Free to Trade (28 page)

So I did as he said. We crossed Fifth Avenue and walked down a bank of summer-burned grass towards the small boating lake. A boy of about ten was guiding his radio-controlled yacht across the water. His mother urged him to hurry up, concerned at the gathering gloom. There were still some people around, but they were all heading in the opposite direction to us, out of the park.

Joe's knife was hidden, but I knew it was there, only inches from my back.

'I told you to call the police off,' he hissed. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.

'There was nothing I could do,' I replied, somehow keeping my voice calm.

'Oh yeah? Why did you give them all that crap about me and Sally in the first place?' he said, prodding my back with the point of his knife. 'They've taken Sally away from me. And Jerry. It's not good for a man to be away from his wife and child. How do you feel about being responsible for that?'

I didn't say anything. I was glad that Sally had escaped Joe's beatings, and I was glad I was responsible for it. But it didn't seem a good idea to tell Joe that. Joe's voice was flat and toneless, but I imagined that this was the sort of thing that could get him pretty upset.

We were much deeper in the park now, and there were very few people around. We walked down towards a statue of an old Polish king charging towards a baseball cage. A broad field opened up to the north of it, with the tall buildings of Central Park West beyond.

I knew what Joe was planning to do. He was going to take me to the quietest, most inaccessible part of the park. Then he was going to kill me.

I had to get away.

Joe's grip on my arm wasn't very tight. But his other hand holding the knife was only inches from my ribs. I had to take the risk.

I snatched my arm away, sprung clear, and sprinted towards the field. I felt a rush of exhilaration as I realised there was no knife stuck in my back. But Joe was quick to follow me. 1 looked over my shoulder; he was only three yards behind. And he was closing. I pumped my legs harder. If I could only keep clear of him for the first hundred yards or so, I was sure I would outdistance him. I was still fast. But Joe was very fast. I glanced behind me, and saw him a yard closer. Not for the first time in my life, I cursed my lack of sprinting ability. I tried to force my legs to move harder, faster. No response. A couple of seconds later, I felt Joe's hands on my shoulders as he dived to pull me to the ground. I wriggled and twisted, but he soon had me pinned.

Two lovers fifty yards across the field stared at us as we struggled. Joe saw them too. Witnesses.

'Get up!' hissed Joe. He dragged me to my feet and propelled me into the woods to the south of the field. His grip on me was much tighter. I could feel the knife again.

We walked deeper into the trees. It was getting quite dark. Central Park is New York's playground. By day it is populated by joggers, cyclists, softball-players, sunbathers, roller-skaters, old ladies, children, and a host of other New Yorkers furiously pursuing their chosen passion. At dusk they all go home. At night the park is a playground for different types of people.

Shadows flitted silently between the trees. We passed groups of youths talking loudly, or sitting on benches, silently smoking. Men shuffled past, rolling their eyes and muttering to themselves. They were either crazy or drugged or both.

We walked deeper into the wooded section of the park. We followed narrow footpaths winding round large black rocks looming twenty feet above us in the twilight. The wind gently moved the trees and bushes, the undergrowth growing deeper and more tangled as the light failed. I completely lost my sense of direction. It was impossible to believe we were right in the middle of the city.

I began to think about dying. I thought about my mother. I thought it would be the last straw for her. Faced with the death of her son as well as her husband, she would withdraw from reality altogether.

I thought about Cathy. Would she care about my death? To my surprise, I desperately wanted to believe that she would. And I thought about Debbie.

'Did you kill Debbie?' I asked.

'No,' said Joe. 'But that doesn't mean I won't kill you. Killing people used to be my job. I am good at it.'

I believed him. 'Then who did kill her?'

'You never give up, do you?'

We walked on. We stumbled down a winding path between two large overhanging boulders, surrounded by thick trees on all sides.

'Stop here,' he said.

I could just make out the empty lake through the trees in the evening gloom. Apart from the occasional rustle of the wind creeping through the branches overhead, all was silent. A quiet, lonely place to die.

'Move back,' said Joe.

I was facing him with the boulders behind me. I did as he said, my ankles brushing against some brambles, until I felt the rocks, warmed by the day's heat, against my back.

