Майкл Ридпат - The Predator

‘Why don’t you ring him in five minutes, eh?’

Chris heard Rudy’s voice at the other end of the line. He glanced at Tina. She was right. Yelling at Rudy was not the best way to get him to keep his money in the fund. He replaced the receiver, and gave her a quick smile. ‘Thank you.’

Tina left him alone. Chris stood up and looked out of the window at the neat square below. Despite the cold, there were several well-wrapped office workers finishing late lunches on the benches, watched by clusters of rat-grey pigeons.

This was serious. Ten million euros was almost twenty per cent of the fund. What was worse was the signal that Rudy’s move would give to the other investors. The rest had held steady, waiting to see how Chris coped. To some extent, all investors, even the biggest, are like sheep. The easiest decision, the lowest risk, is always to do what everyone else is doing. Yesterday, everyone was sticking with Carpathian. Tomorrow?

Why had Rudy decided to redeem? He knew Chris. They had been on the programme together, where Chris had performed reasonably well. Chris remembered disliking Rudy, but he couldn’t remember falling out with him. He took some deep breaths, counted to ten, and dialled Rudy’s number again.

‘Rudy Moss.’

‘Rudy, it’s Chris from Carpathian.’ Chris used his surname as little as possible. It just caused confusion.

‘Oh, hi, Chris,’ said Rudy neutrally.

‘I received your fax.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And, frankly, I was a little surprised. All our other investors have decided to stick with us, and I had expected Amalgamated Veterans to do the same.’

There was a pause at the other end of the line. ‘Well, Chris, I’d like to stay with you, but you must understand this is quite a material change in the management of the fund we’re talking about here. Depth of management is always important to us. We thought just the two of you was a little thin, but now it’s only you... I’m afraid we just can’t live with that.’

Be reasonable, Chris told himself. Be calm. Find out what’s really bugging him.

‘I can understand your concerns, and I respect them. In fact, I’m planning to find another experienced investment partner as soon as I can.’ He hadn’t been, but he was now. Anything to keep Amalgamated Veterans in the fund. ‘But I can assure you the fund will be perfectly safe in my hands. We’re fully invested. The market looks a little weak in the short term, but we’re confident it will recover. We’ll make you good money, Rudy, I can assure you of that.’

‘We?’ There was the slightest of sneers in Rudy’s voice that raised Chris’s hackles immediately.

‘Yes, myself and my colleagues.’

‘Who are?’

‘I have two assistants here with me.’

‘But it’s basically just you running things?’

‘Yes, it is,’ admitted Chris. ‘But I’ll find someone to join me shortly.’

‘I know your record,’ said Rudy, an unpleasant tinge creeping into his voice.

‘What do you mean?’ Chris snapped.

‘I mean, I know your history.’

‘Are you talking about when I left Bloomfield Weiss?’

‘Yes, I am.’

Chris was silent.

‘I figure it’s best to be straight with you,’ said Rudy. ‘That way we know where we stand.’

‘You know it wasn’t me who was responsible for that loss.’

‘If you say so. I wasn’t there.’

‘Damn right you weren’t there!’ Chris snapped, and then instantly regretted it. He had to keep his cool. ‘Lenka knew I wasn’t responsible. She trusted me.’

‘Lenka was a smart woman. I don’t mind telling you it was she I was backing when we put money in Carpathian. Now she’s gone...’

Chris took a deep breath. ‘Is there any way I can persuade you to change your mind?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘What if I came to see you in Hartford?’

‘That won’t be necessary.’

Chris came to a decision. ‘I’m coming to Hartford. We can discuss this further then.’

‘I said, I don’t think that will be necessary,’ said Rudy with impatience.

‘Look, Rudy. You taking your money out of the fund is what you would call a “material change” for me, and it’s a material change I can do without. You owe me an hour so we can discuss it.’

Rudy paused. ‘All right. If you insist.’

‘I do insist. I’ll see you next Thursday. Shall we say two o’clock?’

‘I’m busy all next week.’

‘What about Friday?’

‘I said I’m busy all week. I’m in California Wednesday through Friday.’

‘OK, what about the following Monday? I’ll be there at nine o’clock.’

‘I can’t make nine o’clock. We have a morning meeting.’

‘Ten? Come on Rudy, I’m going to your offices and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.’

Rudy sighed. ‘OK, ten thirty.’

‘See you then,’ said Chris and rang off. ‘Bastard,’ he muttered.

The worst thing was that not once in the whole conversation had Rudy shown the slightest regret that Lenka had been killed. Not once.

He put on his jacket and grabbed his coat from the stand. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ he told Tina and left the building.

He crossed Oxford Street, and soon found himself striding up the broad avenue of Portland Place. The wind cut damp and cold through his clothes. Although there was no snow on the London streets, it felt colder than Prague.

He couldn’t believe that the Bloomfield Weiss cock-up had come back to haunt him again. Why couldn’t the world just forget it? He had tried to obliterate it from his mind, with limited success. Now he realized it would never go away. Someone somewhere would always remember what had happened and use it to undermine him.

The injustice of the whole affair once again rose up inside him, warming his body with anger. He now realized the attraction of litigation. Despite its huge cost and unpredictability, it provided a judge for you to plea to, a chance that your version of events could be publicly upheld. He had considered suing, even spent a few hundred quid discussing it with a lawyer, but his chances of a clear victory were small, while his chances of running up large legal bills were almost a certainty. A bad trade. Now he wished he had done it.

He had become a good trader at Bloomfield Weiss. Traders come in two sizes: the gamblers and the percentage players. The gamblers like to take big risks, with big payoffs. The best of them can make stunning profits, but all of them are capable of making big losses too. The percentage players like to take smaller risks, which they can understand and control. They tend to make small but frequent profits. Chris was one of the latter types. He made profits month in and month out, he rarely had a negative month. It did wonders for the desk’s P&L and for the budget. Good old Chris could always be relied on to lob in a few hundred thou to the bottom-line.

The bosses loved it. His immediate boss, a wiry, hyperactive American named Herbie Exler, was a gambler. He encouraged Chris to do his trades in larger and larger size. The logic was sound. If Chris could make two hundred thousand dollars on a hundred million dollar position, why not give him five hundred million, or a billion? With trepidation, Chris increased the size of his trades. And it worked.

Chris traded European government bonds. He did things like buying a hundred million Deutschmarks of German government bonds and selling an equivalent number of French governments, betting that the relationship between the two would change. Chris had an excellent feel for how the relationships between the European markets moved, and he understood the way the weight of money of the major global investors, most of whom were Bloomfield Weiss’s clients, sloshed from one country to another.