Sons of Fortune (34 page)

“It’s
obscene,” said Su Ling.

“But
what’s wrong with using my skill, knowledge and an ounce of enterprise?” Nat
inquired.

“Because
you earn more working fifteen minutes a day than I can hope to pick up in a
year as a senior researcher at Columbia University-in fact, it may be more than
my supervisor earns.”

“Your
supervisor will still be in place this time next year, whatever happens to the
market. That’s free enterprise. The downside is that I can lose everything.”

Nat
didn’t tell his wife that he thought the British economist Maynard Keynes had
once
remarked,
A shrewd man ought to be able to make a
fortune before breakfast, so that he can do a proper job during the rest of the
day.

He
knew how strongly his wife felt about what she called easy money, so he only
talked about his investments whenever she raised the subject. He certainly
didn’t let her know that Mr. Russell felt the time had come to consider
leverage.

Nat
felt no guilt when it came to spending fifteen minutes a day managing his
mini-fund, as he doubted if there was any student in his class studying more
diligently. In fact the only real break he took from work was to run for an
hour every afternoon, and the highlight of his year came when, wearing a
Harvard vest, he crossed the finishing line in first place in the meet against
U Conn.

After
several interviews in New York Nat received a plethora of offers from financial
institutions, but there were only two he took seriously. In reputation and size
there was nothing to choose between them, but once he’d met Arnie Freeman, who
headed the currency desk at Morgan’s, he was quite happy to sign up there and
then. Arnie had a gift for making fourteen hours a day on Wall Street sound
like fun.

Nat
wondered what else could happen that year, until Su Ling asked how much profit
the Cartwright Fund had accumulated.

“Around
forty thousand dollars,” said Nat.

“And your share?”

“Twenty percent.
So what are you planning to spend it on?”

“Our
first child,” she replied.

Looking
back on his first year with Alexander
Dupont
and
Bell, Fletcher also had few regrets. He’d no idea what his responsibilities
would be, but first-year associates were not known as “pack horses” for
nothing. He quickly found out that his principal responsibility was to make
sure that whatever case Matt
Cunliffe
was working on,
he never needed to look beyond his desk for any relevant documents or case
histories. It had only taken Fletcher a matter of days to discover that any
idea of nonstop appearances in glamorous court cases defending innocent women
accused of murder was the stuff of television dramas. Most of his work was
painstaking and meticulous and more often than not rewarded by plea bargaining
before a trial date had even been set.

Fletcher
also discovered that it wasn’t until you became a partner that you started
earning “the big bucks” and got to go home in the daylight.

Despite
this, Matt did lighten his workload by not insisting on a thirty-minute lunch
break, which allowed him to play squash twice a week with Jimmy.

Although
Fletcher took work home on the train, he tried whenever possible to spend an
hour in the evening with his daughter. His father frequently reminded him that
once those early years had passed, he wouldn’t be able to rewind the reel
marked “important moments in Lucy’s childhood.”

Lucy’s
first birthday party was the noisiest event outside a football stadium that
Fletcher had ever attended. Annie had made so many friends in the neighborhood
that he found his home full of young children who seemed to all want to laugh
or cry at the same time. Fletcher marveled at how calmly Annie handled spilled
ice cream, chocolate cake trodden into the carpet, a bottle of milk poured over
her dress, without the familiar smile ever leaving her face. When the last brat
had finally departed, Fletcher was exhausted, but all Annie said was, “I think
that went just fine.”

Fletcher
continued to see a lot of Jimmy, who, thanks to his father-his own words-had
landed a job with a small but well-respected law practice on Lexington Avenue.
His hours were almost as bad as Fletcher’s, but the responsibility of
fatherhood seemed to have given him a new incentive, which only increased when
Joanna gave birth to a second child. Fletcher marveled how successful their
marriage was, remembering the age gap and academic disparity. But it seemed to
make no difference, because the couple simply adored each other and were the
envy of many of their contemporaries who had already filed for divorce. When
Fletcher heard the news of Jimmy’s second child, he hoped it wouldn’t be long
before Annie followed suit; he so envied Jimmy having a son. He often thought
about Harry Robert.

Because
of his workload, Fletcher made few new friends, with the exception of Logan
Fitzgerald, who had joined the firm on the same day. They would often compare
notes over lunch, and have a drink together before Fletcher caught his train
home in the evening.

Soon
the tall, fair-haired Irishman was being invited back to Ridgewood to meet
Annie’s unmarried girlfriends. Although Fletcher accepted that Logan and he
were rivals, it didn’t appear to harm their friendship; in fact, if anything,
it seemed to make the bond between them even stronger. Both had their minor
triumphs and setbacks during the first year, and no one in the firm seemed
willing to offer an opinion on which of them would become a partner first.

Over
a drink one evening, Fletcher and Logan agreed they were now full-fledged
members of the firm.

In
a few weeks’ time a new brace of trainees would appear and they would progress
from pack horses to yearlings. They had both studied with interest the CV’S of
all those who made the short list.

“What
do you think of the applicants?” asked Fletcher, trying not to sound superior.

“Not
bad,” said Logan, as he ordered Fletcher his usual light beer, “with one
exception-that guy from Stanford, I couldn’t work out how he even got on the
shortlist.”

“I’m
told he’s Bill Alexander’s nephew.”

“Well,
that’s a good enough reason to put him on the shortlist, but not to offer him a
job, so I don’t expect we’ll ever see him again. Come to think of it,” said
Logan, “I can’t even remember his name.”

