Питер Джеймс - Billionaire

The picking up of all these clients had, in the first instance, been just luck. There was a rotation system among the brokers for new enquiries, and each of the above had arrived on Rocq’s due dates. This had been assisted not a little by Rocq’s generous gifts to the switchboard operator. His skill, however, had been to hang on to them. He had done so not so much by his ability to produce results, which were only just above average, but far more by his ability at getting them laid, which apart from money was the only interest they all had in common. Sa’ad Al Rahir liked seventeen-year-old schoolgirls. Louis Khylji liked black men and yellow women. Prince Abr Qu’Ih Missh liked blonde women; whilst looks mattered, his main interest was quantity. On his, fortunately for Alex, infrequent trips to London, he liked to have at least ten girls fixed up, all together. His favourite passion was his own particular version of Blind-man’s-buff: he would be led, blindfolded, into a room full of naked blondes, grope his way around them, seize one and make passionate love to her then and there. Afterwards, he would try to guess her name. If he got it wrong, he would be led out, and play the game again. This would go on until either he got the right girl or he collapsed with exhaustion. As for the other three, Baron Harry Mellic was a rubber freak, Joel Symes liked being beaten, and Dunstan Ngwan seemed to like anything.

This little group Rocq termed his ‘A’ team. Below them, he had a hundred lesser clients, whom he ranked in diminishing order; at the bottom of the pile was Sidney Chilterley, whose account normally stood about $1 over the $7,000 minimum that was required to have an account at Globalex.

During the past two years, the other brokers in this office had earned an average commission of £12,000 on top of their annual salaries of £10,000; the volume of Rocq’s ‘A’ team was such that he had netted an average income over the past two years of £105,000 a year. After tax and overheads, such as call-girls’ fees, which Globalex was not interested in splitting with him, he had stashed away some £53,000. By lucky investments, he had managed to turn that sum into £90,000, which he had sunk into down payments on a flat in Redcliffe Square in London, and a cottage in the village of Clayton, in Sussex.

Whilst everyone else drove their company cars and worked a rigorous five-day week, he drove a £32,000 Porsche and spent two afternoons a week on the golf course. He might have been the blue-eyed boy of the board room, but in this office, where the legend ‘ success is not everything — even your best friend must fail ’ hung like the blade of a guillotine in the air, his lack of popularity was not altogether surprising.

He looked at the battery of flashing lights, and then at the Reuter Monitor video screen, on which, by entering a code, at the tap of a button he could call up the price of any commodity on any market in the world, as well as foreign exchange rates, share prices, and a continuous update of all world news and general information.

The Reuter Monitor system, apart from being connected to all the world’s commodity exchanges, receives data input from hundreds of banks, bullion dealers and brokerage houses who use the system as well. Rocq tapped a button for a read-out on the latest metal prices.

‘Bloody hell. Gold up nine dollars,’ he said. ‘Over the five-hundred. What happened? Did Moscow nuke Washington?’

‘Almost as good.’ Slivitz talked over the mouthpiece of his two telephones. ‘Remember in 1981 when the Israelis blew up Iraq’s nuclear power reactor at Osirak?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘Well they’ve just gone and done it again.’

‘Shit.’ Gold moved up another dollar. ‘When?’

‘’Bout three hours ago. Reckon you lost yourself about thirty-five clients since then. Moses has been going apeshit trying to find you.’

Moses Rondell was Rocq’s direct boss; relationships between the two were not good at the best of times, ever since he had overheard Rocq’s description of him as having metal balls.

‘Reckon you’d better stop talking and start buying,’ said Mozer, ‘or else there isn’t going to be anything left for you to buy.’

Rocq punched out the code for World News on the Reuter terminal. The green computer-typed words on the screen told him of the Israeli raid on Osirak, gave the Prime Minister of Israel’s reasons for this second attack, and gave the Iraqi Foreign Minister’s fury at this second outrage, and the destruction of their almost completely rebuilt reactor.

Rocq next pushed a button on his switchboard marked Tor 2. It was virtually the only button that wasn’t flashing. It automatically dialled Baron Mellic’s home number in Toronto. The Baron did not have an office; he worked from a massive penthouse overlooking four motorway junctions on the outskirts of Toronto. Mellic Construction Corporation had built the fifty-seven storey apartment block on the top of which the penthouse was perched. Mellic had furnished the penthouse by going to the furniture floor of Downtown Eatons, one of Toronto’s largest department stores, and ordering the entire floor. To further amuse himself, he ordered all the fittings as well, including the signs and prices, and had the entire penthouse laid out as if it were the furniture floor of Eatons.

Toronto was five hours behind London. It was only half past nine there, and Mellic was a late riser; maybe he hadn’t heard the news yet, hoped Rocq. He had.

‘What kept you? Were you delivering the missiles for Israel personally?’

‘I’m sorry, Harry.’

‘You’re sorry? I’m sorry too. How much have I lost while you’ve been humping some broad?’

‘Not a lot — and I haven’t been humping, I’ve been at the dentist.’ He paused. ‘Anyway — gold’s only gone ten bucks.’

There was a noise from the other end of the telephone; to Rocq’s untrained but accurate ear, it was not unlike the sound of a Hungarian Baron scraping himself off the ceiling of a penthouse.

‘I tell you, my friend,’ said the Baron, ‘if I bought you a hooker for every hundred dollars you’ve lost me this morning, you could screw your ass off twenty-four hours a day for the rest of your life, and not get through half of them.’

‘There’s still time, Harry; better buy right now.’

‘Right now? Too late, you shmuck — it’s going to start going down.’

‘No — it’ll go fifteen — sixteen at least; if there’s any retaliation, then it’ll go through the roof. We could be on the brink of a major war — if that happens, it’ll be over the thousand mark by the end of the week.’

‘What’s September trading at?’

‘Spot’s $509. September’s trading at a $6.00 premium to Spot: $515.’

‘Gold closed at $498 on Friday. You said it had gone ten bucks — Spot should be $508, not $509.’

‘It just went up another buck while we were talking.’

There was a pause while the Baron vented a mouthful of air into the receiver. ‘So you reckon Spot’s going to go to what? Twelve? Fifteen?’

‘I reckon at least fifteen, and probably a bit higher than that — if nothing more happens.’

‘Okay — buy me one ton. September.’

Rocq whistled to himself. One ton. Thirty-two thousand ounces. Three hundred and twenty contracts. Globalex charged a commission of 25 cents an ounce on gold, and he got ten per cent of that. He tapped some figures out on his calculator. He had just made himself £444.

‘And you’d better sell out at the right time, you shmuck — don’t want you leaving me high and dry.’

‘You can rely on me, Harry.’

‘I’d rather rely on a fucking mongoose.’ The line went dead. Rocq paused to think for a moment. Thirty-two thousand ounces was a large amount of gold. The average total daily volume for London was only one hundred thousand ounces.