The Money Makers (69 page)

Positioned as he was, Matthew could see the ventilation grille he had noticed the month before. It was still loose.

‘Hey,’ he called. ‘Is that grille meant to be loose over there?’

Matthew pointed. The guard bent down.

‘Doesn’t look like much,’ he said grumpily, and straightened again.

The policeman had a look too. He bent down, then got down on his hands and knees to get a better look.

The security guard hesitated, then knelt down too.

It was just a loose grille. It wasn’t a tunnel. But still. The coppers from ValCom looked down on security guards. Thought they weren’t fully trained. Not real professionals. That’s what they thought. The security guard lay on his belly and pulled himself underneath the rack to get at the grille. Not to be outdone, the policeman pulled out a pocket torch from his trouser pocket and got down too. The rubber bands cut into Matthew’s leg, and sang their question again. ‘Dare you or daren’t you?’

His head didn’t know, but his hands replied.

The middle shelf of the trolley contained a few bundles of miscellaneous bonds. Matthew’s hands skimmed over the bundles taking just a few papers from each one. He was almost perfectly silent. Over the past four weeks he had spent an hour practising every night. First with the lights on. Then with the lights off. He had taped himself and timed himself. He was very fast and very silent.

He had about twenty or thirty sheets of paper in his hand. The policeman was pulling himself out from underneath the rack. It was only a dodgy grille. Something for the maintenance men to look at. Nothing for a copper to worry about. Typical overreaction from the security people. The policeman began to stand up.

Matthew had the sheets of paper inside his left trouser leg. He pulled up the first rubber band over the bonds to mid-calf height. They sat snugly against his leg like a shinpad. He tried to get the second rubber band over the bonds as well, but fluffed the first attempt and decided against trying twice. He pulled his sock up over the bonds and straightened up.

His left trouser leg fell cleanly to the floor. It looked just the same as his other trouser leg. The policeman was standing, waiting, by the door of the vault. The security guard was calling from a wall phone to the control room to report the ventilation grille. The control room sounded bored. Matthew followed the guard and policeman out of the vault.

As they walked back the way they had come, Matthew excused himself and nipped into the loos. He closed the door and checked the ceiling for cameras. No sign of any, but it was foolish to take chances. He went into the urinal and peed. He had drunk a litre and a half of water before leaving the house that morning and now the water was dying to come out. It was a long pee.

Probably long enough, thought Matthew. The vault­user identification chamber weighed him on entering and leaving the vault. He didn’t even want to be one gram heavier on his way out than on his way in. People don’t get heavier for no reason. People get heavier because they’re taking things they shouldn’t. But if he came out lighter than he went in - well, that could hardly arouse suspicion.

Matthew felt the rubber band slipping a bit. He thought about securing both bands properly round the bonds but decided against it. In the vaults, there were likely to be cameras everywhere. He might have evaded observation first time round, but there was no reason to chance it twice. He washed his hands and left the john.

The policeman, the security guard and Matthew, the thief, left the vaults.

With every step, the bonds inside Matthew’s trouser leg pressed against the rubber band and complained. Matthew’s sock loosened and the rubber band slipped a bit further down his leg.

Matthew thought of stopping to pull up his sock, but he’d already stopped twice. Once to do up a shoelace and once to go to the john. A third time would look excessive. If he’d wanted to adjust anything, he should have done it in the loo.

They walked on. They came to the lift, which was still there, Level Minus 4, waiting. They got in. As Matthew stepped in, he bent his knee just a little too much, and the rubber band pinged down his leg. The bonds collapsed forwards. They were still held securely at the bottom, but at the top a semicircle of accusation had formed below his left knee. A ring of paper, pressing through his trouser leg, calling him to jail.

Matthew froze.

The guard called the control room, needing authority to rise again to ground level. The intercom blinked on and off. The control room checked the video picture and the voice and released the lift. The huge lift slowly, slowly began to climb. In the ceiling, the inevitable cam­ era blinked on and off, on and off, watching Matthew, watching his rising perspiration. One day they’d invent one which could see fear itself.

