Two months ago he’d been ready to bind himself to another woman for the rest of his life. A woman he’d loved and respected and relied on more than he ever knew was possible. Part of him still refused to believe that Anna Fontaine was gone. But as his vivid daydream made clear, another part of him had resolved itself to the fact, and was antsy to move on. One thing, though, was perfectly clear. A relationship with Sylvia Schon was not the place to start.
Nick returned to his task of verifying that their clients’ portfolios met the proper strategic asset allocation model. It was a monotonous chore and in theory never ending, for the bank changed its investment mix every sixty days or so, just the amount of time he’d need to make it through every one of his section’s seven hundred discretionary clients.
After a week at the bank, his days had assumed a familiar pattern. He rose each morning at six, then forced himself to withstand fifteen seconds of an ice-cold shower (an old habit from the Corps), the theory being that after suffering through the frosty agony the rest of the day didn’t look so bad. He left his one-room apartment at 6:50, caught the 7:01 tram, and hit the office by 7:30, latest. Normally he was among the first to arrive. His morning’s work invariably concerned gathering a group of client portfolios and studying them for stocks performing poorly or bonds that were due to expire. These noted, he issued sell recommendations that Sprecher approved uniformly.
“Remember, chum,” Sprecher was fond of saying, “revenue is paramount. Commissions must be generated. It’s the onlytrue yardstick of our diligence.”
But Nick’s activities were not restricted to those set forth by Peter Sprecher. Each day he found time to pursue inquiries of a more private nature. His unofficial duties, he liked to call them, and these involved finding ways to dig into the bank’s past, to see what nuggets he might discover about his father’s work those many years ago. His first excursion, undertaken on the Wednesday after his arrival, was to the bank’s research library,WIDO—Wirtschafts Dokumentation. There he scoured old annual reports, documents issued internally before the bank had gone public in 1980. He found a mention of his father in several of them, but only a passing reference or a notation in an organigram. Nothing that might shed any real light on his day-to-day tasks.
Other times, Nick studied the bank’s internal phone directory searching for names of executives that sounded familiar (none did) while checking by rank who might have been at the bank with his father. It was a hopeless task. To approach every executive over the age of fifty-five and inquire whether he had known his father was to invite news of his activities to be publicly broadcast.
Twice Nick returned toDokumentation Zentrale. He would slide by the door, daring himself to step inside, dreaming of the miles and miles of retired papers he’d find filed in meticulous order. He grew convinced that if his father’s murder was tied in any way to his activities on behalf of the bank or its clients, the only extant clues would be found there.
# # #
The call came that afternoon at three o’clock, as it had the previous Monday and Thursday. As it had for the past eighteen months, maybe longer, said Peter Sprecher. Nick found himself guessing the amount the Pasha would transfer that day. Fifteen million dollars? Twenty million? More? Last Thursday the Pasha had transferred sixteen million dollars from his account to the banks listed on matrix five. Less than the twenty-six million he had transferred the previous Monday, but still a king’s ransom.
Nick thought it odd, as well as inefficient, that they had to wait to check the balance of account 549.617 RR until the Pasha phoned. Rules forbade the perusal of a client’s accounts. Why didn’t the Pasha just leave a standing order at the bank asking that all moneys that accumulated in the account be transferred out every Monday and Thursday? Why this waiting until three o’clock to call, this causing such a rush to wire the funds out before closing?
“Twenty-seven million four hundred thousand dollars,” said Peter Sprecher to the Pasha. “To be transferred on an urgent basis according to matrix seven.” He was using a voice he’d labeled the disinterested monotone of the professionally jaded.
Nick handed him the orange file, opened to matrix seven, and silently read the banks listed: Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank; Singapore Trade Development Bank; Daiwa Bank. Some European banks were included: Credit Lyonnais; Banco Lavoro; even the Moscow Narodny Bank. A total of thirty internationally respected financial institutions.