Nat
was the youngest in a team of three at Morgan’s. His immediate boss was Steven
Ginsberg, who was twenty-eight, and his number two, Adrian
Kenwright
,
had just celebrated his twenty-sixth birth day. Between them, they controlled a
fund of over a million dollars.

As
the currency markets open in Tokyo just as most civilized Americans are going
to bed, and close in Los Angeles when the sun no longer shines on the American
continent, one of the team had to be on call to cover every hour of the night
or day.

In
fact the only occasion Steven allowed Nat to take an afternoon off was to watch
Su Ling receiving her doctorate at Harvard, and even then he had to leave the
celebration party so he could take an urgent phone call and explain why the
Italian lira was going south.

“They
could have a Communist government by this time next week,” said Nat, “so start
switching into Swiss francs,” he added. “And get rid of any pesetas or sterling
we have on our books, because they both have left-wing governments, and will be
the next to feel the strain.”

“And the deutschmark?”

“Hold
on to the mark, because the currency will remain undervalued as long as the
Berlin Wall is in place.”

Although
the two senior members of the team had a great deal more financial experience
than Nat, and were willing to work just as hard, they both acknowledged that
because of his political antennae Nat could read a market more quickly than
anyone else they had ever worked with-or against.

The
day everyone sold the dollar and went into pounds, Nat immediately sold the
pound on the forward market.

For
eight days it looked as if he might have lost the bank a fortune and his
colleagues rushed past him quickly in the corridor without looking him in the
eye.

A
month later, seven other banks were offering him a job and a considerable rise
in salary. Nat received a bonus check for eight thousand dollars at the end of
the year, and decided the time had come to go in search of a mistress.

He
didn’t tell Su Ling about the bonus, or the mistress, as she had recently
received a pay raise of ninety dollars a month. As for the mistress, he’d had
his eye on one particular lady he passed on the street corner every morning as
he went to work. And she was still reposing there in the window when he
returned to their flat in
SoHo
every evening.

As
each day passed, he gave the lady soaking in a bath more than a casual glance,
and finally decided to ask her price.

“Six
thousand five hundred dollars,” the gallery owner informed him, “and if I may
say so, sir, you have an excellent eye because not only is it a magnificent
picture, but you will also have made a shrewd investment.” Nat was quickly
coming to the conclusion that art dealers were nothing more than used-car
salesmen dressed in Brooks
Brothers
suits.

“Bonnard
is greatly undervalued compared to his contemporaries Renoir, Monet and
Matisse,” continued the dealer, “and I predict his prices will soar in the near
future.” Nat didn’t care about Bonnard’s prices, because he was a lover not a
pimp.

His
other lover called that afternoon to warn him that she was on her way to the
hospital. He asked Hong Kong to hold.

“Why?”
Nat asked anxiously.

“Because
I’m having your baby,” his wife replied.

“But
it’s not due for another month.”

“Nobody
told the baby that,” said Su Ling.

“I’m
on my way, little flower,” said Nat dropping the other phone.

When
Nat returned from the hospital that night, he called his mother to tell her she
had a grandson.

“Wonderful
news,” she said, “but what are you going to call him?” she asked.

“Luke,”
he replied.

“And
what do you plan to give Su Ling to commemorate the occasion?”

He
hesitated for a moment, and then said, “A lady in a bath.”

It
was another couple of days before he and the dealer finally agreed on five
thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, and the little Bonnard was
transferred from the gallery in
SoHo
to the bedroom
wall in their apartment.

“Do
you fancy her?” asked Su Ling the day she and Luke returned from the hospital.

“No, although there would be more of her to cuddle
than you.

But
then I prefer thin women.”

Su
Ling stood and looked at her present for some time before she gave a
pronouncement.

“It’s
quite magnificent. Thank you.”

Nat
was delighted that his wife seemed to appreciate the painting as much as he
did. He was only relieved that she didn’t ask how much the lady had cost.

What
had begun as a whim on a journey from Rome to Venice to Florence with Tom had
quickly turned into an addiction that Nat couldn’t kick. Every time he received
a bonus he went in search of another picture. Nat might well have been
dismissive of the used-car salesman, but his judgment turned out to be correct,
because Nat continued to select Impressionists who were still within reach of
his pocket-Vuillard, Luce, Pissarro,
Camoin
and
Sisley-only to find that they increased in value as fast as any of the
financial investments he selected for his clients on Wall Street.

Su
Ling enjoyed watching their collection grow.

She
took no interest in what Nat paid for his mistresses, and even less in their
investment value.

Perhaps
this was because when, at the age of twenty-five, she was appointed as the
youngest associate professor in Columbia’s history, she was earning less in a
year than Nat was making in a week.

He
no longer needed to be reminded that it was obscene.

Fletcher
remembered the incident well.

Matt
Cunliffe
had asked him to take a document over to
Higgs and Dunlop for signing. “Normally I’d ask-a paralegal to do this,” Matt
explained, “but it’s taken Mr. Alexander weeks to get the terms agreed, and he
doesn’t want any last-minute hitches that might just give them another excuse
for not signing.”

Fletcher
had expected to be back at the office in less than thirty minutes, because all
he needed was to get four agreements signed and witnessed.

However,
when Fletcher reappeared two hours later and told his boss that the documents
had neither been signed nor witnessed, Matt put down his pen and waited for an
explanation.

When
Fletcher had arrived at Higgs and Dunlop, he was left waiting in reception, and
told that the partner whose signature he needed had not yet returned from
lunch. This surprised Fletcher, as it was the partner in question, Mr. Higgs,
who had scheduled the meeting for one o’clock, and Fletcher had skipped his own
lunch to be sure he wouldn’t be late.