Lee Vance: The Garden of Betrayal

The biggest plus was that I rarely had to travel anymore. The traditional asset managers I’d covered had kept me on the hop across America and Europe, demanding my physical presence as an act of fealty, and dinner and a nice bottle of wine as tribute. It had been tough with a young family. I regularly kissed Claire and the kids good-bye on a Sunday night, knowing I was committed to spending the rest of the week in a series of barren hotel rooms and that I was leaving her to deal with most of the parenting alone. I missed being with them and felt bad about abandoning Claire, but-God help me-I never backed away from an assignment, craving the success, and the recognition, and the monetary reward. My new job let me be home most nights, my hedge-fund clientele indifferent to face time and insistent on buying their own meals, but the sad reality was that no amount of time now would ever make up for what I’d lost.

My office is on the southern half of the floor, around the corner from the trading room. After grabbing a cup of coffee from the kitchen, I settled in at my desk and went through the business and international news. I pay attention to bylines and keep track of reporters who seem particularly insightful or well connected; I’m wary of Wall Street group-think, and journalists are surprisingly easy to cultivate. There’s always something they haven’t been able to write, or want to write, or already wrote but don’t feel they fully understand. And with more than twenty years’ experience with the energy markets, I’m a great guy to bounce things off. I understand the industry upside down, am free with information, and never publish anything of my own-although I can be cajoled into dictating the odd market piece when a friendly reporter is in a bind. GAS PRICES SET TO SOAR AGAIN OR TEN OIL STOCKS SMART INVESTORS OWN NOW. In return, they ask questions of people my Wall Street connections might not have access to, feed me tidbits they haven’t figured out how to hang a story on yet, and give me early warning of big stories that might have market impact. Everyone wins.

At about eight, I banged out a two-page market update to my client base, telling them what they should be watching out for. I stood, stretched, and gave myself fifteen minutes to stare out the window next to my desk. The window was what made me decide to co-locate with Alex and Walter. It might even have been what persuaded me to try life as an independent analyst. It faces due south onto Park Avenue, and at almost any time of day I can see hundreds of people on the street below.

I was on a plane to London the night Kyle vanished. As we taxied to the gate at Heathrow, a stewardess bent forward and told me that a customer service manager would be meeting me on the jetway. I was too groggy to suspect anything other than the faux-warm handshake and stilted chitchat that airline management occasionally bestow on frequent business travelers. I recall hoping he’d brought a courtesy cart so I wouldn’t have to make the long walk to Immigration.

The next twelve hours are pretty much a blur. I remember the physical impact of hearing that Kyle was missing, as if I’d had the wind knocked out of me and couldn’t recover. I remember sitting hunched in my seat on the long flight back to New York, feeling as if I were falling and falling, with the ground nowhere in sight. Most of all, I remember the look on Claire’s face when we met at the police station-the grief that persuaded me the nightmare was true, and the guilt that’s never vanished. It wasn’t until later that I began wondering what might have happened differently if I’d been home.

Amy, my assistant, walks in on me occasionally when I’m staring out my office window and makes gentle fun of me for being so entranced. It helps me think, I tell her, feeling bad about the lie. The truth is something I can only just bear to admit to myself. Claire and I never discussed the evening Kyle vanished in any detail, but I read the statement she made to the police and the description she gave of the clothes he was wearing. Despite all the years that have passed, I’m still searching the crowd below for a tall twelve-year-old in an oversized parka and a green knit school hat.

I was reading an industry rag at my desk when Amy stopped in to say good morning. She was holding a manila envelope in her hand and smiling.

“Guess what I have?”

“Hmm…” I said, tapping my finger against my chin. Amy’s forty, married, and on the vestry of her church. She was wearing a simple navy dress and had her auburn hair done up in a prim bun. “A ticket to Vegas. You’re leaving me to take a job dealing blackjack at the Bellagio.”

“As if,” she scoffed. “The only job I’d be willing to take in Las Vegas would be at a mission.”

“Like what’s-her-name in Guys and Dolls. The one who ends up with Marlon Brando.”

“Jean Simmons,” she said, reddening slightly. Amy was a big fan of old movies. “I liked her better in Elmer Gantry. And Guys and Dolls was set in New York. None of which has anything to do with anything.” She reached into the envelope and extracted a BlackBerry with a dramatic flourish. “Ta-da!”

“My new phone?” I asked, puzzled by the flourish.

“Better. Your old phone.”

I’d been feeling like a dope all weekend because a bike messenger had half knocked me down outside my office on Friday as I returned from a late-afternoon meeting, and a stranger had caught my arm to steady me. It hadn’t occurred to me to check my pockets until I was riding the elevator upstairs. I figured the stranger had mistaken the bulky device for my wallet and lifted it.

“You’re kidding. Where’d it come from?”

“Lobby guard gave it to me on my way in. Some guy came in off the street Saturday afternoon and turned it in. Said he spotted it under the newspaper machine on the corner and saw your business card taped to the back.”

I took the BlackBerry from her and examined it. It looked fine. I pressed the power button. The screen lit up for a moment, flashed a low-battery warning, and then went dark again.

“Amazing,” I said, snugging the unit into its charging cradle. “Maybe it just fell out of my pocket when I stumbled. Hard to believe someone actually returned it.”

“Not so hard to believe,” Amy chided. “New York is full of nice people.”

“You get the guy’s name?” I asked, thinking I should send him a bottle of scotch.

“Guard said he didn’t leave it.” She leaned forward and dropped her voice to a husky whisper. “This is when you thank your assistant for having remembered to tape your business card to the back of your three-hundred-dollar phone.”

“Geez,” I said loudly. “It sure is lucky that I have an assistant terrific enough to remember to tape my business card to the back of my three-hundred-dollar phone. Thanks so much, Amy. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Waste half a day trying to load your contacts onto a new phone before losing your temper and yelling at me to call the tech guys.” She sniffed. “I’ll call AT amp;T for you and get it reactivated. You need anything from the storage room?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

She left, head shaking in mock disapproval. I made a mental note to buy her some flowers when I went out to get lunch, thinking I could pick up something for Claire at the same time. Claire loved flowers.

I’d settled back in with my magazine when my desk phone rang. Amy wasn’t back yet, so I picked it up and said hello.

“As-Salamu ‘Alaykum,” a reedy voice said. Peace be upon you.

“Wa ‘Alaykum As-Salam,” I responded, recognizing the caller immediately. And on you be peace. It was Rashid.

“You’re well?” he asked.

We’d spoken less than twelve hours previously, but Arabs are big on ritual. The first lesson of doing business with Middle Easterners is that nothing can ever be rushed.