Later, as Nick left to deliver the transfer of funds form to Pietro in Payments Traffic, he thought of the seven pages of wire instructions included in the Pasha’s file and the hundreds of banks that were listed. Try as he might, he could not help himself from imagining the scope of the Pasha’s activities.
Was there one bank in the world with which the Pasha didnot maintain an account?
# # #
The next morning at ten A.M. sharp Nick presented himself at the door to Dr. Sylvia Schon’s office. He knocked once, then entered. Apparently her assistant was either sick or on vacation, for as on the first day he had met her, the office was empty. He made some shuffling noises, then said, “Neumann here. Ten o’clock meeting with Dr. Schon.”
She responded immediately. “Come right in, Mr. Neumann. Sit down. I’m glad to see that you are punctual.”
“Only when it keeps me on time.”
She did not smile. As soon as he was seated, she began speaking. “In a few weeks you’ll begin meeting clients of the bank. You’ll help them review the status of their portfolios, assist in administrative matters. Most likely, you will be their only contact with the bank. Our human face. I’m sure Mr. Sprecher has been teaching you how to handle yourself in such situations. It’s my job to ensure that you are aware of your obligation to secrecy.”
The second day on the job, Nick had been presented by Peter Sprecher with a copy of the country’s legislation governing bank secrecy—”Das Bank Geheimnis.” He had been forced to read it, then sign a statement acknowledging his understanding of, and compliance with, the article. Sprecher hadn’t made a single wisecrack the entire time.
“Are there any further papers I need to sign?” Nick asked.
“No. I’d just like to go over some general rules to stop you from developing any bad habits.”
“Please, go ahead.” This was the second time he’d been warned about bad habits.
Sylvia Schon clasped her hands and laid them on the desk in front of her. “You will not discuss the affairs of your clients with anyone other than your departmental superior,” she said. “You will not discuss the affairs of your clients once you leave this building. No exceptions. Not over lunch with a friend and not over cocktails with Mr. Sprecher.”
Nick wondered whether the rule of discussing the affairs of his clients only with his departmental superior would supersede the “no discussion over booze” rule but decided to keep his mouth shut.
“Be sure not to discuss any business concerning the bank or its clients over a private telephone, and never take home any confidential documentation. Another thing . . .”
Nick shifted in his seat. His eyes wandered the perimeter of her office. He was looking for some personal touch that might give him an idea about who she really was. He didn’t see any photographs or keepsakes on her desk. No vase of flowers to brighten up the office. Only a bottle of red wine on the floor next to the filing cabinet behind her desk. She was all business.
“. . . and it’s never wise to make personal notes on your private papers. You can’t be sure who might read them.”
Nick tuned back in. After a few more minutes, he felt like adding “Loose lips sink ships” or “Shh, Fritz might be listening.” The whole thing was a little dramatic, wasn’t it?
As if sensing his mental opposition, Sylvia Schon stood abruptly from her chair and circled her desk. “You find this amusing, Mr. Neumann? I must say that is a particularly American response—your cavalier attitude about authority. After all, what are rules for, if not to be broken? Isn’t that how you loo
k at things?”
Nick sat up stiffly in his chair. Her vehemence surprised him. “No, not at all.”
Sylvia Schon perched herself on the corner of the desk nearest him. “Just last year a banker at one of our competitorswas jailed for violating the bank secrecy law. Ask me what he did.”
“What did he do?”
“Not much, but as it turned out enough. During Fastnacht, the carnival season, it’s a tradition in Basel to turn off all the town lights until 3:00 A.M. the morning the carnival commences. During this time the Fastnachters congregate in the streets and make merry. There are many bands, costumes. It’s quite a spectacle. And when the lights are turned on, theStadtwohner, the persons living in the city, shower the revelers with confetti.”
Nick kept his gaze focused. The smart-ass in the back of his mind was sitting in the corner until further punishment was handed down.
Sylvia continued, “One banker had taken home old printouts of his client’s portfolios—passed through the shredder, of course—to use as confetti. Come three o’clock in the morning, he threw these papers out the window and littered the streets with confidential client information. The next morning, street cleaners found the shredded printouts and handed them over to the police, who were able to make out several names and account numbers.”
