“I’ve been lucky with my clients. I don’t have that many, but they are quite active and quite aggressive—I just do my best to keep up with them. Mr. Peshkov is a major depositor, and constantly asks me to shift the strategy for the deposits and the development of investment products, which he wants our bank to handle. Currently,” Stanley continued, pulling a sheet of paper out of a folder and sliding it over to Lagrange, “on my recommendation, Mr. Peshkov has given up his plan to transfer all his assets into bitcoins, but he has decided to create a portfolio of short-term bonds. This client’s particular characteristic—and the psychological characteristics of our Russian clients is, in my opinion, the most important factor in their business decisions, even more than market conditions or any other market data—this client’s peculiarity is his suspicious nature, bordering on mental illness.”
“Do you have a background in psychology, Mr. Freud?” Lagrange interrupted. “I think not! Let’s stick to the subject at hand. Please, we’re not interested in wandering into off-topic discussions.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Although,” Lagrange interrupted him again, “I’m in complete agreement with you. I know Mr. Peshkov as well, and support your diagnosis.”
Lagrange glanced down at the sheet of paper Stanley had passed him, and underlined several numbers in pencil.
“Okay, we’re clear on Peshkov. Next!”
“I’m afraid I will have to resort to imagery and associations a bit distant from our everyday work,” said Stanley.
Lagrange’s employees relaxed and began to exchange smiles.
Some thought that Stanley was trying to relieve the tension in the room after Lagrange’s promise to distress them with the size of their bonuses.
“Damn it, Mr. McKnight.” Lagrange broke his pencil in half. “If you’re talking about Mr. Grigoryan, I’ll have to agree with you again. Gentlemen, Mr. McKnight is dealing with quite a guy here, not just a cunning agent of the FSB or some other special service, but also a blatant crook prepared to betray everyone he knows just to raise his referral fee. He wanted our bank to raise his commission to 40 percent. The bank management has decided to agree to his terms. You’re displeased?”
“To be honest, I was hoping the bank would turn him down, and I wouldn’t have to experience the dubious pleasure of his company anymore.”
“He’s very beneficial to the bank.”
“I know. It’s just a matter of morality and corporate ethics.”
“We’re making money here, Mr. McKnight.”
“I was joking,” said Stanley, and his colleagues all laughed in unison. “So, we come to Gagarin. Comrade Gagarin thinks that our bank offers successful investment portfolio management services; his assets have grown 30 percent with our assistance.”
“And?” Lagrange was clearly interested.
“So he wants to increase the amount of his assets in the bank.”
“Didn’t he already do that?”
“Yes, sir, he has. He transferred an additional $500 million to us last week. But our compliance department has raised some questions. The transfer came from a third party. They don’t know the company that transferred the money to Gagarin’s account.”
Lagrange wrote something down in his notebook.
“We’ll work on that. So how much more does he want to deposit?”
“Just over 1.5 billion. Euros.”
“Oho!” Schneider exclaimed.
“And what else does he want?” asked Lagrange.
“He wants us to set up a diversified, aggressive, high-risk, high-return investment portfolio.”
“Discuss that with Bernard, he’ll put a proposal together.” Lagrange made some more notes, and looked up at his employees.
“I would tell you, gentlemen, to follow McKnight’s example, but you already understand that,” he said. “In closing, an administrative announcement: the bank management has decided to stop reimbursing corporate expenses on prostitutes and strippers.”
“What!” Schneider burst out. “They can’t do that! How else are we going to entertain our clients!”
“Cost-cutting,” said Lagrange, raising his hands in the air. “Our department alone spent 75,000 francs on hookers using corporate cards. You’re responsible for half of that, Schneider, and you brought in zero new client money!”
“How am I supposed to work now? You know how my Kazakhs love the girls.”
“Pull yourself together, Schneider. Otherwise, Laville will deal with you personally. Take your lecherous Kazakh clients to the opera. The variety will do them good.”
