The Predator

by Michael Ridpath

  Chris went through to the living room. Ian was reading the Sunday New York Times.

  'What's up with him?' Ian said, his eyes on the paper.

  'Lenka chucked him.'

  'I knew she was out of his league.' He put down the paper and groaned. 'I'm not sure I can face the moaning. It's going to be pretty bad.'

  It was pretty bad. Duncan was inconsolable. He didn't sleep. He drank Ian's whisky late into the night, and when he'd finished that, went out and bought some of his own. He called Lenka at odd times during the day and night, until she stopped answering the phone. He was an embarrassment in class, conspicuously moping in front of her, and refusing to tell anyone what was wrong. Some of the other trainees were worried and asked Chris and Ian what was the matter with him. Chris and Ian felt they had to deny any knowledge of Duncan's problems, something Ian found easier to do than Chris.

  Chris tried to be as sympathetic as he could, but even he was exasperated by Duncan. The programme was hotting up. The final exam would be a four-hour test on Capital Markets, and everyone knew that Waldern wouldn't make it easy. The whole class revised hard, with the exception of Duncan. This worried Chris. Duncan was in forty-first position, only five above the dreaded bottom quartile, and the Capital Markets exam had a large weighting. When Chris and Ian were sweating away in the evening, Duncan was either out in a bar somewhere or, even worse, in his room with a bottle of whisky.

  The study group still met regularly at Eric and Alex's apartment, but Duncan never showed. Although the others were worried about him, they were glad to avoid his poor humour. Lenka still came. She seemed a little more subdued than normal, but otherwise she seemed to be in much better shape than Duncan.

  Chris was leaving a session early, the Thursday evening following the break up, when Lenka rushed out to catch him up. They walked down Columbus Avenue together.

  'How's Duncan?' she asked.

  'Not good.'

  'Oh.' They walked on in silence. Then Lenka spoke. 'I like him, you know. And I'm worried about him. You will look after him, won't you?'

  'I'm trying,' said Chris. 'But it's difficult.'

  'The problem is that if I try to be nice to him myself, it only encourages him. I need him to know that it's finished. We must make a clean break. Otherwise, he'll be hurt much more later on. Do you understand?'

  'I think so.' Chris didn't want to take sides, so he was trying to be as non-committal as possible. But he thought that Lenka was probably right; with Duncan, a 'maybe' would be fatal.

  'I didn't mislead him, you know,' said Lenka. 'We were just having fun. I didn't think it was particularly serious; I thought we both understood that. Then, when he said he wanted to give up his job to live with me, I realized he saw our relationship very differently from me. So I ended it. It would have been wrong to let it go on.'

  'Couldn't you see Duncan was head over heels in love with you?'

  Lenka sighed. 'No. I always have this problem with men. I start a relationship with a nice man, we have fun, and then one day they go serious on me. I thought that Duncan would be different; after all, the training programme is finite. It should have had a built-in break-up date. But Duncan won't accept that.'

  'So what's wrong with a serious relationship, anyway?'

  'I had one. In Prague. We were engaged to be married. He was a medical student, and I loved him. But after the Velvet Revolution, when I had the opportunity to get out of our boring country and see the world, he wouldn't let me.'

  'Wouldn't let you? How could he stop you?'

  'He had a fixed idea of our relationship. Czech women get married much younger than Western European or American women. His idea was that we would get married, he would qualify as a doctor, and I would follow him wherever the job took him. Just like my mother did with my father. You know he is a doctor?'

  'No, I didn't.'

  'Well, I thought I had two choices. I could experience the new life of the West, or I could be a boring Czech wife and mother at twenty-five. It was a difficult decision, I did love Karel, but in the end there was only one choice that was the right one for me. Go to the United States.'

  'And since then?'

  'The last thing I need now is a serious relationship.'

  'Why?' asked Chris. That's all a lot of people are looking for.'

  Lenka thought carefully before answering. 'I guess I don't know who I really am, or who I want to be. It's hard for you to imagine what Czechoslovakia was like under the Communists. America is so different; and most of the differences I like. I know I'm changing, but I don't quite know how. I won't become an American, even if I live here for a while. I will always be Czech, and one day I will go back to my country and do something for it, perhaps using the skills I'm learning here.'

