The Predator

by Michael Ridpath

  'Do you play?'

  'Not any more,' Chris said. 'I played a lot as a boy, but I was never going to be as good as my father.'

  They chatted about chess until they reached the leafy county of Westchester. George Calhoun lived in a classic American suburban house: wooden, white-painted, with a large patch of grass in front of it running down to a mailbox and the sidewalk. Terry waited in the car, while Chris rang the doorbell.

  Calhoun answered. He was greyer, balder and fatter, with a few more wrinkles. His hatchet face had become both softer and more bitter. He didn't recognize Chris.

  'Chris Szczypiorski,' Chris said, holding out his hand. 'From the Bloomfield Weiss training programme.'

  'Ah, yes. I remember,' said Calhoun. 'I remember quite well. What do you want?'

  'I want to talk to you about Alex Lubron.'

  'Alex Lubron, eh? Another one. Well, you'd better come in.' He led Chris into a living room. The TV was on. Adverts for laxatives or something. 'Sit down. Have you come to tell me what really happened?'

  'No,' said Chris. 'I've come to find out what really happened.'

  Calhoun snorted. 'You were there. You ought to know. It would sure be interesting if you could let the rest of us in on it.'

  'I know what happened on the boat,' said Chris. 'Alex fell in and drowned. But what interests me is what happened beforehand.'

  'Beforehand?'

  'Yes. Wasn't Alex in some kind of trouble with drugs?'

  Calhoun looked at Chris suspiciously. 'That's all very confidential.'

  Chris returned his stare. 'I'm sure it is,' he said, after a moment's thought. 'And I'm sure that after all your years of loyal service to Bloomfield Weiss the last thing you would want to do is discuss something confidential that happened ten years ago to someone who is now dead.'

  It was the right thing to say. Calhoun laughed. Or at least Chris thought it was a laugh. It actually sounded more like a bark.

  'I still can't believe it. Twenty-six years. Six months short of my fiftieth birthday, and they give me the pink slip. What chance have I of finding another job at my age?'

  Chris smiled in what he hoped could be mistaken for sympathy. He enjoyed the irony. Calhoun had loved firing people. He had made it a personal business philosophy. If ever an ego needed to be downsized, it was his.

  'All right. I'll tell you. We tested all the American trainees after the final examination. Alex Lubron was the only one who tested positive. I wanted to have him out of the firm the next day, but the head of mortgage trading, Tom Risman, wouldn't let him go without a fight. So I thought I'd try to get him to finger whoever had supplied him. He had the weekend to think about it. I think he would have told us, too. His mother was very ill, and he had loans and big medical bills to pay off. Also, he seemed worried about what effect a public dismissal and a conviction would have on her. He asked us to keep it quiet.' Calhoun smiled to himself. 'Big mistake. I said I'd make it as public as I could. Press release, the works. I had him. I'm sure he would have talked.'

  'But wouldn't that have been bad publicity for Bloomfield Weiss?'

  'No. That was the whole point. We'd gotten some PR consultants in after those salesmen were convicted for supplying drugs. They said it was vital for Bloomfield Weiss to be seen to be cleaning up its act.'

  'So who was it who was supplying Alex?'

  Calhoun sighed. 'We never found out. He died before he could tell us.'

  'Do you know if it was anyone in the firm?'

  'Not for sure. It could have been anyone from his doorman to Sidney Stahl. But somehow I think if it was his doorman he'd have been quick to tell us all about it.'

  Chris nodded. 'Did you pursue the investigation after he died?'

  'Certainly not,' said Calhoun. 'Once he was dead, we just wanted to hush everything up as quickly as possible. Especially once the police started getting suspicious.'

  'I remember they were asking us lots of questions.'

  Calhoun smiled. 'The thing is, they didn't believe you. That was a problem. We had to apply pressure.'

  'How did you do that?'

  'I don't know,' said Calhoun. 'That was done at a very high level. But one day they were asking a whole lot of questions. The next day they stopped.'

  Thank God, thought Chris. 'I wonder if you could tell me something about the psychometric testing programme?' he asked.

