‘Never. The Fed would never allow it. Think of the fallout. We can’t be allowed to fail. We’re too important. Think what it would mean if one of the majors went under.’
‘Dave, let’s just say that well-informed sources tell me it’s real. I can’t say more than that.’
‘For God’s sake, Al – much more of this and I’ll throw myself off Blackfriars Bridge. What’s got into you? Aren’t you getting enough lately?’
‘Dave, I haven’t had sex in weeks. I haven’t even felt like it. You have no idea just how bad things are over here.’
No sex in weeks? He’s lost the plot. I make a note to sell Schleppenheim shares.
‘Al, you come over here and I’ll change your mind. You wouldn’t believe the girls I’ve met lately …’
The conversation takes its customary turn, but with only me really participating. He genuinely doesn’t have any interest. Things must be bad.
I’M NOT one of nature’s whiners. Honestly. It’s just that, like all investment bankers, I’ll stop at almost nothing to get what I want if I want it badly enough. Right now, what I want most badly is Two Livers, and even though she doesn’t respond to whining – it puts her off – I’ve tried bluster, bullshit and bullying and, having exhausted all of them, I’m now whining down the phone.
‘Oh, come on … you said you’ve got no plans tonight. Let’s go out, have a drink, at least we can talk.’
‘Dave, I may have no plans, but that doesn’t mean I want to talk to you.’
‘You can’t be serious. There’s tons to talk about. For one thing, I need your take on the whole Melissa thing.’
‘No, you don’t. You don’t actually need anyone’s take on anything. You might pretend you do in order to get what it is you really want, but I’m sure there’s not a single human being on the planet that you actually need.’
‘That’s so not true. Look, tell me where you want to go. I’ll pick you up, we’ll have one drink, half an hour, and, if you’re bored, we’ll go. It’s that simple.’
‘We’ll go where?’ Damn. She’s no fool.
‘Wherever you want. Your place … my place … wherever.’
She actually laughs. Phew. ‘Dave, you’re incorrigible.’ There’s a pause at the other end, as if she’s checking her watch. ‘OK, pick me up in half an hour. We’ll go to Rakes.’
Ouch. Depending how this goes, it could turn out to be an expensive evening. Rakes is a high-end casino in Curzon Street. We’ve been there before, and whereas I always end up bleeding, going to the limit on my credit cards as I throw good money after bad, Two Livers always walks out a winner. Why? Born lucky, I guess. But what does that make me?
She’s wearing an animal-print dress in silk chiffon by Versace, with a matching leather clutch bag and ivory platform shoes with heels. When we enter Rakes, we cause quite a stir, though as a couple we don’t create quite the impact I’d like. It’s the platforms. They make us almost the same height, and I really don’t like that. Two Livers normally avoids platforms because she senses I have a height thing. Damn. It’s not that I’m paranoid, but my antennae are twitching.
We wander from room to room, checking out the action. The punters seem to be visiting foreigners, mostly from the Middle or Far East, with the odd Russian and Kazakh thrown in. Hardly any Brits, because we don’t have the money to burn these days. Especially now, since the ‘crisis’ has hit.
We finally settle at a table just off the gaming floor, where we can sit and observe human nature in all its glorious weakness. Ten yards away there’s a Malaysian businessman sitting by himself at a roulette table, periodically sliding fresh piles of chips on to number five, losing it all, ordering more chips and going through the same process again. His face is impassive, and behind him, sitting on stools a full three paces away from the table, his entourage look on, equally expressionless.
Two Livers is looking around, impatient. ‘What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?’
It’s true. The waiters seem to be fussing over a fat oligarch and his girlfriend in the far corner of the room, or chatting to each other by the bar and staring at the roulette table. They’re certainly distracted, and then I realise why. The Malaysian is betting with hundredthousand-pound chips. I didn’t realise at first because I didn’t recognise them. He must be down millions. On the other hand, if he wins, if the magic number five comes up and the casino has to pay out thirty-five times his stake, they’ll be the ones feeling the pain.
