The Gods of Greenwich

by Norb Vonnegut

  It was 7:15 P.M.

  “Did Cy tell you about the time he bet against oil?” continued Bianca.

  “No.”

  “Lost his ass.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Did Cy tell you about Night of the Living Dead Heads?”

  “Yeah, the movie was a windfall,” replied Cusack.

  “Windfall,” she scoffed. “Those zombies bit him in the keester.”

  “What are you saying?” Cusack made no effort to hide the edge to his voice. Leeser had reported the opposite, boasted how the movie’s cash flow solved LeeWell’s performance problems in 2003.

  “Cy lost his ass,” Bianca said. “The crew’s still in court.”

  Cusack had no idea what to think. These revelations were either the bitter meandering of a drunken spouse, or Cy had lied. One or the other. Jimmy grew angry. He grew confused. “Are you sure?”

  “Twenty million down the sink,” Bianca confirmed with swizzle-stick tonsils. “My husband has one thing going for him. Luck. He’s really lucky.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “LeeWell Capital almost collapsed in 2002.”

  “Don’t you mean 2000, the year Cy and his partner founded the business?”

  “There was that, too,” Bianca slurred, not bothering to explain. “I don’t get how somebody can be so wrong, so often, and still make money. I’m not sure Cy can add.”

  Cusack sickened. Bianca was losing the war to vodka and vermouth. But she just posed the smartest question he had heard in a long, long time. Leeser’s boasts now sounded hollow, one in particular:

  “We don’t lose money at LeeWell Capital.”

  * * *

  It was 7:40 P.M. No sign of Leeser. No phone call either. That was when Bianca quoted Dorothy Parker:

  I like to have a martini,

  Two at the very most.

  After three I’m under the table,

  After four I’m under my host.

  “Guess what,” Bianca advised, “I’m on number four.”

  Cusack’s cell phone rescued him. “Sorry, big guy,” Leeser apologized. “Tough meeting with one of our partners. Tougher than I anticipated.”

  Why didn’t you include me?

  “Can I help?” asked Cusack without thinking. “Maybe I should drive Bianca home.”

  “How many martinis?”

  “Four at L’Escale.” He whispered, “Not sure about the warm-ups.”

  “Oh, shit. I’ll be there in five.” Dial tone.

  Bianca knew it was Cy. And something made her crack. Maybe it was the four martinis. Or emotions finding daylight after sixteen years of marriage. Her self-restraint gave way to more information than Cusack ever expected to hear while wife-sitting.

  “It’s not about me,” she started. “It’s the twins.”

  “He adores them, Bianca. You should see the photo on his desk.”

  “That photo is eight years old,” she argued. “He treats our twins like a to-do list.”

  Cusack watched Bianca’s face cloud. Suddenly, without forethought, he felt a greater need to soothe her than to defend his boss. “You should know something.”

  She tried to button her blouse without much success. “Yes?”

  “There’s a meeting in Providence on August twenty-second. The week your family is on vacation. It may be the biggest opportunity we ever see as a company. And I need Cy to be there, really need him.”

  Bianca picked up her martini from the bar, her eyes inviting Cusack to continue.

  “He refused.” With a deft motion, smooth and deceptively quick, Cusack removed the glass from her hand and returned it to the counter. “Your twins are the reason. Nothing’s getting in the way of his father-daughter time, not even a guy with a billion in cash who can take our company to the next level.”

  Bianca grabbed the martini glass back. She took a sip and replied, “I wrote ten novels, Jimmy. I know something about heroes. You think you came from nothing? You had a family,” she asserted. “They got behind you. Cy Leeser came from parents who beat him. From a dad who spent more time in jail than at home. From a mom who slept around to pay the rent. And now look where he is. If anyone wants to believe in Cy, it’s me.”

  “I’m sorry,” was all Cusack could say.

  “I envy you, Jimmy. You have a life. I remember what it was like.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cusack repeated, shifting on his stool. He cursed himself for crossing the line.

  “Look what happened to us. My only job now is to protect the twins from drowning in our sewer.” Bianca’s eyes dampened but she did not cry.

