Nothing Personal: A Novel of Wall Street

by Offit, Mike

  It was funny, but when Warren had told Larisa about the whole incident, she’d predicted that he’d be a suspect. She’d said he had the most to gain. Obviously, the police felt the same way. It didn’t matter now because, fortunately, he hadn’t chosen to walk home alone or go right to sleep. He couldn’t help the nagging thought that, had Dougherty been killed before the state’s big trade, all that commission would be credited to Warren. Who knew if Weldon would even pay out the commission now that Dougherty was dead. What a bad break. Just one week earlier …

  Warren caught himself and shuddered. What was he thinking about, taking commissions from a dead man? Maybe this job was beginning to get to him a little. Sometimes he wondered if he had what it would take to last. Guys such as Dougherty just let everything run like water off their backs. Others—Anson Combes or even Holik—played the politics and were constantly destabilizing everyone underneath them, to avert any threats. Warren had actually believed the company line about customer service. He knew other firms, such as Goldman Sachs, supposedly indoctrinated their people with the need for at least the perception of ethical behavior, and Bear Stearns had their own internal police. He knew this was all a smoke screen for the same cutthroat activity as anywhere else, but at least they paid lip service to it. But, since he’d been at Weldon, no one had ever mentioned anything about ethics. Weldon’s main concerns seemed to be making money, beating the competition, and being a “team” player. Alex Stevenson had said that team meant being willing to see 95 percent of every dollar you made go to pay senior management for getting dressed in the morning.

  From Warren’s bedroom window, the buildings along Central Park South loomed like sheer cliffs over the diminutive trees of the park. Lit up at night, the buildings had something almost alien about them, like giant machines grinding up the island. The view was addictive and was what had drawn Warren to the place.

  “Warren, you just have to stop taking all this so much to heart,” Larisa said, lying in bed next to him as he stared at the invading horde. “It’s all just a very high-stakes game, with no rules.”

  “But there are rules. Remember? We learned them for the Series Seven Securities Registration exam.”

  Larisa laughed out loud. “Hah! That’s rich! Sure, there are rules. But do you see anyone enforcing them? There’s only one rule, and that’s ‘Don’t get caught.’”

  “I guess. But it gets a little wearing. I mean, sometimes it seems like everyone’s out to screw the clients, but that’s not even enough. They all seem to be looking to shaft each other too.”

  “Jesus, Warren, grow up! This is business! The only thing that counts is money! You didn’t know any of these people a year ago, and if you died tomorrow, they would forget about you in a week. Or a day, like Dougherty.”

  Warren rolled over and kissed Larisa on the forehead. “My little angel. The sad part is you’re right.”

  “Listen, it’s no better upstairs. All the associates try to make the others look bad so they will make VP first, and all the VPs try to take all the credit so they will become MDs first. Hey, last week I made sure a few mistakes didn’t get corrected in a big report this jerk Steve Morley was preparing. Embarrassed the shit out of him at the presentation. Trust me, I’ll be a VP two years before he ever will. He just left the file open on his computer where anybody could get to it.”

  “Jesus! How could you do that?” Warren was taken aback. Complaining was one thing when you could at least pretend to be above it all.

  “How? That asshole buried me with Temenosa last month. Never told me their lawyers called urgently from court when I was in the bathroom. They had an embolism, and I had a hell of a time explaining. Every man for herself. All’s fair in love,” she said, rolling over on top of Warren, and pushing against him hard with her hips, “and especially war.”

  * * *

  Warren had told his father on the telephone later that week that things were moving so fast, he felt as if he were just riding this big wave. Larisa had overheard and told him when he hung up he’d better learn how to control his own destiny, or others would control it for him. She mentioned how he’d let Dougherty walk all over him and said that Anson Combes would do the same thing, only he was worse. He had real power in the company and could hurt Warren’s career. Even his Dad had said sometimes he wished Warren would take command. “Killer instinct, kiddo. It’s part of the game. Someone’s got to win, and it may as well be you.”

  He knew that they were both right. He needed to somehow get more involved in the politics, cover his flanks, and gain some measure of control. He couldn’t get past this naïve belief that if you produced big numbers, stayed within the limits of the law and ethics, and kept customers and traders happy, you would succeed. That was only marginally important compared to playing the angles. For someone everyone seemed to think was so smart, it just never got through. He’d have to start thinking more about geometry.

  * * *

  It had been a while since Dougherty’s death, but Anson had continued nosing around, albeit a little less obtrusively. Barbara Hayes had suddenly become distant and a little awkward with Warren. The business was still lucrative, with constant rebalancing, but she rarely called, and seemed generally cool to him. The past few months, despite his efforts and a few trips up to see her, she had started to give more of her business to Drexel Burnham and sold some of the stronger, solid corporate bonds in her portfolio for higher-yielding junk bonds. Warren had tried to dissuade her, but even he had to admit the extra yield was enticing, whether or not Milken, the star head of Drexel’s junk-bond department, made five or ten points on every trade. The last time Warren had been up to Madison, he was shocked to see that she had lost a lot of weight and started to dress less conservatively, and she had even driven him to the airport in a new Saab sedan, with leather seats and a manual transmission. She ran through the gears like A. J. Foyt.

