Mike Offit: Nothing Personal: A Novel of Wall Street

Larisa returned the stare with a crooked grin. “Charmer.”

They stood in the night air for a few moments. Tiny droplets of salt spray clung to the silky blond hairs that covered Larisa’s forearms. He reached across and ran a finger gently across her arm, making the moisture coalesce and wet her skin. She shivered slightly and turned toward him. He didn’t say anything as he took her in his arms and kissed her softly, and then more forcefully. She wrapped her arms around him, and he felt her tongue dart behind his teeth. His body couldn’t help reacting to her.

“Hmm. I see what you mean about focus.” Larisa backed off the kiss just enough to speak.

“Ummm, yeah.” He was a little embarrassed, but riveted to the spot.

“Well, at least I know where you stand.” She released him and stepped away. “I think this might be very interesting.”

“Interesting? It might be interesting? Just exactly when do you think it might actually become… interesting?” Warren could see the outline of her body in the breeze as she stood leaning against the next column. She was taut and muscular, defined yet inviting.

“That’s part of what makes it fun, isn’t it? Patience? Surprise? Spontaneity?” She was looking at him dead on with her wide-set eyes.

“I have a feeling this is going to be a long weekend.” He half groaned.

“I certainly hope so. We don’t want to disappoint Cornelia, now, do we?” Larisa laughed and took his hand, leading him back inside.

The group had divided into small conversational circles, the nearest of which swallowed Warren and Larisa when they came back into the room. The man who was introduced as Jim Metcalf was holding forth on politics and economics, but his eyes seemed to linger appreciatively on the front of Larisa’s dress.

“Anyway, what these fatheads in the Congress don’t get is that Reagan’s finally got it right. You’ve got to stop feeding the welfare system and start giving the private sector incentives to perform and grow. These assholes better get onside, or they’re going to get their butts kicked.” The others in the group nodded and murmured assent, though Warren guessed most of them were hoping Metcalf had talked himself out. His blue blazer was flecked with bits of ash from his cigarette, and his face was flushed under his wavy gray hair from the sun and drinking.

“Hey, our economics professor says that the deficit will be a couple hundred billion a year by 1990, and there’ll be riots in the cities. Of course, he also seems to think that Jimmy Carter was a misunderstood genius.” Warren tried to break the obvious tedium.

“Listen, it’s those moron economists who got us into all this trouble in the first place. And forget about the deficit. We’ll grow our way out of it.” Metcalf dismissed the national debt with a wave of his hand. “If I’d have listened to economists, I would’ve sold all my orange groves years ago. Best thing I ever bought.”

Warren perked up at the mention of oranges. He’d made a nice profit trading orange-juice futures once. “Oranges? You own orange groves?”

“I own more orange trees than Tropicana, sonny. More than anyone outside of Brazil.” Metcalf said this while staring directly at Larisa’s chest.

“Wow!” Warren replied with a slight edge. “That’s impressive. I guess you must do a lot of business in the futures markets?” Warren stepped in closer to Metcalf.

“A lot of business? Sonny, I pretty much am the futures markets!” Metcalf waved his hand, and cigarette ash described a snowy arc toward Larisa. “In fact, when I trade, everyone else better get out of the way!”

“So you hedge?” Warren couldn’t quite understand whom Metcalf wanted to impress. Everyone knew he was wealthy, but Chas’s grandfather could buy and sell Metcalf several times over.

“Oh, sure, I hedge—or play around a little…” Metcalf winked, but Warren wasn’t sure at whom.

“Play around?” He couldn’t see the harm in encouraging Metcalf..

“Lemme tell you, the greatest thing is when there’s a cold snap in Florida. Drives everyone crazy! I love it. The markets go wild!” The man was clearly enjoying a private joke.

“Wild?” Larisa joined in, which seemed to turn up the lights even brighter.

“Oh, yeah, lemme tell you! You see, the USDA calls us if there’re freezing temperatures to ask what kind of crop damage we might have.” Metcalf dropped his voice into a conspiratorial tone. “So first we buy up a ton of contracts, then tell the USDA the freeze is gonna kill all the oranges! It’s like candy from a baby!”

“So you make money on your futures contracts and on your crops when the crop loss estimates drive prices up?” Warren replied, purposefully talking like a simpleton.

“You’re not as dumb as you look, sonny! Yup! We tell ’em fifty, sixty percent crop loss, and it’s like a moon shot! Of course, it’s not our fault if the freeze wasn’t as bad as we thought, now is it?” Metcalf was actually rubbing his palms together in glee. “Easy money, lemme tell ya!”

“Doesn’t the USDA check on your estimates?” Larisa seemed awestruck.

Metcalf let out a roar. “ Check? With who ? They’ve got like three people in the whole state! Hahaha! Nah, those pencil pushers just call us and ask!”

Warren had suspected that growers manipulated the markets every couple of years and made fortunes off speculators who didn’t have an inside connection. Tariffs kept foreign oranges out of the United States, and Washington lobbyists made sure that the tariffs stayed in place. It was all one big inside game. Warren didn’t even know if it was illegal, or how anyone could prove anything.

“That’s fantastic, ” Warren said with heavy sarcasm. “What an ingenious fraud!”

It seemed Metcalf finally realized that he’d pretty much admitted to being a con man. “Hey, what’s your name again?” Metcalf looked at him with a scowl.

“Warren Hament,” he replied neutrally.

“Hament… Hament. Your family from Denver originally?” Warren knew there was a socially prominent family in Denver named Hamment “No, sir. Only one m . My grandparents were from Baltimore.”

“More like from hunger.” Metcalf looked at the curtains when he made the insulting insinuation.

Warren knew exactly what it was, an anti-Semitic slur, and he felt his blood rise. “You’re right. I don’t guess I have the impeccable pedigree that you so obviously possess. You probably have AKC papers and everything. Do you have all your shots?”

Metcalf stood still, speechless.

Larisa stifled a giggle. Warren took her arm and led her toward the couch.

“Jesus, Hament. Make friends and influence people.” Larisa had a big smile on her face.

“Wow. He gives capitalism a bad name.” Warren finished his last drink. “I gotta get out of here before I get so drunk I invite Cornelia skinny-dipping. I’m in training for the Hobe Sound Wimbledon Open, or something, you know.”

“Oooh, you athlete types get me all worked up.” Larisa took Warren’s arm and whispered in his ear, “I can hardly stand it.” The hairs on his neck stood on end.

After making the rounds and saying good-nights, Warren wandered off toward his room, with Larisa and Eliza also heading to their bedrooms. He felt awkward and blew them both a kiss at his door, disappointed that he’d missed the chance to get Larisa alone. He fell into bed dizzy, after a brief wrestling match with his toothbrush and his pants. It had been a fascinating day. The Harpers were at the top of the food chain and fit seamlessly into the old-money world that Warren had viewed from the periphery most of his life. Metcalf was from some old WASP family, but he was as crooked as a guy selling fake watches in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. Even so, Warren liked most of these people. They seemed extremely comfortable in their own skin, and most were completely open to new social or business contacts, as long as you didn’t try to join their clubs. Best of all was Larisa. She was almost too good to be true.