The Last Trade

by James Conway

  Havens grabs Salvado by the front of his crisp white shirt and shoves him back into the corner near the window. To the west dark clouds press down on the Hudson; beneath them giant machines sit idle on the earth of Ground Zero. “Where is this going, you son of a bitch?”

  Salvado is unfazed: “In addition to making money,” he continues, narrowing his eyes, smirking, “one of the fund manager’s most important responsibilities is to mitigate, or hedge, risk and minimize losses.”

  “Danny Weiss was your hedge?”

  “Forget Weiss. He was looking into things that can get a person killed. Things you seem to know more about than me.”

  Havens shoves himself away from Salvado, then cocks his right hand back in a fist.

  From behind Havens, at the entrance to the room back near the humidor, comes a woman’s voice. “Rick?” Salvado’s executive assistant, Roxanne. “Everything all right in here?”

  Salvado, trembling, nods. “We’re fine, Roxy. Drew was just about to leave.”

  Havens looks at Roxanne, then back at Salvado. Roxanne half smiles, turns, and walks away. She knows something’s wrong but knows enough from past experience not to question Salvado.

  “Now you listen,” Salvado says, regaining his bravado. “I suggest you leave and forget you ever worked here. Last chance: We can make the last few days go away and attribute your departure to a growing fundamental difference in our investment philosophies. Personal problems, and God knows you’ve been through a lot. You will receive a generous severance, your full bonus, and my wholehearted endorsement. But remember, there is nothing you can do to me, no way to substantiate or prove anything.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “But if you try and by some fluke survive, I promise you will be the one to go away. And not to prison. I know people, at every level. People who believe in my fund and my vision.”

  “Your lies.”

  “That’s subjective.”

  “What’s gonna happen Friday?”

  Salvado shakes his head. No idea. “You think you’re gonna tell people about some crazy theory and the world is gonna listen to a freak like you and take action? They’d never believe you, even if by some fluke you’re right, because investors never want to hear a negative truth. They never want to think that something so horrible could happen to them.”

  “Despite the fact that it does, every day.” Havens takes three backward steps toward the door.

  “Remember, you are no one. And nobody listens to no ones.”

  “When confronted with an overwhelmingly convincing body of evidence, they will.”

  “You do not know what kind of shit storm is coming your way, son.”

  “Weiss is dead, but he left a nice bread-crumb trail. I’m going to break down every last crumb and follow that trail right back to where you live.”

  * * *

  Back on the elevator, heart drumming triple time against his rib cage, blood thumping in his ears like a subwoofer. He rushes out at the lobby level, past the preoccupied guard at the security desk, and back onto the street. Walking south toward the pit, toward Ground Zero, he looks up and sees his friend the rainmaker Tommy Rourke approaching, on his way into work.

  “Drewski . . . you hear about Weiss?”

  “It’s crazy, Tommy.”

  “That poor bastard,” Rourke says. “I never should have let him move into that building. It’s not like he was poor . . .”

  “Tom, it wasn’t random.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It wasn’t random. His murder was planned.”

  “What?”

  “Salvado had him killed because he knew something, Tom. He . . .”

  “Rick? Come on, Drew. The guy’s a piece of shit, but he’s no killer. Why would . . .”

  “Weiss knew something about the fund. The crazy direction it’s going. I put him up to it, Tom, and now he’s gone.”

  Rourke raises his eyebrows. “What are you talking about? You sound and look like a paranoid crazy person.”

  “That’s what I told Weiss when he tried to convince me. I didn’t want to listen. Didn’t believe him, but, Tommy, he found things.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not sure, but obviously he hit a nerve.”

  “Shady plays are one thing, Drew, but killing?”

  “I was there, Tommy. I found him when the killer was still in the apartment.”

  “Jesus.”

  “He cut his throat and left him bleeding out.”

  “Who?”

  “Laslow. Salvado’s pimp from the club, the bald guy from Elysian.”

