Nothing Personal: A Novel of Wall Street

by Offit, Mike

  “No chance. Maybe you and that fuckin’ girlfriend of yours can beat off together. Man, you gotta tell me when I can jam that girl. I know she wants me. She’s got nice, tasty fuckin’ titties too.” Every time he saw Larisa, Goering flirted with her. Warren tolerated it, mostly because Larisa always seemed totally disgusted by him, even though he looked like a Ralph Lauren model, with his blond hair and sharp, Germanic features.

  “Dutchie, I told you, you can’t nail her until I’m done with your sister. But your mama says I’m the best man she’s had since you.” Nobody could get Warren going like Goering. Warren honestly believed if anyone else ever heard one of these conversations, they’d be put in prison somewhere.

  “Fuck you, Hament. I got work to do.” Goering was reliable. When he clicked off the phone, Warren was smiling. He saw that Goering, despite himself, was smiling too.

  Warren’s good mood didn’t last long. He picked up Kerry Bowen’s line, and Mahmoud, the portfolio manager from a Middle Eastern Monetary Authority—managers for the royal family’s vast wealth—asked him to get a bid on a $15 million mortgage bond Warren had never heard of. He went over to Danny Mordecai, who traded most of the unusual bonds in the mortgage area, and gave him the information. Mordecai had recently come to Weldon from Goldman. He walked over to Warren’s desk about twenty minutes later. Kerry was out on a client visit, so Warren had to handle the whole transaction for her.

  “Hey, kid, let me ask you something,” Mordecai said in a low voice, “who else are they asking to bid on that bond?”

  “I’m not sure, but he did say ‘in competition.’” This meant the seller would ask for bids from at least two dealers, to make it honest.

  “Well, I know they talk to Goldman, and to Merrill, and neither of them will know shit about this bond,” Shuler said. “This could be a home run.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, it so happens, I structured this deal three years ago, when I was at Goldman, and the information they have on this sheet is wrong. That deal has ten years of prepayment protection, not four.” Warren realized that this made the bond far more valuable. The interest rate on the mortgage that backed the bond was high—10.75 percent—and if the issuer could not refinance it for ten years, whoever held it would get to earn that interest a long time, making it trade at a much higher price.

  “Hey, Mordecai, do whatever you want. Shouldn’t you tell them they have the facts wrong? I’m just the backup on the account and relaying the bid.” Warren wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

  “Fuck them! They provided the info and didn’t ask for verification. That’s their problem. Caveat emptor, baby! Tell ’em 102.271. I bet Merrill bids par and Goldman 102.1. Hah! This could be sweeeeeet!” Mordecai rubbed his hands together. Warren did some quick math in his head, and figured the bond, with all that extra call protection, would be worth at least 111 or 112.

  Sure enough, five minutes later, Mahmoud called back and told Warren Weldon had won the bonds. When Warren asked for the cover bid—which meant the second-highest bid submitted—Mahmoud told him Goldman at 102.251. Mordecai’s call had been almost perfect. When Warren relayed the info to him, Mordecai let out a loud whoop.

  Within a few minutes, Mordecai was back at Warren’s desk. “Hey, kid, this bond will fit Emerson Insurance to a tee. You cover Schiff over there, right? Wanna make a fuckin’ bolus?”

  “Ummm … maybe. What’s a bolus?” Warren was feeling uneasy.

  “Look it up! Anyways, offer them the bonds to settle next month at a price of 114 and a half. That’s plus 350 to the first call against treasuries. Insanely cheap!! And it’s a great credit—that mortgage is guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the USA—Ginnie Mae. And the borrower is making a ton of money—rents are way up, so it will never default. Schiff will love this baby!”

  Warren was dumbfounded. In a business where even unusual bonds would trade on a spread of a fraction of 1 percent or at most one point, Mordecai was marking this bond up over 12 percent! “Umm, Danny, isn’t that against the five percent markup rule?” Warren remembered the SEC rule that did not allow brokerages to make more than 5 percent on a bond trade.

  “Dickhead, that only applies to risk-free crosses. I bought this as principal. Not my fault those shit for brains didn’t keep the right info.”

  “I don’t—” Warren was shaking his head doubtfully.

