On the Floor (9 page)

I tell Arthur that he can have five million at 92. ‘Done,' he says straight away, reminding me to give a special thank you to Rob for helping him out.

I hang up. ‘You're done. Five bars at 92.'

‘Once a scout always a scout,' Rob blows me a kiss. ‘That's fifty grand for the good guys.' He high-fives Bud Light. ‘Welcome to the dream team.' Bud Light's face is aglow with the excitement of witnessing this learning milestone in sales–trader cooperation.

‘SOAPY,' Rob bellows over at the Jap desk where one of the Ops girls is emptying the ticket trays, picking her way through the gauntlet of traders, on the lookout for hands that at any moment could grab her butt or plunge a receiver in between the enormous boobs that all the
boys love. But the market is roaring so they are busy and oblivious so she is safe – or maybe she misses the attention, who knows?

‘Got a big one for you, darlin,' he roars and nods to Bud. ‘Give that to Soapy, mate.'

‘New one on me.' Bud picks up the ticket.

‘As in Soapy-tit-wank.'

Bud spins round, his mouth flops open and then he looks over at me just as she pulls up.

‘All right, Soaps. Meet Bud here.'

She mutters a jaded hello and Bud manages a strangled Hi while studiously keeping his flushed gaze away from her chest. Soapy doesn't linger, just takes the ticket, flicks her long brown hair over her shoulder and turns away.

I stamp my own ticket, drop it in the out-tray and open the file marked
1991 trades, GM
. I look down at the last ticket in there and the post-trade fizz flattens. And I can remember that even as I was writing
that
one I was thinking exactly what I'm thinking now: so this is it and I am getting nothing out of it, not a rush, not a buzz, it's all just a big
So what
. It used to be that one trade led to another and another, and a day, a whole week would fly by in the self-generated challenge of outclassing myself and the rest of the team. I would jump, just to jump the highest. I'd spend the whole night hanging onto the same bar rail, arguing the finer points of where any stock was going, scattering the stats and forecasts in an impressive demonstration of my circus trick. Clearing the Beechers of all hurdles – the Most Difficult Sales Pitch at the Most Inopportune moment – in one sweep used to be all it took to get me into a blisszone that didn't know day from night. But somewhere, one day when I wasn't watching, the spark must have sputtered and died. This is what Felix has been hinting at and it is just a matter of time before the Grope notices that the numbers which might look like a seasonal plateau are actually accelerating into a disinterested
decline. I think about time decay, that beautiful slope that charts the death throes of an option as it screams towards a certain expiry, like a meteorite on a steady course for earth and sudden obliteration.

I turn around to the window and what's outside our world: a skyline, orange cranes, yellow hardhats. Bloated worms with a murderous hunger boring into the City – glass, steel and stone sprouting everywhere in the post-Crash earth. And somewhere out there is the beginning of all this: the little old lady takes her few quid to the building society, who wires the news to the fund manager, who gives the nod to his dealer, who picks up the phone to a salesman, who shouts across to the trader who says SOLD. So pick a number, place a bet. Look at the graph: here is the high, here is the low. Is this a breakout or a dead-cat bounce? Data is information is interpretation is action. A hundred salesmen plugged into the phone lines with a kaleidoscope of truths, a thousand different ways of looking at the same picture.

I close the file, slot it back into place beside my Reuters and remind myself that it is only 07:23 and I have already managed to do what I am paid to do – feed the bottom line. I passed on Rob's dud position to Arthur who doesn't need it but isn't smart enough to know when he is being sold a pup or strong enough to say no. I have learnt to be a good liar or, at the very least, a great storyteller, though what the truth is no one has a clue, it is all informed guesswork. Market analysts, stock experts and all of us sales people gather the facts and spin a story that sounds convincing, one which will become self-fulfilling if it creates momentum among the great herd of investors. But in the end it's no different to watching a dog race, the favourite can stumble on the break or falter at the first bend and be beaten by a rank outsider who crosses the line at 20/1.

