The Buy Side (28 page)

I hang up the phone and try to navigate my way out of Grand Central. Forty-Second Street is bumper-to-bumper with yellow taxi-cabs, all with their Off Duty signs glowing. I never understood why so many cabdrivers go off-duty during rush hour. I call Jesse Itzler and ask him to send our K1 directly to Jerry. Jesse and I formed a limited liability partnership a few months ago called Pink and Green. So far, we’ve invested in a racehorse and produced a rapper from the Bronx. It sounds riskier than it actually is. We put in only twenty grand apiece. When I hang up with Jesse, I give my cousin Ethan a call. We need a film editor badly for the movie we shot a year ago called
Holier Than Thou
. I wrote most of it, and the story is an adaptation of the Pied Piper of Hamelin legend—only set in the New York City club scene. The cool kids are sick and tired of the bridge and tunnel people infesting their hot spots, so they make a deal with a magical character to lead all the B&Ts out of the city. I took a week off to work on the project; we filmed twelve hours a day. I’ve already invested fifty thousand dollars. I just haven’t had time to work with Ethan to find an editor. He keeps calling me and leaving messages. Just try and keep it under twenty grand, I tell him. Finally I call Jenn when I’m on the outskirts of the Forty-Second Street mob. As I head east and then south on Third, we chat for a few moments and her voice calms me. “I hear Mexican food and sex can induce labor,” I say. We’re expecting our new arrival any day. A GIRL!

I’VE NEVER
been so stressed in my life. I need to install a baby seat in my car for the monumental ride home from the hospital. I can’t seem to do it. I risk hundreds of millions of dollars every day in split-second decisions, but the installation of a car seat is beyond my comprehension. There’s a black belt that looks like a seatbelt hanging from the back of the car seat. There’s nowhere to put it. The buckles on the side don’t attach to anything. I start to shake the car seat in the hope it will magically fall into place. The parking lot attendant at the Elizabeth Street garage is watching me and offering no assistance. I just want a stranger to stop on the street and say, “Oh, this is how you do it.” That’s not happening. Finally, I give up. I drive to an auto mechanic shop on Jones Street and offer the guy forty dollars to install it for me. He laughs as he takes my money. Although he’s smiling, I know what he’s thinking: This guy’s driving a BMW 540i yet he doesn’t know how to click a few buckles and tighten some straps? In
no time, he gets it secured and I’m finally on my way to the hospital. I’m going to pick up my girls.

On the way, I replay the miraculous event in my mind. I can see her tiny head with her eyes tightly shut in the doctor’s hands, half born for just a moment and then beautifully whole. I’m in love. I call out to her while the nurse is wrapping her in a blanket, and her head tilts my way. “I love you, Lola,” I whisper. She knows her name and recognizes my voice. I’ve been talking to her every day for months now through Jenn’s belly. I look at Jenn through watery eyes and see that hers, too, are filled with tears. We try to speak to each other, but the words come out like blubbering gibberish. The nurse gently places Lola on her mother’s chest. I touch my daughter Lola Gianna Duff’s tiny hand with my index finger and feel her skin for the very first time.

The Tuesday after my daughter’s birth, I’m back in the office. After work I’m going to have drinks at Annie Moore’s, a bar near Grand Central, with some people from Miller Tabak, a small boutique firm. The storefront of the bar is red, as is the door, to evoke a real Dublin pub. But like scores of similar establishments in Midtown, Annie Moore’s is about as authentic as a green plastic derby. I see Chris and Pat, my guys, sitting at the bar waiting for me. It’s not much of a Wall Street scene in here. It feels more like a rest stop on the way to broken dreams. The clientele is not quite fully broken, but close. Older men and women look deep into the bottoms of their glasses. The career bartenders are annoyed when you ask them for a drink. “Chris … Pat … Number thirty-two on the commission run, but number one in my heart,” I say.

“Oh, man, really? Number thirty-two?” Chris asks. He looks upset.

“I’m kidding,” I say as I shake their hands. Chris still looks upset. “You’re, like, number seven.” It’s a lie, but I’m way overpaying him
and his firm. I paid them close to a million dollars last year. It makes me one of their firm’s top ten accounts. Chris orders me a beer from one of the bartenders and offers up his seat. I decline. I sit all day, I tell him. There’s not much business to discuss; they just wanted to get me out and get some face time. They ask about Lola. I remember right after my daughter was born I went outside the hospital for a cigarette. When I looked at my phone, there were too many texts to count. I scrolled through and put a face to each. I have friends, Wall Street friends, Wall Street associates, and Wall Street suck-ups. Most want something in return for their friendship. Only a few don’t. I give the Miller Tabak guys a detailed description of the big day. It doesn’t matter if they’re really interested or not. I’m glowing. Just talking about Lola makes me soft and warm inside, like doing a shot of whiskey without the consequence. I can picture her round face. Her eyes glisten and her skin is so soft. I feel myself getting a little emotional, so I suggest we do a shot. After a few more beers they ask me if I want to grab a table and get some food, but I decline. I need to get home. Jenn has been with Lola all day and I’m sure she needs a break. I can’t wait to see Lola. I grab my coat and thank them for the drinks. I move across the street and start walking past Grand Central. Each step gets me closer to being home to my daughter, girlfriend, and two dogs. It’s amazing how my life has changed. One minute I’m wearing cowboy shirts and out on the prowl, and in the next I have a home and a family. I walk a few blocks down Park Avenue and notice I have a slight buzz. I feel great. It’s a warm October evening and the autumn light softens the city’s edges. I’m gonna walk the whole way home.

