The Warning

by Davis Bunn

  “I’m very proud of you,” Trish said quietly.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Buddy told them all.

  “We’ll hang it in your den,” Molly suggested.

  “We’re all proud of you, Dad.” Anne, Paul’s wife, was a statuesque blond whose warmth drew people like a flame. She gave Buddy a quick hug. “I’ll go tell the boys you’re here.”

  He looked up from the picture and asked, “What was that about company?”

  “Alex called and asked if it was okay to bring him around,” Molly replied. “I said yes.”

  “Bring who?”

  “A reporter,” she answered. “From The Wall Street Journal.”

  “I find it surprising that somebody from The Wall Street Journal would come all this way to talk with me,” Buddy said.

  “I’ve been in Wilmington working on another story.” He ground his cigarette in the house’s only ashtray, which was why he was sitting on the back porch. Molly was allergic to tobacco smoke. “You know the Chemtel Corporation, of course, they’re the biggest employer in this area. They were in the final stages of acquiring a local company.”

  “I think I heard something about that.”

  “The sale price was somewhere in the vicinity of a half billion dollars. This morning the chairman of Chemtel called it off. He gave several reasons, but he said in a private interview with me that the most important explanation was your speech last night.”

  “I see.” Buddy was seated beside his elder son. Paul’s silent presence was comforting. Alex sat at the picnic table’s far end. From this perspective, it was easy to see how Alex’s features had run like wax left in hot sunlight, weathered and wearied by crushed dreams and hard living. And now this illness.

  Buddy glanced to where Jack, his second son, sat watching him from alongside the journalist. He could see Molly’s face stamped there, her spiked features, her quiet watchfulness. Buddy felt immensely comforted by this gathering of family. Especially now. “Well, what would you like to know?”

  “Do you mind if I record this?” The journalist’s name was Chad, a sharp young man who spoke with only the slightest twinge of New York to his speech. His features were as crisp as his starched shirt. His hair was razor cut, his spectacles round tortoiseshell. His tie probably cost as much as Buddy’s suit. He looked like every young New Yorker on the move Buddy had ever met.

  Chad set the recorder on the table between them, checked to make sure it was running, and asked, “Could you tell me a little about what was behind your talk last night, Mr. Korda?”

  “You follow the stock market trends more closely than I do. I’m sure you’ve heard anything I can tell you a dozen times before.”

  “Sure,” Chad agreed. “But I was led to believe that there was something more behind your performance.”

  “It wasn’t a performance,” Buddy countered. “I simply shared with a group of businessmen my concerns over the future.”

  “That’s not what I heard. From what I was told, you knocked them off their feet. Literally.”

  It felt to Buddy as though the family members were granting him their strength, giving him the capacity to say, “Are you a believer, Chad?”

  “Am I a . . . ?” He adjusted his spectacles. “I’m paid to be objective, Mr. Korda.”

  “There is no such thing.” Buddy felt the autumn sunlight beating down upon his shoulders. The warmth was magnified by the eyes on him. His two sons, his brother, all watching and helping in their silent way. “Objectivity is an excuse from those who prefer to keep life and faith at an emotional arm’s distance. If you are not a believer, then claiming objectivity is a mask. If you are a believer, it will color every action, every thought, every feeling.”

  “Let’s get this back on track.” Chad leaned across the table. “We were talking about your speech last night. A couple of the people I interviewed were calling you a prophet.”

  “Then you’ll have to talk to them about that.” Strange that he was not the least bit troubled about all this. Chad’s confrontational attitude rolled off him like rain on his car’s windshield. “The Bible says that prophecy is for believers, not unbelievers. So unless you can speak to me openly as a believer, we will need to hold our discussion to market trends.”

  “Then let’s just say I am a believer, for the sake of argument.”

  “There should never be arguments between believers,” Buddy replied, not even needing to think it out.

  “Okay, for discussion’s sake, then.” A trace of anger glinted through the spectacles.

  “Then I would invite you to lead us in a word of prayer and ask the Lord to direct us forward,” Buddy responded.

  Chad watched him for a silent moment, his features tight. Finally he conceded, “You wanted to tell me something about trends?”

  “Certainly. Anyone in banking is aware of current dangers. Or they should be. During the past five years, increases in stock values have added almost four trillion dollars to household savings. And this is extremely widespread, with more than half of all U.S. households owning stocks and mutual funds.” Buddy had been watching these trends for years, and worrying for just as long. “The problem is, this is not confirmed wealth. This is theoretical wealth.”

  “If stock prices have risen and people own the stocks, then I don’t see how this could be considered theoretical,” the journalist countered sharply, still angered by his inability to steer the discussion as he would have preferred.

  “It remains theoretical so long as people have not cashed in,” Buddy answered. “They see the figures on their monthly statements, they watch how the values rise, and this affects their planning. But because they see how fast the stock values are rising, they don’t cash in. Instead, they increase their debt. They borrow money to spend in the moment, expecting to be able to cash their stock holdings sometime in the future.”

  “That should make a banker like yourself very pleased.”