“You mean they arrested the guy for using shredded portfolio printouts as confetti?” He recalled the story of the Esfahani rug weavers of Iran who had painstakingly reassembled the thousands of documents shredded by U.S. Embassy personnel in Tehran just after the shah’s fall. But that was a fundamentalist Islamic revolution. In what country did street cleaners burden themselves with the responsibility to inspect their pickings? And worse, rush to the police to report their discoveries?
She blew the air from her cheeks. “This was a major scandal. Aachh! The fact that the papers were unreadable is secondary. It’s the idea that a trained banker violated the confidence of his clients. The man was put in jail for six months. He lost his position at the bank.”
“Six months,” Nick repeated gravely. In a country that didn’t prosecute tax evasion as a criminal offense, half a year for throwing shredded papers out the window was a stiff sentence.
Sylvia Schon put her hands on Nick’s chair and brought her face close to his. “I am telling you these things for your own benefit. We take our laws and our traditions seriously. You must also.”
“I realize the importance of confidentiality. I’m sorry if I looked as if I were growing impatient, but the rules you were reciting sounded like common sense.”
“Bravo, Mr. Neumann. That’s just what they are. Unfortunately, common sense isn’t so common anymore.”
“Maybe not.”
“At least we’re in agreement there.”
Dr. Schon returned to her chair and sat down. “That’s all, Mr. Neumann,” she said coldly. “Time to get back to work.”
CHAPTER
5
On a snowy Friday evening, three weeks after he had begun work at the United Swiss Bank, Nick made his way through the back alleys of Zurich’s old town en route to a rendezvous with Peter Sprecher. “Be at the Keller Stubli at seven sharp,” Sprecher had said when he called in at four that afternoon, several hours after failing to return to the office from lunch. “Corner of Hirschgasse and the Niederdorf. Old sign banged all to hell. Can’t miss it, chum.”
The Hirschgasse was a narrow alley whose lopsided brickwork snaked uphill about a hundred yards from the river Limmat to the Niederdorfstrasse, the old town’s primary pedestrian thoroughfare. A few lights burned from cafes or restaurants at the top of the street. Nick walked toward them. After a few steps, he was aware of a shadow over his head. Sprouting from the wall of a pockmarked building was a bent wrought iron sign from which chipped gold leaf hung in tatters like moss from a willow. Below the sign was a wooden door with a ringed knocker and an iron window grate. A plaque buried in verdigris bore the words“Nunc Est Bibendum.” He ran the Latin words through his mind and smiled. “Now is the time to drink.” Definitely, Sprecher’s type of establishment.
Nick opened the heavy door and entered a dark, wood-paneled watering hole that reeked of stale smoke and spilled beer. The room was half-empty but sported the type of seedy decor that made him think that soon it would be filled to capacity. A Horace Silver tune played wistfully from the sound system.
“Glad you could make it,” yelled Peter Sprecher from the far end of an arolla pine bar. “Appreciate your showing at such short notice.”
Nick waited until he reached the bar before answering. “I had to juggle my schedule,” he said wryly. He didn’t have a friend in the city and Peter knew it. “Missed you this afternoon.”
Sprecher threw open his arms. “A meeting of great import. An interview. An offer even.”
Nick heard at least three beers talking. “An offer?”
“I accepted. Being a man of few principles and unrivaled greed, it was an easy decision to make.”
Nick drummed his fingers on the countertop, digesting the news. He recalled the snippet of conversation he’d overheard his first day at work. So Sprecher had gotten his extra fifty thousand. The question now was from whom. “I’m waiting for the details.”
“Take my word, you’ll need a drink first.”
Sprecher drained the glass in front of him and ordered two Cardinals. When the beers arrived, Nick took a decent swig, then set his glass on the bar. “Ready.”
“The Adler Bank,” said Sprecher. “They’re starting a private banking department. Need warm bodies. Somehow they found me. They’re offering a thirty percent boost in salary, a guaranteed fifteen percent bonus, and in two years, stock options.”