  Mordecai cut him off. “It’s every man for himself in an unsolicited bid in compo!” Mordecai was smiling. “We’re gonna make one point six million bucks on fifteen million bonds! Whooooeeee! Bet ya Schiff doesn’t even back-bid us!” Mordecai walked off, then yelled back over his shoulder, “You got a fifteen-minute exclusive. I could blow these out in a heartbeat!”

  Warren paused for a minute, unsure of what to do. The whole thing made him nervous. He decided to take precautions and saw Carl Dressler walking off the floor, toward the men’s room. Warren got up and followed him in.

  Standing at the urinal, Warren spoke looking straight ahead. “Hey, Carl, let me ask you something.” Warren explained the situation. It wasn’t unusual for conversation to take place in the bathroom at Weldon. Business always came first.

  Dressler zipped up his fly and washed his hands. “So, who was the seller?”

  “EMA. Mahmoud.”

  “EMA? Fucking EMA?” Dressler seemed incredulous.

  “Yeah. EMA. The Arabs.” Warren handed him a paper towel.

  “Oh, that clinches it. Do the trade. Fuck those rag-head sand niggers.” Dressler waved Warren off and pushed the door open.

  Warren stood there for a second and looked at his reflection in the mirror. Ignoring the racial slur, if Carl Dressler didn’t care how much Mordecai marked up the bonds, why should Warren? He went back to his desk.

  “Hey, Warren, what’s up?” Schiff was always congenial on the phone and knew Warren would never waste his time.

  Warren described the bonds and told Schiff the whole story, including what Dressler had said, substituting the word epithet for the slur.

  Schiff let out a low whistle. “Jeeeezus! That’s kinda bald, isn’t it?? Hmmm…” He seemed lost in thought. “God, those bonds are stupid cheap, even at 114 and a half. But, I gotta tell ya, I just don’t want to have anything to do with it. Listen, I’m writing this down in my notes, in case anyone tries to get you in trouble ever. I doubt they will. But I’d stay away from this if I was you. Billy Gross at PIMCO would buy these in a heartbeat, and you can bet his salesman won’t tell him the whole story. He’s smart enough to see the value. It kills me to pass. Hey, I can’t stand those people either. But twelve fucking points? You know it doesn’t surprise me. Not with Mordecai.”

  “No? Why’s that?” Warren felt disappointed, but relieved. He was probably missing out on a payday of close to a $100,000.

  “Mordecai’s a Goldman guy. They’re the biggest pack of thieves on the Street. Maybe in the world. I have stories on them that’d make your hair fall out.”

  “Goldman? I keep hearing that! But they’re supposed to be the most ethical shop anywhere!”

  “Oh, yeah? Ask Dressler or anyone else. They’ll tell you. Those guys will do anything for a buck. Forget it. The worst. Stay away from this stinker. Thanks for telling me what was up. And make sure you let me know if anything I’m doing involves that weasel Mordecai, so I can check my pockets!” Schiff clicked off.

  Warren walked back over to Mordecai and told him he didn’t have a buyer.

  “Are you fuckin’ kidding me, rookie? No buyers? You must be the stupidest salesman on the Street! WAMCO would suck my dick for these bonds at 116! Fuck off back to your nursery, shitface. I gave you a shot. These’ll be gone in two minutes. Useless fuckin’ douche. Change your diaper and get outta my face!”

  Warren tried to hold back, but he couldn’t. “Hey, Steve, I just don’t want to get wrapped up in it, okay? Rippin’ an account’s face off for twelve points may be your idea of good business, but I just don’t want
to get fired over one trade. Pay Kerry her commission and leave me out of it. The money was in the buy, too, so don’t screw her.” Warren was angry and knew his face was probably red.

  “Screw her? I wouldn’t screw that sow with your tiny dick, loser.” Mordecai was leaning back in his chair, enjoying himself. “Maybe with the dough she’s gonna make on this, she could pay you to throw her a bone. Get outta here before I say something you’re gonna regret!” Mordecai was smiling now.

  Warren took a deep breath and walked away, trying not to think about smashing Mordecai’s face in with a hard left hook. He was a scrawny, balding guy who didn’t appear to have a muscle in his body. In a fight, Warren knew he would beat the guy senseless. Battles here weren’t decided by size, strength, or character. It was always, and only, about money. Just business. Nothing personal.

  twenty

  The wind that swept across Central Park from the north piled up against the palisade of towers on Central Park South, intensifying the Canadian chill into a frigid arctic blast that whisked Bill Dougherty’s breath away as quickly as it turned it to vapor in the night air. More than a hint of liquor was in that steam, and clearer evidence still in his gait, which was unsteady as he negotiated the broad steps of the New York Athletic Club and, heedless of the doorman’s offer of a taxicab, turned east into the teeth of the gale.

