On the Floor

by Aifric Campbell

  ‘So what this latest research actually shows is that—’

  ‘I don’t give a shit.’ I blow a funnel of smoke sideways at the photo of the two little girls, their eager little smiles.

  ‘—what it suggests is that—’

  ‘I DON’T FUCKING CARE, OK?’

  The force of my lungs and the strip-throat burn astonishes me. For a brief moment the trading floor is a sea of faces turned in my direction while I struggle against the sudden threat of tears. I lean forward and stub out the cigarette. Pie Man has snatched up the mag and is clutching it in front of his crotch as if he’s just been maimed. He takes a slow appeasing step backwards keeping his grey eyes wide and fixed in alarm on my face.

  ‘Sorry, Geri, I didn’t catch that,’ Rob smirks and there is a ruffle of laughter. Pie Man is lumbering off down the line towards the safety of his desk with the panicked gait of a wounded beast.

  I get up, walk away from the desk. I should say sorry, I know, I should make some gesture of reparation but for now I will just add that to the whole stinking heap of things that I should do with my life.

  4

  chinese wall

  08:02

  ‘GERI?’ JULIE’S INQUIRY BOUNCES ROUND the empty loos. ‘Are you in here?’

  I hold my breath and wait and hope that she will have the decency to walk away but of course all she has to do is bend down and check for my legs. When Steiner’s refurbed the trading floor two years ago, they didn’t trust a British outfit to deliver their vision and so even the loos were done American-style, kitted out with half-doors that you could see over, and quarter inch gaps running down the sides. The idea was to make it difficult to snort coke in private, though no one in London had identified this as being a particularly pressing issue amongst the female employees. The secretaries were immediately up in arms and began conducting trials, one of them in a stall going, OK OK, can you see me now to the one on the other side, who would be looking through the gap in the door saying, Clear as day, I mean it’s just ridiculous. The blokes thought it was a scream, the idea of girls looking at other girls in the loo, but it caused the closest thing to mutiny amongst the proles and quickly snowballed into a campaign that wouldn’t go away. Thus the right to change tampons in private, the right to a secret shit, the right to anonymous crying and malingering finally got elevated up the management chain until one day there was a ‘Men At Work’ sign on the door and the gaps were filled with wide bristly strips of draught excluder. Dignity was restored.

  ‘He wants to see you,’ Julie pulls up outside my cubicle. ‘Straight away.’ I take out the Diazepam bottle, tip out another little tablet that might reinforce the hollow wall between what I am actually feeling and what lies beneath.

  ‘You OK?’

  I unlock the door and Julie snaps on the tap to hurry me up.

  ‘Room 2101.’ She hands me a paper towel.

  ‘Why all the way up there?’

  ‘Because that’s where he is. You need to hurry now.’

  ‘Sure. Let me rush to my own execution.’ She trails me all the way out to the lift and even presses the button like she doesn’t trust me not to plummet to Ground. I am staring at the lift doors feeling my future dissolve before me, ascending to the 21st, where we never get to go.

  It feels like breaking and entering because the air in Corporate Finance is different, the carpet rich red and springy like walking on sponge. Climate control, panelled walls, impeccable soft furnishings, no trashy receptionists, an air pocket of soundproofing that strips the voice of individual register. No risqué canvases or distracting feminine forms, just hunting scenes in reassuring pastoral and large landscapes and a crystal fishbowl on a mahogany plinth.

  But Julie has clearly given me the wrong number because the door to 2101 is ajar and there, standing just inside the threshold, is the unmistakable side profile of Anil Kapoor, Steiner’s legendary Head of Investment Banking whose name is stamped all over some of Wall Street’s greatest mergers and acquisitions. His photo graced the cover of Fortune in November, this near-mythical presence from the land of wizardry and omnipotence that is a cultural universe away from the inferno of the trading floor. This is the man who has broken every record for biggest, largest, longest – the highest-ranked, highest-paid, non-white in the industry, a mascot for the minorities and a PR coup for the board of Steiner’s who spatter his face all over the annual report, together with as many blacks and Asians and females as they can rustle up in the back office to create the illusion of diversity in our human resources. Though rumour has it that Kapoor has no time for political correctness, apparently he didn’t even have time to attend his mother’s funeral when she inconveniently pegged it on the day Amco announced a 4.5 billion dollar merger with Amox, although, as Tom Castigliano explained it to me, Kapoor would have gone, except the funeral was in Bombay and that was like a continent too far. But he did take a weekend off later to scatter the ashes over some river, and did I know that Kapoor went a full nine days without sleep before that merger was done? So what? I said, Keith Richards did that back in the Seventies.

