Rigged (11 page)

N
OVEMBER
23, 2002

I
could get used to this,” Serena said, and David squeezed her hands through her wool mittens, going in for a little kiss.

“See, I told you window-shopping could be almost as satisfying as the real thing. Who needs stuff anyway? It would just get in the way of our squalor.”

Serena laughed, then pulled him along after her to look at the next store display. David nearly dropped his hat—a Russian job, rabbit fur on top and earflaps that made him look like something out of a 1960s cartoon—and had to twist his body to avoid running into a pair of foreign tourists in matching bright blue puffy coats.

“Slow down,” he said. “The windows aren’t going anywhere.”

With his free hand, he pulled his hat down tighter against his head. The air was crisp and cool, and it was one of those bright fall afternoons that smelled and felt and sounded like New York. He and Serena were strolling hand in hand down Fifth Avenue—the crowded blocks right up near the park—people watching, window-shopping, decompressing from what had been a tense few weeks in
their lives and their relationship. And for the first time in days they were both smiling; the reflection David had seen dancing across the glass facade outside of Trump Tower had filled him with pure joy. Serena laughing in the white coat with fur trim that he had given her for her last birthday, a brightly colored scarf wrapped around her throat; he chasing after her, in the foolish hat and one of his father’s old gray overcoats, the collar turned up and the buttons running all the way down past his knees.

David was almost beginning to feel human again. After an entire month submerged in the world of high-stakes oil, this was the first afternoon he had spent away from the exchange—and he was loving every minute of it. More important, he was beginning to feel like part of a couple again after four weeks of being an invisible man—coming home after Serena was asleep, leaving before she woke up, every phone conversation becoming an argument about how much he was working and how much more of this she thought she could take, the sort of conversations that David could imagine happening all over the New York financial world. The bottom line was, to succeed in David’s game, you had to be smart, you had to be determined—and you had to put in the time. You needed someone by your side—and she had to be the most understanding girl on the planet.

Serena was understanding, but certainly no saint; she’d gone after David and his work hours on more than one occasion, to the point where he’d even begun to wonder if he was making sacrifices that could cause a real rift in their relationship. But the more he got inside the inner workings of the Merc, the more he knew that he belonged there, that he had made the right decision that late night after the meeting at Morton’s.

The truth was, he had become more Reston’s kid than Giovanni’s. Sure, Giovanni handed him the odd assignment from time to time, but most of David’s days were spent on projects that came directly from Reston’s office. The fact that Giovanni was almost never at the Merc—or, for that matter, in the country, as far as David could tell—was part of the reason things seemed to work
that way, but David was also beginning to believe that Giovanni had intentionally delegated much of the Merc’s business to Reston. It was Reston who came up with the topics for the board meetings. It was Reston who had drafted most of the recent amendments to the exchange’s manifesto. And it was Reston who arbitrated the ugly issues that came up from the trading floor—almost on a daily basis, and almost always involving Gallo or his extensive network of influence.

Giovanni was still David’s idol, but Reston had become his boss. And the thing was, even after a month, Reston still hadn’t warmed to him. No matter how hard David tried, he’d been unable to earn Reston’s complete trust. It was driving David crazy.

He had never worked so hard in his life: ten-hour days, seven days a week, learning the ins and outs of the energy exchange, following the traders from the floor to the upstairs lounge to the bars, sometimes to nightclubs and strip joints—just about everywhere. Sometimes those excursions lasted all night—and once in a while even longer. In fact, one party the traders threw at Crowbar, the legendary Manhattan nightclub, had gone on until noon the next day and cost Vitzi and his friends almost a quarter-million dollars. David had been there until the last guest had stumbled away—because every minute he was with the traders was a minute he was learning about the Merc.

He had truly become Reston’s guinea translator: every time Reston wanted to know what the traders on the floor would think of a project he was about to implement, he’d come to David—and David would give him the traders’ perspective with near-perfect accuracy.

And yet Reston remained detached and even skeptical—and his attitude toward David often bordered on palpable disdain. Sometimes Reston went so far as to have David bring a notepad to work with him; he’d make David follow a few steps behind, taking notes like a secretary.
Write and walk,
he’d tell David as they went,
that’s how you learn in this business
.

It was more than just the odd crack about David’s schooling
or his lack of energy experience; the Texan simply didn’t seem to believe that David was there for the long haul and acted as though he knew that, sooner or later, David would decide he’d had enough—and bolt.

The thought brought David back to the newest story from the Merc floor—about a kid named Andre Donneli. Donneli had been trading heating oil for two years, but recently hit a slump. Then one day just a week ago, he made a particularly bad trade and lost over six hundred thousand dollars. Story was, he had walked right off the trading floor, gotten into his car, and just driven away. Nobody had seen or heard from him since.