  “I can’t be pleased when I see this debt based on false expectations,” Buddy contradicted. “In this same period, household debt has jumped more than fifty percent, and today totals over six trillion dollars. This means if you measure the increase in stock prices versus the increase in debt, the net result is a decline in personal net worth of over two trillion dollars. This is an incredible shift, especially since it has happened so swiftly—in just five short years. Do you see where this is headed?”

  “Suppose you tell me.”

  “People are not just increasing their debt to match the rise in their investment’s current values. They are increasing their debt to match their future expectations. They are saying, the value of my investments increased by twenty percent last year, so it must do the same this year. I can afford this big new house or the brand new car.”

  Buddy shook his head, feeling the weight of this tragedy beating down with the sun. He was insulated from Chad and his petty anger, but not from the unfolding cataclysm. Not at all. “This is a horrific risk. Most households hold investments they can’t easily use—life insurance policies, pensions, home equity, IRA accounts. This means that if there is an economic downturn, not only would they have difficulty meeting their debt payments, they could not pull out of these investments to cover their needs. They could lose their homes, their cars, everything. It is a recipe for disaster.”

  “But the market is in excellent shape,” the journalist argued, clearly unaffected by Buddy’s worry. In fact, he sounded almost bored. “The leading pundits predict another eighteen months of share price rises, minimum.”

  This was leading nowhere. Buddy rose to his feet and offered the young man his hand. “Then let’s hope they are right. For all our sakes.”

  Alex remained behind as the two boys saw the journalist to his car. He waited until the backyard was theirs before announcing, “That kid doesn’t have the sense it takes to pound sand down a mousehole.”

  “No, that’s not it.” Now that it was over, Buddy felt drained. “He is an extremely int
elligent product of our culture.”

  Alex started to object, then changed the subject. “Agatha Richards came by again. She wants to work with me. After today I think maybe I’ll need the help.”

  “What happened today?”

  “I got maybe two dozen phone calls from Lionel Peters alone. He’s set you up with speeches from one end of the state to the other, including one later on tonight. I tell you, that man’s on fire.”

  Buddy nodded, wondering why he was not more surprised than he was. “Any others?”

  “Are you kidding? By five o’clock this afternoon when Chad arrived, I’d fielded thirty-seven requests for you to talk. Thirty-seven, Buddy. In one day. And the later it got, the farther away the calls came from. The word’s beginning to get out. When I closed up, the phone was still ringing like mad. I just got tired of answering it.”

  Buddy turned back to look at his house. He could hear faint cries of childish laughter through the open door. “I guess it’s started, then.”

  “I’ll say it’s started.” Alex leaned forward, making the table creak under his weight. “Listen, Buddy. Agatha wants me to move downtown. She owns some big office building. Said she’d give me a whole floor. Secretaries, banks of telephones, the works.”

  “That sounds like Agatha.”

  “I don’t want to move downtown, Buddy. I like it where I am. I know where things are. I know where I stand. Downtown, well, I’m afraid I’d let things get on top of me.”

  Buddy turned from the house, saw the fear and the appeal in his brother’s eyes. “You don’t have to do a single thing you don’t want to do, Alex.”

  “I don’t?”

  “You’re in charge of this. You handle it exactly the way you want.”

  “I don’t have to do what Agatha says?”

  “You don’t have to do what anybody says. Most especially Agatha.”

  Alex leaned back, surprised by his brother’s unqualified reaction. “Well, then.”

  “A project can’t have two heads, Alex. You talk with Molly, you talk with me, then set this up however you see fit.” Buddy could not say why it felt so right to speak as he did. But there was no room for questioning. Despite his fatigue, the peace that had stayed with him through the interview still lingered. “Just try to set it up so we’re not crisscrossing the state. Make the meetings fit together as close as you can.”

  “You got it.” Alex picked a splinter from the end of the table and then said quietly, “You know, while you were talking with that Chad fellow, I had the strangest feeling.”

  “I did too.”

  “The longer he talked, it seemed like the smaller and smaller he got. Didn’t matter that he was from Wall Street. Didn’t matter that he thought we were all packing just half a load. It seemed as though we were protected somehow.”

  “I felt the same thing.”

  “Last night during your speech,” Alex started, then stopped to squint up at the sky. “Last night, I watched that thing happen. I saw Agatha get all worked up sitting right there beside me. And I didn’t feel much of anything. Oh, a twitch I suppose, but not much more.”

  “I didn’t feel it either, Alex. It doesn’t mean anything. Faith is not about having rapturous experiences. It’s about following Jesus.”

  “Maybe it didn’t mean anything to you. But sure as chickens wear feathers, it meant something to me. It meant I wasn’t doing what you said.” His examination of the table became more tightly focused. “All my life, I haven’t followed anybody but the wind. And every time the wind changes directions, so do I.”

  Buddy watched his brother, scarcely daring to breathe.

  Alex looked up. “I don’t want to follow the wind anymore, Buddy.”

  “You don’t know how long I’ve dreamed of hearing you say those words.”

  “I’m gonna take these first steps slow and easy. That’s just my nature. I need to understand where it is I’m headed.” Alex exhaled a breath that sounded as though he had been holding it for years. “But it’s time to start.”