Nick could not conceal his surprise. “After twelve years at USB, you’re going to work for the Adler Bank? They’re the enemy. Last week you were calling Klaus Konig a gambler and a bastard, to boot. Peter, you’re due for a promotion to first vice president later this year. The Adler Bank? You’re not serious?”
“Oh, but I am. The decision has been made. And by the way, I called Konig a canny gambler. “Canny’ as in successful. “Canny’ as in wealthy, and “wealthy’ as in extremely fucking rich. If you’d like, I’ll put in a word for you. Why break up a good team?”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass.”
Nick found it difficult to think of his colleague’s action as anything but a betrayal. Then he wondered: Of what? Of whom? Of the bank? Ofhimself ? And knowing full well he had hit upon the answer, chastised himself for his selfish thoughts. In their short time together, Sprecher had slipped into the role of irreverent big brother, dispensing advice on personal and professional matters. His easy banter and cynical worldview were welcome antidotes to the rigid bureaucracy of their workplace. They’d continued their relationship after hours, Sprecher leading the way to one bar or another, Pacifico, Babaloo, Kaufleuten. Soon he’d be leaving the bank and giving up his role as a supporting player in Nick’s life.
“So you’re going to leave the Pasha to me?” Nick asked. Business seemed a sturdy refuge for his disappointment. He remembered Sylvia Schon’s admonitions about client confidentiality and realized too late that he’d acted as cavalierly as she had expected. Just another American.
“The Pasha!” Sprecher swallowed hard and slammed his beer onto the counter. “Now there’s a rum bastard, if ever was one. Money’s so hot he can’t leave it in one spot for more than one hour for fear it’d burn through his mum’s ironing board.”
“Don’t be so sure of his wrongdoing,” Nick countered reflexively. “Regular deposits of customer receivables, quick payment of suppliers. It could be one of a thousand businesses. All of them legal.”
“Suppliers in every goddamned country around the globe?” Sprecher waved his hands, dismissing the suggestion. “Black, white, gray, let’s not argue legality. In this world everything is legal until you get caught. Don’t misunderstand me, young Nick, I’m not passing judgment on our friend. But as a busin
essman, I’m interested in his game. Is he looting the coffers of the U.N.—a bent administrator lining his pockets with gold? Is he some tin-pot dictator siphoning off his weekly due from the widows and orphans fund? Maybe he’s pushing coke to the Russians? Few months back we sent a bundle to Kazakhstan, I recall. Alma bloody Ata, Nick. Not your everyday commercial destination. There are a thousand ways to skin a cat and I’ll wager he’s a master at one of them, our Pasha is.”
“I’ll grant you his transactions are interesting, but that doesn’t make them illegal.”
“Spoken like a true Swiss banker. “The Pasha,”’ Sprecher announced, as if reading a newspaper headline, “an “interesting’ client makes “interesting’ transfers of “interesting’ sums of money. You’ll go far in this life, Mr. Neumann.”
“Didn’t you tell me that it’s really none of our concern what he does? That we shouldn’t poke our noses into our clients’ business. We’re bankers, not policemen. You said that, right?”
“I did indeed. You’d have thought I’d have learned by now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sprecher lit a cigarette before answering. “Put it this way, it’s not just more money that’s got me leaving the bank. Your friend, Peter, has a dash of self-preservation in him. Cerruti out with a nervous breakdown—might never come back. Marty Becker just plain dead—definitely can’t count on him. Survival instinct, you boys in the marines might call it.”
It hadn’t taken Nick long to question the odds of two portfolio managers from the same department being knocked out of their jobs by sickness or, in Becker’s case, murder. After all, his own father’s murder was unrelated to his work at the bank. At least officially. Still, he had dismissed Cerruti’s illness as a case of personal burnout, and he had never questioned the fact that Becker’s murder was a mugging gone awry.
“What happened to them had nothing to do with their work.” He hesitated a second. “Did it?”
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