Joe moved closer, his dead eyes locked on mine. The whites shone with a yellow gleam in the twilight. A thin smile played over his face. He was perfectly balanced, the knife held lightly in front of him. This time I was not going to get away.

Suddenly, I heard soft footsteps on the pathway behind Joe. He grabbed my arm and placed his knife firmly against my back. A group of five or six black kids emerged from the gloom. They were tall and athletic, making little sound as they rolled along in their expensive air-cushioned basketball shoes.

They walked up to us. One of them laughed. 'Yo, tooti-frooti! Having fun, guys?'

A tall kid with strange patterns carefully carved into his close-cropped hair came up to me very close. 'Hey man, do you get high?'

He was menacing, but less menacing than Joe behind me. I saw my chance. 'Yes, sure,' I said. 'What have you got?'

I turned to look at Joe. He was still holding my arm, but his knife was hidden. I guessed he would rather not stab me there and then. The kids looked dangerous, and there was no knowing what weapons teenagers in Manhattan might carry in Central Park at night.

I walked into the middle of the group, trying to put a yard between me and Joe.

'I got some ice here, just a dime,' said the tall kid. He had a lopsided grin on his face. He didn't really believe that we had come all this way into the park just to buy crack from him, but he was willing to play along.

'A dime?'

'Yeah, ten bucks, man, just ten bucks.' He held out a small packet. I reached into my pocket as if to dig out some money. Joe looked on, not sure what to do.

Suddenly, I shouted, 'Run!' and snatched the packet from the kid's hands. I pushed my way through the group, brushing one of them off, but two of the others grabbed me.

I heard a shout, 'Hey, that mother's got a knife!' There was a sharp cry from one of the kids holding me, and his grip loosened.

I saw flashes of steel, as two more leapt on Joe, knives in hand. There was another scream, which was cut short.

One of the kids still had a grip on me. I swung round, fist clenched, and landed a perfect punch into his solar plexus. He went down on his knees, gasping. Then I felt a blow on the side of my head, I couldn't see where it came from. It was hard; it left my ears singing and my eyes unable to focus. It was followed by a boot in the ribs, which knocked the breath out of me and threw me off balance.

I rolled over and saw Joe surrounded by three kids, all with knives. Two others were on the ground, one completely still, and the other holding his leg and groaning.

The kids tried to lunge at Joe, but he was very quick, turning from one to the other. One of them didn't pull his arm back fast enough, and let out a howl of pain as Joe's knife slashed his forearm.

Joe backed towards me as the other two came at him warily, feinting on one side and then the other. I saw my chance. I stretched out my leg, and kicked at Joe's ankle. He lost his balance. He didn't fall, but he gave one of the kids an opening. Half a second was all it took for a knife to be plunged into Joe's side. As he doubled up, the other kid stuck him deep in the back.

Joe spun round and fell to the ground. He looked at me, his face screwed up in pain, but his eyes as cold as ever. Then he coughed, some blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth and that expressionless stare was locked for ever.

I scrambled to my feet and took off. One of the kids tried to follow me, but I was too fast, spurred on by large doses of adrenalin.

I ran all the way back to the Westbury. I dashed straight up to my room, into the bathroom and threw up. I rang the restaurant where I was supposed to meet the man from Harrison Brothers, and told him I would not be coming. I ordered a bottle of whisky from room service, and when the room became fuzzy round the edges, I went to bed, to a night of fitful sleep.

CHAPTER 14

I awoke with a headache and a strong desire to leave New York. In those indistinct seconds between sleep and wakefulness, I once again saw Joe's eyes fixed in their final stare as he lay beneath the boulder in the park. Fortunately, I was booked on an early flight, so I lost no time in getting showered and dressed, and heading for the airport. It was only when I felt the aircraft leave the runway at La Guardia, and saw Manhattan Island receding into the distance beneath and behind me, that I finally began to relax.

Even at nine o'clock in the morning Phoenix was hot. It was a physical shock to walk out of the cool dark terminal into the bright reflection of the sunlight. Locals ambled past in short-sleeved shirts, sunglasses and deep tans. In less than a minute I was sweating in my suit as I carried my bags over to the large sign which read 'Bloomfield Weiss High Yield Bond Conference'.

