A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism

by Peter Mountford

  Gabriel returned to the window and monitored the crowd. Who were they and what were they protesting? He had no idea and he didn't care. He'd given up trying to decipher their motivations. They had won, fair and square, and yet there they were, back in the plaza, the day after Christmas, braying some new complaint. He knew they had reason to be upset, maybe more than anyone else on the continent, but the ceaselessness of it, especially considering the recent election, made no sense to him.

  His mother would arrive the following afternoon and he needed to find the best way to resolve the conflicting stories about him: BellSouth versus freelance journalist versus Calloway Group. It was clear that he couldn't convince everyone he knew in Bolivia that he actually worked for BellSouth, so that was out. Which meant that he'd need to confess something to his mother.

  Freelance journalist would backfire sooner or later because his relationship with his mother was long term. When he never published anything, she would spot the lie. It was an iterated situation, in game-theory parlance: the winning solution for game one would not necessarily work in the long run.

  He ate his chicken salteña there, staring out the window, and thought about the problem. There was no simple answer. He took another nibble, careful to keep the juices from spilling. It was delicious. And this problem he was facing was just this problem, he assured himself—life would go on, either way. There'd be salteñas in the future, regardless. The salteña was a glorious invention. From Lenka, Gabriel had gathered that they'd emerged somewhere in Argentina, then migrated around South America. The dish was now fairly widespread, but it was most popular in Bolivia. Since he'd tasted his first one, a few days before he'd met Lenka, he'd been an avid devotee. For the past month, he'd never hesitated when he saw one on offer—the sweetness and spiciness, the crust that was tender in the yellowy skin, crisp along the blackened ridge. After the sweet juice had leaked all over his lap once, he'd realized why people stood when eating salteñas. Only native Bolivians had the dexterity to eat them without making a mess.

  His mother didn't know about salteñas. Or, if she did, she'd never spoken of them to him. For all her posturing on behalf of the poor, she didn't really do street food. She didn't really do working-class delights: no television, no cans of Budweiser, no turning the music up too loud in the car. In the end, she was just as prim as any other upper-middle-class mom.

  Lenka, meanwhile, knew all about salteñas. She had tried to teach Gabriel the art of eating them. She held one upright, nibbled off the tip, slurped the liquid out, then chewed half an inch down and slurped up more liquid. In that manner she'd worked her way down the length of the oblong pastry. It was noisy and conspicuous—the whole mouth needed to be involved. She held it with the dark glossy seam facing out, toward him, used her tongue to move around moist strips of chicken breast inside. Gabriel attempted to imitate, but it didn't work.

  There at the café, he tried again, but the liquid dribbled on the floor beside his shoe. It leaked all over his fingers. He scarfed the rest and then hurried off to wash his hands in the bathroom. He dried them on his pants and then observed himself in the mirror. The bandages were in place. He had figured out a system: he put three across the three holes in his face and then put a smaller one horizontally across the ripped seam of his ear, wrapping the adhesive around the back of the ear. It would do. Soon, he'd just stop trying to hide the ear. The bruises had begun to dim, slightly, but they'd also migrated. Now it looked almost like he had a black eye. On seeing himself there, he was struck by how exhausted he looked. His mother would be shocked. She'd be worried. She'd be right to be worried.

  When Lenka arrived, he offered her a salteña, but she wasn't interested.

  "I'm sorry about interrupting your meeting," he said.

  "It's fine."

  "He seems nice, I think. Magnificent handshake."

  She smiled at him faintly. Still, she was not herself.

  "You okay?" he said.

  "Yes. I have just had a very long day. And we leave in two hours."

  "I'll miss you," he said, which was true.

  "I'll miss you too," she said.

  She lingered there, in the pause, and he could see that she was considering her next move. He had learned to read her well enough to know when she was contemplating something. It looked as if she was doubting some decision that she'd already made, and he knew it was possible that she'd found out some information that might be useful to him but was reluctant to tell him, so he pressed her. "Did you have a chance to ask him?" he said.

