Nothing Personal: A Novel of Wall Street (23 page)

Warren updated Neal on his own work situation, the developments after what had happened to Dougherty, and his relationship with Larisa, and how busy he was at work.

“Damn, dude, all respect there. She is one hot babe. What have you got that I don’t?” Neal bowed his head in supplication. “I guess she had you marked as a comer. Saw big things in you, and I don’t just mean that cruise missile you must have in your pants.”

“Well, I’m not sure a bond salesman is exactly every girl’s fantasy. Don’t they usually go for quarterbacks or movie stars?” Warren shook his head.

“Don’t ask me! I’m just a geek rocket-scientist lawyer happy if any girl will even look at me!” Neal flashed his gap-toothed grin.

“Ha! You date nothing but the most amazing girls. I think you have commitment issues.” Warren threw a small piece of toast at his friend.

“Well, this job takes up my whole life. I miss going out with you guys.” Warren knew Neal often worked until 2:00 or 3:00
A.M.
and hadn’t had a vacation since he started. “But it sounds like what happened to Dougherty opened up a real opportunity for you.”

“I guess so. But, you know,” Warren sighed, “those stories you told me are sad, in a way, and a guy dying is evidently a big opportunity in this business. I’m not sure what would surprise me anymore.”

The two men got up and parted at the front door.

“Back to the meat grinder,” Neal said, slapping his friend on the back. “Just make sure no one is standing close enough to shove you in!”

twenty-three

Jamie Holik stepped out of the elevator with the
Daily News
under his arm. He’d completed the Word Jumble on the train from Long Island and planned on doing the crossword puzzle during the day. A smudge had developed on the side of his suit jacket from the ink of the newspaper he carried every day, and the cleaner had not been able to remove it—polyester seemed to hold stains, especially the lighter shades such as the off-taupe that Holik favored.

He’d always taken some abuse for his appearance, being tall and gawky with absolutely no muscle tone, and every time he’d bought a conservatively cut banker’s suit, he’d wound up with something horrible. Finally, he’d listened to Frank Tonelli, his cohead of the Mortgage Trading, and allowed Mr. Chu, the Hong Kong tailor who came onto the trading floor every six or seven months, to measure him for a few suits. Tonelli, who was about 6'6", sixty or seventy pounds overweight and hard to fit, swore by him, and at $300 each, for a custom-made suit they were cheap and looked it. On Holik’s scrawny frame, the glued seams and blocky cut looked ridiculous. The sheen of the cheap fabrics added to the effect, and even in a dark blue pinstripe he looked like a kid wearing a costume. He’d gone back to his off-the-rack suits from Loehmann’s.

“Hey, Scooby Doo, get dressed in the dark again?” The inevitable greeting from Tonelli had ceased to make an impression. Holik’s lavender shirt and pinkish tie clashed horribly with each other and the suit, but at least the shirt was not short sleeved and didn’t have a pocket flap.

Warren was sitting over a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee, discussing the fixed-income markets with a trainee. He had built a reputation as a pleasant person for trainees to seek out, as he was patient and less abusive than most other people on the floor and had been one of the most successful new salesmen at the firm in many years. He’d been doing great with Dougherty’s account list the past several months, and everyone seemed to be aware of it.

Bob Thomas had introduced himself to Warren as a Columbia graduate, and they reminisced briefly about business school, and Lorenzo Corelli’s banana-based economics. The young man, in his white shirt, rep tie, and three-week-old Brooks Brothers chalk stripe had stopped midsentence and stared incredulously at Holik as he passed, obviously dumbfounded by his outfit.

“I know what you’re thinking. He takes down about two million a year, and you’d think he was a back office geek. It’s a true American dream.” Warren sipped his coffee and took a bite out of his bagel. “One of my favorite stories, and one that is instructive too.” He swallowed, then punched one of the phone buttons, which had begun to blink. “Weldon … Yeah, sure, hang on a sec.” He punched the hold key and yelled out, “
Mike!
Wayne on two!”

“You were saying?” The young man wore an expectant smile because Warren had also earned a reputation as the best storyteller on the floor.