  “Listen, Drew. You’ve been through a lot, there’s no denying that, but what you’re asking me to believe . . .”

  “I’m not asking you, Tom. I realize no one will believe it until I prove it.”

  “Why don’t you just go to the police and tell them what you know? Wouldn’t that be best?”

  Havens thinks. If it weren’t for Rourke, after Erin’s death, after his divorce, he doesn’t know if he’d have made it. Besides Miranda, Rourke was the only one to check in on him after the funeral, the only one with the compassion to understand the link between the demands of his job, the death of his only child, and the end of his marriage. But he’s thought this through. “Look, no one’s been there for me like you, Tom. From everything that happened with my family to telling people to lay off the Rain Man jokes when I started. But if I go to the police without having this thing figured out, they will lock me up. A socially inept, divorced quant with a chip on his shoulder taking on an American icon. Within twenty-four hours Salvado will fix everything so that it all lands on top of me.”

  Rourke exhales. “Jesus. You okay?”

  “I’m not okay. I’m scared shitless.”

  “Listen.” Rourke takes a breath, tries to think. “Why don’t we grab a cup of coffee and talk? I’m sure there’s something we . . .”

  Havens shakes his head. “Trust me, I’ve thought this through. Every model ends with me in jail. I don’t expect you to believe me, Tommy, and I don’t blame you for thinking I’m nuts.”

  “I don’t think you’re—”

  “I mean,” Havens interrupts, “after Erin, after Miranda . . .”

  Rourke shakes his head. No need to go there. “So what can I do?”

  “You’ve helped me enough.”

  “And you’ve helped me plenty over the years. So what?”

  Havens considers his friend, then hugs him. “You can keep an eye on Salvado for me. Let me know if he does something radical.”

  “Done. Where you going now?”

  “To a cave. To figure this shit out.”

  2

  Hong Kong/Berlin

  Flying commercial makes her feel half-human.

  At one point this afternoon Michaud had tried convince Sobieski to hop on a military transport, but she talked him out of it. In theory it would get her into Germany two hours sooner, but she also knew the shorter flight time would entail being strapped into the back of a cargo plane or some speed-of-sound fighter while clutching a barf bag. She begged for commercial, got bumped up to business, is thrilled to see that it’s almost empty.

  She sips Sauvignon Blanc and skims the American finance rags. She opens a novel—When was the last time I read a novel?—about a fierce and seemingly senseless battle for a hill in Vietnam. She read that it took the author, a Vietnam veteran, more than thirty years to come to terms with it, to get his story right. She loves the story, rips through it the same way she attacks a training session, a case, a poker table, or anything that interests her: all in and all out. But what interests her most is the story that isn’t in the book, the story of the man who wrote it.

  What compels a person to dedica
te his decades to the fictional recreation of a life-changing moment? Is it the hope that the end result will change things back to the way they were, or at least to something better? Or is it all about trying to make sense of the random brutality of the world?

  Four hours later, when she finishes the last sentence, she closes the book and looks out at a cloud-scrimmed quarter moon, somewhere over mainland China.

  “How was it?”

  She looks at the smiling man in the next seat. When he sat just before takeoff, they exchanged the curt hellos of two people who’d prefer not to be bothered. Each soon got lost in a cache of carry-on media. “The book. You’re pretty much devouring it.”

  “I started it twice at home but got nowhere before today. It’s pretty compelling.”

  “You know,” the man offers, “it took the author more than thirty years to complete the story.”

  Sobieski stares at the man. “You read it?”

  “No. But I own it and have read about it. It’s near the top of my interesting to talk about but never been read stack.”

  Now she smiles. “I have one of those.”

  “I have to admit, it’s the thirty-years-to-complete part, more than the great-war-novel part, that fascinated me.”