  'I see.'

  'So, I'm totally unsuited to a long-term commitment with Duncan or anyone else for that matter. For one thing, Duncan wouldn't know who it was he was committed to.' Lenka bit her lip. 'I know I've hurt Duncan, and I didn't mean to. But I hurt Karel, and myself, so much more. I don't want to do that again.'

  'I understand,' said Chris.

  'Do you?' asked Lenka, looking at him closely. 'Do you really?'

  'I think so.'

  'Can you make Duncan understand that?'

  Chris paused. 'I don't know. Probably not. Duncan is not very rational at the moment.'

  'You can say that again. I tried to talk to him again a couple of nights ago and I still got nowhere. But this can't go on. He's acting as if we're married and I've run off with another man. He calls me at any time in the day or night, he makes a fool of himself in front of me in class. He follows me. He sends me letters I never read. He whispers things to me about how his life isn't worth living. I have to make him realize it's over.'

  'I'll do what I can,' Chris said.

  'Thank you,' said Lenka. 'Because I've had enough. Someone has to get the message through to him.'

  Chris decided to try to talk to Duncan about Lenka the next day. They had lunch together in the cafeteria on the twelfth floor, and Chris suggested a quick walk down to Battery Park. They left their jackets behind and strolled the couple of blocks to the park. It was another hot, humid day. Tourists drifted lazily amongst the souvenir sellers and the office workers eating their sandwiches. Only the seagulls were active, investigating every piece of picnic debris as it hit the ground. The city dust hung hot and heavy in the air. Out in the harbour the Statue of Liberty pointed upwards into the shimmering haze.

  'I spoke to Lenka yesterday,' Chris began.

  'Oh, yes?' Duncan's interest quickened.

  'She says there's no chance of you two getting back together. She says she doesn't want a committed relationship with anyone.'

  The glimmer of hope in Duncan's eye disappeared instantly, to be replaced with bitterness. 'So what?'

  His response confused Chris. 'So, there isn't much point in chasing her.'

  'I know that's what she says,' said Duncan, sounding frustrated. 'That's the whole point. But she's wrong, and I have to show her that. If I stop chasing her, that's hardly going to work, is it? I need to show her how much I love her, and make her admit to herself that she loves me. I know she does, whatever she says. I just know it.' He glared at Chris, defying him to say otherwise.

  'Did she tell you about the guy she was engaged to in Czechoslovakia? About how she broke away from him? She didn't want to be tied down then, and she doesn't want to be tied down now.'

  'That was different,' said Duncan. 'He wanted her to give up everything for him. I want to give up everything for her.'

  Chris held his tongue. He had known it would be useless to attempt to persuade Duncan. He shouldn't have even tried. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw two figures he recognized. They were walking towards Chris and Duncan from the direction of the War Memorial, deep in conversation. Lenka and Alex.

  'All right, do what you want,' said Chris, grabbing hold of Duncan's arm. 'Let's go back to the office.'

&n
bsp; But Duncan had seen them too.

  'Jesus. Look over there.'

  'Duncan,' Chris said, tugging his sleeve.

  Duncan shook him off. 'I can't believe it. Look what they're doing.'

  'They're talking, that's all. They're friends. They're our friends.'

  'Yes, but look at the way they're talking,' said Duncan as he walked rapidly towards them.

  Lenka saw him. She frowned, and stopped still, facing him.

  'What are you doing?' demanded Duncan.

  'Talking to Alex,' said Lenka quietly.

  'How can you do that? Why can't you talk to me?'

  'Duncan.' Chris had a hold of his sleeve and was pulling him backwards.

  Lenka exploded. 'I can talk to whoever I want to, Duncan. I can walk with whoever I want to. I can sleep with whoever I want to.' She took a step towards Duncan and jabbed a finger in his chest. 'I used to like you, Duncan. We had a good time together. But I don't have to put up with all this shit. You can't tell me what to do, do you understand me? We're finished, Duncan. Finished!'

  Duncan was so taken aback by this outburst that he was speechless. Chris finally managed to pull him away. Duncan looked over his shoulder. 'Bitch!' he cried.

