The Road Narrows As You Go (45 page)

You haven't said if you like my turban. Wendy cocked her head.

You look beautiful, you do. I've never seen you in such an exotic outfit. You're sexy in that turban.

You like it? She tipped her hips and touched the weave on her head.

It suits you. You're not interested in my story, are you?

Of course I love your
origins
, Frank. Your
world
tour and story. That's why I wore
this
. To turban you on.

You do. You do, Frank said.

Who doesn't heart New York? she smiled and clicked her heels. She gave his arm a squeeze. I'm wanting less bonds and more sex.

He covered his heart with his hand and pinched his knees together. You just made me go hard.

I thought money made you hard.

This, right here where you are standing, Wendy, is the centre of the free market. Don't you think that's sexy?

Yeah, but can a free market have a centre?

And instead of pushing her towards some quiet place behind a Xerox machine or into an empty cubicle so he could ravish her top to bottom, Frank dutifully introduced her to this fatted, stained-tie-wearing inscrutable bonds salesman and that ulcerous, squawking belligerent cyclops, the day trader. This cursing yammering young portfolio manager, that hammer-fisted derivatives analyst concussing his own forehead over a bad play on a brokerage. Frank said, Don't worry, Karl, I'll cover you. Put a reassuring hand on the middleman's shoulder-padded suit and then moved Wendy along to another junk associate sucking on the tip of his tie. How are you, Rice? Frank waved a hand and the man shrunk away as though Frank was about to slap him.

Frank's a sheer genius, the men all agreed as they snapped their suspenders and scratched at the telephone sores on their chins.

It's gold at the price of graphite, another man told Wendy of the bonds business.

A thousand and one men in the choir: Frank is a financial genius. A genius. A genius. A radical. Rearranging the particles of American finance.

I'm serious, said an old hypothecator.

Ursurious? I'm serious! said Wendy, and it took the traders a moment to laugh. I just learned that word the other day.

Fenton and Outcault, two master gurus of the old school, Frank said.

Outcault was black. Fenton was pale green.

These shitbags can sell an icecube to an Eskimo, Frank obsequied, sell sand to a camel.

Frank's the shitbag who can sweet-talk a songbird into flying straight down his throat, said Fenton or Outcault.

Shitbag? said Wendy.

Frank shrugged and said shitbag was a cultural thing, term of endearment in the offices on Wall Street.

That is us, two sclerotic old shitbag hypothecators, said Fenton, pushing back his chair and bowing from that seated position. He was the latter-cubicled of the gentlemen, and he pointed to Wendy with an orange finger covered in Cheetos dust, then waved her off just as soon as she approached him. Debt-nabbit, he said and squinted his glasses up the bridge of his nose, is this
really the
cartoonist we sell so much of? Well! Pardon my French,
well
. Be still, my bleeding pacemaker. You're
the
girl? Never remember to look at the section with the comics, sorry. Can't keep track of which one's Mutt and which one's Jeff.

Okay, now let me ask
you
a question, Wendy said to the two gentlemen. You both strike me like good-natured, well-raised, and intelligent men with loads of success and experience under your belts.

If by success and experience you mean bankruptcies and near suicides, then, yes.

So what makes Frank here so different from you two? I know he's super. But tell me why he gets all the attention.

Outcault said, You don't go around wondering why you aren't Frank. You go around praying he's on your side. Having Frank in the office is like being in possession of a dragon.

Fenton said, But listen, here's an example of Frank's work ethic. A lot of financing is billable by the hour, okay. So the more hours of work, the more you bill, the more money you pump from the client. Around here
we're always competing to see who's racked up the most billable hours in a week, a month, a year. The more the better, right, okay. So Frank here, he is the man. Soon as he gets his hands on some client accounts, his hours are absurd. He's the Neil Armstrong of billable hours. Billing an average of ninety hours a week.
Average.
Frank always billed more hours to his clients than
anyone
in the office.
Anyone.
And it was no bullshit. He was here before anyone and he left after everyone. He had three shifts of secretaries—like doctor's interns—to keep up with his hours. So one day he billed a client thirty-seven hours in a twenty-four-hour day because he worked without a break through multiple time zones en route from a client's many homes and offices. Thirty-seven hours in a twenty-four-hour day. No one had ever billed thirty-seven hours in a twenty-four-hour day. No one had ever even thought of that, let alone had the bullballs to pull that.