The guard and the policeman paid no attention. They leaned against the steel walls and chatted. The head of security in every bank is an ex-copper. The job is dull compared with the thrill of the force, but the pay is double or treble. When you’re passed over for that final career-completing promotion, you start to think about the private sector. You take the money, but your heart stays with the force.

The policeman knew that. He wasn’t yet senior enough to worry, but it was a rule amongst the ValCom policemen to cultivate their contacts at the banks. You never knew when you might want them.

The lift climbed, and Matthew fought to come to a decision. Risk tucking the bonds in again, three feet away from two pairs of eyes and right underneath a security camera? And a camera which the control room might still be actively monitoring, for all Matthew knew. Or risk walking out of the lift, the paper ring begging for him to be arrested?

In the end, it was no contest. Wise or not, Matthew couldn’t stand the suspense of walking out of the lift, with the evidence pressing forward out of his trouser leg. Hi. I’m a thief. Spot the deliberate mistake. It’s a fair cop, guv. Did people really say that? What would Matthew say?

He bent down, hitched up his trouser leg and rolled the rubber band tightly up his shin again.

If the copper or the guard had turned, Matthew would have had years of leisure to repent his decision. But they didn’t. They went on chatting.

The lift stopped. The guard requested authority to open the doors. There was a delay.

Was it that they were even now deploying a ring of guards around the lift doors, ready to pounce? Or was it that the chap in the control room had left the monitor, gone away for a pee, while Matthew’s crime revealed itself on screen in glorious Technicolor?

The intercom clicked on. An unseen hand released the doors. The doors slid open.

No ring of guards. No accusers. Freedom.

‘See you guys this evening,’ grunted Matthew and walked carefully away.

8

In a mahogany-panelled boardroom on the fortieth floor of a Wall Street skyscraper, the Chairman of Weinstein Lukes - Seth Weinstein III - calls the meeting to order. It is afternoon. The great men have eaten lunch: a light meal of smoked trout followed by grilled chicken and green salad. No wine was served, and for pudding only fruit. Beyond the double doors, a pair of secretaries wait in silence, their task to prevent interruptions. Multi­ billion dollar deals may hang in the balance. Financial markets may totter and crash. But the rule is final and absolute. The committee is not to be disturbed.

‘Gentlemen, let us move to our next candidate. Please take out your papers for a Mr Zachary Gradley, known as Zack, head of tax in our London office. As you can see from your papers, Mr Gradley is twenty-nine years of age. He has been with the firm for two and a half years. He is currently a vice president only, but it is proposed that he should skip right over the senior vice president bracket and be entered on our roster of partners.’

Seth Weinstein is a quiet, formal man. He does not have the roar of Dan Kramer, head of Madison and Lion of Wall Street, but in his own way Weinstein too exudes power, authority and charm. In annual surveys of the most admired bosses on Wall Street, sometimes Kramer wins, sometimes Weinstein. Hardly ever is it anyone else.

Weinstein’s summary is carefully neutral. You would not be able to guess from his voice whether he approves of Gradley or hates him. Weinstein forces everyone to make their own judgement and to defend that judgement as best they can. Jorge Esparza, the bank’s treasurer, whose job every day is to choose where the bank’s billions should rest, speaks.

‘This guy’s young, isn’t he? He’s been with us for a couple of years. Before that he spent a few months at Coburg’s, the British bank. Before that, a few months at some accountancy firm. Before that, he got part-way through a PhD, then chucked it in. We’re not used to handing partnerships out to kids right out of school, however hot they are.’

Esparza speaks his feelings as they come to him. As treasurer, he has an uncanny knack for keeping the firm’s money in the right currency and the right securities at the right time, but a great thinker he is not. Weinstein sits quiet. He won’t speak again until the end. Lars Anderssen, an Americanised Swede, is next. Head of corporate finance in the US and softly spoken, he speaks so quietly that everyone must strain to hear.