  "I'll tell you," she said. She looked pained about it.

  "Do you want to walk?"

  She shook her head. She looked almost as drained as he did. She sighed, hesitating, and then gazed at him in a strange way for a moment, almost sadly. Then she said, "He's going to save the Brazilian companies, including Santa Cruz, at least for the first year or two. And then they'll get a better deal. He needs to keep his ties with Lula intact. With Repsol, Total, Exxon, with all of them it'll be different. He'll demand that they renegotiate their contracts immediately or Bolivia will begin seizing their installations by March."

  "Jesus. Thank you so much." He kissed her. He held her close.

  She shook her head and pulled out of his arms. "Sorry, I'm tired."

  "It's okay. Thank you. This is incredibly helpful, it's—"

  "You have everything you need now?"

  "Yeah. So, when will I see you next? My mother's interviewing Evo right after you return. But I hope you can meet her before that."

  "Me too." She gazed absently at his chest. He'd never seen her so exhausted.

  "Thank you so much," he said again. "You have no idea how much this means to me."

  "I do know. You talk about it all the time." She smiled wearily and shook her head. "I'm sorry, I have to go soon. I'll see you on Thursday."

  He nodded.

  "Take care of yourself," she said and left.

  Gabriel's new knowledge was probably the most valuable thing he had ever owned. There were two aspects of the knowledge. The first was more straightforward: he knew what Evo planned to do about natural gas. The second was equally important: he knew the timing of Evo's plan. Models in game theory generally required players to have equal information, because the point of the games was to study optimal strategy, and the games lost all of their complexity if one player had a clear advantage. In this case, Gabriel had access to two vital pieces of information that no one else knew. The range of options presented to him was daunting.

  His information could functionally lead to what would be considered insider trading, which was a felony. But what he did with it would not be illegal. If the same information emerged from inside of Santa Cruz Gas, it would be tainted, and Gabriel would not be able to use it legally. But all he had really was a tip about changing political policy that came from a purely political source. It didn't pertain directly to a specific corporation, and that made it legal. Opportunities like this did not come along often. But what would he do?

  Still at the café, he took out his notebook and made a list of his immediate options:

  Tell Priya right now, and let her do what she wants with the information

  Hold off on telling Priya

  Buy Santa Cruz stock and wait for the price to spike on this news

  Do #3 and simultaneously do either #1 or #2

  Do #4 and then circulate word about the rumor in the press, thereby inducing the spike in Santa Cruz's stock price and accelerating the whole process.

  For the next half hour, Gabriel paced around in front of the café's window, mulling over these choices. If he chose number 3, 4, or 5 and didn't tell Priya, he could be fired. Ultimately, number 5 was probably the best option. It was a bit daring, but it was good. Still—considering the value of what he knew, it didn't feel quite satisfactory. This was a tremendous opportunity, and to take full advantage of it, he needed to take tremendous steps.

  He began to consider another, more elaborate option. He didn'
t write this one down. It could be called option number 6. It would involve all the risks of number 5, but it would also involve breaking the law. It would be significantly more profitable for both him and Priya, and both of them could convincingly claim (she, truthfully) that the illegal portion of the transaction had been done by accident, which would, in this case, nullify the criminality. Option number 6 was more complicated, though, and the risks, from an investment standpoint, were greater.

  So many large multinational investments seemed to reside in the gray areas of legality anyway—particularly in certain sectors, such as mining and commodities. Pingree himself had made his first millions manipulating penny stocks on the Vancouver exchange, a famously shady stock exchange known as "the scam capital of the world."

  Gabriel didn't have time to think it over. If the trades occurred over the course of a few days, and he wanted to finish the entire process before the week was out, he needed to have it under way within twenty-four hours, at the latest. One of the most important benefits of attempting the scheme that week, the one between Christmas and New Year's, was that those were some of the most lightly traded days in the market, which meant that the markets would be more volatile than normal. Prices tended to overreact in both directions. There were fewer people manning the trading floors and there were fewer people to verify rumors, so a well-placed rumor could have an especially powerful effect.

