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“Really?” said Peter. “But, God, it’s such a big thing, and it was just something I was fooling around with. I don’t think it’s anywhere near ready for a meeting.”
“Oh, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Just Huang, Kelly, Matt, you know, people like that.”
“But—”
“I’ve been thinking about it. There are a lot of possibilities. Let’s kick it around. Be a good thing for the team. Get some juices going.”
So it had been agreed that in a few days a meeting would be held at which Peter would give a presentation on his idea. This was the aforementioned meeting, which had descended into a bloodthirsty dance of death.
Peter had gotten a jolt as soon as he had entered the conference room. First of all, the place was already full, which was suspicious. Then he noticed that he didn’t see Huang, Kelly, Matt, or any of his other friends. Where was T.J.? T.J. should have been there! Peter barely knew some of the attendees. More troubling still, a man and woman from Upstairs were sitting in a corner of the room, away from the table. The man, a trim, fortyish black guy, was wearing his jacket even though everyone else was in shirtsleeves. The woman, in her fifties, sat there with an imperious, pre-bored expression. Peter had never met them, but he knew who they must be. He set up his computer and its connections; he noticed that his hands were shaking.
Thropp had begun the meeting. “Welcome, everyone.” He nodded toward the man and woman. “Rich, Andrea, thanks for taking the time to come down.” He rubbed his hands together. “Well, now, we’re all here to listen to Peter tell us about his new idea. Peter has been quite mysterious about it, playing it close to the vest, so I can’t tell you much about what he’s cooked up. He tells me it has the potential to be something very big. I’d usually want to spend some time going over a presentation like this myself, but Peter was so insistent on having a meeting that I said okay just to get him off my back!” Mild chuckles.
Thropp turned to Peter with a smile and gestured to him. “Go ahead, Peter,” he said. “It’s your meeting.”
This isn’t right, Peter thought. His heart began to pound. “Thank you, Gregg,” he said with a quaver.
What he had to say was very preliminary, he explained, and he had only a few slides to show. Then he had gone through it all: What is the greatest source of wealth in the country? The equity people have in their houses. Over the past twenty years, the debt on people’s houses had been securitized, providing a great benefit to borrowers and investors—and the firms in the middle. In Peter’s view, the mortgage market looked shaky. Would there be a way of securitizing home equity? Say a homeowner could sell some of the equity in his house. There could be individual transactions (after all, each mortgage is individual), and you could bundle up those equity stakes just as in the mortgage-backed market. Think of the advantages: home buyers would have an alternative to debt; homeowners could pay down debt and benefit from a rise in prices without selling their houses or borrowing more; they could diversify, buying equity in houses in different markets from their own. With the home equity securities would come hedging opportunities: people could short their own houses if they were in a bubble, and there would be any number of derivative plays. It would spread risk around, make the market more efficient. Then imagine the money you could make if you were the first to come up with such a product.
Peter liked his idea even though it was at only the fantasy stage, and as he spoke he couldn’t help but become more enthusiastic about it; this excitement combined with his anxiety made for a great agitation within him, as he allowed himself to think that he might possibly have carried others along.
He hadn’t. After he finished, saying, “Well, that’s about it. As I mentioned, it’s all very preliminary,” there was silence. A cough. A rustle of papers. Some taps of a pencil. Another cough.
Thropp spread out his hands. “Reactions? Rajandran?”
Rajandran was one of Thropp’s liege men, and Peter didn’t know him well; he spoke with great precision, polishing every phoneme. “Well, I am sure we all agree that Peter has some interesting ideas.” He smiled. It was amazing how white his teeth were. “But it seems to me that he’s missed the boat on this one.” Rajandran rattled on for several minutes, enumerating all the reasons everything Peter had said was absurd. The basic premise was nonsensical. The problems with execution would be horrendous. Peter completely misunderstood the market, the simplest model would show that. And on and on. Someone—some mysterious person—had obviously briefed Rajandran on what Peter was going to say and then instructed him to prepare an informed rebuttal. Peter glanced at Thropp, who was rocking in his chair and trying to suppress a smirk. Peter thought he could hear him humming.
As soon as Rajandran finished, before Peter could even begin to respond, someone else piped up. “You know, of course, Peter, that a futures market for housing prices was tried in London and was a complete disaster.” Another case of advance research!