  Calhoun seemed surprised at the change of tack. But he answered the question. 'It was very successful. Psychometric tests are often used to measure what kind of a team player someone is, leadership, that kind of thing. I realized that wasn't really what Bloomfield Weiss wanted. Sure, we said we did, just like every other corporation in America, but we were just kidding ourselves. We wanted winners. People who were determined to come out on top, no matter what the cost. It's not like we used the psychometric tests alone to hire people, but they were a useful pointer.'

  'Didn't they show up some people as borderline psychotic?'

  'No. I mean not really. Everyone has psychological problems. You could argue that the truly successful have them more than most. Most driven people are driven by something, if you see what I mean. And that something may be ugly. But we weren't interested in their personal problems. We just cared about how they performed at work.'

  'What about Steve Matzley?'

  'A case in point. He did an excellent job for us before he moved on.'

  'But then he raped someone?'

  Calhoun's eyes flared up. 'That's not my fault! That's his responsibility.'

  'Didn't the psychological assessment point out a high risk?'

  'Who told you that?' Calhoun snapped.

  Chris shrugged. 'It's just a rumour.'

  Calhoun sighed. 'If you read the report with hindsight, it is just possible that you could have identified pointers to what happened. But you can do that with anything with hindsight.'

  'I suppose so,' said Chris, trying to sound sympathetic. He didn't want to alienate Calhoun. He still had more he wanted to find out from him. 'Were there any others who had similar concerns raised in their reports?'

  'I really don't remember,' said Calhoun.

  'People on the boat the night Alex was killed? Alex himself, perhaps?'

  Calhoun glared at Chris. 'I told you, I don't remember.'

  'After Alex died, you checked the files, didn't you?'

  'I have no idea.'

  'What do you mean, you have no idea? We're not talking about some routine personnel matter, here. This was a big deal. You must remember whether you did check the files or you didn't.'

  'I don't remember,' Calhoun growled through gritted teeth. 'And if I did remember, I wouldn't tell you. Those files are personal and very confidential.'

  Chris was sure that there was something in those reports that had been of great interest to George Calhoun. He was equally sure Calhoun wouldn't tell him. There was no point in pushing it.

  'OK, I understand,' he said. 'What about the psychologists who did the tests? Wasn't there one who was unhappy about it?'

  Calhoun snorted. 'Marcia Horwath. I remember her. She was the one who persuaded the firm to drop the programme.'

  'Did she test Steve Matzley?'

  'She did.'

  'And anyone else she was worried about?'

  'Possibly. I really don't remember.'

  Chris realized that he had got as far as he was going to go. 'Thank you very much, Mr Calhoun.'

  'So you're not going to tell me what really happened?' asked Calhoun with a leer.

  'I already have.' Somehow, Chris had no difficulties lying to him.

  'Come on. All these questions about whether any of your friends on the boat were psychos. Something must have happened.'

  'Alex Lubron fell in the water and drowned,' said Chris.

  'OK,' said Calhoun. 'Have it your way.'

  Chris got up to go. Then he paused. 'When I came in, you said "another one". Has someone else been asking about Alex?'

  'Yes. His brother. Or a
t least he said he was his brother.'

  'Marcus Lubron. Tall thin guy?'

  'That's him. Scruffy. Probably hadn't had a bath in a week. He was on some kind of mission to discover the truth about his brother's death.'

  'What did you tell him?'

  'Not much. A guy like that, you know.' He wrinkled his nose in something close to a sneer.

  'He didn't give you an address or anything?'

  'No. I don't think he liked me much, either. But his car had Vermont plates.'

  'Vermont plates? Thank you.' That might make finding him easier. 'Well goodbye, George,' Chris said, extending his hand. Calhoun shook it. Once he had left the house and was walking down the drive, Chris wiped his hand on his trousers. He hoped George Calhoun never got another job.

  Terry drove Chris back to the city and dropped him off at a bland business hotel midtown. After Chris had checked in, he powered up his laptop, logged on to the Internet and started to look for Marcus Lubron.

  It wasn't quite as easy as he had hoped. There wasn't a Marcus Lubron listed in the phone records anywhere in America. There were two M. Lubrons, one in Washington State, and one in Texas. Chris called them. A Matthew and a Mike. Marcus must be ex-directory.