  Warren surmised that all the contact with the Street had given her more expensive tastes. The fancy dinners and wines, the private cars and extravagant bond conferences, had a way of infecting people. He imagined she’d saved every penny she earned at the state and could afford a few luxuries, and he’d gotten one of the secretaries to let out that Barbara had a top-secret new boyfriend. Good for her, he thought, remembering Dougherty’s snarky comments about her and Giambi. Well, now she was hot and Dougherty was dead. Go figure.

  twenty-five

  When Warren got to Larisa’s apartment, he spent a few minutes looking for the book he’d left there, Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin. There’d be plenty of time to catch up on his reading while she was away, he’d told her, and he wanted the book for his trip out West. He was starting to feel like it was the best novel he had ever read, and would pack it despite its considerable heft. It turned up in the bathroom, then he loafed around on the couch while she was in the bedroom packing for her trip to Dallas. A Knicks game was on TV, and she’d handed him a beer. They talked through the open door while she packed.

  He tried to work around the issue, at first bemoaning how little they saw of each other. He talked to her about Plainscor, the company she was working on. Once she started talking, it might be easier to get something more than a glib response out of her.

  Plainscor had lost a fortune in gas drilling and gone busted, but were trying to bail themselves out with an $800 million lawsuit against Jeremy Crow, the shrewd oilman who’d sold them the lion’s share of his land rights and leases. It was a long shot, but they’d hired a sharp, famous Texas lawyer to represent them. His taking the case had made Plainscor’s stock bounce up almost 20 percent.

  “But, realistically, what’s the chance they settle?” Warren asked. She had explained that half the reason for the suit had been the likelihood that they would convince Crow to settle in the high eight figures rather than risk a Texas jury. He was a high-profile loudmouth, and several magazine interviews could be interpreted to imply that he had gloated for years about playing Paul Donahue for a sucker. Pla
inscor’s founder had trusted his instincts for years and ridden a string of huge finds to build a company with $3 billion in revenues. He wanted to take it to ten, and that was when Crow had picked him off.

  “I think the chances are pretty good. It won’t be enough to bail them out entirely, but it’ll buy us some time.” She was half shouting through the open door.

  “Time to do what?”

  “Isolate some of the valuable assets. Move some cash. The usual.”

  “Isn’t that illegal? I mean, if the company’s in trouble, isn’t it some kind of crime to drain off assets from what’s left?” He couldn’t help but notice that the Knicks were getting their butts kicked. Moses Malone was lighting up Bill Cartwright.

  “Nah. It’s not strictly illegal. Not the way we’re doing it, anyway. If they win, nobody’s going to care much about this stuff. If they lose, believe me, it’s only a drop in the bucket. Plus, the SEC doesn’t give a shit about this stuff.”

  “Sounds like you better protect your ass on any advice you give ’em.”

  “Hey, we get legal opinions on every move. We throw Gordon and Crowell at ’em, to give ’em that Washington-slash-Texas big-law-firm flavor. They’d write a fairness opinion on the purchase of Manhattan from the Indians for the right price. Worry not.” She leaned out of the doorway and blew him a kiss.

  “Hey, how about Crabtree and Evelyn? Mantle and Maris?” Traders and salesmen generally hated attorneys. Commonly, unless they were being paid an exorbitant sum to provide an opinion that a transaction was fair, they just gummed up the works. “In a way, lawyers are just like women.”

  “Well, believe me, if their opinions are for sale, they ain’t for sale cheap.” Larisa tossed her suitcase on the bed. “Whatdya mean, ‘just like women’?”

  “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em. I guess you get what you pay for. There’s the old joke too: ‘The difference between hookers and lawyers is hookers will stop screwing you once you’re dead.’” The Knicks game was clearly out of hand, and the conversation wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Fuuuuuny. Hahaha.”

  He got up and went in to keep her company. She was pretty much finished, and as soon as he plopped down on the bed, she walked into the kitchen to get herself a drink. Her suitcase was open, lying on the bed. It was hard to miss her birth-control pill case on one side, by a pair of slippers. She’d stopped taking them with him, opting for other methods, because she said they made her feel bloated and gross.

  He sat still for a moment, staring at the bright blue evidence of her intentions. He couldn’t help but wonder if she’d left it so obviously in view to send him a message as clearly as possible. Whatever her intention, he felt the anger rise in him, then subside, as he thought about whether he was really upset. He’d been completely faithful to her, except the moment with Eliza the summer before, for about two years. It was the longest he’d ever gone sleeping with only one person. Admittedly, the time pressures and strain of his work made it easy not to play around, but the opportunity had been there many times. They’d never talked about being in a monogamous relationship, but Warren felt it had been pretty much agreed. It was a little bit of a double standard, but he hadn’t planned the liaison with Eliza. Christ, going to Austin’s house for the weekend had been Larisa’s idea.

