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| Matthew Klein |
| 2005 : USA |
has a beautiful and charming wife, Katherine; and his young sexy
secretary, Tricia, greets him each morning with a flirtatious smile.
Then, one Tuesday, everything changes. Timothy wakes to learn that his
hedge fund has lost million on a bad bet against the Japanese Yen.
Timothy decides to double down and bet again. But the Yen keeps
climbing, and his business investors start asking questions. With his
company on the brink of collapse, he gets a call from his wife, who
phones to say goodbye, moments before jumping off a cliff to her death.
Timothy can't believe it - and nor, for that matter, can the local
police.
And that's when his troubles start. As the police investigate Timothy,
he investigates his dead wife's secrets. But when Tricia shows up on the
doorstep, claiming to be his dead wife, and knowing secrets that only
Katherine could know, Timothy's not sure what to believe.
Has he been given a second chance at happiness or is he being played
for a fool in an elaborate scam that may cost him his life?
For Laura
Contents
The only thing he could think to ask was: âKatherine, where are you?'
âAt Big Sur. Near the rocks.' And then: âIt will be easier this way, you'll see.'
On the phone he heard the static, loud and soft, rising and falling. He finally understood the source of the noise. It was ocean crashing against the shore. âBetter like what? What do you mean?' But, inside, he already knew the answer. A sick feeling grew, and he felt a wave of nausea sweep over him. He said weakly: âKatherine, what are you doing?'
âI love you, Timothy. Everything will be okay. You'll see.'
âKatherine, waitâ'
Later, standing over the dead girl's body, the detective decided it made perfect sense. The case wrapped itself up neatly â in a bow, he would explain, to anyone who cared to ask. It was a simple story: about a rich man who had everything, but wanted more; a story about what happens to people who try to break the rules.
The dead girl lay in the kitchen of the rich man's house, her skull crushed by a marble sculpture. Blood had drained from her corpse and gathered in a weird pool near her head, shaped like a cartoon dialog bubble emanating from her mouth, as if she was saying something big and important and red. But her eyes were vacant, and she was dead, and the detective concluded it was unlikely she would say anything important again.
A uniformed cop joined the detective and looked down at the girl.
âPretty,' the uniform said. The girl was wearing a black cocktail dress, and even though a patch of skull was visible behind her ear, she was still obviously beautiful.
âAnything?' the detective asked.
âThree wine glasses in the sink. Three sets of dishes. They ate steak, and what's that stuff called? The green leaf that people eat?'
âLettuce.'
â
Arugula
,' the uniform said, as if he had known the answer all along. âSteak with arugula leaves. That's what they ate.'
The detective stared at the bloody footprints on the floor â a single set, a man's. Near the girl's body a swab of red looked like a knee-print. The detective tried to make sense of it. Maybe the rich man killed her in a fit of passion, and then regretted it, so
kneeled down next to her to whisper that he was sorry. Not an easy conversation, probably.
The detective's suit jacket began to play Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture. He reached inside, pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open.
âYou find him?' the detective asked.
The voice on the other end was tinny, washed in static, barely audible.
âOnly his car,' the voice said. âBlack BMW, right?'
âWhere are you?'
âWells. Mule Canyon.'
âSame cliff as his wife?'
âYes.'
âAnd him?'
âStill looking.'
âI'll come down. Give me a couple hours.'
The detective closed the phone and dropped it into his pocket. He turned to the uniform. âThey found his BMW. His body can't be far.'
The uniform nodded. âThen that's two.' He paused, waited for the detective to respond. When he didn't, the uniform said: âThree sets of dishes. Three wine glasses. Him and the girlâ' He indicated the dead woman in the cocktail dress. âThat makes two.'
âYes,' the detective said. He thought about it. But he didn't have an answer yet. So he walked away to explore the rest of the house.
At half past nine on a Thursday morning, Timothy Van Bender learned that he had lost twenty-four million dollars.
The way he discovered the news was this: while he pried the plastic lid from his coffee cup, holding it over his desk to protect his pants from stains, he looked up and saw the Kid standing in his doorway.
