The Girl From Home: A Thriller (11 page)

“No, not really. It's hard for him to stand. But maybe when he wakes up, you can take him outside to the patio. It would do him good to get some fresh air.”

Jonathan returns to his father's room and settles into the vinyl recliner beside the bed. He turns on the television and flicks past the business channels that once so consumed him. He couldn't care less about the market's fluctuations these days. Instead he selects an old movie, the name of which he doesn't know, and the cable service at Lakeview unfortunately doesn't come with an on-screen guide. It stars Steve McQueen as a race-car driver.

About an hour later, William Caine awakes and declares himself hungry.

“Why don't we have a snack outside?” Jonathan says.

His father doesn't look the least bit surprised that he had been alone when he fell asleep and is now in his son's company. What seems to throw him, however, is the concept that anything exists beyond this room.

“Outside . . . ?”

“Yeah. The nurse, you know, Yorlene, she said it was okay if we went outside for a little bit. Get some fresh air.”

Jonathan thinks he sees assent in his father's eyes, but words don't follow. That's good enough for Jonathan, however, and he attempts to resurrect his father from his hospital bed. It doesn't take long for him to realize that the maneuver requires professional assistance. He calls for Yorlene's help and, a few minutes later, a large man in blue scrubs enters the room and engineers the lifting of William Caine's fragile body from bed to wheelchair.

“Do you want to stop for something to eat?” Jonathan asks as he rolls his father down the corridor.

“Something to eat?” his father asks, apparently failing to remember his request from several minutes earlier.

“You said you were hungry.”

“Oh. Okay. What do they have?”

“I don't know. We'll ask the nurse.”

It's not Yorlene, but a different woman, one whom Jonathan hasn't encountered before, who is now manning the nurses' station. She tells them that they're in between meal service, and dinner won't be available for another hour or so.

“You can get something in the vending machines, though,” she adds.

“Is that okay for him?” Jonathan asks.

“Yes, of course. Potato chips are good for the soul. But if you plan on going outside, I would recommend taking a blanket or something.” Her head disappears behind the desk, and she emerges holding a blue swath of cloth, which must be what accounts for a blanket at Lakeview.

Jonathan thanks her and tucks the corners around his father's legs and arms. He pushes the wheelchair down the corridor, passing the open doors of the other residents' rooms. As he peeks in, he sees that most are bedridden and alone. Jonathan feels a sense of satisfaction in the conviction that he stepped up and did the right thing by his father, and then that pride runs away as he recognizes that his reason for being here is far from pure.

In the visitor room, he asks his father what kind of chips he'd like, fully expecting his inquiry to be met with a childlike response.
What are chips?
Or
Rainbow flavor
.

Instead his father says, “Do they have salt and vinegar?”

To Jonathan's surprise, they do. “Yeah.”

“Sometimes they're out,” his father says. “And, Johnny, could you get me a Coke, too?”

Snacks and beverage in hand, Jonathan follows the signs for the patio while pushing his father along. Although Jonathan had been expecting little more than a small slab on cement, the space is landscaped with large trees on either end, and at last he sees the elusive lake that gives the hospital its name.

They come to a stop in the center, to take full advantage of the sunshine. Jonathan opens the bag of chips for his father, and then screws off the soda bottle's top. Even though it's cold outside, the sun is strong, and Jonathan finds the experience far more pleasant than being cooped up in a hospital room.

“Are you cold, Dad?” he asks.

“No,” his father says, reaching in for a chip. “You want one?”

“Sure,” Jonathan says, and reaches into the bag.

It's an actual father-son moment, Jonathan thinks to himself. He certainly can't remember the last one they shared.

T
he first two-hundred-and-fifty-million redemption occurred without a hitch. As Jonathan had predicted, there wasn't a peep out of Compliance. The money that came in from Goldenberg and Solomon undoubtedly assuaged whatever concerns registered from the watchdogs at Harper Sawyer, none the wiser that the fund was teetering on the brink.