“Yes,” Peter said, “but, really, there was a marketing problem—”
“Marketing problem!” his antagonist said sarcastically. “You want the firm to spend billions of dollars to redo the economics of housing—and you think a few ads will make the difference?” A snicker traveled the room.
A third henchman joined in. “What about the owner’s balance sheet?”
And then each member of the trio simply began to fire away: “Look at the piss-poor reaction to the Chicago Merc product.” “Wouldn’t insurance make more sense?” “Is it stochastic?”
Peter tried to answer (“… preliminary, something that would need to be looked at, I can’t be sure, um, uh …”). And then he just sat there listening, trying to look unfazed despite his red face and the sweat trickling down from his armpits. Finally, the bloodlust of his tormentors seemed to have been sated.
“Anyone else?” Thropp asked. When no one spoke, he turned to Peter. “Well, Champ, I guess you’re a few bricks shy of a load.”
The man and woman from Upstairs had whispered to each other and gotten out of their seats and were now leaving. They gave a nod to Thropp, who said, “Rich, Andrea, we’ll try to give you a better show next time.”
Peter’s head throbbed. He felt rage and shame. He knew that he was putrefying before everyone’s eyes. A nauseous odor was beginning to arise from him, the putrescent stench of failure. From this moment on, people would slip by him quickly in the halls; they would respond to his phone messages and e-mails in the most perfunctory way; they would edge toward the walls when they found themselves in the same room with him. Even if some of them knew that Peter had been set up, they would treat him as one infected with the plague; it was enough that somebody very senior had wanted to lay a trap for him and that he had fallen into it.
“Okay, everybody,” Thropp was saying. “That’s it.” Then he turned to Peter with hooded, menacing eyes. “My office. Five minutes.”
When Peter presented himself at Thropp’s office, he found Thropp rocking in his chair with his folded hands on his stomach; he wore gold cuff links the size of quarters.
“Ah, Russell, come in,” he said.
Peter stood in front of the desk. Thropp didn’t invite him to sit.
“Quite an interesting meeting,” Thropp said.
Peter nodded.
“Yes, quite interesting,” Thropp said. “Tell me, Russell, do you like walnuts?”
There was a large bowl of walnuts sitting on Thropp’s desk, but this non sequitur bewildered Peter. He shrugged.
“Go ahead and pick out a couple,” said Thropp.
Indifferently, Peter picked up two walnuts.
“Take a look at them.”
Peter did so.
“Now give them to me,” Thropp said.
Peter handed the walnuts to Thropp, who looked at them for a moment while rolling them around in his right hand.
“Do you know what these are?” Thropp asked.
Peter shook his head.
“These are your nuts, Russell,” Thropp brayed. Still holding the walnuts in his right hand, he squeezed them so hard that his fingers turned white. “And I’ve got ’em, right here!” Then he leaned back and laughed. “Oh, it was wonderful!” he said, laughing even harder. “‘Home equity securities!’” He could hardly speak. “’Home equity securities!’” Stretching out his thumb and pinkie, he held his hand up to his head like a phone and put on a deep voice. “‘Hello, I’d like to buy one hundred shares of 487 Maple Drive.’” Thropp was laughing so hard now that tears came to his eyes. “And the look on your face when Raj got going! Oh God! Beautiful!” He laughed and laughed and wiped his eyes. “Oh, it was wonderful,” he said finally, as his laughter subsided in a sigh.
“I’m happy to have been able to give you so much pleasure,” said Peter. “But I wonder if I could ask why you’ve done this?”
“Why? Why?” Thropp’s eyes narrowed and his face went black with malice. “I’ll tell you why: I despise you.” He snorted and began to grind his teeth. “Peter Russell, so bright and attractive, everybody says. Such a hard worker, such nice guy. Top decile. Everything going for him. It makes me want to puke. Before I’m through, nobody will think you’re worth your weight in cockroach dung!” Thropp cackled. “But, oh, did you ever fall for it when I came on all lovey-dovey! Think of it, you come in here”—now he put on an effeminate voice—“‘Oh, Greggy, yoo-hoo! Look-see, I’ve got a note from Arthur Beeche!’” He fluttered his eyelashes and flapped his hands with loose wrists; then his voice became vicious again. “I’m going to destroy you, Russell.” He laughed with depraved glee. “I’m going to destroy you!”
