Nothing Personal: A Novel of Wall Street (16 page)

“Do you want to come up?” They had reached his building, and he hoped she’d say no. He wanted to take a shower and get comatose.

She sensed the weariness in his voice. “Let’s skip it tonight. It sounds like you’ve been screwing your customers all day, and there’s nothing left for me.” Her job was certainly toughening her up, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t laugh. He gave her a light kiss as he opened the door.

“I’ll make it up to you this weekend. We’re going out East, remember?’

“How could I forget?” She smiled and waved as he closed the door behind him, and the driver pulled away, into the stream of traffic that barely slowed to admit him.

sixteen

The Hamptons
is a reference that obscures gradations of class and style in a generality. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Eggs were for only the sublimely decadent wealthy, while the four real towns that shared the common
Hampton
name encompassed every variety of inhabitant from the native Bonacker descendants of baymen and potato farmers, to poor blacks living in tumbledown shacks, on up to tenth-generation land-grant beneficiaries of King George’s munificence and Wall Street lords whose jet-powered helicopters churned the air with a heavy chopping that sounded like riffling money.

For Warren and Larisa, a rented Mercury Marquis offered more earthbound transport, its air-conditioning a gentle respite from the four-hour crawl on the Long Island Expressway to the cherished retreat. They had been invited for a weekend with Austin Karr at his father’s East Hampton house, a shingled cruise ship on four acres off Lee Avenue, two short blocks from the beach. It was an unusually warm early-June weekend, and they were looking forward to some sun.

It was ten thirty when they finally arrived, and Warren had dozed off in the passenger’s seat while Larisa took her turn behind the wheel, fighting the solid line of taillights from the Midtown Tunnel until it began to disperse near Commack. The crunch of the crushed-shell drive under the tires woke him, and they stumbled, bleary-eyed, into the parlor. Austin greeted them cheerily, and so, to both of their surprise, did Warren’s ex-classmate Eliza Roberts, whom neither of them had seen for months. Larisa had told Warren Eliza had distanced herself as a friend after their trip to Florida and had thought it was because of Larisa’s interest in Warren.

“Hey, if it isn’t the two Wall Street superstars in person!” Eliza looked great, tan and relaxed, in a pair of tight jean shorts, flip-flops, and a baggy white T-shirt. Both Warren and Larisa suddenly felt pale and exhausted.

Warren accepted Eliza’s hug. “It’s good to see you guys.” Larisa took the hug more stiffly.

“How’s about a drink? Let me get those bags.” Austin snatched both bags in one paw and trotted up the big oak staircase, his Top-Siders clomping heavily. “Siddown. I’ll throw these in your room and be right back.”

Warren and Larisa followed orders happily, trailing Eliza, who had let her hair grow out to shoulder length, into a large, rectangular room with walls of wood planks, laid shiplap and washed white. The white marble fireplace had two logs burning, and scattered about were overstuffed sofas and chairs, upholstered in white linen with navy-blue piping. A half dozen watercolors were scattered on the walls, mostly of beach scenes, some of which Warren recognized as important, and a double set of French doors led to the covered porch that ran around the house. Beyond the porch, Warren could see a pool, lit from within, and a pool house, both separated from the main house by a broad, flat expanse of lawn. Beyond the pool and across the road were sand dunes covered with wispy grasses, and a weathered plank path led down to the beach between several driveways to houses invisible behind tall hedges. Larisa asked where the bathroom was, and Eliza pointed her to a door just across the foyer.

“This looks like tough drill.” Warren plopped down in a sofa’s crisp, comfortable embrace, the linen canvas softened by age and the humid sea air.

“Yeah, I’ve been roughing it out here while Austin’s dad’s in Europe.” Eliza curled her feet under her in an armchair, kicking off her sandals.

“I didn’t realize you two were such an…”

“Item? I guess we are. Actually, we’re kind of engaged!”

After an oddly awkward moment of silence, Warren said quickly, “Engaged! That’s awesome! Wow.” He was genuinely enthusiastic.

“Yeah, well, no date yet, but we’ll get to it soon. We’re both so busy,” Eliza said with a slight shrug, but a smile.

“Tell me about it. So, how’s the job?” He remembered that Eliza had taken a position at the Markham Foundation, a heavily-endowed private charity that supported the arts in schools.