Moving on from memory lane, said Frank. Enough flattery. And all this from the first man in the firm to crack a million in sales in a single day.

In eighteen ninety! Fenton said with a dismissive wave of his hand. In more recent times, I was the one that made us all a fortune holding on to all those oil stocks through the seventies.

Oh, wait, before you go, said one of these two. He picked up a contract from his desk and handed it to her. Miss Wendy, could you sign on this dotted line here and save me UPSing it all the way to Frisco and having you UPS it all the way back.

Wendy made a show as she adjusted her glasses to read the fine print. Okay, says here this is for Lupercal Incorporated and subsidiaries. Seven, eight, twelve, twenty-seven pages, gee-golly, Wendy said and shot Frank a glance. Should I read through this? I mean—can't just sign. What's this contract for?

Another bona fide deal with our lucrative friends over at the everexpanding empire of Lupercal Incorporated, said the old man. This is
another Central American one—says you agree to let Lupercal's brandspanking-new factories in Colón, Panama—all set to flip the switch and start making all your future beach toys, keychains, wallets, hairbrushes, lunchpails, and—list goes on and on …

So she did sign.

I know kids high-five these days, said Fenton, but I've got osteoporosis in my hand.

Now with that all taken care of, said Frank in a singsong voice that placated the two wizened hypothecators, shall we move on from the ol' fogeys?

Seems like the more contracts I get the less work I need to do, she said.

There's always more work, said Frank. My father said, If work doesn't pile up on your to-do list then you obviously aren't working hard enough.

The cellular phone hanging from Frank's hip rang once, and he pressed a button and said, I'm not going to answer that.

Not? What's the point of a cellular phone you never answer?

You're
here. I never answer a chirp when you're with me.

Then put down the walkie-talkie, why don't you? Toss the brick.

A pinstripe-suited man with a broken nose and long sideburns, constantly laughing and nodding as he cupped one chin over the receiver of his phone as he shook Wendy's hand. Men with skin like boiled lobster shell and a vascular approach to conversation that depended more on hand signals than a high vocabulary. Side bets, poker games, day trades, bond sales, calling each other shitbags, never walking or leaving one's desk except to piss, shit, windmilling their arms around like drowning men trying to save themselves from death with a telephone cord and a Rolodex, the habits of sorely neglected children, gambling circles formed as soon as the market closed, impromptu, around a deck of cards or handful of dice. A bonds executive who introduced himself as Glassman and wouldn't let her hand free of his two-clammy-fisted shake greeting her.

Is
this
the Replicant body I keep hearing about in magazines? Did I
say that out loud? laughed Glassman. And the turban, nice touch. Gee, I hope I'm not embarrassing you.

Wendy sucked in a breath of Ruthvah.

We must be going, Glassman, but we'll catch up later, said Frank and ushered Wendy into another whole wing of desks starting behind a glass wall.

That guy is a tit-talker, she told Frank.

A what? Glassman? He's a top seller. Probably earns half a million a year.

Yeah? He told me I had a Bally's body. Are you jealous?

As soon as I find out what that means I'm going to knock the stripes off his shirt, said Frank and mashed a fist into his palm. Want me to fire him?

Forget Glassman. Forget them all. Let's ditch this male chauvinist palace for somewhere more horizontal, where things are more equal between the sexes. My hands all over your naked body. I'll give you head and vice versa.

Can't now, no, god, no time for— Don't torture me, said Frank, motioning for the wristwatch on the end of her slender arm. Time's a-ticking. This is a big celebration for us. We're making history today, Piper and Hexen and me and you.

She was affronted by Frank's rectitude, but let herself be led towards an onslaught of silver- and gold-pinstripe suits with astronautical shoulder pads, and the swearing, sweating men who wore them.