“Come on, boss. That’s a bit too much!”
“Enough, Schneider, the matter is closed. Thank you, everyone! Stanley, you stay!”
Once he and Stanley were alone, Lagrange said, “I think we should make Gagarin a separate case. The rest of our colleagues, aside from management, don’t need to know all the details. It’s not even the size of his portfolio in comparison with the clients our colleagues manage. For that matter, it’s not even the unhealthy attention and envy it will draw—look, he just got here yesterday, and he’s already managing the money of a client like that. The issue is, the sources of Gagarin’s funds are extremely dubious. Not to us—we understand each other, and we couldn’t care less about whether these sources are questionable or not, but who knows what bright idea those Mullers or our dear Andrea might come up with? Rumors will start. They might start circulating anyway. Agreed?”
“I’m with you,” said Stanley.
“And another thing: find a reliable IT guy and ask him how to keep as little information as possible on your computer about Gagarin.”
“What do you mean?”
“We need to have only front data on there. Clean, without any references or links to anything that could be followed up later.”
“I’m sorry, Pierre. Are you suggesting I keep what accountants call double books?” Stanley felt an unpleasant chill in his chest, and his mouth went dry.
“No, no, of course not, but we need to hide any questionable operations, find some way to secure—”
“That’s a crime!”
“No, we don’t need any crimes. None. No crimes and no official misconduct. But we need to somehow split Gagarin’s business into two, or even better, three lines. Just think about it. If you decide not to, I won’t push it, but my advice is to take that route. Okay”—Lagrange slapped the table—“now let’s go visit Monsieur Poiccard. I’ll try to talk some sense into him!”
The head of their compliance department, Michel Poiccard, was an enormous man with a large nose and a magnificent head of salt-and-pepper hair reaching his shoulders. He looked more like a rock star than a bank employee, but Poiccard could take more liberties than the rest of the staff.
He never met with clients; moreover, he and his staff usually came in the back entrance, from a quiet side street and through the garden.
Michel occupied a tiny office, but his desktop was covered with several different monitors, his thick fingers jumping from one keyboard to another. He was—not without reason!—considered one of the bank’s most meticulous and perceptive analysts, capable of finding the criminal element in even the most outwardly aboveboard and trustworthy operations. His self-regard was correspondingly high: Poiccard saw himself as the most important employee in the whole bank, or at least the most indispensable.
Lagrange burst into his office; just a moment before, he had seemed calm and relaxed. Now, all of a sudden, he was acting out an extreme degree of irritation, he was flushed red, and he’d even, shockingly, loosened the knot of his tie.
“What happened? Did the Russians invade somewhere else? Have they taken my homeland of Normandy? Are they getting drunk on Calvados as we speak?”
“Pierre!” said Poiccard in greeting, looking over the rims of the glasses perched on the edge of his nose, but regarding St
anley, not Lagrange, with great interest.
“This is no time for jokes, Michel!” Lagrange plopped down into the chair in front of Poiccard’s desk, banged his knee on the corner of the desk, and let out a quite natural-sounding groan. “Not time for jokes, damn it!”
“Yes? Problems? Can I help?” Poiccard took the glasses of his nose and settled back in his chair. “Mr. McKnight! Very nice to see you. We usually only talk over email. And now here you are in the holy of holies of banking integrity and purity.”
“Michel,” Lagrange interrupted, “you’re going to ruin us! You’ll leave us with only poor, honest clients, weak impotent men who barely have enough money for the cheapest Ferrari.”