Jonathan wrote the agreement with Goldenberg himself, and no one else at the firm had even reviewed it. The shit wouldn't hit the fan on that one for another year, when Goldenberg demanded his two hundred million, and by that time, Jonathan hoped he'd have the profits from which to pay. And Solomon's hundred-million investment came in without raising any eyebrows at all. Just another longtime investor trying to get more.

As luck would have it, a late-week rally in the Indian markets had even smoothed over Jonathan's mismarking of the position. As a result, paying Ross the first two hundred and fifty million had hardly even decreased the fund's net asset value.

It was the next quarter-billion tranche that would test Jonathan's mettle—and Harper Sawyer's oversight functions. Raising new money wasn't an option any longer, as Jonathan had tapped his only ready sources. He now had no other choice but to sell off the part of the position that hedged the ruble against further decline. Each day a little more, careful not to liquidate so much as to raise flags with Compliance (or even the other traders on the desk) that the fund was now exposed to market risk.

At the beginning of the second week of this strategy, Haresh unexpectedly follows Jonathan into the men's room—their safe house, as it were. This time, it's Haresh who checks the stalls and turns on the faucets.

“This is your plan?” Haresh says.

“It's working, right?”

“Yeah, so long as the ruble keeps rising. But what happens if it goes the other way?”

“It's a calculated risk, Haresh. The ruble is down way below its fifty-two-week low, and the MICEX is up. The odds must be seventy-five percent or better that the position is going to align with the ruble rising. When that happens, we'll have more than enough to put the hedge back on, and pay off Ross in full.”

Haresh's response is a tight grimace. Clearly he wishes that there was another way. Then, again, Jonathan does, too.

Without the hedge, Jonathan was just another gambler. He was betting everything that the currencies would align because the ruble rose, but now he was doing so without making the contra-investments that hedged the position. In other words, he was all in, without a net to save him. As long as the ruble ascended, he was golden, but if it dropped much further, the entire fund would be wiped out.

“And if you're wrong?” Haresh asks, even though he undoubtedly knows the answer.

“Then I'm barely more fucked than I am now,” Jonathan says.

*  *  *

Two weeks before Ross submitted his redemption demand, Jonathan made the $450,000 up-front payment on an oceanfront rental in East Hampton, “from MD to LD,” meaning from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Jonathan sometimes wonders whether he would have been so quick to plunk the money down if he'd known how precarious his world was going to turn. But he always concludes that of course he would have. It's the motto he lives by—you ride her until she throws you, or you don't ride her at all. That and
I want what I want
. In this case, the two credos merged perfectly.

The house is a five-bedroom, six-bath traditional with a wraparound porch. Of course, that was four bedrooms and five baths more than the two of them needed, but every house with a panoramic view of the ocean was similarly proportioned.

The previous summer, Natasha had commuted with Jonathan, spending the weekends on the East End, and Monday through Friday in Manhattan. This summer, however, she is living on the island full-time, with Jonathan joining her on weekends.

On one particularly sunny day in mid-July, Natasha suggests that they make the pilgrimage to the Montauk Lighthouse, which is located on the easternmost tip of Long Island.

“I don't want to drive all the way out there to see the same ocean I can see from our backyard,” Jonathan says.

“Jonathan, don't be such an asshole all the time, okay?”

He gives in, and they drive the forty minutes or so to Montauk's easternmost point, which from the United States is about as far out in the Atlantic Ocean as you can get. When they finally arrive, the air is moist, and refreshing enough on Jonathan's face that it prompts him to inhale deeply, filling his lungs. The vista is breathtaking, nothing but open sea for miles.

“I'm cold, Jonathan,” Natasha says a few seconds after stepping out of the Bentley.

“Didn't you bring a sweatshirt?”

“I didn't realize it was going to be hot as hell in East Hampton and freezing a half hour away.”