  'Bastard!' came the reply from Lenka. Chris and Alex exchanged glances, and then Chris pushed Duncan firmly back in the direction of Bloomfield Weiss.

  During a break in class that afternoon, Chris grabbed Lenka. She still looked angry.

  'That was pretty unpleasant,' he said.

  'Did you talk to him?'

  'Yes.'

  'And is he going to give up?'

  'No.'

  Lenka sighed. 'I thought so. But do you see what I mean when I say he acts like he owns me? The fact is, he doesn't, and I have to make him see that. I do like him, despite all this stupidity, but if the only way he can get it through his skull that we're finished is by me calling him a bastard, then that's the way it's going to be.'

  'He's jealous. He thinks there's something between you and Alex.'

  'Maybe that's a good thing. At least then he'll realize it's over.' Lenka saw the doubt in Chris's face. 'Have you got any other ideas?'

  With that she stalked off back to the classroom.

  6

  The week before the final exam was hell. Everyone was tense. They all knew that Waldern would set a tough one. It was a four-hour paper on Capital Markets, although Waldern promised he would throw in strands of everything else they had learned on the course as well. So they had to revise everything. Fear of coming in the bottom quartile had grabbed the majority of the trainees. The rest were worried about coming top. Rudy Moss was still in first position, with Eric second. Latasha James was third; Lenka had slipped to tenth after her disastrous Ethics exam. Duncan was just above the cut-off line, Alex just below it. Even Chris, at twenty-six, felt that the bottom quartile was in his reach if he panicked. So, as Ian put it, he panicked about panicking.

  Alex worked hard, with a lot of help from Lenka. The others were all determined that he would make it. They had more or less given up hope on Duncan, though. Chris tried everything: encouragement, scolding, nagging, sarcasm, but to no effect. Duncan was bent on self-destruction.

  The exam was a bastard. It was about a fictitious US cable television company with dodgy accounts that wanted to issue junk bonds to finance an acquisition in France. Chris had to admit that it was clever: you needed to understand accounting, credit, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and of course, capital markets to structure the deal and describe how it might be sold. The case took three-quarters of an hour just to read.

  Chris slogged through it, and after three hours he had the bulk of it cracked. His head buzzed with fatigue and adrenaline. One more hour. He would make it. He reached the end of a page, and sat up and stretched. The classroom was silent except for the rustle of paper and the scratching of pens. Abby Hollis was staring dully at the class from her position in the centre.

  He was just about to get back to work when Eric, who was sitting next to him, gathered up his papers and marched down the aisle to Abby Hollis. He'd finished already! Abby looked as surprised as Chris and began a murmured conversation with Eric.

  Chris heard a whisper from behind. He stiffened.

  'Chris.'

  It was Duncan, who was sitting right behind him.

  'Chris. Nod if you can hear me.'

  Chris's eyes darted to Abby, whose head was bent next to Eric's.

  He nodded.

  'Let me see your paper.'

  Chris remained motionless.

  'Push it to one side.'

  Chris didn't move.

  'Oh, come on Chris. I need the help. Please.'

  Chris felt a rush of anger. He was going to pass this exam now. He knew it. And he had worked hard to pass it. Why should he let Duncan have a look at his paper? Duncan knew that Denny and Roger had been kicked out for doing just that. If Duncan was in a mess, it was entirely his own fault.

  'Come on Chris. Let's see the first page.'

  Slowly and deliberately, Chris picked up his pen and hunched over his paper. Duncan could fend for himself. He had an exam to finish.

  'Chris! You bastard!'

  This time Duncan's whispering was too loud. Abby heard, and snapped her head towards Duncan. Chris dropped his eyes to his own paper.

  'Fucker,' hissed Duncan a few seconds later, when Abby had turned her attention back to Eric.

  George Calhoun was waiting for them as they trooped out of the exam, shattered. He told all the US-hired trainees to take a quick blood and urine test for their medical insurance. Chris, Duncan and Ian were too tired to notice. They just wanted to get out of the building as quickly as possible.

  'Coming to Jerry's?' said Ian to Chris.

  'Yes, definitely.' Chris turned to Duncan. 'You want to come?'