  * * *

  Leeser arrived at 8:05 P.M. He wore faded black jeans and a sweaty NYU sweatshirt, with the sleeves cut off above the elbows. Pre-shower, not post. His hair was wet and slicked back, the style more boiler room than hedge fund magnate. He carried a navy blue polo shirt in his right hand and navigated the patio bar with purpose.

  “Sorry, Jimmy,” he apologized.

  “You’ve been through the wringer,” Cusack said.

  So has your wife.

  “You have no idea.” Leeser motioned the bartender to close out the bill. “This fucking partner insists on a three-mile run every time we meet.”

  “Have I met him?” Jimmy asked.

  “No. And tonight it was six miles, not three,” Leeser said, “of riding my ass.”

  “Look at you,” Bianca snapped. “We can’t eat dinner with you looking like that.”

  Leeser inspected his jersey with an expression that said, “Oh, right.” With that, Cy shocked everybody in the bar: Bianca, Cusack, Tom the bartender, and the crowd that had changed several times over since six P.M. He ripped off his sweatshirt, not in the tearing sense but really fast, and began pulling on the polo shirt.

  Around the bar’s pentagon elbows, the power-bleached woman eyed Leeser’s flat stomach and started to clap. He kept things tight. A few of the gods laughed and clapped, too. The one with bulging, thyroid eyes hollered, “Hey, Leeser. It’s too late for the swimsuit edition.”

  Not everyone in the bar found the quick change funny. Bianca growled, “What’s wrong with you, Cy?”

  “I need to fly.” Cusack shook Cy’s hand and cheek-kissed Bianca goodbye.

  It was 8:20 when Cusack jiggled the ignition of his car, always an “adventure in precision physics.” Once, twice, it took three times before Cusack found the right angle. The old clunker fired. Or rather it deigned to fire. The car performed like a teenager doing him a favor.

  * * *

  Cusack arrived home at 10:45 P.M. The condo was dark. The lights in the kitchen were off. The house smelled flower fresh, a welcome respite. For the last two or so hours he had been listening to the blues. That was the good part.

  He had also been sucking on exhaust fumes. That was the bad part. Ordinarily, the drive home took forty-five minutes. Cusack hit a major snarl, however, on the West Side Highway. It backed traffic all the way up the Henry Hudson.

  When he called from the car, Emi said, “Just get home.”

  He was finally standing in the dining room, surrounded by shadows and guilt from missing his date. He flipped on the light to find a plate waiting on the dining-room table. There were mashed potatoes, pounded veal and mushrooms, and almond green beans all covered in plastic wrap. Easy enough to nuke in the microwave. There was a glass of red wine, uncovered, breathing long and hard with enough kick to take out some nerves. And there was an envelope marked James across the front.

  Cusack was not sure what to expect. Emi had listened to his breathless excuses earlier, the booze, the boss, the Beemer in traffic. He ripped open the envelope, a mix of curiosity and apprehension pasted across his face.

  The note said, James, I can’t wait up any longer. Xoxo, Emi.

  The tone was flat. Cusack never understood the whole “xoxo” thing from women. And right now those mystifying x’s and o’s were the only hope he had not checked into Emi’s doghouse.

  Cusa
ck slumped down on a leather chair in front of the television. Alone. He drank the wine and ate his dinner. Alone. He never even bothered to microwave the plate, a lousy end to a lousy day where the Sturm und Drang of late-night news resembled an uptick.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 22

  BENTWING AT $53.05

  By late August, Victor’s financial strategy showed the promise of a poolside tray holding a pitcher of margaritas, a bottle of sun cream, and an empty bikini. As LeeWell bought more Bentwing, slathered it on, the portfolio recouped fifty million of its losses. Employees turned optimistic; everyone except for Cusack, who watched as promises drained his bank account.

  Two days ago he had written an $8,990 check to cover tuition for Jude’s two kids. He paid another $12,330 for Jack’s three. As enlisted men, they could never afford private education for their kids. And Cusack’s mom would raise hell over public schools. She had always insisted on a Catholic education for her grandkids.

  Though he stockpiled cash every paycheck, without a bonus Cusack could never make the $148,542 interest payment in February—ten months at 5.75 percent. It was like waiting for a guy wearing a black hood and holding a rope to hear the word “Pull.”