  Stephen had clandestine talks with Kapoor a couple of years back. It was just before the Kit Kat deal though I only found out long afterwards. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, I said. He didn’t want to complicate things, he said, and had only met with Kapoor because he was such a big admirer, he had no real intention of jumping ship. You really think I would shoot my mouth off? He shrugged, as if to suggest there might be something about me that was leaky, unsafe. Sometimes you just say things without thinking, Geri. Maybe it’s an Irish thing.

  ‘Geri, come in,’ says the Grope’s voice from inside the room. Kapoor turns his head slowly and takes me in with a cursory scan and there is nothing soft or gentle in those brown irises, like polished stones set in pools of iced white. A slim brown hand with a flash of pale underside flicks upwards in a brief gesture and he glides away to the other side of the room. He is sleek, polished and buffed; the kind of impeccable grooming that Zanna so admires. And his movements are balletic. I could imagine him in a silk sari of godly blue, choreographing the seduction of a veiled nymph. The skin tone would have to be exactly right, the light flattering, the temperature controlled. Kapoor’s is a marbled beauty, preserved and bejewelled, his reflection in a gilt mirror is a still life.

  ‘Close the door and siddown.’ The Grope points to a chair on the opposite side of the small oval table. Beside the Oriental apparition he is monochrome and flat like a yokel who’s just pitched up in town. But I notice he is wearing a jacket, which he never does on the trading floor – he may be running a very profitable trading and sales division, but in Kapoor’s universe, he is plant life.

  ‘We have a situation.’ A tingling anticipation has me immediately on ambush alert and I am already fiercely regretting last night’s Absolut. This is most definitely not a conversation about my relocation: Kapoor just being in the same airspace suggests it’s way more than I can even guess at, since he doesn’t get out of bed for less 500 million.

  ‘So tell me, Geri,’ says the Grope. ‘Does Vulkan Valve mean anything to you?’

  ‘We were just talking about it on the desk this morning.’

  ‘Why?’ shoots Kapoor. It’s clear this would be a bad time to mention that Al has been pitching Vulkan as a sales idea to clients all morning. So there might be an item missing from the Restricted List of company stocks that the sales force is banned from talking about. When Vulkan Valve’s name is mentioned and the western world’s chief rainmaker is in the room, the chances are there’s a deal in the pipeline. Which means that the entire sales force is gagged, cannot breathe the company’s name or do any business in the stock. But Al would normally be diligent about procedure and it’s hard to miss the List since it is photocopied onto bright pink paper, the colour coding insisting that you notice it amongst the others that pile up on your desk.

  ‘Why?’ echoes the Grope.

  ‘Oh, just because of this new MS
TAR portable radar thing. It was all over The Times at the weekend.’

  ‘So we know our salespeople read the papers,’ the Grope grins, looking instantly relieved. Kapoor is already speaking into the internal phone in tones of soft menace.

  ‘Were you pitching it?’

  ‘No, no, I wasn’t.’

  ‘So what else do you know about Vulkan Valve?’ the Grope continues.

  ‘Very little. Electronics, defence, some hoo-ha about selling weapons to South Africa a while back. I’ve never done any business in the stock.’

  ‘And what do you know about Felix Mann’s interest in Vulkan?’

  ‘We’ve never talked about it.’

  The Grope leans in to face me. ‘You mean you are not aware that he owns a chunk of the stock?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘So much for knowing your client,’ he quips in a man-to-man with Kapoor who does not respond.