  It would only be a few blocks to the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Ninth Street, where hansom drivers violated the city’s new ordinances about keeping their horses out in the cold, and the Plaza Hotel’s bright awning lights and red carpets beckoned. The air would do him a world of good, he thought, and taxis would be plentiful at that tourist mecca, waiting to whisk him in curry-scented warmth home to Park Avenue and Seventy-First Street. Within a few strides, the glow of the AC’s own lights receded to a forlorn pool on the wide sidewalk, and Dougherty, just a slightly hunched pedestrian, was cast adrift into the night, like a small craft in a gathering storm, all quiet as he headed into a nor’easter.

  In most cities at night, light is safety, and numbers are preferred, but on that particular evening, Bill Dougherty had crested the wave of the greatest moment in his career, and the wine, heavy food, cognac, and cigars dulled the senses and the reflexes he had developed, but perhaps left, in an Asian jungle a decade and a half before. He was alone on a vast, blasted tarmac, in a dark wasteland of closed storefronts and shuttered buildings between the safe harbors of busy public gathering places of the night.

  The money would be sweet, the rush of recognition sweeter still. He was far smarter than they all knew or could possibly believe. Old Bill, the customers’ man, the salesman who got by on his relationships and Irish good looks, his family connections, and his wife’s money. The biggest single-customer trade in Weldon history, with Wisconsin, and he’d masterminded the whole thing, brought the resources to bear, focused the laserlike beam of the firm’s insatiable greed that sent the minions with their engineering degrees and MBAs scurrying antlike over Barbara Hayes’s balance sheet until it had been transformed and rebalanced in a way any investment banker could understand, appreciate, and, most important, envy.

  “‘You are like the five-hundred-pound payload at the tip of a billion-dollar, ten-thousand-ton rocket,’” he said into the night audience of blowing papers and coagulated grime. “‘The delivery system for all those guys at Mission Control—research, trading, sales…,’” he quoted from Malcolm Conover’s “payload speech,” used to motivate rookie salesmen, which also reminded them of their insignificance without the magisterial resources of the mighty Weldon machine. Fucking asshole, Dougherty thought. Empty suit.

  The hunched figure whose weaving path intersected his in the middle of the block was like a cipher, a filthy, grime-covered body, with a face so coated in dirt that no light reflected from its smooth planes. This familiar vision was the embodiment of the city’s excess to so many who were offended or made guilty by the gulf between success and failure that New York emphasized with such gusto. The millionaire bond salesman and the homeless beggar were as much a part of Manhattan mythology as Boss Tweed and Fiorello LaGuardia.

  The outstretched hand wore a glove of unknown pedigree, and the mumbled invocation for alms paid unknowing homage to a tradition of the millennia. Dougherty’s reply, downcast stare, less audible apology, and swallowed invective were in the same timeless mold, as was the quickened step, and the subtle course correction to deflect the interloper to the inside, leaving the street, and a potential path of escape, open, the unyielding granite façades safely behind the beggar.

  Dougherty didn’t see what made him fall, only felt his foot catch and managed to blunt the impact with his hands, which had been up at his collar. Still, it stunned him for a moment, until he felt strange hands reaching to him, seeming to try to get him stabilized, maybe help him to his feet. It took a moment to realize that it was the beggar, the hapless vagrant who was coming to his aid, and a flicker of that guilt or regret passed through his jaded mind, only to fade quickly when his body told him he was not being helped, but robbed.

  “Hey!” he managed to blurt out, as he started to reach up toward the offending arms. He hadn’t plotted a reaction, as the images were slow to crystallize in his brain, though adrenaline would soon clear the webs. He started to push himself upright, though the smooth leather soles of his Alden wing tips got scant purchase on the quartz-encrusted concrete and kept him off-balence before he could get past a sitting position.

