Chasing the Wind (6 page)

Ah, well. He wasn't good with names. There were so many in the old cranium already, he'd have to get rid of some. Details were Robert's job. Cold, precise Robert—Morgan Klemp's finest, Tom had said when he'd introduced them back in New York. Robert who, ensconced in the investment banking department, was still too far down the food chain at Morgan Klemp to have qualified for the boondoggle down in Cayman. Far enough down, in fact, that he'd jumped at
this
opportunity.

Tom's rapid shift of loyalty from Morgan Klemp to his own investment in Black Diamond had amused Bingham at the time. Robert would run the hotel, Tom had argued, and later on, the casino. Bingham thought this was a good choice. Robert had two invaluable qualifications for the job: a killer instinct for business and zero empathy. And Robert had a long memory—unlike Bingham, he could take a name and a face and impress them on his mind forever.

Robert handed him a draft of the term sheet, the principal business points, that Mangen & Morris had prepared. Five pages, stapled at the top left-hand corner. Bingham shuffled through the pages and set it down on the table before him. He had the contacts, the glitz to get things done, and—he smiled to himself—the connections. It was Robert's job to run the deal. Robert's ambition would carry them through the next six frantic weeks to the closing—he wanted that hotel and the power and money. The hotel would be built because Robert willed it. And later on, when gambling was voted in, Robert would have the casino and the tax-free skim off the top that would send him running down to Cayman every month to do his laundry. Ever since Atlantic City had voted in legalized gambling last year, people had been looking at New Orleans.

But Bingham was the first one here.

Doug Bastion had agreed to the accelerated deadline he'd demanded. They'd be working hard, long hours and moving fast. Too bad they couldn't just sign a note and be done with it. Bingham looked at the term sheet Doug held up and sighed, imagining the number of documents these lawyers could generate in six weeks.

At Doug's instruction, everyone looked down at the first page of the so-called term sheet. Once the outline of the transaction was agreed upon and signed, work would begin in earnest. As they began to discuss the provisions, Bingham folded his arms and let the hum recede. The hotel was just the beginning. Gambling was the elephant in the room, although it wouldn't be mentioned in the documents. The impetus: bags of untraceable cash, if they handled it right.

Robert and Tom had rounded up the other investors. Dominick Costa, Bingham's contractor for the project, had reported on his talks with the men in the back rooms of the capitol building down in Baton Rouge. Gambling legislation was a sure thing, he said. Once Baton Rouge got on board with the idea of a casino in the hotel after the closing, Robert planned to call on the suits on Wall Street, the high-yield guys who could juice a sale of bonds even after the squeeze went dry.

Bingham smiled to himself. Every one of the investors thought they understood the economics of risk and reward. But this idea was
his
baby.

"Can you live with that?" Robert's voice broke into his thoughts. He and Frank Earl were arguing now about push-back from the investors against limits demanded by the more conservative bank lenders.

Robert nudged him, and he snapped to. "Can I live with what?" He picked up the term sheet and ran his eyes down the page.

Doug broke in. Cool. Controlled. "The banks, the Senior Lenders, are ready to sign the commitments on the terms you see here, assuming . . ." Doug shot a look at Robert, "assuming that the investors are fully subordinated. The bank's bridge loan is paid back first, in one year."

"One year?"

They began to argue again.

Bingham skimmed through the term sheet. They knew their business all right, but none of them really understood money. He'd set up his first Swiss franc account before these dollar-mongers had grown fuzz on their cheeks, before the franc had given the U.S. the old razoo and turned thumbs down on the international fixed exchange rate, even before the Swiss could slap a negative interest tax on their foreign accounts because the franc was the strongest currency in the world. Bingham calculated the appreciation in dollars of his current account in Swiss francs, up sixty-four percent since his first deposit, while inflation had devalued the U.S. dollar every year during the same period.

Not that he minded taking a walk on the wild side once in a while.

Robert turned a page of the term sheet, and Bingham backed up, following, looking at the acronyms and numbers on page after page.
Bankers
. He thought about the last time he was in Zurich in the cold sharp light, the brisk feel of the air so unlike this closed room slowly filling up with smoke. He'd like to be there right now. Or on the beach at Grand Cayman, where this whole thing began.

Pages turned again. Doug Bastion droned on, and Bingham suppressed a yawn. They'd go through the paces, tweak a provision here or there, argue over a word or two, but he knew this was a done deal. For the bankers, the fees were too good to pass up. For the investors—from the corner of his eye he studied Robert's expression, inscrutable now, but Bingham knew that Robert and the other investors hungered, truly hungered, for this hotel.

Beside him, Robert sat, back straight, ready to ignite, to push, to press, to trade right to the brink, if he had to.

The voices receded once more. Bingham's gaze wandered to the windows, and in his mind he saw the sun sliding over the clear green waters of the Caribbean, slowly deepening at the end of the day. Without thinking, he waved off a stream of smoke, inhaling to catch the scent of island air as he sat at the little thatched-roof bar on the beach, waiting for the Morgan Klemp bonus babies to show up.

That trip had paid more than he'd hoped. He'd done his homework on those year-end incentive trips awarded to Wall Street's top arbitrageurs, brokers, and corporate finance guys. Year-end cash bonuses were the bread of life for bankers like Robert and Tom. But the annual testosterone-fueled bonus boondoggle in the warm Caribbean at the height of winter in New York almost trumped the money for these guys. The trips were exclusive—only the big dogs were invited. Some, like Tom, got the company jet. They all got the ritziest hotels, all expenses paid. And best of all, there were no questions asked when they returned to the office a week later, suntanned, smiling, eager and pumped up, ready to tear back into the market.