  ‘I don’t know all of Felix’s positions,’ I mumble in my defence. What I want to tell him is that it’s all very well saying the golden rule of sales is Know Your Client, but if your client’s portfolio is secret and he doesn’t feel like telling you he could own a herd of zebra and you wouldn’t have a fucking clue. I would also like to bellow out the words ‘Cargo International’ so we could take a nice little trip down memory lane and remind someone what it feels like to be a tortoise.

  ‘OK, Geri, here’s the score,’ the Grope continues. ‘Felix Mann owns 151 million shares of Vulkan Valve, which means your client owns 13% of the company.’ He waits for a reaction to this announcement though I am not sure what he expects me to do.

  ‘And we have a very sensitive situation. But in order to talk about it we have to bring you over the wall.’

  Kapoor’s wince is almost imperceptible, as if he’s been pricked by a sharp object. This is, I know, a reflex response to the act of disclosure – Karpoor’s concern is exactly what Stephen’s always was: I am a salesperson and therefore a liability. I could shoot my mouth off at any moment. The Chinese wall between Investment Banking and the trading floor is in reality as porous as a sponge.

  ‘The consequences—’

  ‘I understand.’ Hung drawn and quartered.

  Kapoor places a flat hand on the table and begins to speak. ‘The ownership structure of Vulkan Valve is as follows: Felix Mann is the largest shareholder with 13%. The board of Vulkan owns 10%. And now an Interested Party has come to Steiner’s because they see an opportunity in Vulkan Valve. Our Interested Party knows that Vulkan’s board will fiercely resist any attempt at takeover. And Felix Mann’s intentions are, of course, unknown.’

  ‘I have told Anil—’ the Grope begins in but Kapoor cuts him dead.

  ‘Our Interested Party has been made aware of your—’ he pauses, eyelids flutter ‘—special relationship with Felix Mann.’

  ‘We want you to find out what Felix wants to do with his 13%,’ says the Grope, rising from his chair; he’s been restless all the way through and is standing up now, with hands in pockets, staring down at me from his full height.

  ‘So,’ I venture, ‘you want me to get Felix to talk to your Interested Party because they’re going make a bid for Vulkan?’

  Kapoor flinches at the vulgarity of articulation. He is clearly full of misgivings about this whole venture and the Grope’s eager-beaver eye bulge tells me this is all his big idea. He has pitched me and my special relationship in a bid to turbo-charge his career and take it to the next level. And Kapoor doesn’t like this one little bit because it means trusting me with inside information. But greed is a great motivator and how else will they find out what they need to know?

  ‘Has your Interested Party spoken to Felix?’

  The Grope eye’s pop at this egg suck.

  ‘Our client would be delighted to speak to him,’ says Kapoor through gritted teeth. ‘But Felix Mann refuses to enter into any kind of dialogue. He refuses to return our calls. He has declined, through his secretary, all invitations to meet with or talk to the Interested Party. We have made a number of representations via Tom Castigliano in Hong Kong. We understand that Mr Mann also refuses to speak to the board of Vulkan Valve, although we cannot be sure of that.’ He tilts his head towards the ceiling. ‘We do not know if Felix Mann will accept or refuse a bid.’

  ‘Felix is pretty difficult about seeing people.’

  ‘Apart, of course, from you.’ His silken voice has a steely edge. The hawk eyes blink.

  ‘He never consults anyone. He doesn’t really take input. He just does what he does.’

  ‘Must make for a very challenging sales role,’ Kapoor murmurs and there is the faintest trace of a smirk on his banker’s lips, reminding me no matter how big the big guys get they just can’t resist taking potshots at the little guys. They have never really left the playground, and the thrill of inflicting humiliation is just as exciting as it was all those years ago when they licked their first bloodied lip, lying on the tarmac in the shadow of the school bully who spits in your mouth to raise a laugh from his rubbernecking acolytes. The dry taste of that blood never leaves you, the roaring in your ears becomes a burning flame in your heart that erupts in your chest into a volcano of furious energy and you spring to your feet to a gasp from the crowd and as he swaggers away, you leap onto his back and topple him into the dust, you are punching and thrashing, you will tear him limb from limb and it takes three teachers to pull you off in the end. You stand panting and bare-chested in the playground above his blubbing mess, while the crowd shrinks back from the apparition before them and you savour the narcotic of power and you know that you have found the meaning of life: this is just what you need and you will never bite the dust for anyone again.