“It’s great. I’m hitting up the A-list out here for donations, and pumping them all with invitations to our big reading. Austin’s been very helpful.”

“What are you promoting?”

“It’s for inner-city kids. We have famous writers doing a benefit for a creative-writing program. We’re matching donations to start up classes in six major cities. You know, self-expression to vent frustration instead of guns and knives. That kind of horseshit.” She waved her hand in the air.

“Gee, Eliza, so pleased to see that you’re such a believer in the cause.”

“Cut me a break, will you? I actually had to go to one of the schools a couple weeks ago. In Detroit, for God’s sake. I was so scared I needed a diaper. We’re going to buy these kids computers and teach them to write? We should keep them all on dope and on the basketball courts, or locked up somewhere. Thank God we had along some security guys.”

The juxtaposition of her attitude and the work didn’t surprise him at all, and Warren smiled and tried to provoke her a little. “Aw, c’mon. You’d actually like that, wouldn’t you? Don’t all white girls fantasize about being held hostage by angry savages?”

“Yeah, exactly. That’s my idea of a dream weekend. Forties and drive-bys. That’s the last time I go to a site. I’ll raise ’em all the money they want. Just teach ’em to use deodorant, and keep ’em away from me.”

“Well, Eliza, I’d have to say that your caring and commitment are exemplary. The foundation is fortunate to have you. With you at the development helm…” Warren had adopted the stentorian tones of an awards speech.

“Can it, Senator! Hey, you don’t have to hang out with lepers to build ’em a hospital, right? I put the bucks together with the cause. Good gets done. Guys like you’re gonna be in ten years make a donation and get to feel better about taking all the money and leaving none for anyone else. That’s my job.”

“Please, don’t get me wrong. It’s a hell of a lot more than I do. Hey, the sixties are dead. This is the eighties. Man, I feel guilty already.” He reached into his back pocket for his wallet. “Where do I give?”

Eliza smiled. “You see? You’ve got to direct the pitch for the audience. You Wall Street guys are easy. Put a white woman in peril, and they’re ready to pay.”

Just then, Austin clomped into the room, with Larisa in tow. The two made a handsome pair—him in his regulation tan khakis and blue oxford shirt, and she in a pale blue, floral sundress with Warren’s lavender, heavy cotton cable-knit sweater over her shoulders.

“Wow, what a great house. Austin gave me the tour.” Larisa was truly enthusiastic.

“Are you guys hungry? There’s plenty of chow in the kitchen. Marina’s still around. She’s the cook. Just ask her for anything you want.” Warren found Austin’s mannerisms incredibly reminiscent of their friend from Columbia Chas Harper’s. They both had an apparent diffidence to their surroundings, a sense of disbelief at their good luck to have woken up the eldest child in a family worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They spoke about everything as if it belonged to someone else, and wasn’t it all just amazing? Warren had seen the same thing in some of his schoolmates in Millbrook. It never failed to amuse him how, once the old man died, that wide-eyed attitude almost always shifted to one of total entitlement, and an air of having earned every penny of their inheritance. Actually, given the way their fathers generally treated them, maybe they did.

Austin poured Warren and Larisa beers, and they wandered into the kitchen. Warren rummaged through the huge, double-doored fridge and resurfaced with a platter stacked with pieces of fried chicken, and a bowl of coleslaw. Larisa’s eyes lit up. Warren put the food on the pine farmer’s table that was in the kitchen, and Austin pointed him to the right cupboard for plates. Warren sat down, and the two weary travelers dug in with gusto. Austin pulled up a chair, and Eliza started poking at the low fire that was burning in a small hearth.

“So, how’s biz at Weldon?” Austin’s curiosity was obviously bubbling over.

Warren swallowed a chunk of white meat. “Pretty good, no complaints.”

“You’re covering Monument, right?”

“Yup. I have that honor.”