‘You’re right, Jorge. None of us wants to hand out partnerships without reason. But this kid has achieved a stunning amount. In a single year, he’s made as much money for the firm as Gillingham did in three. We all liked Gillingham. We stuck by him when he first admitted his alcoholism, something we wouldn’t have done for everyone. Yet the signs are that Gradley has something even more special than Hal. We’ve all worked with these tax guys. They tend to be a bit weird, a bit unconventional. They have to be, to do what they do. To me, it’s very important we don’t take a cookie cutter approach with Gradley.’

Alan Carmichael is next. He is lean and sunburned, a strip of sun-dried beefhide. But despite his rodeo looks, which come from excessive exposure to Alpine ski slopes and summer visits to his native Kenya, he has been the partner in charge of Weinstein Lukes’ European business for five years. He is Dixon Banderman’s direct boss, and the two men have spent hours discussing Zack’s prospects.

‘I agree. Gradley’s achievements since joining us are quite remarkable. He arrived on our doorstep with an unconventional and brilliant deal with Tominto Oil. He was hard-working and effective on a series of other energy deals with Amy-Lou Mazowiecki, one of my senior vice presidents. Then he brought in and executed a stunning deal for Hatherleigh Pacific. He launched a successful takeover bid for the South China Trust Bank - a company almost as large as Hatherleigh Pacific itself ­ and funded it with a brilliantly imaginative tax gimmick. The client -’

‘His father-in-law, no?’ challenges Esparza. The notes they have before them are extremely detailed.

‘Yes, Lord Hatherleigh, Gradley’s father-in-law is Chairman of Hatherleigh Pacific,’ continues Carmichael.

‘To me, that is of no consequence. Hatherleigh wouldn’t have done the deal if it wasn’t sound. And he forked out forty million dollars for it. Not only did Gradley have the guts to ask, he had the wit to realise that Hatherleigh had to say yes or forfeit the opportunity. That shows brains and nerve, a winning combination in my eyes. But all of this is less important. Gradley may be an extremely capable all-rounder, but the reason why we’re considering him for partnership is his tax ability. And let’s be quite clear. Gradley didn’t just find a tax dodge, RosEs, he found a way to sell it to everyone in Asia. Demand was so strong, we had people biting off our hand for it. We did business with companies we’d never even spoken to before. We now have thriving relationships with companies who didn’t even let us through their front doors. It’s not just money that Gradley made. It’s reputation.’

Carmichael ends his speech on the word reputation. He knows - everyone knows - that Seth Weinstein would sooner dump half a billion dollars into the sea than damage the bank’s reputation. ‘It took us a century to make,’ he’d whisper, ‘but it would only take a minute to lose.’ And what Carmichael said was true. Zack’s RosEs had given Weinstein Lukes a prominence in Asia that nothing else could have done. An Nguyen, the head of Weinstein Lukes in Asia, nods his vigorous assent.

‘I agree, I agree. Recently, our reputation’s relied on RosEs. Client relationships have really rolled.’ Nguyen pronounces his Rs and his Ls the same way, but everyone knows what he means.

‘OK, so he’s had a great year. Can he do it again? How do we know?’ Esparza growls the questions.

Carmichael had had a long talk with Banderman before flying across for this meeting, and he knows the answer to this question.

‘Yes he can do it again. Dixon Banderman, who most of you know, knows Gradley better than any of us. Dixon tells me that Gradley is possibly the most talented individual he’s seen in all his time in the firm. Gradley may not bring us RosEs again, but he’ll bring us as much as Gillingham ever did, more in fact. He’s hard-working. He’s ambitious. He’s razor sharp. He has a superb commercial instinct. I think we can rely on these judgements as solid fact.’

Esparza doesn’t have anything against Gradley, but he doesn’t much like Carmichael. He finds Carmichael patronising and cold. Esparza rumbles belligerently on.

‘So he’s a good guy. But where does his heart lie?’

Esparza thumps his chest. ‘Does he love this firm?’

The question is addressed to the room in general, but the management committee waits to hear Carmichael’s answer. Carmichael, however, is silent.