Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (48 page)

“Ve should have the entire matter resolved vithin a matter of hours — and in any case as you are dealing vith the Crosbys, I hardly think you need be concerned. I shall call you tomorrow to confirm the transfer.”

“Could you give me your name and number in case someone on my end has to get back in touch with you on this?” said Winslow.

“Of course,” I said. “Talk to you tomorrow. Goodbye.” I hung up.

I waited five minutes and called back again as Jonathan Crosby.

“Hi, Willy. It’s Jonathan. I just talked to Herr Wengler a few minutes ago and he said he was going to get the bank to straighten everything out about the transfer. He said to tell you that someone from the bank there would be calling you today.”

“He’s already called. By the way, could you give me the name of your bank in Switzerland?”

“Darn,” I said. “I meant to ask Herr Wengler for the name.”

“Well, they seem to have things in hand. It’s just that today is the settlement date for those shares of Allied Resources you bought. They seem to be doing surprisingly well, by the way.” I heard him clicking at his terminal. “14 bid, 14-½ asked.”

“Gosh, that’s great. But I’m really sorry about this confusion. I really hope I haven’t caused you any trouble. I’ll call back tomorrow and make sure everything is straightened out.”

He seemed fairly calm about it, but just to make sure he would be in a good mood, I let him tell me about some of his plans for my $200,000. His basic strategy seemed to be to look for stocks with very high P/E’s and a history of never having paid any sort of dividend whatever. He seemed particularly to like issues with a recent run-up in price, which indicated to him that a stock had “already started to move.” All in all, it was for the best that the $200,000 would never appear.

Allied Resources closed at 15-⅛, and I knew I had pulled the thing off. It was just a question of how much further I could take it. I called Win-slow again the next day. He was getting edgier again and pressed me more insistently for information: the name of the Swiss bank, Herr Wengler’s telephone number, anything. I told him I would call Herr Wengler right away and then call him right back. Meanwhile, people were buying and selling Allied Resources at 16, which took the real pressure off us all.

I called back just before four, so that the market would be closed by the time our conversation was over. I told him gosh, I was sorry about all this, but Herr Wengler was absolutely amazed that the money wasn’t there: he thought it had all been straightened out. Willis T. Winslow,
III
, sounded unhappy.

“The trouble is, Jonathan, I got called in on this. Opening a new account, I should really have waited until there were funds actually in the account before initiating a transaction. Now in the course of the conversation, Jonathan, I think I may have told some people here that I’ve known your family for years, which in a way is not inaccurate, but if it should ever come up, you might just keep it in mind…”

“Gee, I’m really sorry about all this,” I said. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, Jonathan, I think we’re going to have to sell your shares of Allied here. The market’s just closed, but tomorrow morning… I don’t want to get caught here.”

“Gee, absolutely. Do whatever you think is best. I feel terrible about this. It’s nighttime in Europe now, but I’m going to call up once more, and I’ll let you know first thing in the morning. It would be great if you could wait for my call, but you should go ahead and do whatever is best. I just hope I haven’t made any trouble for you. Because I’m really counting on working with you. Maybe I should just have them send another two hundred thousand. What do you think?”

“That might be a very good idea, Jonathan. I don’t want you to worry about this. I’ll be able to sort everything out on my end. This won’t in any way impair our working relationship. These things happen.”

When they finally sold my shares the next day, they got 17-¼ for them. After commissions I would net almost $10,500, which was an excellent return on an investment of zero. And although it was not enough in itself to accomplish much, it was more than enough to build on. Jonathan B. Crosby suddenly had a positive net worth. He was acquiring substance. At that moment I was absolutely sure I had won. They would never get me now. I could lead my own life, do whatever I liked.

In my elation I was eager to push ahead immediately. Soon I would be opening a bank account, buying an apartment. Just as I had gone out and found Willis T. Winslow, I would now go out and find lawyers and accountants to do these other things for me. Let Jenkins try to find me then.

