Nothing Personal: A Novel of Wall Street (13 page)

“Hey, Hament, nice trade with Monument.” Combes seemed to be passing by at random and paused to congratulate Warren almost as an afterthought.

“Oh, thanks.” Warren couldn’t figure out how Combes even knew about the trade. He barely even knew Combes—they’d been in a couple of meetings together, and Warren made every effort not to call any attention to himself.

“Yeah, Kris Jameson mentioned it to me. Showed me your memo.” Combes laughed nervously, and Warren noticed that Combes had a tic—he’d scratch his left ear whenever he laughed. This odd laugh was a sort of a hissing accompanied by a heaving of the chest. It made Warren uneasy.

Kris Jameson was the head of Fixed Income, which included the entire Sales and Trading division, a heavy man who was rarely seen on the floor, and no one was certain what he actually did. He had an office on the executive officers’ level, a vast and impressively decorated room that he had completely redesigned. Rather than the floor-to-ceiling windows present throughout the rest of the building, Jameson’s office had been Sheetrocked and reconstructed with large, colonial, eight-over-eight windows. The walls had been lacquered a deep hunter green, a fireplace installed, and a portion of Jameson’s collection of eighteenth-century American furniture filled the space. A freezer was stocked with Häagen-Dazs rum-raisin ice cream, which Jameson consumed constantly, at least partially explaining his enormous girth. Jameson’s hobby was buying and renovating historic buildings, and his purchases kept several Madison Avenue antique dealers afloat. Warren couldn’t imagine that Jameson would have known or cared about Warren’s trade, or that he would have mentioned it to Combes.

“Yeah, Pete did a nice job.” Warren started to try to look busy. Obviously Anson’s visit wasn’t happenstance.

“Well, I can see you’re a first-class ass-kisser. Anyway, Jameson told me we should talk about your accounts—whether we can do more business there. I’ve kind of been covering Golden State and Warner myself the past year on the finance side. He said we should coordinate.” Combes’s smile had disappeared with an almost audible snap, and now he was leaning in over Warren’s desk.

“Uh, sure, Anson, that’s a great idea. I didn’t know you’d been talking to them. Warner never mentioned it to me. Neither did Malcolm. Or Goering.” Warren could feel his bile rising. Combes was pushing his way into Warren’s account base already. It was bad etiquette for a finance officer to talk to an account without at least letting the salesman know. In fact, it was pretty much a rule not to.

“Malcolm? Malcolm’s a fucking idiot. Malcolm probably doesn’t even remember your name, or mine for that matter. Haven’t you caught on that he’s not all there?” Anson had a look of incredulity, a kind of conspiratorial smirk at how dumb Malcolm Conover was.

“Gee, Anson, I’ll have to look for that in the future. Thanks for the tip. Anyway, how can I help you with Warner?” Warren avoided the trap of agreeing that his boss was a moron.

“Well, for starters, you could get Malcolm to assign you Golden State instead of Goering. He’s like his namesake—a crazy German who likes to blow things up. Anyway, right now, just keep on doing what you’re doing. But keep me informed about anything you hear from them. I’m working with Golden State on some more big stuff down the line, assuming they can stay healthy long enough, and I bet we can do business with Warner. See ya.” Anson turned and walked off. Warren put down his pen and shook his head. Anson fucking Combes was telling him what to do.

“Man, what a piece of work, huh?” Kerry Bowen sat to Warren’s right, and had overheard the whole conversation. She was a smart and pleasant woman who had been at Weldon two years, moving up the ladder quickly in sales. She covered three of the biggest insurers in Hartford and New York and had done well. “He’s scary.”

“You’re telling me? Jesus, I hope I don’t have to work with him. He terrifies me.” Warren liked Kerry and, despite his best instincts, trusted her.

“Good luck. Just do me a favor and don’t mention my name to him. I like my job.” Kerry reached over and patted Warren on the arm.

“What is it about him that sends the chills up my spine?” Warren remembered Frank Malloran’s advice about Combes.

“The guy’s a real bastard. When I started, he’d just gotten divorced from his first wife. No kids. He started sleeping with the wife of an AVP who worked for him. He’d send the guy to New Mexico for a week, and literally bang his wife in his bed the whole time. So, she leaves her husband for Anson, but meanwhile he was also screwing Marisa in research. Anson had promised her they’d get married, but he dumps her and starts dating some twenty-two-year old Associate. About six months after that, he decided the department was overstaffed, so he fired seven people in late October, including the ex-husband. I’m amazed neither of them sued. Too embarrassed I guess. Nobody got any bonuses either. Just in one day with no warning, out that afternoon. Some good people too. Shall I go on?” She loved to gossip, and Warren had obviously tapped a rich vein.