  Ever since the night at L’Escale, Cusack had been mulling a comp strategy born on Wall Street and perfected in Hedgistan. Renegotiate the package. Top producers, the best salespeople, could squawk and bitch and threaten to leave until they got what they wanted and said they deserved. All it took were revenues.

  Graham Durkin, an entrepreneur with over $1 billion in cash, could generate monster fees for LeeWell Capital. Bagging Durkin as a client, Cusack knew, would change the balance of power between employee and boss. Leeser might not explain how he hedged. But he would talk turkey when it came to Jimmy’s mortgage, no doubt about it.

  * * *

  Cusack boarded Amtrak 2150 north for Providence. He marched through several cars and found the first-class cabin. After hefting his travel bag onto the overhead rack, he grabbed an empty seat next to the window and pulled out his presentation materials.

  Executives jammed the 8:03 A.M. train, which continued all the way to South Station in Boston. From force of habit Cusack surveyed the car. Several suits pounded away at their laptops, pausing every so often to talk Yankees baseball. Others busied themselves with BlackBerrys. A few sported wireless headsets, the models that suck one ear like electronic ticks that have grown fat from hanging on. Amtrak’s first-class cabin was the perfect place to prepare for Durkin—loads of space and few distractions.

  Cusack grabbed a coffee from the food car before opening his pitch book. He had reviewed it at least a thousand times. He proofread every word and double-checked sentences to make sure the sales material told a logical, easy-to-follow story about LeeWell. He suspected Graham Durkin knew little about hedge fund alchemy, the longs, the shorts, the correlations, the leverage, and the relentless quest for “alpha,” god patois for outperforming indices like the Dow.

  Why should he understand what we peddle?

  Durkin never worked in finance. He never whipped securities around the exchanges or suffered the ritual humiliation of Wall Street’s sacred ceremonies. Durkin sold a medical-device company to Johnson & Johnson. Nobody ever scissored his tie to celebrate a first trade and the coming of age.

  As the train railed toward Providence, Cusack visualized his presentation. He played what-if games and tried to anticipate questions, projecting a response for each one. That was when he noticed an envelope peeking from his pitch book.

  Sometimes Emi buried love letters in his luggage. Wrote provocative things like, “I’m aching for you, Bluto.” Not this time. The letter was addressed to “Jimmy Cusack,” not “James.” Nor was it Emi’s handwriting. Block letters, no script.

  Cusack ripped out a letter, folded in neat thirds, penned in the same labored style as the envelope. There was no greeting. No “Dear Jimmy.” No date. Cusack’s eyes raced to the bottom of the page.

  It was signed “Daryle Lamonica.”

  * * *

  Ólafur stewed at his desk.

  He was hungover and pissed off. He craved “hair of the dog.” A shot of Reyka vodka and a beer chaser at Vegamot would do the trick, that and a bacon burger drowning in béarnaise sauce. The bistro’s monkfish was out.

  So was his hip flask. Empty. Buried in the middle drawer of his desk, behind business cards and staples, the pewter medicine bottle offered the right antidote for most every ailment. These days, Ólafur needed refills all the time.

  Last night the Reyka flowed nonstop. But vodka shots hardly explained the banker’s foul mood. He had grown accustomed to headaches and cottonmouth, the need for coffee-and-Advil cocktails at the office. Days came. Days went. But hangovers remained the same. They were reliable, their consistency comforting in a perverse way. They masked his anxieties about, well, everything: no wife, no kids, and, as of late, no money.

  Ólafur owed his crabby mood to Hafnarbanki’s stock price. The shares were dropping like anvils. He had first spoken to Chairman Guðjohnsen when Hafnarbanki traded around 850 kronur. The shares rallied over 900 with the Qatari purchases but were now trading just over 750.

  Guðjohnsen called again that morning, just as he had called the day before and every previous day since the end of July. He always asked the same tedious question: “Do we have a problem?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Our shares are trading lower than when we started,” asserted the chairman. “Perhaps you declared war on me.”

  Ólafur bit his tongue. “You know how many shares I own, sir.”

