Above The Thunder (19 page)

He picked up the Kobayashi account, his most demanding client, the company’s top money-maker he’d been given a year ago when he was at
the height of his confidence and success; everything he touched then turned to gold. The president of the firm, a crusty old Bostonian with a pedigree longer than God’s, had said to him at the last Christmas party, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Jack, my wife’s been bugging me to let you go shopping with her.”

“Oh?” Jack said, bracing himself for what might come next. He wasn’t out at the office of course. As far as he knew, only Jane knew anything of his private life. He smiled tightly, prepared himself for a barb about gay men and their instinct for glamour and accessorizing.

“Yeah, she says if you can get nearly a hundred per cent returns on sixty per cent of our flagship clients, what could you do at the return counter at Saks?”

People laughed heartily, Jack among them.

“She claims she’s going to buy a mink coat and have you go with her to get double her money back.”

Jack floated all evening; that was the closest he’d come—that anyone had ever come—to warmth from Hank Sherman.

He glanced down at the client information sheet stapled to the outside of the folder. This account was his baby, the one he never, until the past few weeks, let slide. He was aggressive and assiduous and meticulous with this one—Kobayashi was persnickety, had already been through three investment houses before landing on Jack’s desk. Showing losses in more than two quarters, Jack knew, would be the end. If there was one thing Jack had learned about Japanese corporations it was that you came in through the side door, so to speak, with the humility of a pizza deliveryman. You exchanged pleasantries, you asked about the weather, their wives, how their kids were doing in cram school and
then
you got down to business, but only as if you happened to be there by sheer coincidence: It appears I have a pizza for sale, would you like it? Seller and buyer both pretending the exchange of money was a low, but necessary thing.

He picked up the phone, dialed his secretary’s extension. “I need you to ring Tokyo for me, Molly,” he said.

“Again?” she said, her nasal Brooklyn accent grating on Jack’s ear.

“What do you mean, again?”

“You asked me to do that yesterday morning. I already typed up the information from the conference call.”

“Conference call?”

Jack could almost read Molly’s expression through the wall as she said, “Yes, sir.” His heart raced. He didn’t remember anything other than in a kind of distant, dreamy way. He’d been so stressed that his memory was shot, his brain a sieve. Was this dementia of some kind? No doubt the alcohol and the late nights had something to do with it.

“Where is the report?”

“In your
IN
basket,” she said, incredulous. “Typed, proofread, copied and distributed for the two o’clock meeting.”

“All right then,” Jack said. “And did I know about this meeting?”

Molly paused, took in her breath sharply. “It’s on your calendar.”

Jack thanked her, and hung up. Christ! He checked his schedule. A meeting with the senior partners and Hank himself penciled in Molly’s neat handwriting. Did he schedule this meeting? And what was the agenda? Why couldn’t he remember a goddamn thing from the previous two days?

Jack inhaled and exhaled slowly. Okay. This whirlwind. He’d been drinking too much, for starters, and spending too much time checking Hector’s corner or driving by his old place to see if the lights were on, if Stuart was still awake. He took a few too many of the Percodan Mosites had prescribed to manage the pain of the shingles he’d recently developed. Swallowed them with vodka, no less. Still, for the life of him he couldn’t remember if he called this meeting, or if Hank or one of the other senior partners had. He picked up the notes Molly had made of the conference call with Mr. Kobayashi. Apparently, Jack had suggested a larger, riskier stock portfolio, moving from steady growth to aggressive, questionable investments. The report was sixteen pages long, and half of Molly’s transcription from Jack’s dictation was followed by question marks, which meant he was mumbling. The gist of it was that Jack had recommended the company invest in the purchase of art and memorabilia; specifically, to authorize him or an agent of the firm to attend a Sotheby’s auction of Jackie O’s estate. He was horrified. Had he really convinced a state-of-the-art electronics firm to bid on pearl chokers and cigarette lighters? The only thing to do at this point was not back down, to make the case that estate investments would perform as well, and maybe outperform, blue-chip corporations in the long run. When in doubt, bluff your way into swaggering
confidence.