âTimothy,' the Kid said, looking pale. âWhere have you been?'
It was not an accusation. It was a plea for help. The Kid dripped with sweat. Wet cotton bunched under his arms, ruining what was once a crisp white button-down.
Timothy sipped his coffee and put down the cup. He looked at his watch. âI just got in. The line at the coffee place â¦' He shook his head. For fifteen years his morning ritual had been to visit University Cafe, arriving there at 9.10 a.m. â exactly ten minutes after the rest of the world was required to start work. For fifteen years this ritual had been a success, allowing Timothy to whisk in, buy a bagel and coffee, and glide into his own office. But recently Northern California had changed: every twenty-two-year-old software programmer with long hair and questionable hygiene was now a paper millionaire, and everyone who worked in a cubicle with shoulder-high partitions had somehow become a white-collar employee who set his own hours. This meant that the 8.55 a.m. morning rush at the cafe had somehow turned into a 9.25 a.m. rush, with disastrous consequences for actual millionaires like Timothy, whose wealth pre-dated the Internet by decades, and whose assets were stored not in the ephemeral stock of some surely soon-to-be-worthless Internet shoe retailer, but in cold fungible cash.
Timothy thought about explaining all this to the Kid â that
something needed to be done about the line at the coffee place, or the number of paper millionaires in Palo Alto, or the age at which people should be allowed to set their own workplace hours. But then Timothy noticed the sheen on the Kid's face, and the perfectly formed sweat droplet hanging from the Kid's chin. It clung there for a long moment and then fell to the hardwood floor. Timothy decided to say nothing.
The Kid looked over his shoulder, then closed the door. He stepped into Timothy's office. âWe have a problem.'
Timothy pulled the bagel from his brown paper bag. He unwrapped the wax paper, smoothed it over his desk like a tablecloth, and cut his bagel neatly in half with a plastic knife.
âWhat kind of problem?' Timothy said.
âThe yen,' the Kid said. âHaven't you heard?'
The way the Kid said it, Timothy probably should have heard. But he hadn't. Timothy lived ten blocks away, in a Palo Alto home close to work. His commute consisted of a ninety-second car ride, and then a quick descent into the parking garage under his office building. No time for radio. No time for news.
âTell me,' Timothy said, neither admitting nor denying that he had heard.
âIt's shooting up. It hasn't risen like this in â¦' The Kid shook his head, shrugged. It had never risen like that. Not for as long as the twenty-five-year-old, with three years of finance experience, could remember.
âWhere's it at?'
âI don't know. Seventy-five when I last checked. But it's not stopping. The BOJ announced they might buy their own bonds. They're going to try to reflate. It's a new policy. The finance minister held a surprise press conference, and he ⦠Jesus, I don't even know where to begin.'
Timothy was a little confused himself. Deflate, reflate ⦠buy bonds, sell bonds. It was a bit murky how these actions â or merely the talk of these actions, announced in the bowels of some ministry building in crowded Tokyo, six thousand miles away â could possibly affect his own life in sunny Palo Alto.
Timothy ran his hedge fund without worrying too much about
what those inscrutable Japanese â or anyone else, for that matter â said they were going to do. He had a simple philosophy that made him money year in and year out: he bought things when they were moving up, and sold them when they were moving down. It was easy. And it worked nine times out of ten. There was no other way to beat the market. So many people worked so hard, poring over computer printouts, studying charts, examining the cryptic comments of foreign government officials like so many bird entrails. No, making money was easy if you didn't think too much and didn't work too hard. As the old saw said: The trend is your friend. And: Don't fight the tape.
âListen, Kid,' Timothy said. He corrected himself. âJay. Listen to me. Don't fight the tape. Remember, the trend is your friend â¦' He let his voice trail off. This was a valuable lesson for the Kid, who needed a little seasoning. Timothy had hired him straight out of Stanford Business School. Jay Strauss was a bright Jewish kid, dark and swarthy. But he dressed well, in tailored suits and gold cufflinks, and apparently he had a good head on his shoulders. He had a Harvard degree in economics, and had worked at Salomon Smith Barney in New York after college.