“He ever hit on you?”

“Nah. I’m not his type. He likes ’em young and dumb and hot.”

“That’s why I thought he’d go for you.” Warren smiled, and Kerry cuffed him on the head. “Wiseass. That’s the last time I cover for you when you’re in the can.”

“Well, I guess the best thing to do is shuck and jive and try to steer clear.” Warren shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, I’m just the new kid. What do I need Darth Vader on my case for?”

As with many conversations on the floor, this one ended abruptly when one of the direct wires to a client’s desk started flashing on Kerry’s turret. Warren sat idle for a moment. Something about the way Combes had so clearly announced his intention to be involved with Warner and Golden State was odd. It made Warren nervous. Why would Combes want Goering off of Golden State? It looked as if, despite the warning from Malloran, Warren was going to have to deal with Combes, after all. He dismissed his worries for now, since, he reasoned, there was nothing to be done, he was too new to the business to be thinking geopolitically, and most important, it was lunchtime, and he was still excited at the concept of the firm’s buying him lunch every day. He realized that it was simply to ensure that no one felt the need to wander too far from his or her phone, but a turkey and Swiss on soft rye with lettuce, tomato, and mayo seemed to be calling his name. Anson Combes would wait. Oh, and a good, sour pickle.

thirteen

The hours at work had reduced the amount of time Warren spent with Larisa, but she had been pretty busy with her last semester at school and had begun the interview rounds at the investment banks as well. Warren had not been shy about pushing her on Jillene—he believed Larisa would be an excellent Corporate Finance recruit. Jillene couldn’t disagree. Larisa’s grades were outstanding, and her desire and drive were obvious.

Weldon had set a total of thirty-four new associate positions to be offered that year. There were well over six thousand applications. Warren knew that there was a bit of a quota system for each of the top schools, with women and minorities given a slight edge if they qualified. Jillene confided in him that four men and one other woman were in the final cut for the three positions Columbia would be allotted in the Finance associate derby. They were all good candidates, with diverse work experience and strong recommendations. It would be a close contest.

The subject became an obsession in the evenings for Larisa. Weldon was the “hot” firm again because its Mergers and Acquisitions department had hired some key talent away from First Boston and gotten a lot of big advisory assignments. Their Reorganization Department, which specialized in assisting firms in financial duress restructure, had also been heating up, as sections of the economy faltered. Most business school graduates who were interested in Wall Street, which was most business school graduates, wanted a job at Weldon Brothers.

After the final round of interviews, and midterm exams, Warren had agreed to spend a long weekend skiing with Larisa and two other couples—Nino Cortez and Anna Meladandri, a pair of friends from Columbia, and Kevin Salton, whom Warren and Larisa had met at a tennis tournament in San Francisco when he was in high school, and his girlfriend, Kate. Kevin, who’d graduated two years before from Stanford business school, had recently started working for one of the new “hedge funds,” which didn’t actually hedge at all, but made huge speculative bets with investors’ money and reaped huge returns if they paid off. Warren had been surprised—Kevin had known nothing about markets, and less about trading. He had been a mountain guide after college and focused on international corporate finance at business school. Salton hadn’t been sure about what he would do when he graduated from Stanford, but he said, “Warren, there is absolutely nothing I won’t do, short of killing someone, to get wealthy. I mean
dynastically
wealthy.” He seemed well on his way. Evidently he was pretty much
running
the new fund.

The group’s destination was Killington in Vermont, where Kevin had rented a house on the slopes and treated everyone. The drive up had been fun, with Anna and Nino splitting most of the driving. Anna was exceptionally bright and well-read, and intensely conservative in her politics. Warren had enjoyed playing devil’s advocate on a variety of issues and was impressed by her range of knowledge. He was a little concerned when she told him she had applied to all the investment banks as well. She would be tough competition for Larisa at Weldon. Larisa hadn’t noticed—she was busy talking to Kate about shoes and face creams—two things Warren had no idea she was particularly interested in.