Beside me, there’s a piercing whistle that blasts around the room. I turn to Two Livers as she takes her thumb and forefinger from her mouth, picks up the drinks menu and turns to look at me in admiration. In fact everyone in the room follows her glance and looks at me, including the Malaysian. They all think I’ve whistled to get attention. I nod to one of the waiters by the bar.
‘Er … could we get some service over here, please?’
We order two martinis, both for her, followed by a bottle of Cristal. In a remarkably short time, we’ve polished it off and we’re halfway through its brother. Two Livers nudges me and nods towards the Malaysian, whose luck hasn’t changed.
‘Let’s see if we can help.’
We get up and walk over to the roulette table.
‘Do you mind if we join you?’ Her voice is so deep and sexy and she looks so great that he couldn’t possibly refuse, so we sit down and watch as he loses another pile. Two Livers orders her own chips and starts with a modest bet, covering two columns of numbers, giving her a two thirds chance of winning one and a half times her original stake. It works, and after a couple of spins she’s got a small pile of the house’s chips in front of her. Meanwhile I’ve also started conservatively, betting on black, the dark side, and losing consistently. I switch to red, only to see the dark side reassert itself. Two Livers ignores my losing streak and turns to our Malaysian friend, pointing to number five.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’
I think if I’d asked he’d have refused – he has enough bad karma without my adding to it. But to Two Livers he nods. ‘Why not?’
She thanks him and slides a pile of chips across the table to sit on top of his on number five. He looks at her, scratches his chin, seems to mull over a difficult decision, then slides his entire remaining pile of chips – everything he has – on to number five.
If this was a movie, the croupier would spin the wheel and amazingly, miraculously, against all the odds, number five would come up. But it isn’t a movie. In real life, I sit in smug anticipation as the croupier spins the wheel and surely, certainly, inevitably … number five comes up. Fuck. I stare at the wheel, then at the illuminated display for confirmation. I point at the table.
‘Number … fucking … five …’
Two Livers and her Malaysian new best friend are shaking hands across the table. The casino manager has appeared, looking appropriately anxious, and the Malaysian entourage are no longer impassive, but grinning. For fuck’s sake.
Two Livers invites the Malaysian and his party to join us at our table, but he insists we join him at his and, in any case, she achieves the main objective of getting him away from the table while he’s still – massively – ahead. The casino manager asks if he’ll take a cheque to cover his winnings and Two Livers interrupts to say no, but cash will do. It takes a while, but the cash eventually arrives in three large, very upmarket embossed bags with silk drawstrings, which he passes absent-mindedly to one of his people, before ordering more Cristal and looking at Two Livers as if he’s about to propose marriage, children and lifelong commitment.
How does she do it? I guess she was born under the right star.
But where does that leave me? Half an hour later, I leave the two of them to it and head home, poorer, definitely no wiser, still wondering where I keep going wrong.
TODAY SCHLEPPENHEIM went bust.
It’s barely a week since I spoke to Al Marrapodi. People had been talking about how vulnerable Schleppenheim might be in the
present crisis, but I never really believed that a firm that had been around for as long as they had could actually go bust. For one thing I didn’t think the regulators would allow it.
Isn’t the whole point about banking that when things go well, we make out like bandits, taking monster bonuses, but when we trip up we get bailed out by the taxpayer? How could they let one of us actually go under?
It feels as if someone just rewrote the rule book, and it’s sent a seismic shock through world markets.
Naturally my first reaction was to jump on a plane to Frankfurt, delighting in the fact that Grossbank’s German heritage makes us rock solid even in the face of a financial tsunami. At least I think it does.
Anyway, the view from my office at the top of the Grossbank tower is magnificent, even if it is only Frankfurt that I’m looking down on, but then more news starts coming in. One of the major German real estate banks is going down. Then a big Belgian bank. Then a couple more building societies in the UK. In a single day six major institutions collapse and this time they are bailed out. They have to be, before the contagion spreads around the whole system.