And then I’m in the lobby of the White House, calling Jenn and telling her my meeting is going a little longer than expected. I’ll be home in a couple of hours, I promise.

The apartment is dark and dirty. Randy and James both meet me at the door. “Look who’s here!” and “There he is!” they say as they slap me on the back. And then I’m in the kitchen. The sink is filled with a week’s worth of dirty dishes. My shoes stick to the floor. There are guys on the computer searching for escorts. “What’s it like to be a father?” Randy asks as James taps out a hefty line on a plate and then slides it over to me. I take the rolled-up dollar bill and look down at the line. You know, I say as I bend my head down and rip the line of cocaine into my nose, then snap my head back, it was the greatest day of my life. I gasp. The cocaine burns my nose, then numbs everything. I feel a charge inside my body. It’s the perfect combination of stimulation and numbness. Lola is the best thing that has ever happened to me, I tell them.

Two hours later, I’m outside the White House. I notice two men sitting in a black town car across the street. They’re both wearing dark suits and sunglasses. It’s dark out. They watch me as I leave the building. As soon as I begin to walk, they start their car. I check my pants pockets for coke. I didn’t take any from the apartment, I know. But I check anyhow. Heat rushes to my face like I’m under a spotlight. The car slowly pulls to the end of the block as I walk toward Lexington Avenue. I see a yellow cab pull up behind them. I dart into the street and knock on his trunk. He unlocks the door and I jump in. I watch the car in front of me turn left down the avenue. We turn left. The car is slowing down and pulling over on Lex, but as soon as we pass them they pull back out and follow right behind us. I try not to look back, but I can’t help myself. We’re almost to the Union Square area and they’re still following. Don’t look again, I tell myself. The cab pulls up in front of my building on Bleecker Street. I step out onto the sidewalk half expecting to be beaten or handcuffed, or at least confronted. But when I look for them, they’re not in sight.

I run into the building and to the elevator. I’m in my apartment now, holding my daughter to my chest. My whole body clenches with the thought of the promise that I made to stop using when she was born. I don’t know who was in that car, but I do know it’s a sign. As I look at my daughter’s sweet face, I know the risk of using cocaine is far too great.

I WAS
up all night with Lola. “I can’t make it to work today,” I tell Krishen.

It seems like everything is changing, changing all at once. The business is different. Newspaper headlines have taken their toll. I think the crooked CEOs of corporate America—the Lays, the Skillings, the Kozlowskis—have ruined it for everyone. Years of fraud have collapsed into cover-ups, investigations, and convictions: Worldcom, Tyco, Delphi, and Enron, and the list grows. Even Fidelity has found itself the center of a trading scandal. The Street feels like it’s on high alert now. They’re trying to make all hedge funds register with the SEC. It’s a pain in the ass. Now brokers’ expense accounts are monitored and they have to be careful how they entertain us. What we can now get away with is still pretty lavish—Vegas, VIP rooms, and limos—we just need to be more creative. Still, I’ve been going backwards in pay
and bonuses, but it’s because of our performance. Argus lost assets this year, so I’m not sure how I’ll do.

At the end of October, Krishen asks me to come into the CFO’s office. “I need you to sign this,” he says. Argus received an inquiry from the SEC on a particular stock we bought that I traded. The stock in question was upgraded just hours after I purchased it. As I sign the document I get an uneasy feeling, the kind you get when you’re sure someone is following you.

I’m spinning apart. Just as I get back to my desk, the phone rings. It’s a guy from the Healthcare Mafia. He tells me about a trend happening in the generic drug sector and he’s practically begging me to buy a list of stocks. I buy small and wait to see how they trade, but they’re selling off. Then I buy another 25,000 shares of each, but they keep going lower. I decide to call a buddy at Morgan Stanley to ask why the stocks keep going down. When he tells me who the seller is, my hand tightens around the phone. It’s my Healthcare Mafia friend who begged me to buy them: a trick so unimaginative, so impersonal, you’d expect it only from a total stranger. Did he really think he’d get away with playing me this way? He’s fucked himself bigtime, because now he’s dead to me. Crossed off the list. The bonds of the Mafia are frayed and pulling apart. The hot breath of the SEC, the culture of distrust, have turned us against one another. I can’t trust anyone, and I can’t keep it together.

A few weeks later, I walk into the office an hour late without having slept. Rich and Melinda look at me like I’m some kind of apparition. “I thought you took the day off because your parents are in town,” Rich says. I don’t remember telling them I was going to be out today, and my parents aren’t in town until tomorrow. Their excursions to New York City are infrequent because they’re afraid. They won’t
leave the apartment for fear of getting lost or mugged. The last time they were here, they returned to the apartment white with fear after a simple daytime trip to Chinatown. I nod at Rich and Melinda and turn around and go home.

In December, I meet Krishen in the conference room for my year-end evaluation. He forces a smile when I enter. I’m getting a bonus of $500k, he says without preface. Poor performance and lower assets are the reasons. This is the second year in a row I’ve been paid less than the year before. What’s more, Krishen tells me, the payout structure is going to change. The firm will no longer have guaranteed percentages. Instead, five of us—me, Rich, and three senior analysts—will fight it out for 25 percent of the bonus pool. He thinks the competition will make us perform better. I think it’s going to create a knife fight. We have to stab the person next to us in the back to make an extra hundred grand? This sucks. I stand up and shake his hand. “Thanks,” I say.