  Back in his hotel room an hour later, he cracked his window and smoked a copious number of cigarettes. He ran through the scenario again and again. He jotted down a list of potential problems, but none of them was too threatening. When he looked up, the sun had set.

  He tore the relevant pages out of his pad and took them through to the bathroom. He burned the pages over the toilet with the ceiling fan going. Once all of the pages had burned and the ashes had drifted down into the toilet bowl, he flushed. The black stains remained around the rim of the water, so he flushed again.

  An hour later, too nervous to eat and too amped to stay in his room, he went down to the small casino in the basement of the Presidente and lost money at the blackjack table. He played badly: hit on seventeen, stayed on thirteen. He was all over the place. He drank Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks, and smoked Marlboros. A cocktail waitress who smelled like papaya shampoo emptied his ashtray. An hour later, she did it again.

  After losing a few hundred dollars, he moved to the little bar in the corner. Vegas, this was not. The room was low ceilinged, musty, almost mildewy, its walls covered in dark mirrors. He opened his steno pad and jotted down the steps for option number 6. He needed to retrace them clearly—to suss them out kinesthetically, via the pen—just in case he was missing something.

  Open the short on Santa Cruz stock

  Tell Priya to do the same

  Disseminate (false) rumor

  Wait for the price to tank

  Close short and buy all long with the gains

  Tell Priya to do the same again

  Correct rumor and apologize to reporters for the mistake

  Close position after short spike has subsided

  Reap gains

  It checked out. It really did. And it was elegant, in a way even beautiful, if such a thing could be called beautiful. The risks were, nevertheless, significant.

  To begin with, step three was a solid felony. It was absolutely illegal to spread rumors to generate profit in the securities market. Still, he would be "correcting" the rumor swiftly, claiming that he'd made a mistake, which (if it were true) would absolve him of the crime. It wasn't a crime to disseminate a false rumor that you believed was true. More to the point, there would be no evidence that Gabriel had known that the rumor was false.

  Gabriel finished his drink and headed for the door. He needed to pace around his room. As he was crossing the casino, though, he spotted Grayson McMillan at one of the blackjack tables. Gabriel kept going for a few paces before he paused. He didn't need to spend any more time up in his room driving himself crazy. Grayson's company, despite its shortcomings, would do him good, he assured himself, so he changed course.

  He patted Grayson on the back and sat down, saying, "Cards? I had no idea you played."

  "Well, hello, Gabriel. How are you?" Grayson put his cards down for a moment and glanced at him. "What in hell happened to your face?"

  "Long story. Clumsiness, basically."

  Grayson grimaced, picked his cards up again, and studied them gravely, chewing the corner of his lip. "Well, it doesn't look good."

  "Not as bad as what happened to me here tonight." Gabriel waved at the table.

  Grayson grunted in amusement. He squinted at his cards, hit again, and won a hand.

  "Good for you," Gabriel said.

  "Not really. It's rigged, you know." He glanced back at Gabriel and tapped the felt. "It's a very poorly choreographed grift." He received two cards. "Here, watch. I'll lose this." He held on nineteen. The dealer drew twenty-one and then pulled Grayson's chips. "See?" he said.

  "This sure is the life, huh? Boxing Day alone in an underground casino, playing a rigged game?"

  Grayson smirked, more sincerely this time. "It'll do," he said and tapped the felt again. The dealer served two more.

  Gabriel noticed Fiona approaching. She was there with Grayson, he realized, and he regretted his last comment immediately. She'd been in the bathroom or somewhere. Had she seen him at the bar taking notes? Probably. What were they doing there? Gabriel knew that she didn't gamble, had no interest in it. Was this some sort of dreary date? Gabriel dreaded what was to come, but he couldn't escape now. Instead, he projected as much innocent cheer as he could muster.