“Well, about six years ago, Weldon had a Ginnie Mae trader named Marco Levene. Marco was a great trader and made Weldon a ton of dough. This was a ways before my time. One day, Marco goes home to Roslyn, and his wife tells him the lawn guy just quit. So, he picks up the local paper, sees an ad for a lawn service, and, after dinner, this tall, skinny kid shows up, not with a Weed Eater, but with a notebook. Spends a half hour discussing their landscaping needs, and lets the Levenes know he’s learned the business from the ground up—used to work summers at the public golf links. Levene likes the kid, hires his crew. Anyway, two weeks later, the trading assistant here quits because Levene throws one of his patented shit fits and calls the kid a stupid queer in front of the whole floor. Levene is in a little trouble because the kid actually was gay, so the firm pays him like a fifty-grand settlement, and Marco’s got no assistant. He goes home and tells the lawn guy he should get out of the sun and gives him forty grand starting pay. This was before we had Jillene in personnel to be sure every new hire had a Harvard MBA.

“Anyway, the lawn-mower man comes in, and three months later, the junior GNMA trader goes to Lehman for six hundred grand a year, and Levene moves Holik up to trading. Nine months after that, Levene gets a two-point-six-million-dollar bonus and retires. Carl Dressler takes about four months interviewing replacements, and it turns out the edge trimmer can trade well enough. So, about a year and a couple months after mulching the begonias for five-fifty an hour, the boy is good for three-quarters of a million a year, and now he’s a two-million-a-year MD at prestigious Weldon Brothers with the worst taste in clothes of anyone in the world but Cecil, the shoe-shine guy, who’s probably interviewing on the Corporate desk. A true story. All-American, guaranteed.”

As Warren finished the story, and the trainee was shaking his head slowly in disbelief, Holik called two of the senior traders into his office. The three were soon engaged in a heated discussion in front of a computer screen.

“What’s going on? Are they getting ready to price a new deal? They didn’t announce anything, did they?” Bob was anxious to appear up to speed.

“Relax, that’s just a traders’ meeting.” Warren grinned at the kid’s nervousness.

“What kind of trade are they working on? Do you have any idea?” Thomas was almost sweet, he was so ingenuous.

“Well, Jamie is the commissioner of the Strat-O-Matic baseball league, and he’s got to clear any trades that managers want to do. I know that Juterman and Bluhm were working out something involving Viola and Nixon to Symanski for Chili Davis and a relief pitcher, but I haven’t been keeping up. Anyway, Jamie’s probably propping something like Henderson and Martinez for Viola and a catcher. I know what you’re thinking—other than this is a shitty trade—that the commissioner shouldn’t be a manager too—clear conflict of interest. He sees all the trade proposals and gets to propose better trades before he approves any and might veto one in his division. And you’re right. But this is Weldon, where rules are meant to be observed, preferably from a good, safe distance.”

“You mean those guys are…”

“Wasting an incredible amount of time on an inane child’s baseball-simulation game? Cheating the firm out of their full attention? Utilizing massive amounts of work and computer time and resources compiling statistics and tracking performance of baseball players in an imaginary league? Yes, that’s what I mean. But in about fifteen minutes, you’ll see Holik reading the racing pages, and after lunchtime, maybe, after his post-prandial dump, he’ll have at least a half dozen bets down at three tracks. And he’ll probably be planning a romantic weekend with his girlfriend down in AC—”

“AC?”

“AC—Atlantic City … feeding the slots, and playing the wheel. Tell me, isn’t that what you’d do if you had a few mil in the vault and a weekend free? Head down to Circus Circus with your ’lady’ or a pro and put a few hundred on the point? C’mon, admit it, that’s class. Like Telly Savalas or Joe Piscopo, or something. That’s what Weldon’s all about. Work hard, play hard. Sleaze out over in Jersey. Know what I mean?”

“Come on. You mean to tell me the cohead of the Mortgage Trading department of Weldon Brothers, a former professional lawn mower, spends his free time playing rotisserie league baseball and betting down in Atlantic City? He doesn’t get enough action here every day?”

Warren liked the way Bob summed up the morning lesson. “You forgot about the track and the pacers he owns. Listen, I’m not trying to slant your opinion one way or another, but we’ve got a few colorful figures here at old Weldon. It’s not all white shoes and old money.” Warren waved his arm expansively.

“How long have you actually been selling?”

“Was about two years this week. Seems like about fifty years.”

“Well, from what I hear, you’re one of the best already.”

“Yeah, well, I’m doing okay. But when you’re on commission, remember, you’re only as good as your last trade.” Warren had grossed $11 million over the months since Dougherty’s death. Warren’s share should be about a million and a half. This was preposterous pay for a second-year associate, and it still wasn’t clear whether he was on straight commission with Dougherty’s accounts. When he’d asked Malcolm about it, the answer hadn’t been definitive. Every time he tried to pin him down, Malcolm would avoid the issue.

“How’d you do it so fast?”

