The Money Makers

by Harry Bingham

  ‘True,’ said Val, making as if to close the door.

  ‘Can’t I even come in for a moment? There’s something I have to say.’

  He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, but the engagement ring in his breast pocket thundered against his heart. Val shook her head and the door closed further.

  ‘Wait. I don’t have anywhere to stay.’ Val shrugged.

  ‘I think there’s a hostel in Leeds if you’re desperate.’

  She closed the door. The centre of Leeds was a good fifteen miles away.

  George spent the night at the factory. The place was all shut up and George didn’t carry keys. Instead, he crept round to the old sawmill, which was left unlocked because there was nothing there. And on a pile of old lumber, wrapped in an oily tarpaulin pulled up over his Armani suit, George shivered and slept.

  He woke early, walked back into Ilkley to get a proper breakfast and bought himself some decent clothes as soon as the shop opened. The sales assistant let George change into the clothes he had just bought and asked with a straight face if he would like his old suit folded or hung. George looked at the once lovely fabric, now soaked, tom and stained.

  ‘Incinerated,’ he said.

  George arranged an indefinite stay at a local bed and breakfast, had a local garage come to pick up the van and meantime took a taxi in to Gissings. He plodded up to his office, feeling strange to be back.

  A meeting was in progress. Andrew Walters, Jeff Wilmot, Val and a sulky Darren sat round the table. Andrew Walters, the acting managing director, was enjoying his tum in the seat of power, while Darren was sulking because he had no formal position in the company and, in George’s absence, nobody paid him much attention. Everyone except the impassive Val was startled at George’s arrival.

  ‘Hello, everyone. Sorry I’ve been away. I’m back now. What’s the news?’

  Andrew Walters tried to tell the story of the Aspertons’ attack on Gissings, the copycat furniture and the price war, but Darren kept interrupting to get George’s attention. Wilmot weighed in behind Walters with his usual pomposity and Val, who could have summarised everything in a few crisp sentences, kept silent. Eventually George thought he’d got it.

  ‘So the Aspertons have copied our stuff, chopped their prices and are waiting for us to bleed to death. Right?’ A babble of voices agreed in their different ways. And we are bleeding, are we?’ asked George.

  Wilmot responded acidly. The way he saw things, accountants should speak respectfully to their bosses. But then again, managing directors shouldn’t disappear in the midst of the firm’s worst ever crisis with a pocket full of the company’s precious cash.

  ‘I think you could say we are bleeding, yes. We’ve managed to survive as long as we have because we’ve been chasing customers to pay us and we haven’t been paying our suppliers. As Mr Walters was saying just before you entered, we probably have about one week before we literally run out of cash. In my view, which I have made very plain, and, have indeed written a number of quite forceful memorandums on the topic’ - he waved a wad of paper - ‘we are on the brink of insolvency and have a statutory obligation to cease trading.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We have no reason to believe that we can pay either our suppliers or our workers, and it is illegal to continue in business under those circumstances. In my memorandums, which you will find on your desk ...’

  ‘Yeah, OK. If we all go to jail, we’ll have a whipround for you, Jeff. Thanks. You’ve made your point. Now, what have we done in response?’

  The answer was, precious little, but it took a long time for George to establish the fact. A few costs had been cut, an extra drive had been injected into the marketing effort, but that was it. Their sales hadn’t completely dried up, but their order books weren’t a pretty sight.

  ‘OK. I get the picture. Can I have a look at the Aspertons’ stuff? We’ve got samples, right?’

  ‘Er, not exactly,’ said Walters.

  ‘Well, I want to see it. Darren, go out right now and spend this’ - George tossed Darren a bundle of notes- ‘on the Asperton rip-offs. Come back as soon as you can.’

  Darren was out of the door before George had finished speaking and had started yelling for Dave at the top of his voice. A couple of minutes later, a Gissings van sped out of the car-park, Radio One blaring from its decrepit radio.

  George filled in the next couple of hours going through stuff that should have been attended to weeks ago. He had a series of messages from David Ballard, the bank manager, which George tore up. Val spoke as little as she could and avoided anything personal. George tried to apologise for vanishing the way he had, but she cut him off.