The weather had been threatening all day, and just as they pulled into Kevin’s driveway, the snow began to fall. By the time they finished cleaning up from dinner and everyone retired to the porch, three or four inches were on the ground.

“Nice day for the powder hounds tomorrow,” Kevin said, and exhaled a cloud of steam and smoke from a fat cigar. “I know some unreal tree runs if it’s still coming down.”

“Thanks, but I’ll stay to the open spaces. Last time I went tree skiing, I had to remove a couple of stumps from my chest.” Warren was beginning to get the idea he was a little out of his league in this group. He was a decent skier, but deep powder and narrow runs intimidated him. He hadn’t skied more than five or six times in his life.

“Don’t worry, Warren, old Kevin knows all the best spots. I’ll take good care of you.”

“Hey—that’s exactly what I’m worried about.”

On the first run of the morning, Kevin made his taste for adventure obvious. He continually skied down the hardest line, and although he was a strong and skilled skier, he was by no means graceful and took his share of flops. Tall and thin, with his shock of red hair, he was quite a sight. Warren took his time and made it down without embarrassing himself. Larisa was phenomenal on skis. She seemed to float above the snow effortlessly. Anna skied well and conservatively, never pressing to keep up on the hardest runs, carving a steady line of symmetric turns. By the third run, Kevin was encouraging everyone to slip under the boundary ropes to ski some chutes he had learned about with some friends on the ski patrol on earlier expeditions. Warren passed, but first Larisa joined, and then Anna and Nino, who, despite his reserved demeanor, was an excellent skier, graceful and aggressive.

Warren was content to spend the day with Kate, a stunning young woman, not particularly long on conversational skills, but a joy to look at, and a prudent athlete. She admitted on a chairlift ride that dating Kevin was probably a complete dead end for any girl—he was only interested in money and thrills—but he was successful, very attractive, and a free spender. Just in the past few months he’d taken her to Colorado to ski twice, to the Caribbean once, and to Australia on a fishing expedition. Kevin’s rapid ascent to high living in just a year was breathtaking.

They had all agreed to meet for a late lunch at the base lodge, and everyone looked flushed and happy. Kevin regaled them with a story about how the feral head of Fixed Income at Lehman hadn’t even understood basic bond math when Kevin had gone in for his interview before graduating. The two senior lieutenants had seemed no more intelligent than their boss. “How guys like this get their jobs is just beyond me,” Kevin said. “They must just be great at killing off the competition. I swear one day those morons will blow that place up.”

Soon, Kevin and Larisa were eagerly plotting the next out-of-bounds area they could explore, while Anna and Nino relaxed and sipped some mulled wine. It was an act of will to get up and continue skiing, but Nino and Anna said they would team back up with the “cruising crew” for the rest of the afternoon and let the daredevils go it alone. Before they got to the top of the gondola ride, though, Kevin and Larisa had goaded and enticed them into changing their minds.

The snow kept falling, and the temperature dropped along with the visibility, and after an hour, Warren had had enough. The snow was up to his knees, and he had a hard time controlling his skis. He and Kate skied back to the house and warmed up by the fire. The crackling flame and exertion of unused muscles lulled Warren into a doze, and he slowly passed out on the sofa, while Kate read German fashion magazines.

The noise that woke Warren up sounded like a waterfall, but it was actually a helicopter passing low over the house, its engine working overtime in the thin air and bad conditions. Though he was groggy, it seemed odd to him that anyone would be up flying in such weather, but backcountry skiers who chartered helicopters tended to be foolhardy souls, and they were probably seeking out untracked powder. He found a comforter on one of the chairs and snuggled back in for an extended nap.

In a few minutes, though, these plans were scuttled. Kevin and Nino came trudging into the house with terrible news. Anna had missed a turn, lost control, and fallen off a small cliff. Kevin and Nino had been ahead and didn’t know it had happened. Larisa had been between them, with Anna in the rear, and noticed that Anna had disappeared. She had reported it when Anna didn’t show up at the bottom of the hill. The helicopter had taken twenty minutes to get up the mountain, and another fifteen to find her. She had a severe skull fracture, and several broken bones, and was in critical condition. Larisa, the lightest of the three, had been allowed to ride in the chopper down to the hospital. Nino and Kevin had agreed to meet them there. Nino was a wreck. Kate helped him get out of his wet ski clothes and got him to sit by the fire and take a sip of some bourbon while she went to get him a change from his room.