They had laid on long white stretch limousines to take the conference participants to the hotel. Within seconds I was back in air-conditioned quiet again. I waived the Scotch in the minibar, and sat back to watch the wood and concrete structures of Phoenix glide by. I supposed that it was perfectly possible to spend all of your life in Phoenix at sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit, with only brief bursts of extra heat as you transferred from air-conditioned house to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned office.

After half an hour's drive, we reached the hotel. I dumped my things in my room, and went for a stroll. The rooms were grouped in small whitewashed buildings with red-tiled roofs, surrounding little courtyards. Bougainvillaea was everywhere, adding splashes of purple and green to the white and blue of buildings and swimming pools. There seemed to be pools everywhere. Most of the little courtyards had one, and there was a large central pool just by the main building. Sprinklers strained to ensure that the immaculate patches of green approached the perfection of Astro Turf.

I walked into the main building. Immediately, the dazzling colours outside gave way to dark muted creams and browns. The air-conditioning roared in the background. Although attempts were made to perpetuate the Mexican atmosphere, there was no disguising the impression of a financial centre in temporary accommodation. Signs abounded, telling me to do a hundred things at once. They were dominated by a large banner proclaiming, 'Welcome to the fourth Bloomfield Weiss High Yield Bond Conference'. Everywhere tables were piled with conference documentation and registration forms. I had a peek into one of the conference halls, a dark cavern bristling with electronic gadgetry.

A number of people were wandering around aimlessly. Clean-cut, with carefully ironed slacks and short-sleeved shirts, you could tell they had been plucked only a day ago from the investment offices of New York, Boston, Minneapolis or Hartford. They all had badges giving name, rank and organisation. I felt naked without one, and set off in search of the right registration desk to pick mine up. Properly labelled, I went back to my room to pull on some running shorts, and get some exercise.

It was mid-morning, and the temperature was rising steadily. I stretched, and then set out at a gentle jog towards a long low hill with two humps, which I later learned was called appropriately 'Camelback'.

I soon found myself climbing up a rocky desert slope. The only vegetation was thorny bushes and cacti. Lizards and insects scurried from sunshine to shade. I ran slowly and methodically. It was still very hot, and the temperature combined with the incline took it out of me. One of the digital thermometers that adorn buildings all over the US claimed that it was ninety-one degrees. But it was also very dry, and in a way more pleasant than the lower temperatures but higher humidity of New York in summer.

Halfway up the hill, I paused for breath. It would be foolish to push myself too hard in this heat. I turned to look at the city sprawling below me. European cities evolve over the centuries out of their natural setting, nestling in a valley or at the confluence of two rivers. Phoenix looked as though a giant hand had drawn a square grid over the desert and dropped neat blocks of buildings on to it, one by one. Which wasn't too far from what had actually happened. It was a tribute to the inventiveness and prosperity of Americans that such a city could exist in such an inhospitable climate. Of course with air-conditioning, a vast water-distribution network and swimming-pools, this unfriendly environment could be transformed into the ideal setting for the modern American dream. That was why Phoenix was one of the fastest growing cities in the country.

I decided running in this temperature was a bad idea and spent a pleasant hour or so lying on a rock alone on the hillside, letting the sun beat down on my face and remove some of the tension of the last few days.

Every investment bank with any pretensions to deal in the junk bond market hosts a high yield conference. They are schizophrenic occasions. The organisers, following the lead given by Drexel Burnham Lambert's notorious 'Predators' Ball', feel the need to create an extravaganza in exotic locations, where powerful controllers of billions of dollars can do deals and have fun. There is a bit of the showman in every high yield salesman, and this appeals to their ideal of what the whole thing should be about. Unfortunately for them, most of their customers are earnest young men and women whose overriding concerns are such questions as 'Will Safeway's new inventory control systems really increase margins by half a per cent?'. These people demand a gruelling schedule of presentations that start at eight o'clock in the morning and often don't finish till seven at night. This was the first such conference I had been to, and whilst I was looking forward to seeing some of the presentations by companies issuing high yield bonds, I also wanted to meet some other investors, and perhaps catch an hour or two by the pool. It might help me unwind.