  He looked up 'Lubron' on one of the search engines, and discovered that it was the name of an anti-creasing solution for textiles. More promisingly, there was a mention of furniture made by a Marcus Lubron in the apartment of a wealthy Manhattan family named Farmiloe. Theirs was an easier number to find. Mrs Farmiloe was delighted that Chris had read about her apartment, but hadn't dealt with Marcus Lubron directly, although she knew he came from Vermont. She gave Chris the number of her interior designer, who was uncooperative at first, but, when Chris convinced her that he was an old friend from England desperate to catch up with Marcus after ten years, she relented and gave him the name and address. Chris looked it up on a map. Marcus lived in a small town in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, Vermont.

  He decided not to call him. The chances of Marcus talking to him on the phone, or agreeing to meet him, were slim, and there was no point in alerting him that Chris was looking for him. Much better to surprise him. So, Chris called a travel agent, and booked a seat on a plane to Burlington the next day.

  It was much easier to locate Dr Marcia Horwath. She had an office on the West Side, and said she could spare Chris fifteen minutes at a quarter to nine the next morning. Pleased that he finally seemed to be making some progress, he took a taxi to Penn Station and a train to Princeton.

  Melville Capital took up the first floor of a neatly painted wooden building that looked more like a house than an office block, the ground floor of which was occupied by an upmarket stockbroker. Chris arrived at a couple of minutes before four, and was ushered by an overweight middle-aged woman into Dr Zizka's office. Large and airy with a couple of comfortable sofas, pleasant prints of college buildings on the walls, shelves stuffed with books and academic journals, and only one computer in the whole room, it seemed a very pleasant place to spend the day untroubled by the turmoil of the markets. The late afternoon sunshine streamed through the window, gleaming softly off the polished wood of the desk, and the bald head of the man sitting behind it reading a journal of some kind through half-moon glasses.

  It was a few seconds before the man put his text to one side and looked up. He smiled, leapt to his feet, and scurried round the desk, extending his hand. 'I'm Martin Zizka.'

  'Chris Szczypiorski.'

  'Come, come. Sit down,' Zizka said, indicating one of the sofas. He was a small man in his fifties, with bright blue eyes twinkling out of a round face. 'I'm very sorry we only have thirty minutes, but it's been crazy round here,' he said, waving vaguely at his serene office.

  'I understand,' said Chris. 'The markets are never quiet.'

  'Never,' said Zizka, shaking his head.

  'You manage money for a number of colleges, I believe?'

  'That's right,' Zizka said. 'I used to be an economics professor at Melville College in Ohio. They were very disappointed by the attitude of the firms advising them on their endowment fund. Conflicts of interest, poor performance, lack of personal attention. So I offered to manage their money for them. I had a good couple of years, I have many contacts in the academic world, and now I advise on the funds of five more similar institutions.

  'And you do that from here?' Chris said, glancing round the office.

  Zizka smiled. 'Oh, I don't trade myself any more. I did to start with, but now I find it's not necessary. I parcel the money out to others to do that, such as yourself. I take the major strategic decisions. I find if you get those right, the returns take care of themselves. What I can never seem to get enough of, even here, is peace and quiet to read and think.'

  There was something in that, Chris thought. He realized he was in danger of underestimating Dr Zizka.

  'And presumably that was why you invested in Carpathian. It seemed the right strategic decision?'

  'Partly.'

  'Partly?'

  'Partly that. Mostly Lenka.'

  'You've known her for a long time?'

  'Yes. When I started in this business, I got involved in the high-yield bond market. That was when I was still buying individual securities myself. I dealt with all the big brokers, including Bloomfield Weiss. While the others seemed happy to sell me any deal as long as it was one of theirs, Lenka only sold me bonds that worked. Although I was only a small client, she looked after me. I ended up giving her all my business. The returns were good, and she never abused my trust. We got on well: my parents were from a small town outside of Prague, you know. So, when she told me she was setting up Carpathian, I thought, why not support her? She deserves it. And so far it's worked out fine. The problem is that some of the trustees keep asking questions about it. It sort of sticks out on our list of investments.'