The cab drivers on the street far below are getting fatter on our titbits. They flock like crows around the concourse and eye us in their rear-view mirrors, sometimes asking what we do, going into work at the same time as cleaners. We play it down, don't want to give the wrong impression about the money we're making though we know
we are overpaid. But that's what we cost, it's only the going rate and anyway there is no such thing as value for money. In one year you can make more than your dad made in twenty. The richest 5 per cent of the population owns 35 per cent of the wealth in this country. The poorest 5 owns nothing.

But ‘enough' is a dirty word around here, for how could you ever have enough when there is always someone else who has more?

07:24 Iraq prepared for confrontation, says Latif Nasif Jassem, Iraqi Information Minister. Al's flag flutters on the top of his monitor. The overhead TV is airing Aziz again, intercut with some F 1-11s. Across the floor, the Grope's office is still empty. In the centre of the screen, the greenback flips and bounces. Finger on the money pulse. Someone's PC emits an urgent bleep to sound a stock reaching a critical point. The plunge on the graph could be a buy or a sell prompt, it all depends on who you are, what you want, who you talk to, what you had for breakfast. There is so much you can find out with a bit of keyboard control. Rubber in Jakarta. Civil disturbance in Seoul. T-Bills in Chicago. There is a rising hum to the floor and the throbbing returns to my left temple, sneaks round from the back of my skull.

Al flops down in his chair beside me and says biotechs are where it's at. ‘This company is going to make dialysis a thing of the past, Phase III trials just started.' He side flips the report to land neatly on my desk. ‘Do your clients a favour and just look at the chart, any day now the stock is going to break out.' I run an index finger along the title, even look down at the first page, as if boning up on renal failure could rescue me from this malaise. This is exactly what rescues Al from a head-on collision with his own shortcomings – a belief in what happens next. He is not about to be toppled by what's gone before. He is not about to have his future short-circuited by the past. I might do well to follow his lead.

I lie back in the chair and watch the tickertape roll left-to-right across the opposite wall, last night's New York close creating the illusion
of momentum in my life. But wasn't that exactly what seduced me so early on? Not the money, but the possibility that life could in fact be as random as a stock chart, that in the next second you could be ricocheted from a trough to a peak and be utterly transformed? I could get up from my chair right now, switch off the screen and walk out into a different life. I could become a cokehead or a mountaineer, screw the guy beside me or even the girl across the way. Gain ten pounds, learn Chinese. I could do anything on a whim and the future could take shape out of the old accumulated past moments lining up right out of the
now
.

And how could you
not
fall in love with this world where there is so much happening, where everything can change in the next moment? With foreknowledge you forego the thrill, life is no more than a fixed match. So what would I have chosen to know in advance? Stephen's decision to cut me loose? But deep down I knew it was coming. I just hoped it could be delayed for as long as possible.

‘Check it out, Geri,' says Al and I turn round to see him facing the wall behind us with little pieces of sellotape stuck to his right hand. He smoothes out the taped pages and we both stand back to admire the A3 cutout of General Norman Schwarzkopf in his fatigues. ‘Got it from one of my old classmates at First Boston,' he says and picks up a newspaper caption from his desk and sticks it level with Schwarzkopf's nose: STORMIN' NORMAN SQUARES UP FOR WAR.

‘Some bullshit feature in there,' he jerks his head at the
Sunday Times
lying open on his desk. ‘Taking potshots at Schwarzkopf. I mean, you guys are supposed to be our ally, right?'

‘Newsflash, Al. I'm Irish. And Ireland is neutral. We don't fight wars.'

‘They just fight in pubs, Al,' Rob chips across the monitors. ‘And blow people up.'

‘You guys see that guy interviewing Stormin' Norman last night?' asks Al.

‘Like watching a snuff movie,' says Rob and Al swivels around tetchily, the way he does whenever Rob cruises into his US political airspace.

‘You don't know what you're talking about. As per usual,' says Al, chucking a tight paper ball in the bin behind Rob's head.

‘Oh, and you do, right, mate?'

‘Whatever.'

‘So you've seen one then?'

‘Maybe.' Al tilts his head face up to the ceiling, arms behind his head.

‘I don't believe it.'