  ‘I don’t think that that’s got much to do with my job description, do you?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Val. Let’s talk, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I have some filing to do.’

  It was a miserable wait. Eventually, Darren and Dave returned, gleefully. The van was loaded dangerously full, both lads were smoking cigars and Darren was waving George’s wad of money.

  ‘Went to the Asperton factory outlet, called old man Asperton up from reception, and said we was from Gissings. Admired their bleeding furniture so much, we wanted to buy some samples. The bleeder came downstairs himself and gave us the van-load for free. He said not to worry about paying, cos furniture makers should stick together like brothers. Tosser! Idiot couldn’t stop giggling. Dave managed to half­inch some of his cigars and I helped myself to a pile of their brochures.’

  ‘Yeah,’ added Dave. ‘Darren wanted to slash a few tyres in the car-park but I told him not to be a plonker.’ Andrew Walters started to lecture the two lads on how every employee was an ambassador for the firm, but George just took his money and told Walters to forget it.

  They lugged the Asperton Brilliants out of the van and into the old Gissings museum, which now stood empty. George summoned a couple of craftsmen and they started to rip the furniture apart.

  They tried to identify the paint, the varnish, the wood,

  the preservative, even the metalwork supplier. They noticed where glue was used, where nails, and where jointing. They took precise measurements of every detail. They identified the types of hinges, brackets, handles and even screws. They sketched the designs and analysed the brochure.

  Once they had done all they could, they started to cost out the Asperton range, aiming to calculate the production cost of each unit. The Aspertons’ plan emerged clearly enough. They had produced a range of copycat furniture on the lowest budget they possibly could. At their rock-bottom pricing they were certainly making a loss, but they were cutting corners to keep their losses to a minimum. They wanted to bankrupt Gissings, but didn’t want to pay too much for the pleasure. At two o’clock in the morning, George called a halt.

  ‘Right, we know all we need to. Question is: What should we do about it?’

  Wilmot, the accountant, was first to speak.

  ‘Some elements of management and - er - non­ management grades’ - he glowered at Darren - ‘have wanted to reduce our prices in line with the competition. I must caution you very strongly against doing so. Our losses will become dramatically higher if we sustain any further reduction in unit sales prices.’

  ‘I agree,’ said George.

  Darren was stung. He had expected support from his hero and he leaped in fiercely.

  ‘You can’t score goals with ten men behind the ball. We’re not selling anything with our prices stick where they are. Doing nothing is suicide.’

  George nodded. ‘Yes, I agree.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Wilmot.

  ‘Make up your mind,’ said Darren.

  ‘I have,’ said George. ‘We can’t cut prices, but we can’t leave them as they are either. So we’d better put them up. Twenty percent should do the trick.’

  12

  Josephine jiggled the mouse and the monitor shook itself awake. The screen was filled with code, completely unintelli
gible.

  ‘What’s all this, Miklos?’

  ‘This? Oh, it’s nothing. My friend writes program to play chess. He want me to look at it.’ He laughed. ‘It’s a very bad program. Also no point.’

  ‘Why no point?’

  ‘Chess is ... chess is beautiful. Computers try to look into future. Always this move, that move, this move, that move. More and more times. This is not chess, this just big calculator. Good player look two, maybe three moves forward. Then ask, is this beautiful, is this good for me? Computers play ugly chess. No point.’

  ‘Could you teach me?’

  ‘You want to play chess?’

  ‘No, computers, not chess. Programming, all that.’

  ‘You? Programming?’

  Kodaly wasn’t being deliberately rude, but he still saw Josephine as a secretary, a beautiful and self-assured one to be sure, but still a secretary. And in Kodaly’s world, there were whole layers of intellectual hierarchy between computer programmers and secretaries.

  ‘Yes, me, programming. I want to learn.’

  ‘What do you know already?’

  ‘How to switch on. How to type.’ Kodaly puffed out his cheeks and blew.

