Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

“Mr. Sprecher is keeping me busy,” he said, keeping to the official line of banter. “He tells me we’re lucky this is a quiet time of year.”

“My sources tell me that your department is doing just fine. You, in particular, seem to be excelling at your position.”

“Any word on Mr. Cerruti?”

“Actually, I haven’t spoken to him, but Herr Kaiser thinks he may be improving. Cerruti may assume a calmer post at one of our daughter companies when he’s recovered. Probably the Arab Overseas Bank.”

Nick saw his opening. “Do you work closely with the Chairman?”

“Me. Good lord, no. You have no idea what a surprise it was to see him in my office that day. First time in ages anyone can remember spotting him on the first floor. What exactly is his relationship to your family?”

Nick often asked himself the same question. Kaiser’s intermittent contacts were alternately professional and paternal. He did not know whether they were motivated by a strict sense of bank protocol or a blurry allegiance to a fallen friend. “I hadn’t seen Herr Kaiser since my father’s funeral,” he explained. “He kept in contact with us periodically. Cards, phone calls, but no visits.”

“The Chairman likes to keep his distance,” said Sylvia Schon.

Nick was happy the two had the same perception. “Did he ever mention anything to you about my father? He started at the bank a few years after Kaiser.”

“Herr Kaiser doesn’t mingle with the little people.”

“You’re a vice president.”

“Ask me that question when I’m on the Fourth Floor. That’s where the power is. Right now you’re better off asking the old timers—Schweitzer, Maeder, why not the Chairman himself?”

“He’s done enough for me already.”

“You’re the first employee he’s personally recommended since I’ve been handling human resources in the finance department. How did you swing that?”

He shook his head. “Actually, he approached me about the job. He first mentioned it about four years ago, when I was getting ready to leave the marines. Called me up out of the blue and suggested that I consider business school. Harvard. Said he’d call the dean on my behalf. A few months before I graduated, he phoned to say that there was a job waiting for me if I wanted one.” Nick pasted an angry scowl across his features. “He didn’t tell me I’d have to interview for the job.”

She smiled at his facetious quip. “Obviously, you managed just fine. I must say you fit right in line with the usual type Dr. Ott manages to lure over. Six feet tall, bone-crunching handshake, and a line of bullshit that would make a politician blush.” She raised a hand. “Except for the bullshit, that is. I hope you’ll excuse me, Mr. Neumann.”

Nick smiled. He liked a woman who wasn’t afraid of a little salty language. “No offense taken.”

She shrugged. “When his golden boys leave ten months later, it’s marked very clearly on my hiring record.”

“And that’s your problem with him?”

Sylvia squinted her eyes as if appraising his ability to keep a secret. “So we’re being honest with each other, are we? Actually, it’s nothing more dramatic than a little professional jealousy. I’m sure you’d find it very dull.”

“No, no. Go ahead.” Nick was thinking that right now she could talk about the mathematical derivation of modern portfolio theory and it wouldn’t bore him.

“Currently, I direct the recruiting of employees who’ll work in the finance department of our Swiss offices. But the finance department’s biggest area of growth is overseas. We’ve got a hundred fifty people in London, forty in Hong Kong, twenty-five in Singapore, and two hundred in New York. The sexy stuff—corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, equity trading—most of that takes place in the world’s financial capitals. For me, the next step up is to conduct the recruiting of the professionals who will fill those upper-level positions in our foreign offices. I want to make the deal that brings a partner at Goldman Sachs to the United Swiss Bank. I’d love to lure away the entire deutsche mark team from Salomon Brothers. I’ve got to get to New York to demonstrate that I’m capable of finding top performers and convincing them to come to USB.”

“I’d send you in a second. Your English is impeccable, and with no disrespect to Dr. Ott, you make a much nicer impression than he does.”

She smiled broadly, as if the compliment meant something to her. “I appreciate your confidence. Thank you.”

At that moment, their waiter arrived, his hands full with two green salads and a basket of fresh bread. He placed them on the table and returned bearing a carafe of red wine and two bottles of San Pellegrino. They had hardly finished their salads when two sizzling chickens were brought for their inspection. Approval was given, and the waiter set about preparing the succulent birds.

Sylvia raised her wineglass and offered a toast: “On behalf of the bank, we are happy to have you with us. May your career be long and successful! Prosit!”

Nick met her eye and was surprised when she held his gaze a moment longer than he expected. He looked away, embarrassed, but a second later looked at her again. He couldn’t stop himself. He felt a flush of attraction warm his stomach and spread upward into his chest. The feeling made him uncomfortable. She was his superior. She was off-limits, he told himself.

He couldn’t go any further until he had sorted out his feelings for Anna. Two years they’d been together and two months apart. Yet right now it felt like the opposite, and that their separation would be permanent. The first few weeks in Zurich, he had expected her to phone to say she was sorry, and that she understood why he had dropped his life and rushed across the Atlantic. He’d even teased himself with a fantasy of her showing up unannounced on his doorstep. She’d be wearing ratty blue jeans, scuffed boots, and an impossibly expensive camel’s hair coat, the collar turned up. She’d cock her head and ask to come in, as if she’d only been driving through the neighborhood and hadn’t flown five thousand miles to surprise him.

But she hadn’t called. Now he saw that he’d been foolish even to ask her to come. Had he actually expected her to quit Harvard in the middle of her senior year? Had he really thought she’d give up the job she’d lined up on Wall Street just to be with him?

“Your father’s been dead for seventeen years, Nick,” Anna had said the last time he saw her. “What can you expect to find except more disappointment? Leave him in peace.”

“If you cared about me, you’d make the sacrifice,” he’d fired back.

“And you-” she cried, “why won’t you make the sacrifice for me?” But before he could respond, she answered for him. “Because you’re obsessed. You don’t know how to love anymore.”

Seated in the busy restaurant, Nick wondered if he still loved Anna. Of course he did. Or maybe he should say a part of him did. But time and distance had weakened his love. And every minute he spent in the presence of Sylvia Schon weakened it further.

Over coffee, Sylvia inquired, “Do you happen to know Roger Sutter? He’s the manager of our representative office in Los Angeles. Been there forever.”

“Vaguely,” said Nick, wondering if forever was longer than seventeen years. “He called our home a few times after my father died. I haven’t been back to L.A. for a while. My mother moved away about six years ago. She passed away last year, so I don’t have much occasion to visit.”

Sylvia met his eyes. “I’m sorry. I lost my mother when I was little, just nine. Cancer. After she was gone it was just my father and my little brothers, Rolf and Erich. Twins. That’s probably why I feel so comfortable working in a bank full of men. Some may think I’m a little bossy, but when you have two brothers and a rigid father to contend with, you quickly learn how to fend for yourself.”