‘He has? You HAVE?' Rob shoots out of his chair and, in a second, is crouched between the pair of us, doing a quick head scan of the trading floor. ‘Come on mate, spill.'

Al taps a shiny right shoe under the desk.

‘Come on, Al,' I plead. ‘You can't just say that and not follow it up.'

‘Get a move on, mate,' says Rob, ‘it's two minutes to the morning meeting.'

Al lowers his arms and adjusts his cuffs. ‘It was in my freshman year,' he grins down at Rob. ‘That's first year at university to you, dickhead.'

‘I don't believe it,' I lean closer.

‘Hey, I'm not proud, you know, it was like my roomie's friend of a friend…'

‘That's flatmate to you, Rob,' I say.

‘Shut the fuck up, Geri. OK, OK. So? Al?'

‘He paid like 300 bucks or something for this video, a really shitty copy. And we were wasted one night, so he puts this thing on and there's just the four of us…'

Al bends forward in the chair, elbows on knees, considering his spread-eagled hands.

‘Yeah?'

‘So we watched it. Or some of it. I can't remember.'

‘And what happened?'

‘And then I fell asleep.'

‘What happened in the film, I mean?'

‘A girl… a Mexican girl… that's where they, uh, get them. Y'know, smuggle them in or something, or do it there, I guess. It was pretty hard-core stuff, I mean, gangbang and she was a kid really. And then they did it.'

‘What?'

‘You know, held her down and beat the fuck out of her.' Al stares straight ahead like he sees something on his Reuters screen.

‘Did she die?' I venture.

‘What the hell d'you think, Geri? It was a snuff movie, not
Sleeping Beauty
.'

‘Jesus CHRIST, Al,' I hiss. ‘You actually watched this?'

‘Hey, it's not like I wanted to, or paid any money or anything. You gotta remember we'd been tequila slamming since lunchtime after this ball game, I can hardly even remember.' He tugs at his sleeve. ‘Like I said, it was one of those things.'

‘I can't believe you even admit to it.'

‘You asked, right? And hey, you guys, I don't want to hear this coming back.'

‘All right, mate, all right. Be cool,' says Rob.

‘So what about the guy who owned the tape?'

‘Never saw him again. He was a fucking asshole anyways.'

Rob stands up, stripping his eyes away from Al for the first time, shaking his head and smiling. ‘Gotta say, mate, I'm impressed. And there's me thinking you were just a swot.'

I JOIN THE WARM HERD OF BODIES
bottlenecking at the entrance to the conference room where the heads of Strategy, Foreign Exchange and Commodities stand in a tight nodding cluster on the podium. All
around me is the sweet smell of money in the morning – laundered shirts and expensive cologne. It's a record turnout what with this countdown to war and everyone wanting to see our battery of analysts flex their clairvoyant muscle, telling us what's going up, what's coming down, and how we can make a killing when the bombs start falling. The room is packed to capacity so the door has to stay open with the Asian desk crowding the threshold. I reverse into the forward surge of men behind me and duck sideways to the wall. Zanna stands to the left of the podium power cluster, but within easy touching distance. She's in profile, a curtain of blonde hair obscuring everything but her nose. Although she is ostensibly shuffling through some loose papers, I know that she is hyper-aware of her natural exclusion from the big boy's huddle. Ever since she joined Steiner's Research Department, Zanna has provided a welcome splash of colour against the tedious backdrop of suits that headline every morning meeting. Easily the most glamorous person to walk through the swing doors of the bank, she is a vision of graceful style whose two-year stint at
The Wall Street Journal
culminated in a front-page exposé about how Steiner's traders were being sent death threats by the Japanese yakuza because we were making grillions out of a program that calculated the index sixty-three seconds before the Tokyo Stock Exchange computer could. When Zanna's boss didn't give her the requisite column inches she demanded after her prize-winning article, she handed in her resignation, telling him the next time she saw him would be when she was firing him,
sunshine
. While I was yawning my way through my second year at college, Zanna was at Harvard Business School getting second place in the class of '83 (after Stephen of course), before being snapped up by Steiner's, who decided that the smart thing to do would be to hire the woman who had pulled their pants down on the front page of the
Journal
.