  A flight attendant pauses in the aisle with a tray of warm chocolate chip cookies. They each take one. Can’t get these on a C-130, Sobieski thinks. Or him. “Well,” she says. “We’ve got about four more hours until we get to Berlin. You’re more than welcome to read it.”

  He looks at the laptop on his tray table. “You know what, why not?” He holds out his hand and she gives him the paperback. “I’ll read fast and we can have an impromptu book group, let’s say in three and a half hours, thirty-seven thousand feet above western Kazakhstan.”

  She smiles. “Deal.”

  For an hour she sleeps. When she wakes up, she sees that he’s well into the book. Perhaps 175 pages. She thinks of what happens at that point in the story and wonders what he thinks of it.

  Sensing her gaze, he closes the book. “Amazing. I mean, I’ve never been to war; I’m a collectibles dealer, so I can’t even imagine what it must have been like there. Firefights. Death. Fear. Bravery. The way it must change the way you look at everything when it’s over.”

  “My dad was in Vietnam,” Sobieski offers.

  “Really? Mine, too.”

  “Mine’s not around, and never spoke about his experience there, but I can understand why.”

  He takes a sip of bottled water and swallows before responding. “I bet your dad did some special stuff.”

  She tilts her head. “Why?”

  “Because he never spoke about it. Isn’t that how it goes, the real heroes never talk about it? My dad . . . man. I mean the guy never shut up about ‘the Nam.’ His stories got to the point where I began to doubt if he ever made it out of the States.”

  “You never know,” Sobieski replies. “Maybe mine didn’t talk because he had something to hide. Everyone processes conflict differently. “

  The man holds the book out to her. “Here. Listen, I’m a fast reader. But not 622 pages fast.”

  She waves him off. “Keep it. Unless your copy’s in Berlin. We’ll have the book club another time.”

  He pulls it back. “That’s kind of you.” He holds out his hand. “Marco.”

  Sobieski shakes his hand. “Cara.”

  She sits up, anticipating that the conversation is about to become more intimate. But after releasing her hand, he reaches back into his carry-on for a folder and prepares to get back to work.

  Sobieski tilts her head back and closes her eyes. The one time she wouldn’t mind a guy getting a little aggressive on a long flight, he doesn’t. She opens her eyes and stares back out the window. Her last look at the map on the seat back in front of her showed the plane cruising somewhere over Poland. Her father used to tell her that they descended from Polish royalty. That a relative, his namesake, King Jan Sobieski, was beloved for saving Vienna from the Turks, and that he had a fairy tale love affair with his queen, and that there was a painting of him hanging in the Sistine Chapel. The painting exists—she’s seen it—but he never showed her proof of their link to royalty, and she never asked for it.

  She takes a breath, looks back at Marco, and goes for it. “Do you mind if I ask, what exactly is it that you collect?”

  3

  New York City

  At the Citi branch on Ninth and 23rd he buzzes himself into the ATM chamber and dips his card. He taps Withdrawal, Cash, and the daily max, $500. The machine says no. He taps $300 and the machine says no. $100: N-O. Insufficient Funds. See bank administrator. At the Bank of America one block over it’s the same deal. Salvado’s already shut down his assets.

  He crosses 23rd Street to Eighth Avenue, and halfway down the block he steps into the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel, past, present, and eternal home of writers, artists, actors, and rockers, from Dylan, Hendrix, and Joplin to Twain, Kerouac, and Tennessee Williams. This is the first hotel he and Miranda stayed at as a couple. It was Miranda’s choice, not because it was chic or exclusive. She wanted to go because of its musical roots and funky, artistic vibe. When she told Havens that Arthur C. Clarke wrote one of his favorite books, 2001: A Space Odyssey, at the Chelsea, and that Stanley Kubrick, director of the classic film of the same name, often stayed here, the outer space lover in him was smitten, with her and her seedy hotel.