  Molly appeared on the back porch. “Buddy, are you two going to be much longer? The girls are starving.”

  “You go ahead and start without us. We’ll be a few minutes yet,” he said, and turned back to Alex. “My brother and I need to have a little talk about prayer.”

  –|| SIXTEEN ||–

  Thirty-Four Days . . .

  Wednesday morning Nathan Jones Turner leaned back in his padded chair, and stared out the window overlooking his estate as he waited for Larry Fleiss to come on the line. As soon as Fleiss answered, Turner demanded, “Found my sure things yet?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Do more than work,” Nathan Jones Turner barked. “I want results, and I want them fast.”

  “Things like this take time. I’ll need a week at least.”

  “Do you have any idea what would happen if the Securities and Exchange Commission caught wind of what I’ve done with the pension-fund accounts?”

  “It gives me nightmares.” Fleiss paused for a sip from his ever-present mug. “There’s one more thing. Small, but we need to discuss it. You seen today’s Journal?”

  “It’s here in front of me.”

  “Take a look at page two.”

  Turner flipped open the paper and scanned the story about a Valenti assistant branch manager predicting a serious economic downturn. The reporter concluded with the effect Buddy Korda’s words had had on derailing the Chemtel deal. Turner snorted his impatience. “So?”

  “Doesn’t look like much on the surface, I admit. But I’ve been worrying about it ever since I heard they were gonna run it.”

  “You knew about this yesterday?”

  “Pal over on the Journal staff, he called me last night. Said the journalist who covered it was really shook up. The editors all thought it sounded a little wacko, but they had the space and decided to go with it.”

  “Quite frankly, I can’t see any reason for the clamor.” Nathan Jones Turner waved an impatient hand toward the strengthening sunlight. “An assistant branch manager finally realizes that he is going nowhere, that nothing in his worthless little life will be remembered ten minutes after he is gone. So he sets out to make a final hurrah.”

  “My brain is telling me the same thing,” Fleiss agreed. “But my gut . . .”

  Nathan Jones Turner had ample experience with Larry Fleiss’s gut feelings. Fleiss seldom made mistakes, which made this last trade—the first Turner had ever taken a significant personal loss on—so galling. “What would happen if someone started pronouncing that the market was headed for a major correction. No, strike that. More than a correction. A significant downturn.”

  “You mean,” Fleiss said, “someone the market really trusted.”

  “Exactly. Someone with a voice that people began to pay attention to.”

  “One word. Disaster.” The only change was a tightening to the metallic edge. “It would be a case of wish fulfillment. People believe it, so it happens. We’d take a bath that’d cost us a billion. More.”

  “If what you say is true, this peon has to be stopped before he can wreak any real damage.”

  “You said it, not me.”

  “Do you know people who handle that sort of thing?”

  “You mean, find some sort of leverage, force the guy to shut up?”

  “I mean,” Turner replied grimly, “whatever it takes.”

  –|| SEVENTEEN ||–

  Wednesday morning Buddy drove to his brother’s car lot. The evening before he had delivered another speech in a nearby town, one of the events prepared by Lionel Peters. Buddy had then spent a restless night reliving the sight of another crowd coming alive while he felt nothing at all.

  He and Molly were scheduled to begin their first longer journey that very afternoon, overnighting twice in hotels before returning home. The thought of taking to the road so disturbed him that he was pulling into the entrance before he noticed the difference in Alex’s lot.

>   The multicolored flags still fluttered in the morning breeze, but their shadows fell upon an almost-empty lot. Buddy climbed from the car and looked around. A smiling Alex appeared at the office door. Perhaps it was just his imagination, now that he was looking for such things, but Alex looked a little paler than normal to Buddy. Yet his shirtsleeves were rolled up, and his grin was firmly in place. “Well, if it ain’t the man of the hour!”

  “Alex, what’s going on here?”

  “I did what the competition have been after me to do for years. I sold out to the highest bidder.”

  “You’re going to work for the dealership?”

  “Probably. We’ll see about that later.” He waved him over. “Come on inside. Who’d believe it could be this hot in September?”

  When Buddy stepped into the trailer’s air-conditioned cool, Alex went on, “Last night I decided I’d give myself full time to this. Yesterday was enough to show it’s going to take all I’ve got to give and more. The Chrysler dealership called to buy me out, and this time I said yes. Shocked the guy right out of his skin.”

  Buddy was astonished at how easily Alex spoke about the empty lot. “I can imagine.”

  “My two salesmen are already over there. Taking them on was part of the deal. And my cars. They’ll be over to pick up the rest this afternoon. I’ve got three months before they expect me to start. Figure that’ll be enough time.”

  Alex caught Buddy’s look, and hastily added, “Don’t worry. I didn’t tell them about my illness, but I was straight about everything else. They only pay for my inventory now, and I gave them more than a fair price. They’re happy to do away with the competition. They’ve done well by it, no matter what happens.”

  “I’m glad you handled it the way you did,” Buddy said, feeling a twinge of pain just the same. “Very glad.”

  “I’ve got to try to play it straight if I’m gonna do this for God.” Alex’s grand smile reappeared. “Who in the world would’ve ever thought I’d say those words?”