, as
well.

As I settled back into the tub, I realized
something else. The feelings of guilt, apprehension and impending
doom that had been following me since the moment that shooter
pulled out his gun weren’t gone. Not even close. But, for the first
time since that awful day, I felt the faintest glimmer of hope.
Like maybe a time
could
come when dark thoughts didn’t bring
in every new day or chase out every night. It was an encouraging
thought. Hopeful. I liked the way it felt.

Chapter Four

No matter what they tell you, it rains in
California. Of course it does. Just not very often. And when it
does, it doesn’t come down in the delicate but consistent sprinkle
I’d grown up with in the Pacific Northwest, or even the persistent
but polite downpour that occasionally overtakes New York. Rain in
Southern California can be traffic stopping. It’s like movie rain,
as from a hose in the sky. It tends not to last long, this opening
up of the heavens, but while it does, it’s intense and if you can
avoid going out in it, you do.

On the morning following Tyler and Tasya’s
barbecue, I got to experience my first serious Southern California
rainfall. It woke me just ahead of 6:30 am, slapping
enthusiastically against my big windows, reverberating off the
decks, pouring down the cliffsides. For a few minutes, I just
snuggled in bed, wide awake and listening to the weather manifest
itself on my little world. It was oddly comforting and frightening
at the same time, the coziness of my little apartment, the anger of
the passing storm.

By 6:30 on the nose I was fully awake and I
realized that, in another and recent life, the opening bell would
just have sounded and I’d be settling in for the trading day: it
was 9:30 in New York. For the first time since my little exodus, I
felt curiosity about some of the securities I’d been tracking and a
small pang in the place where my adult identity lived. I realized
that I missed the feeling of being connected to the
larger-than-life presence of the stock exchange. I felt the way a
weatherman at the top of his game might feel if denied access to
meteorological reports, or a farmer blinded to the condition of the
crops. As I popped out of bed and headed towards my computer, I
told myself that I just wanted to know.

That was how it started, anyway: that rainy
Malibu morning. A day when I’d thought to take a jog up the canyon,
but the weather closed off the option.

It took some time, bringing myself up to
speed. A while before I even encountered enough information to make
me realize it was Sunday and the domestic markets were closed. But
by the end of the day — a day filled with instant soup and steaming
cups of tea — I’d given myself an in-depth course on the stock
market as viewed from a private home, as opposed to the millions of
dollars worth of connectivity, hardware and source reports that had
always been available to me as part of the trading team at a big
brokerage.

It was a different world, it was true. If I
wanted to get the kind of Level II quotes and market executions I
was used to, I’d have to spend more money than I was currently
willing to part with.

I opted instead to use a reliable discount
broker. My trades wouldn’t execute as quickly as they would have
had I been in New York. I told myself this probably wouldn’t
matter: that was the price of not
being
in New York. And,
anyway, the kind of trading I was planning on doing — and that was
the first time I acknowledged it in that way: as a plan — that kind
of trading wouldn’t require the split second timing necessary on
some of the larger deals I’d made on behalf of clients in days gone
by.

By the end of the day a full-scale plan —
complete with account application forms filled out and ready to be
mailed and pads scribbled with calculations — had emerged. Even
after the car and my sojourn at the Beverly Hills Hotel and my
furniture and computer shopping forays, I still had close to
$150,000 cash on hand. That might sound like a lot — and in many
ways, it is — but if you’re just taking from it and not adding to
it, I knew it could dwindle pretty quickly. Sure: if I budgeted for
five years, I could live on thirty grand a year before all that
money would be gone. And five years is a long time. But it wouldn’t
just be the money pouring out when it should have been seeping in,
it would be the panic I suspected would approach as I watched my
options — and my cash — dwindling.

The scribbles on the pad told me that, if I
was careful and mindful and watchful, I
should
be able to
make five grand a month easily — or $60,000 a year. I knew as well
as anyone that “should” and “could” and even “would” as used in
relation to the stock market can be completely dangerous words.
Especially since all of your plans and schemes and calculations
about the market must always be based on past performance. But if
it was easy, mindless and obvious, everyone would be doing it. I
was, in effect, planning on investing in my training, acumen and
over 10 years experience as a broker for one of the top firms in
the world. The investment was my life savings and my time. The
stakes were, in one way, my peace of mind. The worst case scenario?
I’d lose all my money and be forced to get a job.

I determined to put it all into motion
quickly, before I had a chance to change my mind. In addition to an
online trading account, I still needed to research various channels
of information to get me to a speed that was in any way comparable
to the things I’d always taken for granted at Merriwether Bailey.
But by the end of that rainy Sunday I knew that Tyler and
Jennifer’s comments had either been prescient or inspiring: I was
going to be a day trader.

This news seemed momentous enough to demand
sharing but I realized I didn’t have anyone to tell, which left me
feeling pathetic again. I saw Jack’s face, jovial, welcoming,
laughing as I’d so often seen it. I thought of calling my mother in
Seattle, but since I’d just talked to her the evening before I
ruled this out: she’s astute enough that a phone call like that
would have made her realize how sad and needy I currently was. That
meant calling my sisters was out, as well. A call to either of them
would get back to mom which would put her on the alert. And,
anyway, though I loved my sisters, it had been years since we’d had
the type of telephone closeness that some siblings share.

I was sitting there, feeling sorry for
myself, when the phone rang, nearly causing me to jump out of my
chair.

“Carter,” I fairly shouted into the phone,
reverting to habit in my uncertainty.

“Madeline?” It was a woman’s voice and I
recognized it instantly. Realistically, there weren’t a lot of
people it could be.

“Hey Emily, yeah it’s me.”

“Funny way to answer the phone on a Sunday
night,” she said pleasantly.

“Old habits die hard.”

“You in work mode?”

“I guess. Yeah, I am.” What the hell, I
thought. I’d been wanting to tell someone. “I’ve decided to do it:
I’m going to be a day trader.”

“Ah... cool.” Which reminded me: the whole
stock market scene is
so
not a chick thing. It’s why I’ve
had so few friends outside of the industry over the years. A lot of
people can’t align what I do with what I project. Like I should
have close-cropped hair and wear lumpy pinstriped suits because I
trade. “Anyway,” she continued, “work is
not
what I was
calling about.”

“Unless you were hoping for a hot stock tip,
I didn’t think so anyway,” I grinned.

I could hear her smile back. “So you and the
kid want to do a movie next week?”