The young man’s flattery was beginning to annoy Warren a bit. “Hard work. Good looks. Naked pictures of Malcolm with an adorable young pony. Getting a great account base because Bill Dougherty got stabbed to death on Fifty-Ninth Street. And just not fucking up. But, anyway, son, it’s been a pleasure. Now I’ve got to go do my duty for God and country. There’s chickens to pluck and fat to fry, and I’ve got to go wallow in the pismire.”

“Isn’t that all a little rough?”

“A little rough? Welcome to monkey island, Wilbur.” Warren snorted like a horse and turned to his phones.

twenty-four

The better things went for Warren at work, the more difficult things got with Larisa. She was now working on the bankruptcy of a real estate syndicator in Houston, and the troubles of a big gas and oil company in Dallas, and he never saw much of her. She came and went a lot, but whenever their paths crossed, she’d update him on her work and ask about his dutifully, obviously losing interest before the first punctuation mark. He was on a path to make about ten times her pay, but worked far fewer hours and traveled less. She was getting ahead as quickly as one could in Finance, but it would still take her four or five years to catch up. He figured she resented it, even though she was supportive in her way.

He had only heard once more from the detectives investigating Dougherty’s murder since they’d come to see him. Wittlin had called to let Warren know that they had located the cabbie that had driven Barbara and him home and had visited the Korean grocery the next day, and Warren’s story had checked out. They’d also found a record of his call to Pete Giambi when he’d gotten home that evening.

Before it even dawned on Warren that they were establishing an alibi for him, Wittlin had cut Warren’s indignation off at the pass. “Listen, Mr. Hament, there’s a lot of money involved in your business, and we get paid to investigate every possible angle. You’re probably in the clear. We’re looking for the homeless guys now. It’s our job.”

“Guys? You think there was more than one?”

“Well, more than one was seen in the area. These vagrants are tough to track down. We have some possible forensic evidence from the crime scene, so we’ll know if we’ve got the right guy. Don’t worry, it may take a while, but we’ll catch him.” Warren could tell that Wittlin was frustrated. His conversation had the cadence of a cop’s, but there was more behind it than just institutional efficiency. He had a cynical undertone that was almost self-mocking.

“Detective, I believe you will. Not McDermott, maybe. But
you
will.” Warren had formulated one of his usual instantaneous judgments—he liked Wittlin and wanted him to succeed, even if he’d thought Warren was a suspect. Well, if they wanted him downtown, they’d have to wait, because he was leaving town for a while.

“Thanks, Mr. Hament. I wish I were really as confident. This town is getting to be a little too much even for me. This guy had two kids. Maybe fifty bucks on him. Ten, no, five years ago, he’d’ve been rolled, maybe messed up a bit. Now they kill ’em without a thought. How the hell can we keep up with them? If Dougherty wasn’t such a solid citizen, we’d be off the case by now. Six months is a long time to be working on a homicide like this one. Listen, thanks for your time. I’ll keep you informed if we get anywhere.” That had been some time ago. Warren had wondered for a while if Wittlin was trying to make Warren comfortable, while still investigating him as a suspect, but the long period with no contact made his
Columbo
-inspired worries dissipate.

It was funny, but when Warren had told Larisa about the whole incident, she’d predicted that he’d be a suspect. She’d said he had the most to gain. Obviously, the police felt the same way. It didn’t matter now because, fortunately, he hadn’t chosen to walk home alone or go right to sleep. He couldn’t help the nagging thought that, had Dougherty been killed before the state’s big trade, all that commission would be credited to Warren. Who knew if Weldon would even pay out the commission now that Dougherty was dead. What a bad break. Just one week earlier …

Warren caught himself and shuddered. What was he thinking about, taking commissions from a dead man? Maybe this job was beginning to get to him a little. Sometimes he wondered if he had what it would take to last. Guys such as Dougherty just let everything run like water off their backs. Others—Anson Combes or even Holik—played the politics and were constantly destabilizing everyone underneath them, to avert any threats. Warren had actually believed the company line about customer service. He knew other firms, such as Goldman Sachs, supposedly indoctrinated their people with the need for at least the perception of ethical behavior, and Bear Stearns had their own internal police. He knew this was all a smoke screen for the same cutthroat activity as anywhere else, but at least they paid lip service to it. But, since he’d been at Weldon, no one had ever mentioned anything about ethics. Weldon’s main concerns seemed to be making money, beating the competition, and being a “team” player. Alex Stevenson had said that
team
meant being willing to see 95 percent of every dollar you made go to pay senior management for getting dressed in the morning.