Peter waited a moment before speaking.
“Okay, Gregg,” he said patiently. “What I’m hearing is that you despise me. Is that right?”
“Yep.”
“I’m also hearing, Gregg, that you hope to destroy me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I see, I see.” Peter said. He furrowed his brow and thought for a moment. “Gregg, I wonder if the real issue isn’t that my skill set may not be the one you’re looking for. Under the circumstances, I’m wondering—and I’m just throwing this out—I’m wondering if it would make sense for me to transition to another spot. I’m thinking about the team, here.”
“You aren’t going anywhere. I’ve been looking forward to this too much.”
“I think, Gregg, that there might be others in the firm who—”
“Nobody’s going to save your ass, Russell. Furlanetto—you’ve crawled up her sphincter, right? Well, she’s in Switzerland for the next two years. And Mulvahey? He’s jumped ship.”
This news startled Peter.
“You didn’t know that, did you? Yeah. It’ll be out in a day or two. So when you try to run to Mommy or Daddy, there ain’t gonna be no Mommy or Daddy.”
Peter looked glum.
“Poor little Peter Russell,” Thropp said. “His ass is grass, and I’m the cow.” This didn’t sound quite the way Thropp had wanted, and he paused quizzically before continuing.
“Now, Russell, here’s the situation. I can’t get rid of you right away because I do have to cover my rear, and anyway the damn lawyers will say I’ve gotta have cause. So I need to make you look so bad, like such an idiot, that the only question people will ask is why I let you last so long. It’ll take some time, but the nice thing is that I’ll get to watch you suffer.” Thropp allowed for a dramatic pause. “I’ve come up with a little plan that, if I do say so myself, is brilliant. I’m going to give you a new assignment.” He paused again, smiling malevolently. “I’m sending you off to work for Mac McClernand.” Enjoying himself, he watched as this news sank in.
Mac McClernand. Oh no, not Mac McClernand.
McClernand was a burnt-out case whose continued employment at Beeche and Company was a mystery. Working for him was career death: you would either be lost in one of his labyrinthine schemes, never to reappear, or the association would so damage your reputation that you would be forced to leave.
Peter began to speak, but Thropp raised his hand.
“Nothing to say about it, my friend. Sent the memo already. Mac’s expecting you to report for duty today. He’s tickled pink about it. That’s exactly what he said, ‘I’m tickled pink.’” Thropp chortled. “Oh, this is going to be fun!”
Peter indulged Thropp’s laughing for a moment or two, then spoke. “Congratulations, Gregg. It’s a plan of such diabolical genius that only you could have devised it. The world has never known such villainy! Yes, Gregg, it’s a clever plan, very clever. Unfortunately, it contains one fatal flaw.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“I actually haven’t figured it out yet, but it’ll come to me.”
Thropp laughed with still greater hysterics.
“Is that all?” Peter asked.
“Not quite. Have you seen this?” Thropp held the walnuts, one between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, displaying them to Peter like a magician. He put the nuts on the desk, rubbed his hands, then picked one up, interlaced his fingers, and worked the nut so that it was between the heels of both his palms. He squeezed, cracking the shell, and then burst out laughing again.
“How do you like that?” Thropp greedily picked some meat out of the walnut and ate it. Slivers of shell stuck to his chin.
Peter turned and began to leave.
“Hold on! Got to do the other one!” Thropp called after him. The sound of his laughter followed Peter far down the corridor.
It was a long walk back to Peter’s office. His mind raged with emotion and competing impulses. He would go above Thropp. But to whom? He would annihilate the bastard. But how? He would quit. But he had an employment contract; and besides, Beeche was the only place he wanted to work. And in two weeks, he was getting married.
Peter reached his office. Various numbers blinked on his big screen as indexes and rates changed around the world. On his computer monitor, he saw that he had a dozen e-mails. He pushed a button and they all came up, tiled one under the other. Then he noticed the large black diamond on the display of his phone: he had messages. He looked at the clock and saw that it was nearing ten o’clock. At exactly two minutes to ten, it was crucial that he be on the line to Frankfurt.
The phone rang; he could tell by the ID that it was his fiancée, Charlotte Montague.
He picked up the phone and said, “Hi there.”