  Duncan was pale and near tears. He ignored Chris and headed for the elevator.

  Ian raised his eyebrows. 'What was that about?'

  Chris sighed wearily. 'Forget it. Let's get a beer.'

  It was early, and Jerry's was almost empty. But sitting there, guarding a table and a pitcher of beer, was Eric.

  'How come you left early?' asked Chris.

  'I'd finished. I couldn't stand it in there any more. So I came down here and got an early beer.'

  'That's sickening.'

  'Never mind,' said Ian. 'Just pour me one.' He loosened his tie and downed his beer in one. Eric poured him another one.

  'So how did you do?' asked Chris.

  Eric smiled. 'Let's not ask those questions. It's finished. It's all over. Let's just get drunk.'

  So they did.

  The end of the programme was an anticlimax. There were four days of agony while they waited for the Capital Markets papers to be marked and the Americans to be given their job assignments. Chris was amazed that Waldern could mark so many lengthy papers so quickly: Ian's theory was that he got his graduate students to do it.

  After his initial anger at Chris, Duncan forgave him. He knew he had messed up; he admitted that it was his own fault that he hadn't been properly prepared. But the guilt still weighed on Chris. It wasn't that he felt he should have helped Duncan; Duncan had no right to expect Chris to cheat for him, and he knew it. What troubled Chris was his motivation for ignoring Duncan in the exam. The Bloomfield Weiss philosophy of look after yourself and leave your colleagues to sort out their own problems had finally got through to him. He had wanted to do nothing to jeopardize his own chances of passing; in his darkest moments, he thought that he had wanted Duncan to fail. This bothered him. Bloomfield Weiss was changing him, and having seen dozens of successful Bloomfield Weiss investment bankers, he wasn't sure he liked that.

  Alex was unusually subdued. He wandered around with a grim expression on his face and hardly spoke to any of the others. They assumed that he knew he had done badly, but didn't want to talk about it, and so they left him alone.

  The exam results were added to the results of al
l the other tests during the programme to make a grand total. This was pinned up on the wall outside the classroom at ten o'clock on the Thursday morning of the last week. The trainees crowded round Abby Hollis to look. Eric had made first place, Rudy Moss second, and Latasha James third. Lenka was fourth. To his great satisfaction, Chris squeezed into the first quartile at fourteenth. Ian was thirty-second and Alex just scraped above the cut-off at forty-second. Duncan had failed resoundingly at fifty-seventh. Only one person was below him, Faisal, who didn't care.

  An hour later, there was another list to look at: job assignments for the American trainees. Eric had been given the job he had asked for in Mergers and Acquisitions. Although in theory Alex was safe, he had no job assigned to him. He seemed to take this badly; the strain of the programme and his mother's illness appeared finally to be getting to him. Rudy Moss got the assignment he wanted in the Asset Management Division, but, despite her high place in the programme, Latasha ended up in Municipal Finance. The trainees from the foreign offices would have to wait until they returned home to discover what jobs they had been given, or in cases like Duncan's and Carla's, for official confirmation that they had been given none.

  The rest of the day was taken up with meetings, form filling, and further presentations by insignificant departments. The gossip and chatter was incessant. Most people were happy to scrape through. Those that had failed had different responses. Some took it stoically, some tried to joke about it, some, like Duncan, looked angry, and some, like Carla, just wept quietly. No one knew what to say to these unfortunates. The likes of Rudy Moss ignored them. They were history at Bloomfield Weiss, they were failures, they had zero networking value. Why waste time on them?

  The fragile sense of community that had formed among the sixty young bankers over the previous five months was falling apart, as each looked forward to new lives either inside or outside Bloomfield Weiss. There was no farewell party, only snatched conversations as people made arrangements, the Americans to find out about their new jobs, and the foreigners to make their way home.

  Eric and Alex had originally planned another party of their own for all the trainees. But, as the end approached and the programme disintegrated around them, they changed their minds. They decided to invite the three Brits and Lenka to join them on Eric's father's boat, which was moored on the North Shore of Long Island. Everyone thought this a great idea, even Duncan. So, after the last class of the programme, they all took the commuter train out to Oyster Bay, full of excitement for the evening ahead, an evening that would change their lives for ever.