  ‘But Felix Mann will talk to you, Geri,’ the Grope flops back into his chair. ‘So we need to get you back out to Hong Kong so you can pay him a visit.’ He slaps his hand on the table. ‘We want you to get a simple answer to a simple question.’

  ‘Felix only ever says what he wants to say.’

  ‘Oh, you can do better than that,’ the Grope flashes the full dental suite. ‘We need to know what he thinks. You just work your magic and we take it from there.’

  ‘Our Interested Party would of course prefer to proceed with some foreknowledge,’ says Kapoor, ‘so this kind of intelligence is critical.’ The Grope leans back nodding. ‘You realise that you are now an insider and all that that involves?’ Kapoor continues. I nod on cue. ‘So you may not discuss this with anyone inside or outside the firm.’

  ‘Felix may want to know more.’

  ‘No more information,’ Kapoor raises a warning finger. ‘Refer him to me. Think of yourself as a secretary who is taking a phone message. I’m sure you can manage that.’

  ‘Right, so it’s what – like 5 p.m. in Hong Kong now?’ The Grope is on his feet again, his hands working his pockets like he’s adjusting his balls.

  ‘Five twenty-two.’

  They both stare at the phone on the table. I dial the number. Picture Felix raising his head, considering.

  ‘Geraldine.’

  ‘Felix.’

  ‘You didn’t call me at our usual time.’

  ‘Sorry, Felix. Something came up.’ The Grope stares at my mouth like he’s lip-reading. Kapoor swallows shallowly like there is a sour taste in his mouth.

  ‘You are not at your desk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You are in a meeting room.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘A quality of stillness. No background noise.’

  ‘Felix, I need to come and see you.’

  ‘What an unexpected surprise.’

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘I look forward to it.’

  ‘Thanks, Felix. I’ll let you know the time when I get a flight.’

  ‘And Geraldine?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do give Mr Kapoor my regards.’ The line goes dead but I can hear the smile in the dial tone.

  ‘So you’re al
l set?’ says the Grope.

  I nod, put down the phone.

  ‘He made a remark,’ says Kapoor.

  ‘He could tell I was in a meeting.’

  ‘And there was something else?’

  ‘He said to give you his regards.’

  A faint tinge of pink smears his cheek, a Duchenne spasm tightens his jaw.

  ‘What?’ the Grope’s head snaps up. Anil Kapoor eyes me, some sort of indecipherable message etched on his brow. And then he slips out of the door almost as if he was never there.

  ‘OK,’ I move to rise from my chair.

  ‘Not so fast, Geri,’ the Grope raises a palm. ‘You tell me how the fuck Felix Mann knew that Kapoor was in this room?’ He shakes his head like a wet dog.

  ‘He guesses stuff. Can I go back to the floor now?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Our Interested Party wants to meet you.’

  I wait outside in the corridor like a naughty schoolgirl. The Grope glares at a tapestry wall hanging as if he finds something offensive in its elaborate weave. When the door to the conference room opens he barges in front, making a wrist-flicking tugging motion as if he has me on a leash. And there, in the middle of a roomful of suits, grinning like a toothy game show host is a man with a huge white Stetson on his head. It is Max Lester II, aka Max-a-Billion, the instantly recognisable CEO of Texas Pistons, and my second celebrity face-to-face of the morning. He looks exactly like he did in a recent photo shoot at the Bush family ranch with a spaniel darting madly round his feet. So this is our Interested Party. Texas Pistons is cash rich and hungry for growth. I can see the headlines now: Yanks take out British guns. And Vulkan Valve is the perfect target.

  ‘This her?’ he goes to no one in particular and the Grope makes a little hand flourish in my direction as if he’s introducing an exotic pet. I step forward gamely while Max-a-Billion checks out my tits.

  ‘Geri Molloy,’ I stick out my hand. ‘Good to meet you.’

  ‘Well, hello there.’ He clasps it in both of his and peers down at me from beneath his brim. His scent is hotel-citric, his skin is curiously waxy as if he is wearing stage make-up.