  He pays cash at the desk, then walks upstairs to his room and bolt and chains himself inside. Even after they bought their own place, even after they became rich, once every two or three months they returned to the Chelsea for some sort of spiritual and marital renewal. Having a night away from “parenting,” from Erin, was also part of it. Of course now the thought of ever wanting to spend a night away from Erin sickens him with shame.

  Another Chelsea resident of note, Havens recalls, was Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, one of Danny Weiss’s punk rock rebel heroes, who supposedly killed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, in one of the rooms. It comforts Havens that Weiss would approve.

  He boots up his laptop and plugs in Weiss’s flash drive. While the tracking software loads, he plays an early eighties punk playlist compiled by and given to him by Weiss. The Ramones, the Stooges, the Dead Kennedys, the Misfits, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Jim Carroll, Joe Jackson. The first song up is “Mommy’s Little Monster” by Social Distortion. First he tracks the holdings of the Rising Fund, looking for any out-of-the-ordinary movement in addition to the heavy tech shorts that came out of Hong Kong. Nothing. Then he takes a closer look at the trades in Dubai. The deal there totals almost a billion in shorts, all from the same firm, in direct opposition to Salvado’s Rising longs in the tech sector. They are almost exclusively American tech stocks. If Rick Salvado was Mr. Red, White, and Blue regarding U.S. tech, whoever was taking this position, in Dubai of all places, was the opposite. Insert paranoid Moslem terror conspiracy here.

  He’s still trying to connect Hong Kong and Dubai when he starts picking up movement coming out of South Africa. Out of Johannesburg, and Havens is watching it happen in real time. A buyer there is all over a group of U.S.-based new media stocks. The same ones that Salvado predicted would form the foundation for an American economic and innovation renaissance. But instead of one heavy short bet, the Jo’burg firm is taking a steady stream of smaller ones, just as the firms in Hong Kong and Dubai did. The only conclusion that Havens can draw is that whoever is placing the orders is “Smurfing,” or executing so many small trades instead of larger, lump-sum trades to avoid detection by the authorities. He used to see this with money being wired into the States while he worked at Citi. Everyone knew those deals smelled funny, but because they were technically legal, and there were commissions to be made, they looked the other way.

  He’s anxious to begin constructing models around thi
s information—Brownian motion, Black Scholes option pricing, Gaussian copulas—and indeed at least one compartment of his brain is already teasing out variables and hypotheses. But first he needs to gather as much hard information as he can. He probes “Hong Kong Hang Seng.” Then: “Dubai Zayed Capital.” Then: “Johannesburg Rosehall.” With the abilities of a mathematical savant and the guile of a hacker, he manipulates the computing power of the software to access transactions, employee records, and their in-house trading accounts. This leads to the names of two of the brokers who executed the trades: Patrick Lau in Hong Kong and Nasseem Al Mar in Dubai.

  Havens looks around. His heart rate is raging. The next song is the Misfits’ “Mommy Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?” He looks into the brokers’ residences, education, credit ratings, employment. and bank accounts. He thinks of the trader Lau. Killed in his apartment within hours of completing what was surely the biggest transaction of his life. So far there is no such evidence of death for Al Mar.

  He continues to try to make sense of these strange trades. He teases out a few perfunctory models, weighing risk and volatility and the law of large numbers. He looks for a fat tail in his distribution curves that may point to a surprise catastrophic “black swan” event that can only be rationalized later, but he hits a wall. He needs more information, fewer variables. He had always been frustrated in those moments when life circumstance prevented a robust sample set from which patterns might be recognized. More than anyone, he should know the biggest fallacies of data usage is a small sample size and here he is making the biggest mistake of all—trying to force a truth from a sample size of one.

  As dumbfounded as he is by Salvado’s unjustifiably long positions on these securities, he’s equally perplexed by these moves that are the exact opposite. The only common denominator is the securities. One side predicts widespread success, the other catastrophic failure. That’s not quite right: The other common denominator is dead financial guys. Lau and Danny Weiss and perhaps Al Mar.