W
alking down third avenue, I saw a group of five people turning into a building, and I could tell that they were on their way to some sort of party. They were loud, shouting rather than talking to each other, and there was a good deal of friendly shoving. The men had their shirt collars open and their ties untied, the two ends looped once loosely around each other — a style which I associate with bond traders. These were people who would hire exactly the sort of professional help I was looking for. Also, they would probably throw fairly lively parties, and I was in a celebratory frame of mind.

The doorman directed them to the penthouse, and they climbed into the self-service elevator. I watched the numbers on the dial click up. It would be a thirty-four-flight hike for me. Another elevator opened beside me and a man walked out, leaving the elevator empty. I stepped through the open door. Why not take the chance? My recent triumph in the market had filled me with confidence that whatever happened, I would be more than quick enough and clever enough to deal with it. I pressed the buttons for both the penthouse and the floor below and got off on the floor below: however reckless my mood, I knew that I could not risk being on an elevator that was opening to admit descending passengers — especially not some large group leaving a party.

When I had climbed up the last flight of stairs and slipped into the apartment, I found myself in a large room filled with people resembling those I had followed into the building. From their conversation it was apparent that many of them were commodities traders. If you do not already know, I am not going to try to tell you what these people do at work — in the “pit,” as it is aptly termed — because no matter what your point of view, you are apt to find it more distasteful than what they do at play. However, I will offer you my uneducated opinion that in the long run the only way to make money in commodities is by collecting commissions on other people’s losses.

But one of the appealing qualities of these people is their unlimited, manic energy. They are pushing and shoving and shouting all the time-both at work and at their social gatherings — and if they sleep, which I doubt, they probably shout in their sleep as well. Their voices as a consequence tend to have a gravelly hoarseness, and in the middle of a conversation with someone standing right next to them, they are apt to shout suddenly at someone across the room. “Hey Ronnie! Ronnie! Listen to this! At ten o’clock this morning Norman starts closing out his pork bellies…” Their instinct is to stuff themselves with every sort of sensory input, which leads to a high incidence of obesity and a lot of annoying background music. They tend to live on a far more lavish scale than the rest of humanity, something that they accomplish by careful budgeting: they make an estimate of what they expect to earn if everything goes perfectly, and then they spend more than that only if they really feel like it. This keeps them active in the markets, as they feel that lots of risk taking is the only way to lots of profit.

Through the windows of the apartment I could see a vast terrace and beyond that breathtaking views for miles in all directions. Although I have no idea what the apartment was worth, the value of the cocaine inside it was certainly greater. These people tend, at regular intervals, to roll up a dollar bill — or probably it is a fifty dollar bill — and suck some powder up through it into their nostrils. Then to keep things in perspective they knock back tumblers of rum or vodka mixed with soft drinks. Whether all this is seen by them as relief from their workday activities or more as a continuation of them, I cannot say.

There were a lot of people spread out all through the apartment, and you could hear the shouts and laughter floating in from the other rooms and the patio. The women, although they were perhaps not exactly beautiful and often had a little more bulk than one might ideally like, nevertheless had a fundamental appeal. Furthermore, unlike a lot of gatherings in New York nowadays, there was nothing at all problematic here about distinguishing the men from the women.

I walked outside, where the sun had just set, leaving the sky filled with extravagant colors. The terrace extended around three sides of the apartment. On the west and south it formed a broad expanse, which was filled with guests sitting on deck chairs and leaning against the railings, drinking and talking. But on the north side it was only wide enough to form a narrow walkway, and it was there that I sat, sipping furtively at a deserted gin and tonic through the plastic shaft of my ball-point pen. In the twilight even I could not see the thin column of clear liquid rise into the air and dissipate. Around the corner I could hear other guests boasting cheerfully of their exploits in the trading pit, and all about me I could see the spectacular canyons of concrete and glass. Even if you live your entire life in New York, these views out over the skyline never lose their excitement and power.

