Christopher Reich - Numbered Account

He recognized the stern voice. Poised behind a broad desk sat the woman with the intelligent brown eyes. A testy one, Sprecher had warned, who didn’t care for Americans. She had tucked her blond hair behind her ears and found a blazer to match her skirt. A large pair of horn-rimmed glasses rested on her nose.

“I’m sorry,” Nick said sincerely, “I didn’t realize…” His explanation petered out.

“Sylvia Schon,” she announced, standing and extending a hand across the desk. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. It’s not often the Chairman recommends a new graduate.”

“He was a friend of my father’s. They worked together.” Nick shook his head as if to dismiss the connection. “It was a long time ago.”

“So I understand. But the bank doesn’t forget its own. We’re big on loyalty around here.” She motioned for him to sit down and when he had, lowered herself into her chair. “I hope you don’t mind my asking a few questions. I take pride in knowing everyone who works in our department. Usually we insist on several interviews before extending an offer.”

“I appreciate any exceptions that were made on my behalf. Actually, I did interview with Dr. Ott in New York.”

“It was rather perfunctory, I imagine.”

“Dr. Ott and I covered a lot of ground. If you’re asking whether he went easy on me, he didn’t.”

Sylvia Schon raised an eyebrow and cocked her head as if to say, “Come now, Mr. Neumann, we both know you’re full of shit.” She was right, of course. His meeting with the bank’s vice chairman had been nothing more than an extended bull session. Ott was a short, fat, unctuous man, an unapologetic arm patter, and it seemed to Nick that he’d been told to paint the sunniest possible picture of life in Zurich and a career at the United Swiss Bank.

“Fourteen months,” she said. “That’s the longest one of our American recruits has lasted. You gentlemen come over for a European vacation, do a little skiing, take in the sights, and a year later you’re gone. Off to greener pastures.”

“If there’s been a problem, why don’t you conduct the interviews yourself?” he asked pleasantly, in counterpoint to her combative tone. “I’m sure you would have no problem weeding out the weaker candidates.”

Dr. Schon squinted her eyes, as if unsure whether he was a smart-ass or just an exceptionally perceptive individual. “An interesting question. Feel free to ask Dr. Ott next time you visit with him. Interviewing foreign candidates is his department. For now, though, let’s concentrate on you, shall we? Our refugee from Wall Street. I don’t imagine that a firm like Morgan Stanley often loses one of its best recruits after only four months.”

“I decided that I didn’t want to spend my career in New York. I’ve never had the opportunity to work in a foreign environment. I realized that if I wanted to move, the sooner the better.”

“So you quit like that?” She snapped her fingers.

Nick was beginning to find her aggressive tone irritating. “First I spoke with Herr Kaiser. He’d contacted me following my graduation in June and mentioned that he’d like me to come to the bank.”

“You didn’t consider anywhere else? London? Hong Kong? Tokyo? After all, if you were offered a position by Morgan Stanley, I’m sure there were other firms that went away disappointed. What brought you to Zurich?”

“I’d like to specialize in private banking, and for that Zurich’s the place. No one has a better reputation than USB.”

“So our reputation led you to our doorstep?”

Nick smiled. “Yes, exactly.”

Liar, said a determined voice from a dark corner of his soul. You would’ve come if the place was buried in shit and the last shovel had just broken.

“Remember, things move slowly here. Don’t expect a promotion to the executive board anytime soon. We’re less a meritocracy than you Americans are used to.”

“Minimum fourteen months,” said Nick. “I should just be settling in by then. Getting to know my way around.” He smiled broadly to let her know that he wasn’t put off by her predictions of a short stay and that she should get used to him. But behind the smile, the determined voice had the final say.

I’ll stay, it promised. Fourteen months or fourteen years. As long as it takes to discover why my father was murdered in the foyer of a close friend’s home.

Sylvia Schon brought her chair closer to her desk and studied some documents on it. The room fell silent. The tension of a first encounter dissipated. Finally, she looked up and smiled. “You’ve met Mr. Sprecher, I understand? Everything satisfactory?”

Nick said yes.

“He explained to you, I’m sure, that his department is a little shorthanded.”

“He said that Mr. Cerruti was ill. He’ll be back next week.”

“We hope so. Did he say anything else?”

Nick looked at her intently. She wasn’t smiling anymore. What was she tiptoeing around? “No. Just that Cerruti had contracted a virus on his business trip.”

Dr. Schon removed her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry to bring this up on your first day of work, but I think it’s best you hear it now. I don’t suppose you know about Mr. Becker. He also worked in FKB4. He was killed Christmas Eve. Stabbed to death not far from here. We’re still very upset. It’s an absolute tragedy.”

“He was the man killed on the Bahnhofstrasse?” Nick hadn’t recalled the name, but he recognized the facts from an article in a Swiss newspaper he’d read on the flight over. The brazen nature of the murder made for front-page news. Apparently, he’d been carrying some expensive jewelry. The police did not yet have a suspect, but the article had clearly stated that robbery was the motive. Somehow USB had managed to keep its name out of the paper.

“Yes. It’s appalling. As I said, we’re still in a state of shock.”

“I’m sorry,” Nick whispered.

“No, no. It’s I who must apologize. No one deserves to hear such terrible news on their first day of work.” Dr. Schon stood and circled her desk. A signal the meeting had come to its conclusion. She forced a smile to her lips. “I hope Mr. Sprecher won’t pass along too many of his bad habits. You should be with him only a few days. In the meantime, several other matters need to be taken care of. We’ll need a few photographs and your fingerprints, of course. Those can be taken down the hall, three doors to the right. And don’t let me forget to give you a copy of the bank’s handbook.” She brushed by him and walked to a cabinet against the near wall. She opened a drawer, then picked out a blue book and offered it to him.

“Should I wait down here for the ID card to be finished?” Nick peered at the handbook. It was half the size of a phone book and twice as thick. Rules, he heard Sprecher saying.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” boomed a rich, male voice.

Nick raised his head and looked directly into Wolfgang Kaiser’s beaming face. He took a step backward, though if it was from surprise or awe he did not know. Kaiser was his family’s grayest eminence: ever watching unseen from somewhere beyond the horizon. After so long, Nick was unsure how to greet him. As the man who had attended his father’s funeral and then accompanied the body to Switzerland for burial. As the distant benefactor who surfaced at odd moments across the years, sending congratulatory cards upon his graduation from high school and college and, Nick suspected, checks on the occasions when his mother had navigated them into particularly dire straits. Or as the celebrated icon of international business, the subject of a thousand newspaper articles, magazine profiles, and television interviews. The most recognized face of Switzerland’s banking establishment.