“You can stop right there!” Poiccard put his glasses back on and grabbed a mouse, moving it over one of his monitors. “I can guess why you came, or rather, rushed over. It’s that Russian, who shares the name of the first cosmonaut, Gagarin. Or wait…it’s not a coincidence? Could it be? He’s the son of the first cosmonaut! And that’s why he can do whatever he wants. Get hundreds of millions of dollars transferred to his account from a company that probably doesn’t even exist. Well, of course, he is the son of the first cosmonaut! Or maybe the grandson? Well in that case…”
“Enough, Michel! Enough! Gagarin isn’t the son, or the grandson, of a cosmonaut. He’s a very, very wealthy businessman. With connections to the very Russian politicians that are about to invade your Normandy. Talking seriously—the barriers you put between us and his money have already cost the bank millions and will cost even more going forward.” Lagrange crossed his legs, banging his knee again as he did. “If you don’t loosen your grip, I’ll have to complain to Laville about you. He’s not in the best mood at the very end of the financial year, believe me.”
“I’m sure.” Poiccard nodded. “But I don’t have any special grip here. I’m prepared to approve the transfer on two conditions. First—I get the documents for that company. Second—the transfer comes another way. It would be better for it to come from the client’s own funds instead of some third party! I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, Pierre. And, yes, I know Laville will be upset if I don’t approve that transfer, but he’ll be even more upset—enraged, even—if he hears that we missed something this big at the end of the financial year. Would you agree, McKnight?”
“But why didn’t you say anything to me about this?” asked Stanley. “I would have resolved these issues with my client instead of complaining to my manager about you. By the way, I suggested something similar, but you said that you wouldn’t approve the transfer in any event. That it was a matter of principle for you.”
“Well, now I have a different one. It’s immoral not to change your opinions, as Talleyrand said.”
“He actually said: it’s immoral never to change your convictions,” said Stanley, his irritation reaching a boiling point.
“Ah yes, I think you’re right,” said Poiccard, “but it’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Stanley sharply, still standing. “I will discuss this with my client and inform you of our decision. Thank you!”
He flung open the door to Poiccard’s office, walked down the hallway between the large rooms occupied by the staff of this department, and began to climb the stairs. Lagrange caught up with him one floor up.
“You got him, Stan,” Lagrange said breathlessly. “He nearly shat himself! He asked me where you’d come from. He thinks Americans are stupid and limited, and here you are, quoting Talleyrand at him, correcting him. But you’ve made yourself a bad enemy. I’m technically his manager, but he could go directly to Laville.”
“He can go to hell!” said Stanley. “I don’t give a shit!”
Gagarin was most displeased at having to do the transfer again, but then relaxed a bit.
He joked that Laville & Cie were clearly a solid bank if they were so attentive to the sources of money, which meant the money itself would be completely secure there.
Gagarin also said that he and all his friends, especially his friend’s daughter Yulia, were hoping that Stanley could join them on vacation again. He asked if Stanley would come if he were invited, after all, he, Gagarin, would always know that he’d have a brave companion on hand in a crisis, who would risk his own life to save him.
“You’ll save me, won’t you, Stanley?”
“Of course, Viktor!”
“Lovely to hear it! By the way, Mila says hi! She misses you too.”
“Thank you!”
“Shall I tell her you say hello?”
“If it’s no trouble.”
“Of course not, Stan! No trouble!”
“Then please pass on my kind regards to your wife.”
“So formal, Stanley! You’re not saying a toast at a ceremony. How many times do I have to tell you that you’re among friends with us?”
Close to the beginning of spring, Gagarin transferred all the new funds he had promised.
Chapter 21
On the day the notification of the transfer arrived, showing that Gagarin had deposited an additional four billion euros, Stanley accepted a lunch invitation from Bernasconi. They decided to go to Cantinetta Antinori. Andrea and Schneider joined them.
They chose a table on the outdoor terrace to take advantage of the warm weather. Ever since Stanley found out about Gagarin’s transfer that morning, he’d been racked with a fierce hunger. He ordered carpaccio, soup with fregola and mussels, and baked halibut served with salmoriglio sauce.
“And we’ll all have risotto with truffles,” said Andrea.
“Then I’ll have the risotto as well. Give me a half portion, please,” Stanley said to the waiter.
