Sons of Fortune (33 page)

Once
their passports and tickets had been checked, Nat didn’t bother to stop at
duty-free, as he continued heading for the check-in desks.

“Bombay?”
hazarded Su Ling as they passed gate number one.

“I
don’t think there are many of my old lovers to be found in India,” Nat assured
her as they passed gates two, three and four.

Su
Ling continued to study the posted names as they walked toward each gate.
“Singapore, Manila, Hong Kong?”

“No,
no, and no,” he repeated as they passed gates eleven, twelve and thirteen.

Su
Ling remained silent as they continued on-Bangkok, Zurich, Paris, London,
before Nat came to a halt at gate twenty-one.

“Are
you traveling to Rome and Venice with us, sir?” asked the lady behind the Pan
Am desk.

“Yes,”
said Nat. “The tickets are booked in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright,” he
said as he turned to face his wife.

“You
know something, Mr. Cartwright,” Su Ling said, “
you
are a very special man.”

Over
the next four weekends Annie lost count of the number of potential homes the
two of them viewed. A few were too large, some too small, while others were in
a district they didn’t want to live in, and when they were in a neighborhood
they liked, they simply couldn’t afford the asking price, even with Alexander
Dupont
and Bell’s assistance. Then one Sunday afternoon,
they found exactly what they were looking for in Ridgewood, and within ten
minutes of walking in the front door they had nodded to each other behind the
agent’s back.

Annie
immediately phoned her mother. “It’s absolutely ideal,” she enthused. “It’s in
a quiet neighborhood with more churches than bars, more schools than movie
houses and it’s even got a river meandering right through the center of town.”

“And
the price?” said Martha.

“A
little more than we wanted to pay, but the realtor is expecting a call from my
agent Martha Gates; if you can’t get the price down, Mom, I don’t know anyone
who can.”

“Did
you follow my instructions?” asked Martha.

“To the letter.
I told
the agent we were both schoolteachers, because you said they always hike the
price for lawyers, bankers and doctors. He looked suitably disappointed.”

Fletcher
and Annie spent the afternoon strolling around the town, praying that Martha
could get them a sensible deal, because even the station was only a short drive
from their front door.

After
four long weeks finalizing the deal, Fletcher, Annie and Lucy Davenport spent
their first night at their new home in Ridgewood, New Jersey on October 1,
1974. No sooner had they closed the front door than Fletcher announced, “Do you
think you can leave Lucy with your mother for a couple of weeks?”

“It
doesn’t worry me having her around while we’re getting the house in shape,”
said Annie.

“That
wasn’t what I had in mind,” said Fletcher. “I just thought it was time we had a
holiday, a sort of second honeymoon.”

“But...”

“No
buts.
we’re
going to do something you’ve always talked
about-go to Scotland and trace our ancestors, the Davenports and the
Gateses
.”

“When
were you thinking of leaving?” asked Annie.

“Our
plane takes off at eleven tomorrow morning.”

“Mr.
Davenport, you do like to give a girl a lot of notice, don’t you?”

“What
are you up to?” asked Su Ling as she leaned across to watch her husband
checking over a column of figures on the financial pages of the Asian Business
News.

“Studying
currency movements over the past year,”

Nat
replied.

“Is
that how Japan fits into the equation?” inquired Su Ling.

“Sure
is,” said Nat, “because the yen is the only major currency in the past ten
years that has consistently risen in value against the dollar, and several
economists are predicting that the trend will continue for the foreseeable
future. They claim the yen is still massively undervalued. If the experts are
correct, and you’re right about Japan’s expanding role in new technology, then
I think I’ve identified a good investment in an uncertain world.”

“Is
this to be the subject of your business school thesis?”

“No,
however that’s not a bad idea,” said Nat.

“I
was thinking of making a small currency investment and if I prove to be right,
I’ll notch it up a few dollars each month.”

“A
bit of a risk, isn’t it?”

“If
you hope to make a profit, there’s bound to be a certain amount of risk
involved.

The
secret is to eliminate the elements that add to that risk.” Su Ling didn’t look
convinced. “I’ll tell you what I have in mind,” said Nat. “I’m currently
earning $400 a month as a captain in the army. If I sell those dollars
a year in advance for yen at today’s rate, then convert
them
back in twelve months’ time, and if the dollar-yen exchange rate continues as
it has done for the past seven years, I should make an annual profit of around
$400 to $500.”

“And
if it goes the other way?” said Su Ling.

“But
it hasn’t for the past seven years.”

“But
if it did?”

“I’d
lose around $400, or a month’s salary.”

“I’d
rather have a guaranteed paycheck each month.”

“You
can never create capital on earned income,” said Nat. “Most people live well
beyond their means, and their only form of savings ends up as life insurance or
bonds, both of which can be decimated by inflation. Ask my father.”

“But
what do we need all this money for?” asked Su Ling.

“For
my lovers,” said Nat.

“And
where are all these lovers?”

“Most
of them are in Italy, but there are a few others hanging around in the world’s
major capitals.”

“So
that’s why we’re going to Venice?”

“And Florence, Milan and Rome.
When I left them, many were in the nude, and one of the things I most liked
about them is they don’t age, other than to crack a little if they’re exposed
to too much sunlight.”

“Lucky
women,” said Su Ling. “And do you have a favorite?”

“No,
I’m fairly promiscuous, though if I were forced to choose, I confess there is a
lady in Florence who resides in a small palace, whom I adore, and am longing to
meet up with again.”