  The sudden punch to his chest, and the second to his throat, startled him, but there was no time for anger, or even fear, as his eyes caught the glint of the long steel blade, now wet with his own blood, and his lungs filled and his breath escaped, and the hot, dark puddle that suddenly grew steamed briefly in the frostbitten evening before the wind bore it away.

  twenty-one

  Warren pulled a Post off the stack at the corner grocery before he hailed a cab every morning. He generally read the Journal once he got into the office, but the tabloid made for more entertaining fare during the ride in. There wasn’t much of interest nationally, but as he paged through to local news, he noticed an item on the fifth page, lower right: “Broker Slain near Central Park”:

  William E. Dougherty, a broker for Wall Street powerhouse Weldon Brothers, was robbed and stabbed to death late last night only steps from the New York Athletic Club, on Central Park South in Manhattan, where he had just completed a business engagement. Police refused to speculate on the identity of the killer, but a witness said he’d seen an apparently homeless man panhandling in the area shortly before the incident. Dougherty evidently lay unattended for several minutes, before a maintenance worker from the Essex House Hotel nearby noticed him. He was rushed to St. Luke’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

  A spokesman for the mayor’s office expressed abhorrence for the crime and promised “the full effort of all law enforcement agencies to capture the guilty party in this heinous crime.”

  Mr. Dougherty, according to sources, was a highly successful salesman with Weldon Brothers and was a holder of the Silver Star for his service in Vietnam. He was married to Megan Rance, granddaughter of Reynolds Rance, the founder of Rance Aviation, a major defense contractor, and leaves two teenaged children.

  “Holy shit!” Warren blurted out, startling the driver. “I can’t fucking believe it!” He snapped the paper shut and closed his eyes.

  “Excuse me, sorh?” the man behind the wheel said in a Pakistani accent.

  “I can’t fucking believe it! I can’t fucking believe it!” Warren was shaking his head now. “A guy I work with was killed last night. Jesus Christ! What the fuck is going on here? What do I do? Holy Jesus H. Christ.” Warren was rubbing his hands over his face as the cab reached the FDR Drive entrance and turned downtown.

  As soon as he stepped onto the floor, he slowed down. What had he expected? Clumps of men in funeral garb, some kind of general outcry? The impact on the floor was negligible. A group of salesm
en were gathered near Dougherty’s desk, but most everyone else who had arrived was on the phone. The morning passed with several brief conversations, mostly about the rise of violent crime in the city, expressions of shock and disbelief, and an address over the internal television system to announce the death, and to offer solace and advice on safety. At about eleven o’clock, Malcolm Conover called Warren into his office. Conover, as Fixed Income sales manager, was responsible for handling the reassignment of Dougherty’s responsibilities.

  “Goddamn unbelievable what happened to Billy. Right after the biggest trade of his career with Wisconsin. I just can’t get over it.” Malcolm was speaking to the far wall as he led Warren into his glass-walled office. “How are you holding up?”

  “Well, Malcolm, it’s not easy. All of Billy’s accounts are horrified, and I gotta tell you, I’m pretty shaken up. It just makes the business seem unimportant.” Warren hung his head as he plopped into a chair.

  “God. He had two kids. I saw them at the Christmas party. And Anne. Christ, I hope he had a lot of insurance, at least. This fucking city. I told them we shoulda moved the company to Greenwich last year.” Conover seemed genuinely upset, and Warren could see he was thinking about his own family, and what would happen if it had been him. That he’d gotten Megan Dougherty’s name wrong didn’t really surprise Warren, but he was slightly appalled that Malcolm’s showing human emotion surprised him.

  “Well, Malcolm, we’ve gotta figure no matter where the office was or where he lived, he’d still have had to come into town for dinner with Wisconsin. Barbara Hayes loves the AC, so that was where he’d’ve been no matter what.” Warren knew that she enjoyed the maleness of the NYAC, and the sense of intruding on privilege that made her feel special.

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” Conover paused for a moment, then dismissed the tragedy with a short wave of his hand. “Well, anyway, Warren, we’ve decided to split Malcolm’s book for now. You know everybody pretty well already, and you’ve been doing a good job, especially with the state. We’ll have JT split the coverage with you, but you’re the senior coverage, he’s more backup. A familiar voice on the telephone will do the clients well, and maybe you’ll even get a few sympathy trades out of it. If it works out, you’ll be alone on the list.” Malcolm was leaning back in his chair, looking away from Warren and out at the floor. “It’s kind of seamless this way. And a big opportunity for you.”