David had no idea what it would be like to lose six hundred thousand dollars in an afternoon. Hell, with his salary and debts, he was barely going to make it through the Christmas season—and the way Serena was peering into the window of the Gucci store a few feet ahead, he wasn’t even sure he’d make it through the rest of his day off. But no matter what happened, he was determined to stick it out at the Merc. Reston be damned—

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a dull vibrating noise coming from somewhere deep in his overcoat. Serena turned away from the Gucci window long enough to glare at him, but he just shrugged, digging between the buttons of his coat.

“Serena…,” he started to explain, but she just rolled her eyes and turned back to the window.

He pulled the phone free. Though the display told him it was an unlisted number, he had more than a feeling that the call was work-related. The hours he had been keeping had pretty much chased away most of his friends outside of the Merc, along with almost all aspects of his social life. His cell phone had become an extension of that fucking fortress in Lower Manhattan. He expected the call was from either Harriet or one of the traders; the only reason he’d taken the afternoon off in the first place was that Reston was out of the country, speaking alongside Giovanni at some conference in Europe. David had assumed that an entire ocean would protect him, at least for a few hours.

“David here,” he said, pressing the phone to his ear.

To his surprise, it was indeed Reston. Voice partially muffled by the distance, even though he obviously had an international cell phone.
Damn that fucking technology,
David thought to himself as he took a step away from Serena so she wouldn’t have to hear him grovel—in case he felt the need.

“David, I’m really in deep shit here.”

David almost dropped the phone as a pair of Japanese women carrying twice their weight in shopping bags bustled past. He had never heard Reston sound so frazzled before, and it could only be bad news for him.

“Where are you?” David asked.

“Amsterdam. I’m here with Giovanni, and I’m giving a keynote speech at some fucking conference at eight
A.M.
tomorrow morning.”

David took a deep breath. He was really afraid of where this was heading, especially as Reston’s voice pitched upward an octave on the other end of the line.

“David, I left all my notes on the airplane. I’ve got nothing. I need you to write a new speech for me.”

David’s eyes went wide.
And on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, his one day off from work.

“On what subject?” he finally asked.

“The North Sea crude market. I know, it’s fucking arcane, but that’s what the conference is about. I need ten pages, stat. And don’t forget, it’s six hours ahead here—David, can I count on you?”

David could hear it in Reston’s words—the Texan didn’t believe that he could. David felt his eyes narrow, his grip on the phone tightening.

“Nick, I’ll get it done.”

David hung up the phone and shoved it back into his coat. Then he stood there, buffeted by the continued stream of pass-ersby, cursing to himself.
The North Sea crude market?
He didn’t know a damn thing about the North Sea, other than it ran along
the side of Norway; he certainly didn’t know anything about its energy market. Hell, it would take him a few minutes to find the place on a map.

But he wasn’t going to let Reston down. He was no Andre Donneli—hell, he didn’t even own a car. He wouldn’t give the skeptical Texan the satisfaction of being right about him.

He slowly walked back to the Gucci window, where Serena was pretending not to have watched the entire phone conversation. He stood next to her, silently counting the seconds, when finally she turned to face him.

“I know.” She sighed. “Go, do what you have to do.”

Before he could say anything in response, she grabbed the collar of his overcoat with one hand and pulled him in close. But instead of going for a kiss, she dug into his inside pocket with her free hand and deftly retrieved his wallet.

“But I’m taking your credit card. The longer you take, the more I’m going to spend.”

David grinned at her. Then he went in for that kiss—and took off at full speed down Fifth Avenue.

A
s David’s index finger plunged toward his laptop’s keyboard, he felt a rush of adrenaline that was completely out of place in the back corner of a Midtown Starbucks. Of course, the Starbucks itself was at least partially to blame. The Goth chick behind the counter—the one with too much eye shadow and a pierced bottom lip—should certainly have cut him off after his third latte. Instead, she had happily cooked up a fourth—and he was really flying now, every nerve in his body going off in a wondrous symphony of caffeine-fueled bliss. Not only was he hopped up on the finest coffee to ever come out of Seattle; he had just finished what he believed to be the best presentation he had ever written. And at the moment he did not believe there were any words in the English language more beautiful or poetic than the two that now appeared on the computer screen in front of him:

Message Sent

He leaned back from the laptop and stretched his arms above his head. He could hardly believe that he’d done it: fourteen pages,
ten accompanying visual slides, and hell, enough information about North Sea crude to get Reston elected to Norway’s Board of Trade. It was an amazing accomplishment considering that six hours ago David could not have told Reston what Norway’s capital was, or even if Norway
had
any oil exports at all. Turns out it did; in fact, Norway was sitting on more than half of the entire European continent’s oil reserves. Most of Norway’s economy consisted of oil exportation—but that would soon change. North Sea exports were decreasing at a rapid rate, creating an opportunity for gradual replacement of the crude contract—probably with a different form of crude exported from the Middle East.