“Yeah, it’s a joy, isn’t it? Leonard is certainly saving souls with his work.” Austin was their sales coverage, too, and Warren knew that he had been taking a good piece of business away from his friend. Morgan just didn’t have the same kind of mortgage effort that Weldon did, and Warren was capitalizing on his firm’s strength. Alex Stevenson had explained to him one day that Nathan Leonard had founded the money-management company, after leaving a big trading firm, paying a retired World Bank president $5 million to become vice chairman, thereby gaining instant credibility. Stevenson explained that Leonard’s first fortune had been built as a corporate bond trader for a second-tier firm, although most of the profits he had earned his employer were the result of inventory being overvalued on the books to record phantom gains. By the time the dinosaurs who ran the company figured out what was going on, their own fortunes were inextricably tied to Leonard’s. Rather than expose the fraud, they continued to reward and praise him, their own compensation ballooning as surely as his bogus bottom line. At the apex, with almost $200 million of losses hidden on his books, Leonard, still thought of on the Street as a profit machine, had left his firm to join Monumental Insurance and start their investment-management business. After three years of great earnings around Wall Street ended, his old firm had simply taken the hidden losses and blamed “deteriorating markets.” By then, the executives were all wealthy men, and no one on their Board either knew about the hidden losses or cared. As Leonard himself had put it, “Hey—when did you ever hear of an executive committee member giving any of his pay back?”

“But I hear that you’re Weldon’s new superstar,” Austin said. “How’s Frank Malloran doing?”

Warren put his beer glass down. “You know Frank?”

“Sure do. He’s a great guy. I used to play squash with him at the racquet club twice a week. Hell of a swimmer. He was the lead finance officer on my dad’s first bond deal.”

Warren smiled and nodded. It was kind of scary how closed a society this little world was. They all played the same games in the same places, spent their vacations in the same resorts. Of course some were principals, such as Ray Karr; others were simply the hired help. Over time, their institutions had begun to weaken before the tide of motivated, bright outsiders—Jewish and Asian kids with their brainpower and work ethic, the Irish with their balls and bluster. Even Ralph Lauren understood the attraction of this paneled-mahogany world of khakis and gin and was making a fortune selling it to tiny Japanese girls and, ironically, even to the high WASPs, who knew quality when they saw it. One thing Warren had come to share with Kevin was, if not the desire for “dynastic wealth,” then at least the desire to live well, within the understated definition of comfortable luxury this world so effortlessly achieved. “Well, Malloran’s doing great. In fact, he’s been dating Larisa’s sister.”

“That’s your sister? That knockout we saw him with the other night?” Austin said. Eliza shot him a dirty look from across the room. “Of course, she’s a washerwoman next to Eliza.” A piece of kindling whizzed by his ear and bounced across the stovetop.

“I’m afraid so. Been taking her rejects ever since third grade.” Larisa smiled and laughed, but only half convincingly.

“Well, now that you’re all practically family, we’ll have to go out one night,” Eliza piped up halfheartedly.

They finished their snack and the beer and spent a little while longer chatting before heading up to bed. The house had been put up in the local “shingle style,” during the first big building boom in the Hamptons during the 1920s. Several owners had added to it, generally in good taste, so that it now had twenty rooms. The second floor offered a clear view to the ocean, though the houses on Lily Pond Lane, one street south, had direct access to the beach.

Ray Karr hadn’t wanted a house right on the ocean. His upbringing in coastal South Carolina had taught him that wasn’t such a great place to be during an Atlantic storm, no matter how much money you had. He didn’t spend a lot of time in the Hamptons, so Austin had the place pretty much to himself whenever he wanted it. His younger sister was still in high school, even though she was almost twenty. She’d been diagnosed as learning disabled, and her volatile emotional outbursts led her parents to keep her at schools such as Rumsey Hall that specialized in troubled and disabled kids. Austin had told Warren about her less charitably one day when they’d grabbed drinks at the Four Seasons after work. “She was a spoiled bitch, and my parents were never even around. She had this thing they call ADD—she couldn’t actually sit down and do her homework. Attention deficit disorder. Crap. My mom used to make me do my homework every night by eight or there’d be no TV or dessert. Bailey never even saw my mom—by then she was so busy with charity parties and trying to keep my dad interested in her. Bailey had ADD, allright. Adult discipline disorder. Out all night, drugs, parties. Now she’s treated like she has some kind of fucking mental illness. She’s just another rich kid who doesn’t want to do shit. And she won’t. I have to work like a dog, and she’ll just get her half of everything on a platter. But it’s not her fault. My mom just abandoned her, and I was no fucking use. I had my own problems.” Warren was surprised at the bitterness. The Karrs seemed like the perfect success story.