All these highstrung Manhattan businessmen chewing on their tongues and cuticles as Frank flirted with the idea of learning a few of the names of these minions, for the sake of illustration, as he toured Wendy through his vast empire. Suits in metallic colours, as if sewn with aluminum thread. Every fashionable shoulder pad on the market and ample widths of the wing-tipped yoke on the blazers. Invisible clouds of Ruthvah. They applauded the dealmaker, the rainmaker, paid homage
to the grand wizard from the West Coast in the room. Frank. Men sold bonds for a scrap metal consortium because of Frank, men bought and sold bonds for a maker of vitamin C, sold plastic, sold hotels, sold milk, sold salt, sold sugar, sold maple syrup reserves, men in blue shirts with white collars and skinny ties, red pinstripes and white suspenders like clowns screaming
millions and millions!
to whoever was on the other end of the phone, phones galore, ringing, pulsing, thrumming, flashing, men hustling potato chips on the market,
Strays
merchandise, pork, mortgages—all the shitbags of capitalism, stock traders, bond salesmen, underwriters, clerks, and secretaries—all because of Frank. The market was closed but the workday was far from over. Computer screens and reams of paper and cursing shitbags was all she could see. A rack of telephones flashed like flight simulators on every desk with multiple conversations going as multiple others waited on hold as the men fingerpunched more people for two-way, three-way, seven-way, nine-way conference calls. Hands-free headsets. The men dialed numbers they ferreted out of the plumage of giant Rolodexes that perched like birds on every man's desk. Rolodexes with the business cards of owls, vultures, hawks, eagles, Wall Street's predators and carrion hunters. Grey massage balls in the men's hands squeezed into merciless oblivion only to bounce back to original shape. Sell. Buy. Warner Brothers. Lupercal. LBO. IPO. TKO. Her mind kept flashing to the criminal conspiracies Chris Quiltain planted in her imagination. Chris's voice in Chambers restaurant:
Help us … help us indict Frank Fleecen
.

Frank swept her into a bright boardroom the size of a tennis court. The room was full of executives standing around an enormous black mahogany table laid out with hors d'oeuvres. The name partners and the rest applauded her and Frank as they made their entrance to the private party. Waiters in penguin suits floated among them and made a genteel display of offering her wine spritzers in glass flutes and caviar in porcelain spoons.

Piper Shepherd was the first to greet her. She congratulated him. You look fine, Wendy, just fine. Belle of the ball, we used to say. But you know who you remind me of with that turban? That babe Victoria Principal on
Dallas
. Really.

But with tighter curls and a more outgoing nose? said Wendy. Seriously. You know who I mean? Those uh … The reason I still watch
Dallas
ha ha. But really, my dear, what brings you to New York? said Piper, and kissed her once on the cheek. His breath unfortunately smelled of an unflushed toilet from the cock-sized cigar in his hand nearing its butt.

I'm here to watch my characters float past me in the Macy's Parade. But Frank heard I was in town and invited me to come celebrate your whopping big deal.

Oh, the parade, yes, of course. My granddaughter Coleco is so thrilled to carry one of your cat's tether ropes with me tomorrow morning. Sam?

Murphy.

Thinks she's the luckiest girl in the city. Are you holding a line, too? Will I see you bright and early at the rendezvous?

Oh, no, I couldn't. I'm too anxious, said Wendy. I just want to be among the fans and spectate.

My sentiments exactly. I demanded my stations show no closeups of me.

Did you say Coleco?

My granddaughter's father, this man who is my son-in-law, is the next Greenberg in line to inherit the Coleco fortune, its Cabbage Patch dolls, all its toy franchises, including his favourite, the Coleco system for video games. Tell you a secret, Wendy, I worked a lot of overtime to earn as much of a mattress as this. I don't know what my son-in-law did to deserve his.

I love a good mattress, said Wendy. I'm stuffing up one right now.

Come, drink up, drink up, and before the men start hounding you, let me show you the view. Piper guided her by the small of the back to the wall of windows overlooking a city of skyscrapers. He pointed with
his cigar to the tallest, most modern glass buildings. All that money flows down from the tops of those expensive skyscrapers into the valley, much of it into Frank's pockets these days. Into the growth of my empire.

She watched Piper put his whole body into it. Frank's my favourite credit card. He's better than American Express or Visa or any of them. I just paid for the reels and the rights to virtually every movie made during the golden age of Hollywood. I bought my childhood at pennies on the dollar. Thanks to
that
man, the credit king, I am in possession of an uncountable fortune. All I can say is
fuck
. Possibly I'm crazy, but history's the judge, right? I'm here to bet the farm, Wendy.