“Hi, Peter!” said Charlotte. “How are you?”
“Oh … uh … I’m okay.” Peter didn’t feel like talking about his presentation, and he could already tell that Charlotte must be preoccupied with a wedding crisis, so this wasn’t the moment anyway. “How are you doing?”
“Well,” said Charlotte, “I’m fine. But the reason I called was that Mother is being completely unreasonable about the cheese. The French people just won’t understand about serving it before dinner.”
Oh. The cheese. This was serious. Peter didn’t mind, really. He knew what was expected of him in his role as bridegroom: listen patiently, show your interest, respond with sympathy, say “yes.” With the wedding only two weeks away, Charlotte’s nerves were frayed, naturally, as were her mother’s. Charlotte kept talking, and Peter had to admit that his mind had begun to wander, as he remembered the meeting and his encounter with Thropp, as he watched the lines skitter on the screen before him, and as he, inevitably, imagined what it would be like to be marrying the woman he really wished he were marrying.
Charlotte talked on. “Scalloping … Bartók.” Bartók? Then Peter could tell from her tone that she was bringing her own remarks to a close and that he would have to comment. Experience had taught him that in these situations, it was best to leave a few brain cells behind to listen, even as the rest of his mind withdrew.
These scouts gave their report, and Peter said, “God, Charlotte, of course you’re completely right about the cheese. I mean, I wouldn’t know, but I’d trust you on that more than your mother! Anyway … oh, I think that scalloping, you know, might be kind of fussy? And I really like the plan for the music, so I agree with you, we should stick with what we have. I mean, I’m sure it’s a beautiful piece—”
“Oh, good,” said Charlotte, “I knew that you’d feel that way.”
By carefully calibrating his responses, Peter hoped to show that he had given each issue due consideration and was not simply agreeing with Charlotte in order to humor her. The Bartók had raised a genuine concern: Charlotte was impressionable, and if one of her interesting musical friends suggested Bartók for the church, as seemed to have happened, there was a chance that it would be Bartók.
“Well,” Charlotte was saying now, “I’d better run. I’m sorry I won’t be able to join you tonight.”
“Me too.”
“Duty calls.”
“I know! Don’t worry about it. We all understand.”
“I’ll be sorry to miss Jonathan’s reading.” Peter’s best friend, Jonathan Speedwell, was a writer, and he was giving a reading that night from his new book of stories. Peter and Charlotte had planned to go to it and have dinner with Jonathan and his wife afterward. But Charlotte had to go to an event for her work. Charlotte liked Jonathan a lot and flirted with him in a girlish, free-spirited manner with which she did nothing else. “Did you see the review today in the paper?”
As if Peter had time to read book reviews. “No,” he said. “Was there one?”
“Oh, yes! I’ve got it right here. Let me read it to you—”
“Charlotte—” Charlotte, I’ve got to make a call, Peter was about to say. The flashing numbers. Frankfurt. But he was too late.
“Let’s see,” Charlotte said. “Oh, here we are. ‘With Intaglio, his new collection of short stories, Jonathan Speedwell once again demonstrates triumphantly that he is among our most potent younger voices writing today. In luminous silverpoint prose, he deftly renders the struggle of men and women desperate to maintain their purchase on life …’”
Deftly, Peter thought. With Jonathan it was always “deftly.”
“‘… But if there is one quality that truly marks Mr. Speedwell as a writer of distinction,’” Charlotte continued, “‘it is his deep compassion for his characters.’”
Christ. Again, the compassion-for-his-characters thing. Peter could not understand why it was such a big deal for a writer to have compassion for his characters, as opposed to, say, real people.
“‘In perhaps his most finely wrought tale, “The Copse …”’ Well, I won’t read you the whole thing. But isn’t it terrific?”
“Yes.”
“He must be very pleased. Will you congratulate him for me?”
“Of course.” Charlotte was an earnest person whose demeanor generally was almost grave. Peter imagined what she would be like as she congratulated Jonathan—winsome, crinkling her eyes and grinning.
“He’s still pleased about being best man, isn’t he?”
“Sure. I told you, the only problem is, he wants to give me away.”
“Oh.” Charlotte’s mind snagged momentarily on the word “problem.” Then she got it. “Oh! Yes. You said that. How funny.”