  She chose a chair on the far side of Grayson, understandably. She looked marvelous: her hair seemed especially impressive, it looked effulgent; her makeup did the trick of underscoring everything beautiful and disguising the rest. She sparkled, nearly. She seemed even more alert than normal. "Hello there, Gabriel," she said.

  "Fi-fi, is that you?" he said and accepted her hand, kissed a ruddy knuckle.

  She grinned at him dangerously. "Your face looks better."

  "I wear damage well. And I'm happy to report that I have no gangrene. Dodged that, at least. It seems that, cards aside, my luck knows no bounds. You? Any new wounds to report?" Gabriel glanced at Grayson, who was lost in his hand, and she squinted at him in warning.

  She was wearing the black dress that she'd worn to his room the other night, when it had been cinched with a red ribbon. Seeing her there now, punchy and amused, he knew that nothing quite compared to the ego-death of encountering a former lover like that, strutting in all her plumage and on the arm of a far more desirable man. "Gambling too?" he said.

  Was she amused by him or angry? He had no clue. Whatever vulnerability he'd accidentally elicited the other night would not be making a return appearance. Never again. For all her many frailties and lousy habits, he could tell she was not a person who suffered the same ignominy twice. True to form, she replied, "But isn't gambling your thing, Gabriel?"

  An allusion to the hedge fund, probably; she was dangling the secret, reminding him to keep in line. She wanted to lead in a brisk waltz, showing off for Grayson. Gabriel didn't want to deny her anything, not that night, so he straightened his back and tried to keep up. "Grayson," he said, "I think that's meant to be a double-entendre."

  "My antennae picked that much up," Grayson said. His eyes were still fixed on the dealer's hands, the cards, and the felt. He held on eighteen and the dealer hit blackjack, pulled away two more chips. "Fuck me," he muttered. "Right," he sighed. He shook his head at the dealer. "That's me." He turned to face Fiona. "What's the famous Warren Buffett credo about mitigating losses?"

  "Mitigating losses?" Fiona thought about it. "Well, I'm sure he doesn't have one—losses aren't really his problem."

  Grayson spun around to Gabriel. "What about you? Any wisdom for a losing gambler?"

  Gabriel groped through his memory and then said, "'Severities should be dealt out
all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense.' Does that work?"

  "It does. And the severities have been dealt with all at once, I guess. That's not Buffett," added Grayson, master of the obvious.

  "It's Machiavelli," Fiona said. "Right?" She sent Gabriel a sly look.

  He gave her a mischievous grin. "Oh, is that who it is?"

  "He's being funny, Grayson," she said. And then, turning to Gabriel, she asked, "But do you know the rest of the quote?"

  "'And enjoy your winnings when they come'?" he guessed.

  She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, something like that."

  "Oh dear!" Grayson groaned, amused. "Am I boxed in by a pair of Machiavellian journalists? This reminds me of a nightmare I had recently!"

  "No, no, no," Gabriel said. "Claws are all away." He shot her a look to assure her he meant it. "Now, let's get a drink."

  With that, the three of them wandered back to the small bar where Gabriel had been earlier. The bartender lurked nearby, sporting a grave unibrow and a slightly baffled expression, his tremendous bow tie cocked at a steep angle. The place was brownish, in an almost succulent way, and looked like a Chesterfield advertisement from a vintage Playboy magazine—except for the fixtures, which fell decidedly short of the promised glamour. Up close the details were scuffed and artlessly distressed. Sepia mirrors reflected a constellation of feeble bulbs. The carpet had been worn down to weedy twine not just by feet but by decades of hot vomit and cold cocktails.

  They settled into uncomfortable chairs and Fiona lit up. Gabriel withheld, not wanting to unsettle her by lighting a cigarette himself. She didn't know he'd picked up the habit.