A woman appeared around the corner, and I backed away so that she would not stumble over me. Then I saw that she was being pushed along by a man behind her. When they were both out of sight of the others, he maneuvered her up against the wall and kissed her. She languorously folded her arms around him and twisted her open mouth hard against his. His body pressed hers against the wall, and she seemed to wrap herself around him.

Suddenly, in the background, there was a chorus of voices shouting exuberantly.

“Leo!”

“Hey, Leeeo!”

“Let’s go, Leo.”

“Annie’s looking for you, Leo!”

“Better get it together, Leo!”

With a vaguely startled look, the man next to me disengaged himself from the woman. He hurried around the corner, where he was greeted with laughter and more shouting.

“Hey, Leo!”

“Where you been, Leo?”

“All right, Leo.”

The woman ambled tranquilly out after him to the group on the terrace, and I followed to see if anything interesting would happen. Leo was already gone, but one of the men standing on the terrace put an arm casually around the woman’s shoulders, and then, as he talked with the others, he ran his hand down her body, clapped her on the bottom twice, and gave her an absentminded hug that looked as if it might crush the ribs of a less resilient creature. She accepted all this quite passively. It was hard to say whether she really noticed.

I walked back inside to take a tour of the premises. In the main room there were two men sprawled over a sofa that took a ninety-degree turn, their feet up on a glass coffee table. A woman lay across one of the men, inert, face down; she might have passed out or she might just have been listening to the music. The men were talking in subdued, gravelly tones.

“Anybody seen him since?” one of them asked.

“First few weeks no one knew what happened to him,” answered the other. “He just disappeared. Then he turns up in Chicago, talking about maybe trading on the Merc. But then he disappeared again. No one knows where. He owes too much money to too many people. Maybe the wrong people too.”

“Too much coke. It’s one thing now and then, but Mel toward the end had his brains completely fried. Lot of these people get in trouble that way. You gotta have some moderation so you know what you’re doing. Mel was crazy.”

“No, all the coke was because he was already in trouble. He was just tapped out, that’s all. Could happen to anyone.”

There was a moment of gloomy silence. To be tapped out is to go bust, in their world. Ruin. These people do not just lose
your
money while raking off commissions. They lose their own — it is really their main interest. And, some would argue, their only truly endearing trait.

“I don’t believe that,” said the first man. “You gotta be careful. You can’t go home every Friday holding some enormous position. Next thing you know, you get your lungs ripped out. Mel was crazy at the end.”

“Maybe. It’s too bad, anyway. Hard. He had the whole thing for a while there. The Mercedes, the boat, wife and kids in New Jersey. All gone, like that.”

The first man winced, whether out of sympathy for Mel’s loss or because he was reminded that he too possessed such accessories, it was hard to say. He stretched out the hand without the drink and ran it over the bottom of the girl lying across him. Her head stirred in his lap and she pushed one hand along his leg in what might have been a caress.

The girl from the patio wandered by. She had had a good deal to drink and perhaps to smoke as well: her progress was deliberate, almost stately. I watched her pass through the room, her hips swaying to bring her weight over each step. I turned and followed her. She walked partway down a corridor, pushed open a door, and went through. I followed her. There were two men on the other side of the room standing beside a woman, who was sitting on the edge of a bed. She had the trousers of one of the men open and was performing or about to perform an obscene act. The other man seemed with one hand to be engaged in a complicated drug operation on a table next to the bed, involving the spreading and mixing of little heaps of some powder, while with the other hand he was pulling at the woman’s skirt.

I took several steps towards them so that I could see more clearly what they were doing with each other. Unpleasant to be both attracted and repelled by these scenes. But I myself was never going to be able to touch another human being in my life, and although gaping at people like these is an admittedly poor substitute, you make of life what you can. Watching people fumble with each other in real life is not quite like watching a film, where you see human beings of extraordinary physical perfection, photographed very carefully. These particular three people were, for example, fairly plain and distinctly overweight. Out of curiosity I looked at the powder on the table. It was a grainy orange substance entirely unfamiliar to me. Even in matters of drug abuse, these people have no respect for convention.