But the very act of bailing them out makes investors lose even more confidence. Bank shares fall through the floor, interest rates are slashed, government ministers fly around the world for urgent summits, and the inter-bank market, where banks lend to each other, dries up altogether in the face of the complete absence of trust between institutions and confidence in the system.
In a matter of a few days it becomes apparent that it’s a crash on a grand scale. I make a few calls to my new best friends, Rom Romanov and Bang Bang Lee, but otherwise keep my own counsel. Things are speeding up, and it may be no bad thing. I’ve planned my exit, the wheels are in motion, and the only question is whether I can take Two Livers with me. I have to try.
In theory what’s happening in the markets shouldn’t affect Grossbank, because the real poison in the system comes from areas we have yet to get into – securitised mortgages and toxic waste from the US sub-prime market. It isn’t that we didn’t want to crowd in there along with everyone else, just that we were too busy growing our business in other areas. If we’d had time, we’d have been burnt as badly as everyone else, probably more so because we never do things by halves. But instead, everyone else is going down and to begin with I feel smart. It’s only when we start to realise the extent of our exposure to other firms – credit lines, unsettled trades, long-term counterparty risk from derivative contracts – that we realise they might drag us down with them. We’re all tangled up in the same gigantic web. It’s a nightmare, and in the face of a nightmare there’s only one thing to do.
I’m taking the whole firm – or rather the five hundred top people in the firm – on holiday to Mauritius.
THREE WEEKS have passed, weeks of unremitting gloom, with falling markets, failing firms and crashing currencies, all made worse by the fact that Two Livers has been constantly travelling. When she has been in London she’s been back to back in meetings, throwing herself into her work in a way that impresses and frustrates me in equal measure. I have a nagging feeling that maybe she’s doing it deliberately to avoid me. Why would she do that? We have a great thing going. And I need her.
When she isn’t around, I come over all insecure. I hate feeling insecure. I’m supposed to be the boss, the one in charge, the one everyone else feels insecure around. I’ve even started worrying what I look like. I can certainly pinch an inch around my waistline. I never do any sort of workout except the horizontal kind, and think maybe I should get myself back in shape. I even make enquiries about liposuction. I could take a couple of weeks off and come back slimmer. And if that doesn’t work, try diet and exercise. I could certainly use a detox. My nosebleeds are worse than ever and my hands seem to be permanently shaking, not so that everyone notices – well, I think they don’t – but enough that I’m aware of it almost all the time. And most days I’m seeing pale blue instead of white. Where did that come from?
It’s 9 a.m., I’ve left Elena, twenty-five, from Budapest, and Mary-Jo, twenty-one, from Dallas, Texas, asleep and wasted on the bed, and I’m in the office at a record early time, at least for this year. The problem with going away to Mauritius, even for a week, is that I need to clear a few things off my desk, irritating little things that I should have attended to weeks ago that have a habit of popping up in my in tray again. Like fifty-million-pound lawsuits from disgruntled former employees.
Charles Butler coughs nervously and squirms in the strategically low chair opposite my desk. As a little guy with a height complex, I like to look down on people when I can. I’d told Maria no meetings, and the fact that he’s here means this is important.
‘Mr Hart, they’re not compromising.’
‘Not compromising? What do you mean? Melissa was always very accommodating in the past.’
‘That was different, Mr Hart. Everything’s different now. She’s changed law firms. She’s hired Zelig, Collingwood, Wong to represent her. They’re a very serious firm. And they want a meeting. I told them you’re leaving for Mauritius tomorrow and they’re insisting on meeting today.’
Zelig, Collingwood, Wong are a global firm with almost universal appeal. Not only are they a heavyweight outfit as lawyers go, but they have a reputation as giant killers. If you want someone to go after a previously untouchable target, like big tobacco or big pharma, they’re your team. They take on big cases against hard targets, regularly going into bat against the kind of people who have the resources and stamina to spin things out for years, outspending their opponents, wearing them down until they settle. People who are used to winning and regard themselves as above the law. People like me. And they do it all on a contingent fee basis – no win, no fee. So boy, are they motivated. All of which makes me feel slightly queasy.