“Is
she a virgin, by any chance?” inquired Su Ling.

“You’re
bright,” said Nat.

“Goes
by the name of Maria?”

“You’ve
found me out, although there
are
a lot of Marias in
Italy.”

“The Adoration of the Magi, Tintoretto.”

“No.”

“Bellini, Mother and Child?”

“No,
they still reside at the Vatican.”

Su
Ling went silent for a moment as the stewardess asked them to fasten their
seatbelts. “Caravaggio?”

“Very good.
I left
her in the
Pitti
Palace on the right-hand wall of the
third-floor gallery.

She
promised she would be faithful until I returned.”

“And
there she will remain, because such a lover would cost you more than $400 a
month, and if you’re still hoping to go into politics, you won’t even be able
to afford the frame.”

“I
won’t be going into politics until I can afford the whole gallery,” Nat assured
his wife.

Annie
began to appreciate why the British could be so dismissive about American
tourists who somehow managed to cover London, Oxford, Blenheim and Stratford in
three days. It didn’t help when she observed busloads of tourists descending on
the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, take their seats, and then leave
during the intermission, to be replaced by another busload of her countrymen.
Annie wouldn’t have thought it possible, if she hadn’t returned after the
intermission to find the two rows in front of her full of people with familiar
accents whom she had never seen before. She wondered if those who attended the
second act told those who watched the first act what had happened to Rosen-
crantz
and Guildenstern or was that busload already on its
way back to
London?

Annie
felt less guilty after they’d spent a leisurely ten days in Scotland. They
enjoyed being in Edinburgh for the Festival, where they could choose between
Marlowe and Mozart, or Pinter and Orton.

However,
for both of them, the highlight of the trip was the long drive up and down the
two coastlines. The scenery was so breathtaking they thought there could be no
more beautiful landscape on earth.

In
Edinburgh, they tried to trace the Gates and the Davenport lineage, but all
they ended up with was a large colored chart of the clans, and a skirt made in
the garish Davenport tartan, which Annie doubted she would ever wear again once
they were back in the States.

Fletcher
fell asleep within minutes of their plane taking off from Edinburgh for New
York.

When
he woke, the sun that he’d seen dip on one side of the cabin still hadn’t
risen
on the other. As they began their descent into
JFK-ANNIE couldn’t get used to it not being called
Idlewilde
-all
Annie could think about was being reunited with Lucy, while Fletcher anxiously
looked forward to his first day with Alexander
Dupont
and Bell.

When
Nat and Su Ling returned from Rome, they were also exhausted, but the change of
plans could not have been more worthwhile. Su Ling had relaxed more and more as
each day passed; in fact during the second week, neither of them even mentioned
Korea. They agreed on their flight home to tell Su Ling’s mother that they had
honeymooned in Italy. Only Tom would be puzzled.

While
Su Ling slept, Nat once again studied the currency market in the International
Herald Tribune and London’s Financial Times.

The
trend continued unabated, a dip, a slight recovery, followed by another dip,
but the long-term graph was only going one way for the yen, and in the opposite
direction from the dollar. This was also true for the yen against the mark, the
pound and the lira, and Nat decided to continue researching which of the
exchange rates had the greatest disparity. Just as soon as they were back in
Boston he would talk to Tom’s father, and use the currency department at
Russell’s Bank rather than reveal his ideas to someone he didn’t know.

Nat
glanced across at his sleeping wife, grateful for her suggestion that he make
exchange rates the subject of his final-year thesis at business school. His
time at Harvard would pass all too quickly, and he realized that he could not
put off a decision that would affect both their futures.

They
had already discussed the three possible options: he could look for a job in
Boston so that Su Ling could remain at Harvard, but as she had pointed out,
that would limit his horizons. He could take up Mr. Russell’s offer and join
Tom at a large bank in a small town, but that would seriously curtail his
future prospects. Or he could apply for a job on Wall Street and find out if he
could survive in the big league.

Su
Ling wasn’t in any doubt which of the three options he should pursue, and
although they had some time to consider their future, she was already talking
to her contacts at Columbia.
looking
back on his final
year at Harvard, Nat had had few regrets.

Only
hours after touching down at Logan International, he’d phoned Tom’s father to
share his currency ideas. Mr. Russell pointed out that the sums he wished to
deal in were too small for any foreign exchange counter to handle. Nat was
disappointed until Mr. Russell suggested that the bank put up a thousand-dollar
loan, and asked that he and Tom might be allowed to invest a thousand dollars
each. This became Nat’s first currency fund.

When
Joe Stein heard about the project, another thousand appeared on the same day.
Within a month, the fund had grown to $10,000. Nat told Su Ling that he was
more worried about losing the investors’ money than his own. By the end of the
term, the Cartwright Fund had grown to $14,000, and Nat had made a clear profit
of $726.

“But
you could still lose it all,” Su Ling reminded him.

“True,
but now the fund is more substantial there’s less chance of a severe loss. Even
if the trend suddenly reverses, I could hedge my position by selling ahead, and
so keep the losses to a minimum.”

“But
doesn’t this take a great deal of your time, when you should be writing your
thesis?” Su Ling asked.

“It
only takes about fifteen minutes a day,” said Nat. “I check the Japanese market
at six each morning and the closing prices in New York at six every night, and
as long as there isn’t a run against me for several days in a row, I have
nothing to do except reinvest the capital each month.”