“Wow, have you been starving yourself, Mr. McKnight?” Schneider asked, lighting up a cigarette and gesturing to the waiter for an ashtray.
“It’s past time for us to drop the ‘mister,’” said Stanley.
“Works for me! Rumor has it you’ve gotten pretty informal with your biggest client as well. I also heard you nearly saved his life?”
“I wonder who’s starting those rumors?” said Stanley, and lit his own cigarette. Bernasconi poured him a glass of white wine.
“That’s what makes a rumor, a rumor, Stanley, the fact that you don’t know who started it. If you discover the source, the rumor dies.”
“Sometimes, together with the source,” said Stanley.
“You’re right out of the Wild West, aren’t you?” chuckled Andrea. “The littlest thing and you reach for your revolver.”
“Poiccard hinted at it,” admitted Schneider. “He didn’t go into details, but he said it was true.”
“As for saving the client…” Stanley took a sip of the wine. “Ah, this is excellent! Sicilian?”
“Tuscan,” answered Bernasconi.
“It’s the duty of every banker to save his clients. Even at the cost of his own life. And our relationship grew more informal after I told him about my Russian heritage. My great-grandfather was Russian. You seem not to care for the Russians,” Stanley said, looking at Bernasconi.
“Heaven forbid! I love everyone.” Bernasconi waved away the streams of tobacco smoke. “I don’t care much for the nouveau riche, however, regardless of nationality or race. I have a deep personal preference for old money. For the carved banisters of Europe. But the nouveau riche keep a roof over our heads. You can’t make much from old money.”
“Some are doing better than others in our bank,” said Schneider. “They’ll announce the bonuses tomorrow. Then we’ll see what’s what.”
“But they won’t mean anything,” said Stanley. “Our numbers, I mean the bank’s numbers, are really good. You’d never know there was a banking crisis going on.”
“Exactly,” said Andrea. “We’re over here eating truffles. What crisis? To be sure, the European Clients department is no
t looking forward to seeing what their bonuses are. They haven’t been doing so well.”
“Yes,” said Bernasconi with a nod, “we’re pulling everyone.”
“To be precise”—Stanley smiled—“it’s Russia pulling everyone.”
“That’s fucking everyone,” said Schneider, and then apologized to Andrea.
During lunch, Stanley kept getting the feeling that someone was watching him. He tried to figure out which of the other diners on the terrace was looking at him. Or rather, observing him.
He thought at first that it might be Avi wanting to tell him something important but waiting for the right moment. But then he realized that Avi would be unlikely to come to Cantinetta Antinori for that.
It turned out to be a blond man sitting one table over.
The first time their gazes met, Stanley experienced a certain anxiety. He thought he’d seen this man before. But where? Where? thought Stanley. Maybe in Lech? In that restaurant up the mountain? If so, he’s just a skier who lives in Zurich.
He looked over at the blond again. The man ordered dessert and watched the waiter fill his shot glass with liqueur. No, he doesn’t look like a resident of Zurich. But what do I really know about Zurich, anyway?
When they’d paid and were walking down Bahnhofstrasse back to the office, Stanley noticed that the man from the restaurant was walking behind them. Stanley looked back a couple times, and Andrea said, “Is someone following you, Stanley? You keep looking behind you.”
“Ha, of course not! I just thought I saw someone I know from London.”
He still looked around again, but this time, the blond man was nowhere to be seen.
Back in the office, Stanley went out onto the balcony for a cigarette. He glanced down, almost hoping to see the man standing beneath a tree, watching the bank.
Nothing of the sort was going on, naturally. You’re just paranoid! Stanley told himself, and put out the cigarette he’d just lit.
Lagrange summoned him in the late afternoon. He’d found out about the transfer and kicked up a fuss: Why hadn’t Stanley told him right away? Why did he have to wait the entire working day to find out? Stanley protested weakly, all the while wondering whether to tell Lagrange about the blond man from lunch.
The Banker Who Died Page 19