Molly called him at two-ten to tell him that they were all waiting. “The meeting has already started, Jack. Hank wanted me to ring you.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Jack said, and grabbed the top four files on his desk. He smoothed down his hair, brushed away the dust on his clothes.

Molly looked at him suspiciously. He turned right, then left. “Conference room, third floor,” she said.

“Right.”

“Good of you to join us, Jack,” Hank said, when Jack walked in. The six senior partners—Jack was the seventh—turned to look at him.

“Apologies for being late,” he said, taking the seat across from Hank.

“Okay, then. As you all are aware, Jack has proposed estate and art investments for our top-shelf clients. I’ll let him present the particulars of splits and returns and ratios of probable risk to gains.” Hank nodded in his direction. Jack poured a glass of water from the carafe, glanced through the window behind Hank at the maples and oaks just beginning to turn.

“Ready, Jack?”

“All set,” he said, squaring the folders in front of him.

Hank stood, cut the lights, and one of the partners slid a laptop computer in front of Jack, pulled down a screen in the front of the room.

“Oh, well actually, this presentation will not be with PowerPoint. I thought I would just give you all an overview, get general feedback and input before I proceed.”

“Didn’t we agree to give this the green light?” somebody beside him asked.

“Just proceeding with caution,” Jack said. “This is the Kobayashi account, after all. I’m covering all my bases.”

“Jack, no visuals?” Hank said, his hand poised on the light switch.

“Not for this meeting,” he said, and spotted an old-fashioned easel with drawing paper and markers in the corner. “Okay, then,” he said feeling the sweat bead under his collar and run down the length of his back. He picked up the folder on the top of his stack, stood and dragged the easel to the front of the room. Pie charts would give him time to think on his feet. “All right. The idea is to do a fifty-fifty split in high-performing stocks, and the rest in art. Now—”

“Wait a second,” one of the partners said. Jack looked over. Evan, the
youngest and the newest senior partner, a gorgeous boy who looked like Greg Louganis. Jack often wondered if he was family. He’d come from Baton Rouge, originally, and Jack had never heard him mention a wife or a girlfriend. “In your report, Jack, you talked about a 70-30 split. Are you now proposing 50-50s?”

“Well, yes. This is what I wanted to put out at this meeting. If we can convince Kobayashi to put fifty per cent of his investments in art, we can manage the other percentage in blue-chip stocks, diversified in four areas of industry: pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, electronics, and services, for instance.”

“I have my doubts about this,” someone else said.

“Think big, people,” Jack said. He drew a large circle in green marker on the paper, divided it into four parts, each representing four of their richest clients. He had no idea what he was doing. If someone else had proposed this asinine plan he would have voted it down immediately. It was absurd. Popular culture, especially, had no documented consistent performance: Jackie’s pearls today were Warhol’s soup cans tomorrow. He drew percentages and ratios in red and purple markers, started to relax—this was it, certainly. Hank would come in for a private meeting this afternoon and inform him in that chilly, old-stock New England way that what the firm needed was solid teamwork and proven investment strategies, not wild cards like him.

He rambled on, made up numbers and statistics as though he had spent hours researching this topic. He didn’t dare turn around and face his colleagues. He addressed his remarks to the window. “As we know from John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, investments in pop culture are far less risky than certain stocks. Without question, the value is immune from the buffeting and volatility of, say, technology. We may lose interest in telecommunications, may change our brand of footwear and soft drinks, but we never give up our goddesses and heroes.”

Jack capped the marker, turned. To his surprise, nobody was smirking or exchanging hooded glances. He felt so ill suddenly. Dizzy and scattered. He sat, poured a glass of water.

“Jack, this is most interesting,” Hank said. “I’ve already tentatively green-lighted this, so if anyone has other ideas, now’s the time to put them on the table.”

No one spoke for a few agonizing minutes. “I know it’s a bit radical,
and hasn’t been part of the firm’s strategy in the past, but it’s a new world,” Jack said.

“I agree in part with Jack,” Evan said. “I like the idea of diversification. A fifty-fifty split, though, might be taking it too far, in my opinion.”

Hank looked from Evan to the rest of the group. “Other input, positive or otherwise?”