  ‘It’s big job. Maybe a course .. .’

  ‘I don’t have the time or the money. Maybe my boyfriend could teach me.’

  Kodaly puffed his cheeks again, but reached a book down from his shelves: Pascal Programming 1.01.

  ‘OK Computers are like chessboards: very simple, very complicated,’ he began.

  It was the first time she had called him boyfriend.

  Winter 1999-2000

  The end of a millennium approaches. The weather is sharp and cold. A tramp and her child are found in the park, frozen to death. The man who found her is a photographer and his photo splashes across the front pages: ‘Still no room at the inn’. The self-righteous headline disturbs no one, at least not if the frenzy in the shopping mall is anything to go by. This is the last Christmas of the millennium. Got to have a new coat. Got to have a new dress. Can’t start a century in last season’s clothes.

  On production lines in China and Korea, the fireworks are being bundled into boxes marked ‘for immediate dispatch’. The pyrotechnic stockpiles, already at record heights, rise ever higher. The old millennium will pass away in a glory of gunpowder, and what better way to bid farewell to the tattered old thing?

  It is 20 December 1999, five days before Christmas, eleven days from the century’s end. There are 571 days until Bernard Gradley’s deadline.

  1

  When Jesus said that rich men couldn’t enter the kingdom of heaven, he lost the investment banking vote there and then. In banking, religious convictions are rarer than tattoos. But everyone has to worship something, and at Madison that thing goes by the name of EPAS - the Employee Performance Appraisal System.

  EPAS is an Old Testament God, just and unmerciful.

  EPAS rewards the good and punishes the wicked. The favoured enjoy huge bonuses, promotions and giant salary increases. Sinners get small bonuses, sideways moves or the sack. The ordeal lasts all year, because as soon as one bonus is paid in January, evaluation of your performance starts again, ready for next year. But, though EPAS’ shadow never lifts, it’s in autumn that the pressure mounts.

  Through autumn, everyone writes reviews of everyone. Bosses write about their subordinates. Subordinates write about their bosses. Colleagues, nervously competitive, write about each other. The appraisal forms are long, complex, and searching. The forms are written and sent in secret, and you don’t know who is writing about you. Offend someone in February and the payback comes secretly nine months later, through a form you can’t see, with lies you can’t deny. No two bankers ever meet without knowing that any mistake, any word out of place, could come back to hurt them. EPAS is Big Brother turned capitalist, God turned spy.

  In December, just before Christmas, the results are announced.

  Matthew waited nervously outside Rosenthal’s seldom­used office. Inside, Rosenthal was breaking the news, good or bad, to Scott Petersen. The sounds from inside the glass-walled room were muffled, and the Venetian blinds kept even the smiles hidden. Rumour had it that the bond department - Matthew’s department - was being reduced in size, and Matthew hadn’t had a great year. He fidgeted and waited.

  Eventually, Rosenthal was done. Petersen had had a good year and he left Rosenthal with a smile wide enough to swim in. He stopped at the doorway.

  ‘Thanks, Saul. Thanks very much,’ he said to Rosenthal, then turning to Matthew, ‘Hey, Matt. Hope it’s OK.’ He paused. He knew about Matthew’s losses on Western Instruments and he knew about the downsizing rumours. Matthew was vulnerable. Petersen tried to compress his smile, not to look too happy. But he was no actor and his grin was back before he’d moved a yard. Matthew felt awful.

  Still, his turn had come. He was about to tap on Rosenthal’s door and walk on in, when a deep Scots voice behind him said, ‘Hey there, Matt. How are you doing?’ It was Brian McAllister.

  ‘Yeah, fine, thanks,’ said Matthew, giving the compulsory answer. ‘I’m just about to hear the worst from Saul.’

  ‘The worst, Matthew?’

  ‘Well, you know, find out how I’ve done, I mean.’

  ‘Why should that be the worst, Matt?’ McAllister’s pale eyes bored into Matthew, but it was a rhetorical question and Matthew didn’t need to fumble for another answer. In the end, the Scotsman broke the silence, saying, ‘I hope you’ve no need to fear, but if you don’t mind, I’ll sit in with you.’