  Zizka paused, and took off his little spectacles. 'I was shocked to hear what happened to her. A terrible thing.' He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. Then he looked up at Chris. 'But now she's gone, it seems the right time to get out, given all the other factors. I'm sure you understand.'

  Chris did understand. But he couldn't allow himself to agree. 'Do you still think the strategic argument makes sense? That as the Central European economies become integrated with Europe there will be opportunities for making money?'

  'Yes, I do, but . . .' Zizka shrugged.

  Chris launched into his spiel on the opportunities in Central Europe, his view of the economic prospects there, the track record of the fund since inception, how the current market jitters provided a chance to make more money. Zizka listened politely, but Chris could see he wasn't getting anywhere. Zizka had invested to support Lenka. Now Lenka was gone, there was no reason for him to stay involved. His mind had been made up.

  The minutes were ticking away. His half hour was nearly up. Chris stood up to go.

  'Thank you for listening to me, Dr Zizka.'

  'It's the least I could do,' he said. 'You were Lenka's partner, after all.'

  'I was.' Chris shook Zizka's hand. A decent man. A fair man. A far cry from Rudy Moss. 'You know, I feel like I still am her partner. That she's still there, looking over my shoulder. Carpathian is still her firm. She trusted me and I won't let her down.'

  Zizka's eyes flicked over Chris, examining him closely. 'I'm sure.'

  'Will you reconsider?' Chris asked. 'If not for me, then for her?'

  Zizka hesitated. He looked as if he was about to say something, but then he walked over to the door and opened it.

  'Goodbye,' he said. 'And good luck.'

  Chris arrived back at his hotel depressed. Zizka hadn't actually said he still wanted to withdraw his money. But he hadn't said he had changed his mind, either. Chris called Ollie at home. It was nearly midnight his time but Ollie was happy to talk. The market was weaker; prices were down. A miraculous bid for Eureka Telecom had not materialized. Ollie was enthusiastic, though. He thought that the latest news about the
Slovakian economy was encouraging, and that investors hadn't picked up on it yet. Chris's first instinct was to tell Ollie to wait until he returned. But Ollie was convincing, and with Lenka gone Chris would have to start trusting him soon. So why not now? He told Ollie to buy Slovakian bonds in the morning. Ollie didn't ask about Melville, so Chris didn't tell him.

  Chris put down the phone and looked around his sterile hotel room. He couldn't face moping the evening away in there, so he changed out of his suit, grabbed his wallet and headed out into the street. He was hungry. He made his way up the East Side, looking for his old haunts. He found a place that he, Duncan and Ian used to go to on Seventy-First Street and Second Avenue, and spent a pleasant hour drinking a couple of beers, devouring a chunky cheeseburger and remembering the good times of that summer in New York ten years before.

  He wished that he had somehow got to know Megan better back then. In retrospect, all that time he had spent with Tamara was a total waste. Of course, it could never have happened, he would never have been able to prise her away from Eric. But it was a nice thought. He would see her again soon. That was a nice thought too.

  He wandered back haphazardly and finally found himself on the cross street near his hotel. It was cold in New York in March and it began to rain. The temperature could only just have been above freezing and the cold hard drops of water bit into his face. He was glad he had been sent on the second training programme of the year: spending five months in the dark and cold and rain would not have been nearly so much fun. Now, it was hard to imagine the sweltering heat and humidity of the New York he had experienced. The rain intensified. He stared down at the sidewalk and quickened his pace, hands deep in his coat pockets, eager now to get back to the warmth of his hotel, only a block away.

  Suddenly, a sharp jolt against his back propelled him into a doorway. He lost his balance and crashed into a metal door. As he tried to turn, he felt cold steel on his cheek. The flat of the blade of a knife pressed his face against the door. He tried to move his head to get a look at his attacker but the knife cut into his cheek. He did catch a glimpse of a black scarf, moustache, dark glasses and woollen hat, with long dark hair curling out beneath its rim. The man was a few inches shorter than him, but he was strong and determined.