The chosen few from Morgan Klemp had checked into the hotel a little after five, just off the plane. He'd spotted them when he'd walked up to the desk for his keys, and Marvin, the desk clerk had done the rest. One hundred bucks U.S. go a long way in the islands.

"Yes sir, I'll get right on it," Marvin had said to Bingham as the Morgan Klemp guys strutted up. "No sir, your secretary picked up the wires an hour ago." Marvin's face had crinkled then into that famous wide smile.

He'd strolled off slow enough to hear Marvin whispering to the newcomers, "That man, gentleman, is a genuine ghost, a man you won't often see around." He could feel their eyes boring into his back as he stood at the elevator door, waiting, and he didn't have to turn and watch to know what would happen next.

Essentially, they were salesmen, these deal-makers. They knew how to ask. And when they went on asking, Marvin would plant his elbows on the counter and lean toward them, looking contrite. "Sorry, I can't give out the name, sir," he'd say. "I could lose my job." Then, ducking his head, he'd lower his voice and tell how Murdoch's private security guards laid down the law when he came down, that he always took the presidential suite, no matter who was in the house at the time.

Then he'd wink, straighten up, turn around, and get their keys.

The bankers finally wandered through the open lobby and out onto the beach in their flip-flops around 5:30, blinking in the full glare of the beach, knobby knees exposed under their new shorts, their pale city skin turning pink on arrival.

Bingham was ready.

There were five of them, but he kept his half-closed eyes on the most gregarious of the group as they stumbled across the sand to the open bar. Tom took the empty stool beside him, and when someone commented on the straw hat Bingham wore, Bingham took it off and slapped it down on Tom's head.

Tom turned to him, surprised, and although they'd never met, there was species recognition in his eyes. Bingham saluted.

Tipping the hat to Bingham, Tom smiled and kept it on. Bingham had known he was picturing himself in that hat right then, as he'd done all year back in New York, dreaming of this trip, watching himself sitting under the thatched roof of the beach bar as if it were an out-of-body experience. Tom had ordered drinks all around.

Bingham bought the next round, ordering margaritas. Jimmy Buffet music was playing in the background—something about Havana—and Bingham said they all looked like they needed one. When the sun slipped to the horizon, the bankers fell silent. They were thinking of the snow and ice back home, he knew, and how good they had it here, how they'd earned this trip. They'd brag about it for the next twelve months, casually bringing it up in conversations with buddies who hadn't made the cut.

He spotted the glimmer in Tom's eyes an hour later when he mentioned his latest investment, a big development in Fort Lauderdale that got a write-up in the
Journal
. Another hotel on another lovely beach.

Tom remembered the story. "That was you?" He lifted his brows.

Bingham shrugged one shoulder and stared off to sea.

"Real estate's the way to go with inflation on the rise," Tom said. "I heard those bonds went fast. Did you use Milkin's boys?"

"I can't discuss it." Bingham said with a half smile. Tom nodded and pulled out his business card. Bingham took it, carefully turning it over, and read out loud, "Morgan Klemp, L.P." He looked at Tom.

Tom nodded. "We'd have gotten you better pricing."

"You like poker?" Bingham slipped the card into his pocket.

"Do you like salt on your margarita?" Tom said. Bingham could see Tom's adrenaline starting to flow. Tom clearly thought he'd found a treasure map under this thatched roof.

By the end of the evening, Bingham was acknowledged as a grand old man, a soldier of fortune—in more ways than one, he was careful to let them know. His tongue loosened now, and he spoke with low-key familiarity of projects they were certain they could name though he refused to identify them. "For personal reasons, you understand . . ." It became a game among them, like guessing the titles of favorite songs.

He regaled them with real war stories too, such as his adventures back in WWII. He had been a paratrooper, he said, 82nd airborne, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He told them about things they were too young to remember, and he could see it in their eyes, how they'd retell the stories when they got home, how they'd heard it all from one who'd stepped right out of history. The next afternoon Bingham secured quickie native certifications for everyone and they all went scuba diving. They dove an old wreck he'd found out there years ago.

Two days before they left, he swung his arm around Tom and guided him off to one side, splitting him from the herd. They sat down in long chairs in the cool shade of a coco palm tree and looked out over the clear green sea. Tom rattled the ice in his glass. "What's next on your agenda, Bingham?" he asked. "After this, I mean."

Bingham told him. He gave Tom the short version, but it was enough. New Orleans, right on the river, overlooking the French Quarter. Bingham leaned close, looked about, lowered his voice: A resort hotel, permits in the works. And best of all, the probability was high for some long-run razzle-dazzle because casino gambling was on the way.

Tom's brows had shot up. A ground floor opportunity. Two years, three at most.

Bingham could see Tom was thinking about Atlantic City, where gambling had just been approved.

"I want in," Tom said, sipping his drink.

But Bingham shook his head. "Sorry, old boy. I've got other plans."

Tom stuck to his guns. He would put his own money in, he said. He had friends who'd do the same.

When the Morgan Klemp jet took off at the end of the week, Bingham was on it, looking out over the clear blue sea, tongue working his cheek. Tom had a round of meetings scheduled before the flight even landed.

Now, in the conference room in the offices of Mangum & Morris, Bingham studied the faces around the table. This transaction would close in six weeks, and he knew it would happen because every person here was determined to collect their fees in time to be included in year-end hero-sheet calculations and the bonuses that went with them.

They wanted to be on the inside.

Hours passed. Bingham glanced at his watch. One o'clock and he was hungry, and when he was hungry he grew irritable. In fact, he'd felt claustrophobic for hours. Stiff-arming the growing stack of papers in front of him, he pushed them out toward the center of the table. After all, he was the client.