And on top of that, Norway’s capital was Oslo.

David smiled, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. The lighting in the Starbucks was abysmal; when David had first chosen the little table in the back corner of the crowded coffee shop, there had been plenty of sunlight streaming in through the glass picture windows at the front of the building. But the sun had vanished hours ago, along with most of the other customers. Anyone foolish enough to crave Starbucks after nine at night was either trading Japanese futures or researching Norwegian crude—in short, desperate for free Internet access and the strength to stay up all night if need be.

But the project Reston had assigned David had come together much faster than he had expected, and now he wasn’t going to have to stay up all night after all. Really, it had been like an assignment one would get at Harvard Business School—only at HBS David had been forced to deal with overachieving “study partners,” because at business school there really was no “I” in “Team.” In the real world, David had discovered, teams were all “I”—and little else. Reston didn’t want them to work together on the speech—he wanted David to deliver it, lock, stock, and smoking PowerPoint slides.

David shut his laptop with a flourish and rose from his seat. There were muscle spasms going off in both of his calves, and his heart felt like it was trying to tango up his esophagus—but
he’d delivered all right, and with plenty of time to spare. Nine
P.M.
in New York, which meant that it was three in the morning in Amsterdam. Reston was probably still sleeping off whatever volume of scotch he’d managed to consume since they’d last spoken. Despite the time, David doubted he himself would have the luxury of any sleep, considering how much caffeine was in his system, but at least Serena would get to see him for a few more hours before another week at the Merc began—and the invisible man returned.

T
O
D
AVID’S SURPRISE,
even a near-lethal dose of caffeine had been no match for the collected exhaustion of a month of seventy-hour weeks. In fact, he’d only lasted a few minutes longer than Serena, falling into a deep sleep while her head was still resting on his chest, sometime around midnight. A sleep so deep, he’d have probably slept right through the incessant braying of his cell phone had Serena not yanked the pillow out from under his head to cover her own ears against the sound.

“Will you please do something about that?” she said as she curled herself into a ball on the bed next to him. He blinked rapidly, trying to scare the sleep from his eyes. Then he pulled himself to a sitting position. His cell phone stopped for a second—then started up again, its polyphonic wail cutting through the dark bedroom. David searched for the digital clock on the small table by his bed. Four
A.M.
Not even his mother would call him at 4:00
A.M.
unless it was an emergency—and that was saying something.

He grimaced as he slipped out from under the comforter and padded across the cold hardwood floor. He found his jeans by the closet door and clumsily searched the pockets for his phone.

“What is wrong with these people?” Serena mumbled as David finally yanked the phone free. “Don’t they ever sleep?”

David grunted a response. “Yeah, in caves. Hanging from the ceiling. I promise to keep this short.”

He angrily pressed the receive button and jammed the phone against his ear.

“Yes?” he said, refusing to try to find more appropriate words at four in the morning. This time he wasn’t surprised to hear Reston’s voice on the other end of the line.

“David, it’s Nick. I’m on an airplane, on my way back to New York. Giovanni’s with me, and we’ve got about five minutes before takeoff.”

David fought the urge to chuck the phone against the wall.

“That’s great, Nick. Be sure to enjoy the in-flight movie.”

“Shut up, kid. Listen, I’m going to ask you a question, and I’ll know right away if you’re lying.”

David sighed. He didn’t know what game Reston was up to now, but he had no choice but to play along.

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“Did you copy that speech from somewhere?”

This time David really did come inches away from chucking the phone.

“Fuck you, Nick.”

“Seriously, kid. I’m asking you a question.”

David clenched his teeth and lowered his voice. “No, I did not copy that speech.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. When Reston finally came back on, his tone had changed in a way that David had never heard before.

“I’ve been underestimating you, kid.”

David could tell that, for once, Reston was entirely sincere. Despite the hour, despite his anger at having been awakened by the phone call, David felt a thrill move through him. He realized, with a start, that it was the most meaningful compliment he’d received since leaving business school.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Reston continued, in that same respectful tone, “keep your schedule free. We have something important to discuss.”

With that, the phone went dead. David placed it carefully on
the nearby dresser and padded back across the hardwood floor to his bed. He didn’t get under the comforter; instead he sat on the edge, thinking about the phone call. Then he smiled.

Finally, he had broken through Reston’s skepticism. He couldn’t be sure, but from the Texan’s tone, he had a pretty good feeling that from now on things were going to be different.

It wasn’t until the next afternoon that David realized just
how
different. In fact, the next afternoon David discovered that his life was about to change—in ways he could never have imagined.