  It was all Ólafur could do to refrain from telling the old man, “Farðu í rassgat.” Icelandic for “Go fuck yourself.” A career-limiting gesture in any language.

  “Yes, of course,” the chairman replied. “What about our problem?”

  “It would help if the Qataris double their position.”

  “Yes, it’s time.”

  “Then you approve the loan increase, sir?”

  Chairman Guðjohnsen hesitated for sixty seconds, an eternity of dead space on the phone. Ólafur waited, knowing the older man expected him to break the silence. “Yes,” the chairman finally said. “How soon can you start?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Good. And what about your hedge funds?” the chairman asked.

  “Time to rip out their eyes and piss in the sockets.”

  “Save the venom,” Guðjohnsen advised. “Just get our share price up.”

  Alone in his office now, 1:15 P.M. in Reykjavik, Ólafur dialed the sheikh’s office and told the family’s chief investment officer, “I need your help.”

  “Same deal as before, brother? No recourse if Hafnarbanki shares blow up.”

  “The same.” Then Ólafur clarified: “That includes our attack on LeeWell Capital and Bentwing Energy.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Has your man in Greenwich learned anything?”

  “Not yet,” the Qatari replied.

  “Can you turn up the heat?”

  “Of course. We’re the largest investor in the fund where Dimitris works.”

  “Excellent. I’m about to turn up the heat myself,” Ólafur said.

  The two men clicked off the phone, and for the first time that day, Ólafur felt okay. Once the Qataris resumed their purchases, the slide in Hafnarbanki’s stock price would stop. Maybe the shares would hold steady this time.

  Ólafur dialed Siggi and asked, “What are you doing for lunch?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Have you ever tried boilermakers?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Meet me at Vegamot in fifteen minutes. I’ll introduce you.”

  “What for?”

  “Remember how happy Leeser was about the Goncharova painting?”

  “How can I forget?”

  “It’s time for phase two, cousin.”

  * * *

  Rachel Whittier slipped into her white coa
t, the cotton soft and familiar. Through the years she had grown fond of the clinic’s unique morning scent, a cross between French roast coffee and the antiseptic bouquet of hand soap. It was 8:30 A.M.

  Doc’s practice woke slowly during the dog days of summer. RNs often lingered in the kitchen, chatting over bagels and savoring the whatever of August ennui. The morning commute siphoned their energy, left them clammy from humidity and vulnerable to the artificial chill from air-conditioning.

  Soon the pace would soar at the Park Avenue clinic. There were three liposuctions scheduled, including Robinson. Fatty face, beefy belly, and chubby chin, he was getting the works. His butt required two hours minimum.

  “Never seen anything that big without a John Deere stamp on it.”

  Rachel could almost hear Daddy, his Texas accent and the aw-shucks twang that hid a sot’s violent rage. He once had an opinion, a funny colloquialism for everything and, unfortunately, for everyone. That included Rachel. He rode her hard for years, really hard, about forty pounds too many:

  “It takes you two trips to haul ass.”

  The taunts turned vicious more often than not. And Rachel still winced at the burn scar, Daddy’s home remedy for losing weight. After guzzling a bottle of Jim Beam one night, he snuffed out his cigarette on her right hand. “Lay off the feed bag,” he warned, “or I’ll tattoo the other one same way.”

  Two weeks later Rachel turned sixteen, and no one was there to celebrate. Her mother had died long ago. Her father was camped out back in a chair, listening to AM radio and dining on his nightly supper, the six-pack and a toothpick that he labeled a “seven-course meal.” When he discovered a half-eaten chocolate layer cake, the one Rachel baked for herself, all hell broke loose.

  “You got two hogs living in your jeans, girl.” His face crimson and bloated from beer, he slapped Rachel. Hard. Really hard. Held nothing back.

  Rachel pushed the drunken old man. Anger. Self-defense. Whatever. He fell backward, rolled down the stairs, and landed at the base—neck broken, head cocked at an angle from The Exorcist.

  To her great surprise, Rachel discovered she liked what she saw. Her father broken. Powerless. No longer a threat. The vision intoxicated her. Standing over his lifeless body, she crowed, “I got the rigor-mortis touch, old man.”