Mike Offit - Nothing Personal - A Novel of Wall Street

“Hey, listen, it’s just politics. It makes Tonelli and Dressler look better if they can tell Malcolm what to do. You know I’m not out to screw you. It works out better for both of us this way.” Warren sat there while Goering digested that, and for a moment Warren felt a pang of guilt. When had he become such a Machiavellian manipulator? It felt as if it had happened overnight.

“And where the fuck is that fucking douche bag Holik? Why does he always keep his skinny fucking ass out of this shit? It’s like a fucking freak show in here. The fucking Polack beanpole and the fucking guido whale. That Polack cocksucker. His time will come.” Goering was looking at himself in the reflection off the dark wall of glass. He adjusted his tie and shot his shirt cuffs one more time. “Fucking fucker.”

Warren stifled a giggle.

“Maybe it’s hunting season on Weldon Brothers bankers this year.” Detective McDermott was sitting down this time, and Wittlin was doing the talking. “What’s going on around here?”

“Detective, if it’s open season on us, I suggest you sell licenses over at Salomon and Morgan Stanley. They’ll be strong buyers.” Warren hadn’t been surprised when the two men had shown up, commandeered a conference room, and started interviewing almost everyone on the floor.

“Nah. The Mayor would be pretty mad if we started letting our best taxpayers blow each other away. Unless, of course, you’re Republicans. Hmm.” Wittlin smiled at the thought.

“Well, anyway, what can I do for you?” Warren was anxious to get this over with. The more time you spent with cops, the less comfortable it seemed you got.

“Okay. First the routine stuff. You knew Anson Combes, right?’

“Absolutely. We worked together.”

“You like him?”

“Nope. Can’t think of anyone who does, offhand. Did, I mean.”

“You know he got killed while popping a girl you used to date, right?”

“That’s very tactful, Lieutenant. We hardly dated. Two or three weeks, years ago.”

“Everyone thinks you were an item once.”

“No, everyone likes to think that. Ask Bonnie. It went nowhere. She’s way too smart and beautiful for me.”

“Why not?’

“Why does this matter?” Warren found this unbelievably nosy.

“It might. Look, there were four hundred people who were with you when the guy got his skull crushed. No one thinks you had anything to do with it. Relax. If we can find any little thing, anything at all, to figure out who might have had a reason to kill this guy, that takes us out of a burglary/homicide and into murder by someone with a motive. It narrows the field, and maybe ties back to Dougherty somehow.”

“I see. Sure. Okay. Bonnie and I didn’t work out because she didn’t think I’d be successful enough. At that time, I was talking about doing something a little less lucrative. Once she figured that out, she was gone. Good riddance.” Warren waved his hand. Bonnie had always been one of those pretty women who figured they were destined for something special, one way or the other. When he’d said he had decided he wanted to be a teacher or a tennis pro, she’d bolted. “She liked to play with the big boys.”

McDermott chimed in, “Well, she played with a lot of them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Warren didn’t like McDermott’s tone.

“From what we can tell, she got cozy with about half the managing directors in her department. But what about Combes? What turned him on?” McDermott seemed to enjoy this line of discussion.

“I don’t know, and I know I don’t care.”

“Well, you may not know, but if you did, there’s a chance you’d care.” Wittlin had a thin smile on his face.

“How’s that?”

“I think the man had a taste for your ex-girlfriends.”

Warren sat there speechless. He felt his face flush. “What exactly are you saying?”

“Well, it seems that your other ex at Weldon, Miss Larisa Mueller, had been spending some time with old Anson the past month or so. I don’t think you two overlapped, but I can’t be sure, and the girl’s not saying.” Wittlin actually felt bad for Hament. The Mueller girl was a knockout.

“Look, I stopped seeing Larisa before I went to LA. You spoke to me when I was there. It had to be a couple of months ago. I’ve got a new girlfriend, sort of. I don’t really care who she’s sleeping with. And, don’t call her a girl to her face, or you’ll be in trouble. Woman . She’s a woman. A free woman.” He couldn’t believe she’d had the nerve to start up with Combes. The thought made him sick. It hurt too. It didn’t matter that they’d broken up, or even that she might have been cheating on him. It was that Combes had gotten to her. He was glad the asshole was dead.

“Okay, okay. I just thought I’d tell you.” Wittlin judged that Hament hadn’t known about it. His reaction had been too natural to be faked. Wittlin could read the pained thoughts going through the younger man’s mind on his face right then. Scratch that motive. “Sorry, I guess you didn’t know. Who’s the new girl—or woman—or whatever?”

“None of your business, Detective. If I tell you, you’ll probably wind up informing me that she’s sleeping with Dutch Goering. Look, I saw Anson leave with Bonnie, which seemed to me like a perfect match. I was in the middle of winning a five-hundred-dollar drinking bet, and trying to keep Dutch from raping someone or starting a race riot. I didn’t like Combes even a little a bit, but I’m sorry he’s dead because it might cost me some business. Almost anyone who knew the guy probably wanted to kill him at least once or twice.” Warren leaned back in the chair.

“Okay, okay. Calm down. First Dougherty, now Combes. Do you think it’s a coincidence? A homeless killer and a murderous burglar? It doesn’t sit with me.” Wittlin was over by the window, admiring the view.

“Hey, Detective, this is New York City. Christ, Goering had his throat slashed by a mugger right in front of his door last year, when he was blotto, and almost died. Did you know about that?”

“Yeah. We looked into it.” Goering had been attacked after telling a beggar to “fuck off.” The guy who did it had been arrested after attacking a woman the next day, and had been in prison since.” Okay, we’re done. If you think of anything… you know the drill. Do me a favor, send in Goering next.”

“Oh, Jesus, isn’t he the pretty boy?” McDermott piped in.

“Yeah.” Wittlin grinned again.

“Uh-oh. Better stop taking notes. Our captain is black. If we transcribe this guy, I think he’ll tell us to shoot him on sight. He’s too much.” McDermott was smiling too.

Jed Leeds’s head looked like some kind of melon ringed with hair. Jed was only twenty-eight, but had gone three-quarters bald already. With his heavy Queens accent, three-piece suits and watch chains, he gave the general impression of being a porn actor dressed like a banker. He always seemed to be smiling. He traded the CMO position for Weldon, which included some of the most volatile and exotic securities in existence. These were mortgage securities that had been restructured to reallocate risk or hide it, in part to meet investors’ needs, and also to get around the rules and make some pieces eligible for sale to people and investment funds that should probably not buy them.

Most of the risk in mortgages was in prepayments. If interest rates went down, people would prepay their mortgages to refinance their loans. The owners of the securities created from those loans would get their money back at the worst possible time—since interest rates were lower, they would have to invest the money at a lower yield. CMOs took big pools of mortgage loans, made a series of bonds out of them, and focused most of the prepayment risk of those big pools into a small number of bonds, or “front” pieces. This insulated the other bonds from all but gargantuan changes in prepayments. By leveraging the risk this way, they created front bonds that were incredibly sensitive to small changes in mortgage prepayment rates. It was Jed’s job to run Weldon’s inventory, and to try to hedge and lay off that risk.