‘Who’ve we got?’
‘I’m proposing to retain Wildman, Savage and Partners.’
‘Wildman, Savage? Really?’ For once, Charles has surprised me. Wildman, Savage are the legal equivalent of the Daleks. Just hiring them puts fear into your enemies, but it also labels you as a bad guy – someone who is so frightened that he’ll stop at nothing to intimidate his opponent. The key to Wildman, Savage’s success is that they don’t just fight in the courtroom. They’re street fighters who stop at nothing. The people on the other side have their whole lives turned upside down, all their guilty little secrets – and we all have a few – get exposed in the press, their reputations are trashed, their careers often irreparably damaged and even their family life ruined. As a firm they believe that even if they lose the case there’s so much destruction all round that everybody suffers, so no one wants to go up against them. Except that they don’t actually suffer themselves, of course. The suffering is for other people. Being smart lawyers they just charge their fees regardless of the nuclear holocaust they unleash. Which makes for big stakes.
‘OK, so what’s the plan?’
‘ZCW want a no-prejudice meeting this afternoon. I’ve suggested three o’clock. It’ll give us time to have an initial session with our own lawyers. They’ve been, er … doing some preparatory work already.’
I can guess what that means. Lawyers from Wildman, Savage don’t exactly go through people’s rubbish bins looking for dirt, but allegedly they know people who do.
TWO LIVERS is about to go into a client meeting. Client meetings are one of the few types of meeting I respect. Clients are the people who pay the bonus, so we have to take them seriously. But I want to talk to her about the whole Melissa thing before this afternoon’s meeting, as well as the negative vibe I’m getting from her all the time these days, not to mention Paul’s antics. It seems we haven’t spoken properly in ages, and I wonder if she’s been avoiding me. She’s standing outside a conference room, about to go in with a couple of juniors, when I rush around the corner.
‘Can I have a word?’
She looks uncertain. She’s about to kick off what may be an important session, an
d probably wants to avoid a heavy Dave scene.
‘You know what – you can do more than that. You can join us.’ She smiles, but not as if she really means it. Something’s missing and my paranoia is at bursting point. ‘We’re about to tell the chief executive of Northern Tubes that he’s going to get half a billion less from the sale of his special steels division than he first thought. He’s brought some goons from Hardman Stoney with him. I think he may fire us and appoint them in our place to try to get a better price. Are you up for this? Can you help?’
Can I help? Is she serious? I’m Dave Hart, and I can do anything. ‘Of course I can help. Why didn’t you ask me before? I’ll have these guys eating out of my lap – I mean hand … And if not, I’ll scare the shit out of them. We’ll have some fun if nothing else!’ She looks hesitant, and the two young guys with her are avoiding my glance. Why doesn’t anyone want to look me in the eye these days? ‘Fuck it. Let’s go.’
I open the door and let her go in first, chivalrous as ever, and ignore the kids with the PowerPoint presentations, who follow us in.
Two Livers always has a high impact in meetings. She’s beautiful, poised, elegant, speaks in a husky, incredibly sexy voice – I call it her bedroom voice – and any hot-blooded male within a mile wants to leap on top of her. I know I do.
By contrast, the toad sitting opposite us in a badly fitting, brown polyester suit is overweight, sagging and balding. On each side of him he has a slicked-back smart arse from one of our greatest rivals, Hardman Stoney. He’s brought these arseholes into our offices to humiliate us, just for the sake of a lousy half billion which we haven’t delivered when we probably promised we would. We’re investment bankers, for fuck’s sake. We disappoint people all the time. It’s what we do.
Two Livers starts the meeting in a suitably deferential manner, introducing me to the toad, who turns out to be called Paul Telford. She explains that my presence here indicates just how seriously the firm is taking him, and offers to get the kids to start running through a presentation showing how badly the markets have changed since we started the sale process, which will help him understand the difficulties we face now.
Dave Hart Omnibus II Page 10