Jack was astonished at their indifference; losing the Kobayshi account, which undoubtedly he was about to do, would affect all of them.

The meeting went on for another half hour, with minor debates about the percentages, memorabilia versus fine art. Jack’s stomach was pure acid, his mind wandering to Stuart, to Hector. His ears had been ringing half the day.

“Well, Jack, your instincts about this account have been sterling in the past. It’s one of the most well managed portfolios in the firm. So, I’m leaving it in your capable hands to do as you think best. I haven’t heard any strong oppositions.” Hank looked around again. “Attend the Sotheby’s auction, see what Christie’s is hacking. I’m giving this project six months to fail or succeed, before we either present this to other clients as a new investment strategy, or we kill it.” He smiled coldly at Jack. “Don’t make any mistakes.”

Jack smiled back. Christ! He would have preferred to be let go on the spot, rather than six months from now, after he had bought Judy Garland’s shoes and Marilyn’s
Seven-Year Itch
dress.

What he needed to do was work twelve and thirteen hours a day to get even the rudimentary structure of this new plan in place. Starting early next week, he would put in long hours. Weekend hours, too. For now, though, he was going to have to call it a day. He still wasn’t feeling up to par. There was a ringing in his ear, an ache that felt as though somebody was leaning against his temple with a pointy elbow. He stuffed the file folders in his briefcase, turned off his computer and picked up his Palm Pilot to give to Molly on the way out.

“Please call and schedule a phone meeting with Tokyo at Kobayashi’s earliest convenience,” he said to Molly. “Also, get me a list of all upcoming auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. That is, please.” He turned.

“Jack?” Molly said.

“Yes?”

Molly stood, walked over to him. “Is everything all right?” She looked at him, frowned, and picked at something on his tie. Green Silly String.

“Everything is fine,
mia cara
,” he said, and smiled. “I’m a bit under the weather, is all. A bit of a low front, high-pressure zone moving in. I’m going home to rest.”

She nodded, brushed at his overcoat. “What is this?” she said.

“I believe it’s Silly String.” He noticed strands at the hem of his trousers. “I believe I went into a corporate meeting clad in Armani and Silly String. Super. I suppose you couldn’t have noticed before I went in there, eh, before I went in there looking like I’d just been at a birthday party for a five-year-old.”

She laughed. “See you Monday. I’ll call you at home soon as I have the times set up, since it will probably have to be scheduled for an ungodly hour.”

“Ungodly hours are all I know lately. Actually, I’ll have to call you. My home phone is out of commission.”

“Oh, I have your cell number,” she said, flipping through the Rolodex.

The cell phone was one he and Stuart had shared. Stuart had it now. “No, that’s not working, either. I’ll have to call you.”

Molly unlaced a thread of green string from around the button on his sleeve, dropped it in the trash. She saluted. “Whatever you say, Captain Kangaroo.”

“Aren’t you a sketch,” Jack said, and headed toward the elevator.

He stretched out on his mattress when he got home, poured a double Scotch and swallowed a Percodan, watched the rain sheet against the windows. His fever was only 100, he was relieved to see. Just a touch of a cold. He took off his tie and untucked his shirt. He should have shopped on his way home. He had no food in the place, and he had nothing comfortable to change into. Outside, the rush-hour traffic roared below in the street, people going home to their dinners and wives and evening sitcoms. He missed Stuart horribly, missed all the little things he’d taken for granted, like clean sheets and the sweet-smelling, fleecy clothes Stuart laid out on the bed for him to put on when he came home, sweatshirts that always seemed to be warm from the dryer. Now, for instance, if he’d been at home, Stuart would be babying him because he didn’t feel well, would run
one of those magical, curative baths with fragrant salts and oils.

What he should really do was rest for a while, he knew, but late afternoon and early evening always made him think of Hector and Jack’s desire to see him now was overwhelming. He refreshed his drink, downed it quickly, and went out into the rain.

At the back of the building the fire escapes traversed every apartment above the ground level. He narrowed Hector’s apartment down to two possibilities. One was dark. He climbed the steps in the direction of the other, thankful that the rain would drown out any noise his shoes made on the metal stairs.