T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

The others disagreed for her. “You weren’t there for the meeting with AIM’s representative. I was. They want to see this thing go away forever.”

“Part of success in this business is knowing which trigger to pull,” another agreed.

“They definitely do not want this baby to get out of the crib. Our job is to kill it in the cradle, before it can crawl out of committee.”

Her immediate boss asked Valerie, “What else do you have planned?”

“Monday we’re going after the political forces in the committee members’ home states. My people will be contacting the top fund raisers, showing them just how important it is to call in their chits. We’ll do the second round of meetings with the members themselves on Tuesday, if possible with a tame Treasury official in tow. The talking heads are getting their first strikes in tomorrow.”

“When is the committee scheduled to vote?”

“Nothing’s been slated, but this is being pushed hard. Our best guess is Wednesday.”

The chairman declared, “I’m still not in agreement here.”

“Your objection is noted.” The youngest of the senior partners did not bother to hide his sarcasm. “But I say we hit them with everything we’ve got. This is a top priority from one of our biggest clients, and we’ve just been handed a silver bullet.” He turned to Valerie. “You’ve got concrete evidence against Bryant?”

“I’m told it is being couriered up to me tomorrow.”

“I say run it by legal. If they think it’s solid, we should strike first thing next week.”

Without another word, the chairman finished his drink, rose to his feet, and left the table. They waited for him to move out of range before the man slated to take his place said, “Way to go, Val.”

“What’s with the old man?”

“He sees everything these days through the lens of hankering after a cabinet appointment.” The man next in line shrugged. “Val, you make this happen and there’s a chair waiting for you in the boardroom.”

“Wiping the floor with the man fronting our opposition,” her boss agreed. “That’s the way reputations are made in this town.”

Saturday

As Burke was checking into the Forex Dealers convention at the Breakers of Palm Beach, he witnessed two brokers go toe-to-toe over the hotel’s one remaining suite. Framed notices stood to either side of the reception desk, announcing some of the goodies on offer. A wire service was hosting a daylong gambling cruise. Another welcomed every arriving broker with a half gallon of vintage Dom Pérignon. Dealing networks had set up six bars in the lobby and around the outdoor pool. Brokers spent the convention handing out Rolexes like candy. The air was full of false cheer and people determined to spend their way into a good time. Traders who made it to the top were paid to be instant and aggressive. Hit and pay, make and run. The language was physical, the tension constant.

Burke tipped a bellhop to carry his bags upstairs and began his first circuit. He was there to observe and be seen. He passed a table where five men were shouting over a female first-timer. College, they called the fresh meat. One of the men barked, “Deal you twenty-six, twenty-eight on the college.”

“Hit you fifty,” another called back.

The girl was doing her best not to look like a total turnip off the truck from Chicago, but she clearly did not have a clue to what the men were talking about. When she just sat there with her pasty little smile, the first dealer leaned over his floral-print belly and said, “Whattaya make me, College?”

“I–I’m sorry, I just wanted a drink.”

“Drink, schmink. Look, Alfie here’s got fifty thou you’re either under twenty-six or over twenty-eight.” When she faltered, he popped his fingers like castanets. “Word of advice, College. People figure if you talk slow you think slow. And if you talk quiet you ain’t got power for the floor. So give it to us loud and now.”

“Shout out the age, College,” Alfie agreed. “Make me a happy man.”

Burke walked away. Senior traders could never leave it behind. They were addicts looking for the next fix. The later the hour, the higher soared the bets. It was all about instant gratification. They’d bet on anything.

Two years earlier, when the Forex convention was in London, Burke had watched a group of traders go a hundred thou each over whose main course had the highest number of green beans. They’d slipped the ma" tre d’ five thousand dollars to play ref and count the stringers on each plate. Two guys tied for first and walked off with four-fifty apiece. It was all gone by the next day, lost to a female trader from Singapore who won the pool on how many towels were in the sixth-floor pantry. Twenty-two traders had taken that action, trooped upstairs, bribed some Chinese cleaning woman with a hatful of cash, crammed into and around the pantry, then watched and shouted as she counted the towels for them. The woman trader from ING Bank had woken up the entire floor when she won and shrieked and walked off with the convention’s top draw of just under two million bucks.

That had also been the year the brokerage firms stacked their receptions like chips, so the traders could visit them all. The firms had drawn their times out of a brass champagne bucket, and moaned and argued over the placings but held pretty much to the schedule. The best by acclaim was the reception given by the French brokers, a Parisian saloon with can-can dancers that hadn’t started until four o’clock the final morning. Which meant there’d been so many nightlong drunks they’d called the last breakfast buffet the Xerox convention, since almost everybody showed up wearing the same clothes they’d had on the night before.

As he headed for the lobby’s rear doors, Burke caught the drift of a senior trader talking on the phone, ruining a minion’s weekend. “If it breaks the year low, I don’t want anything to do with the euro.” A pause, then the words became a shout. “Look, I don’t care what your analysts say. You’ve got your stop orders. If it hits the low, dump every euro in the bucket.”

Burke entered the sunlight and walked toward the bayside pool, the banter splashing off him like rain.

“That guy runs a real book in London. A genuine triggerman.”

“Hit and pay, that’s what I told him. I’ve stuffed you. You owe me a name.”

“All of a sudden, the guy next to me screams, Feds at ten o’clock! I felt the old ticker do a total freeze.”

“I talked to my contact at Bubba, then the top guy at the Old Lady. They gave me nothing. I hit the ground running just the same. Was up half a big one by lunch.”

Burke felt eyes on him from all directions. But he’d had a lifetime’s experience ignoring those who assumed he was of a lesser breed. He seated himself at an empty poolside table, isolated by his own preference, there only because Hayek had ordered him to come. And waited.

It came as no surprise when the traders at the next table swiveled their chairs in order to include him in their conversation. “Where are all your boys, Burke?”

“I’m the token force this year. I guess you heard, we had a sudden inflow of new cash this week.”

“So how are things around Hayek these days?” This from the top Barclay’s New York trader.

“Busy.”

“You guys missing Wall Street yet?”

“Like we would a boil.”

There were rules of engagement to be followed in such an exchange. Power was tightly stratified among traders. Minnows talked to minnows, the sharks only with other sharks. Burke knew these guys were aware of Hayek’s extraordinary Friday moves. But they could not say anything outright. It was like bidding in bridge. Everything had to be done in code.