  Matthew was surprised. EPAS revealed its secrets in one-on-one sessions. They weren’t a form of public entertainment. But Matthew knew better than to say no to Brian McAllister, and the two men went into Rosenthal’s office together. Why had the Scotsman come?

  Matthew, Rosenthal and McAllister squeezed round the fake mahogany table which was one of the rewards of making it to managing director. Rosenthal was a born trader, uncomfortable with anything to do with management. But he knew his duties, especially under McAllister’s piercing gaze, and he plunged into his patter, doing his level best to sound like a responsible adult.

  He talked about Matthew’s team reviews, what people had liked, what they hadn’t. The reviews had been positive, any criticism mostly constructive. Matthew wondered what Fiona had written about him, but Rosenthal’s summary revealed nothing.

  They discussed Western Instruments in depth. Rosenthal didn’t like Matthew’s losses and he didn’t like it that Matthew hadn’t discussed the gamble with anybody beforehand. As he put it, ‘It was a horrible trade. Any time I’m feeling bad, I just remember your Western Instruments trade and it always brightens my day. But I’ll say this, you put your tiny mind to work and your homework was first-class. This bank isn’t in the business of penalising people for making wrong bets, just for incompetent ones - right, Brian?’ Brian McAllister assented with a nod and Rosenthal continued. ‘Next time, you do your homework just as thoroughly, but just remember to talk to uncle before you do anything further. And remember: bow wow. If it barks, it’s a dog.’

  Eventually, after twenty minutes, he came to the point. in all, in its excessive wisdom and goodness, and don’t ask me why, the bank’s decided to give you a bonus. Don’t go and blow it all on a soda before you get home.’

  He tossed an envelope across the table to Matthew. Matthew tore it open, his hands slightly shaking. He hadn’t been this nervous since the compliance interview.

  Inside the envelope was a sheet of paper, headed ‘employee Compensation Award’. Beneath the heading, there was Matthew’s name and employment details, then a two line table showing salary and bonus. Matthew’s salary was up fifteen percent. His bonus was a hundred thousand dollars.

  ‘Thanks. Thanks very much.’

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ said Rosenthal, ‘thank the bank. Thank EPAS. Thank Dan Kramer. But well done, any­ way. Someday, you’ll be an all right trader.’

  Matthew’s sense of relie
f was so strong, it wasn’t until later he noticed his disappointment. A hundred thousand bucks was OK for the first year. But it wasn’t good. Petersen had probably made double that. If Matthew hadn’t screwed up on Western Instruments, he’d have made as much as Petersen. If Matthew had got lucky on Western Instruments, if Cornish had done what he’d been meant to do, Matthew could have been looking at a bonus with a three in front of it. If you translate a hundred thousand bucks into pounds, you have about sixty thousand pounds.

  Some might think that sixty thousand on top of an already generous salary is good going for a youngster in his first year in a job and without even a college degree. But this was investment banking. This was Madison. This was the magical land where you win the lottery every year, year after year, and you bitch and moan if the payout is down on the year before. Matthew was entitled to feel bad.

  ‘There’s something else I wanted to tell you,’ said Rosenthal. ‘You’ve probably heard the rumours that the bank’s cutting back in the bond department. Well, that’s true enough.’

  Matthew felt immediate panic. He wasn’t going to earn his way to a million quid, that much was clear. But he knew how he planned to make a million, and that plan needed him to keep his job. Matthew’s mouth went as dry as banknotes.

  ‘Inevitably, when we cut back, the first people to go looking for a new desk are those who have just arrived. Unless, that is, they have done exceptionally well since arriving.’

  Rosenthal meant Petersen. Petersen hadn’t made a big bet which went bad. Petersen’s dental-ad grin meant he was staying. And Matthew? What would he get? The regretful smile and a kick in the teeth? Here’s your consolation prize, so sorry you can’t stay. Never mind about your father’s thirty million quid. We’re sure it’ll tum up. Matthew’s mind raced as Rosenthal continued.