  Even so, knowing that she was sleeping with someone in Texas didn’t hurt him half as much as he would have expected it to. He was sure it was one of her powerful clients, or maybe one of the attorneys. He was trying to convince himself he didn’t care. The relationship had gotten pretty rocky anyway. He might have wounded pride or an insulted ego, but he had to face that it was probably time to move on. He stood up and finished the lukewarm Budweiser, then stepped into the living room and sat at the round table she used as a dining area. She came out of the kitchen and came over to him, pressing her flat stomach against his head, and hugging him to her. He eased away.

  “Look, there’s something we’d better talk about.” He held her at arm’s length, his hands on her hips.

  She looked slightly quizzical and sat down, taking a sip of her beer. “You sound so serious. What is it?” She put down the bottle and leaned her hands on her chin.

  “Listen, I’ve been doing some thinking, and I thought we should probably talk about this anyway. I mean, I’ve been trying but … well, you know, you’ve been so wrapped up in work lately—I mean, so have I—but, between work and everything else that’s been going on, it’s pretty clear that we both could use a change.” He paused and waited to see her reaction.

  She just stared at him impassively.

  He pressed on. “I think that it’d be a good idea if we just kind of cooled it for a while. Thought things over. It would do us both some good—”

  “Cooled it?” Her voice was full of bile, biting. “Thought it over? Isn’t that kind of cliché? Why don’t you just come right out and say it? If there’s someone else you’re seeing, just say it. Don’t give me this shit. I don’t need to listen to this shit.” Tears were coming up in her eyes, and Warren faltered, but steeled himself.

  “Listen, Larisa, don’t get so self-righteous. I’m not seeing anybody else, and I haven’t been. But that’s pretty good. I mean, I may be a bit slow, but I’ve always packed a little lighter for my trips than you.” He glared at her and pointed to her suitcase through the open door.

  She didn’t waver at all. “Oh, so that’s what’s on your pathetic little mind. Well, while you were poking around in my suitcase, did you happen to think about it for a minute? I wanted to start back on the pill because I know how much better it is for you, and it makes things so much more spontaneous. I thought you might want to say good-bye to me nicely and not have to worry. Obviously, you just wanted to say good-bye. Fine. Do all the thinking you want. I don’t give a fuck. You’re an asshole.” The tears were flowing now, over her high cheekbones, and off the precipice of her sharp jawline. She turned half away from him and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, like a wounded cat with a downy paw.

  Warren sat quietly for a minute, listening to the sobbing. She was beautiful. He couldn’t help but notice how her breasts heaved slightly against her T-shirt when her chest shook. He marveled at his own body, responding sexually to the woman he’d just broken up with, mostly because he hadn’t felt that response for so long. Men were pathetic. Nevertheless, he still had his doubts.

  He rose from the table and smoothed her hair for a moment. Then he got his coat, and the book from the coffee table. He shut off the TV. He walked to the door and turned back to where she sat at the table, the sobs reduced to sniffles.

  “I’m sorry. I am. I always loved you. Maybe I was wrong.” He spread his hands in a gesture of supplication, and she rose to her feet, quickly crossing the room and stepping into his open arms. “I love you too. Maybe we can…” She stopped and kissed him hard, pressing her body against his, opening his coat to make room. Her hands slid down to his pants, unzipping and stroking him. She pushed her skirt up as she pulled him to the floor on top of her, guiding him into her, their tongues intertwined, his breathing heavy. She was crying as he made love to her in the entry foyer, and only as he exploded in the excitement and emotion of the moment did the thought cross his mind: What if she’s bluffing?

  twenty-six

  It had been a long time since Warren had been in Los Angeles. His father had taken him there once when he was twelve years old. They had stayed in an oversize Mediterranean-style villa in Bel Air, the home of Marissa George. Her daughter was a promising junior, and Ken Hament had developed a reputation for working with younger girls. The tennis court was carved into the side of a hill, and a swimming pool was cantilevered over a sheer drop. Warren had spent the day like a movie mogul, sunning by the pool while his father pounded balls with Kelsey.

  After three days, the fifteen-year-old had asked Warren if he played. His father had given him strict instructions to stay off the court with her, but she had started teasing him. Fina
lly, after two hours of her insulting Eastern tennis and explaining how she could beat both of her brothers, Warren asked her if she’d ever played against boys her age. She had not.

  “Well, if you had, you’d know by now that no girl can beat even a lousy guy.” Warren had put all the condescension a twelve-year-old could muster into the comment. It led to an unrefusable challenge, a match, and Kelsey in tears, her confidence shot and the Haments’ California vacation cut short. Ken had taken Warren to Disneyland anyway, which Warren had hated.

  “Time passes, and every generation gets stronger and better,” Ken said. “If I ever catch you being mean to a girl again, I will smack you silly.” He was right. Warren doubted if he would stand a chance against the tiny but powerful teenagers on the women’s tour now. The memory caused him a pang of regret for what he’d said to Larisa. She was working so hard, and he took her for granted, he concluded. Relationships between two fully engaged people were not exactly easy. It had to be harder for an attractive woman, with men undoubtedly hitting on her all the time. When she’d come home from Texas, she had tried to patch things up, but he was convinced she had been lying to him. He just couldn’t get past it. They had drifted apart, and he could feel her anger whenever he saw her in the office. He was anxious for a chance to get away, and it came quickly.