“Well, you're going to have to tough it out, cowboy, because it looks like there's quite the line to make it up to the top of the lighthouse.”

“Then let's just bag it and head back.”

“Seriously? You dragged me out here and you don't even want to do what you came here to do?”

“Are you serious? You didn't even want to go in the first place and now you're telling me you don't want to leave?”

“Now that we're out here, I want to see the lighthouse.”

“And I see it,” she says, pointing. “Right there. The building with the long line in front of it.”

“I bet the view at the top is amazing.”

“You're unbelievable, Jonathan. Didn't you tell me an hour ago that it was the same view as from our house?”

“No, you're unbelievable, Natasha. Didn't you tell me an hour ago you wanted to come here? Now that we're here, I'd like to go to the top. If you don't want to come, you can just wait in the car. Turn the heat on, and I'll see you in half an hour.”

Her look should be beside the word
disgust
in the dictionary. “Silly me. I almost forgot that what I want has never mattered to you, Jonathan.”

Neither of them says anything for a second. Then she puts out her hand palm up. “Give me the key,” she says.

*  *  *

There are at least forty people on line to enter the lighthouse, and a sign indicates it's a twenty-minute wait from the place Jonathan is standing. Under other circumstances, he would have turned back, but given that he took a hard-line approach with Natasha, he has little choice but to wait his turn to climb the 137 stairs to the top.

Rather than the twenty minutes the sign promised, it takes more than an hour to reach the summit. Once he's there, the wind is even stronger than it was at the beach, but damn, the view makes it all worthwhile. Infinite and awesome.

Jonathan has always loved the ocean, not only for its beauty but for its power, and its mystery. So long as you stayed above it, you were its master, but beneath the serenity were unfathomable depths to plummet.

Two weeks ago, Jonathan felt as if he were being pulled to the very bottom. But now, he's certain that he will not only avert disaster but enjoy his greatest triumph.

The ruble is rising, as he expected it would, while the other currencies had begun to descend. With each tick, the fund nets nearly a million dollars, which, if it continues for just another few weeks, will earn a profit that's more than enough to cover the second and third payments to Michael Ross. Best of all, he'll have done it without anyone at Harper Sawyer being the wiser.

It's enough for Jonathan to actually believe he might just be infallible.

*  *  *

On the last day of July, Jonathan's sister, Amy, calls from Florida. “I just spoke to Dad,” she says. “He doesn't sound good at all.”

Jonathan has no response. It's been long enough since the last time he spoke to his father that he no longer has any frame of reference as to what constitutes
good
.

“Jonathan, you only live an hour from him. You should visit.”

Amy is the only person who calls him Jonathan and makes the name sound false. As if she knows that the persona he had created for himself since high school was a sham.

“We're in the Hamptons every weekend, Amy.”

“So don't go one weekend and visit your father instead.”

“I'm not paying four hundred and fifty grand for a summer rental to spend a weekend in East Carlisle.”

“You're paying what?!”

“That's what it costs, Amy.”

“I could . . . I could retire and live out the rest of my life in luxury for what you're spending on . . . what, eight weekends?”

Jonathan resists telling her that it's not eight weekends. It's Memorial Day to Labor Day, for chrissakes, and he and Natasha take the two weeks leading to Labor Day for vacation. But Amy wouldn't understand. She lives the life of their parents, while his existence is on a totally different scale.

“I thought you called to tell me about Dad. Now you're complaining about how I spend my money?”

“It's about priorities, Johnny. Yours are totally out of whack.”

She didn't just casually slide the “Johnny” in there. Amy is too smart not to know when to use that leverage with him. She was making it quite clear that although to the rest of the world, he might be the high and mighty Jonathan Caine of Wall Street, barking orders at his minions, she knows him better than that.

“I'll visit him right after Labor Day. I promise,” Jonathan says.

She sighs, which tells him not only that she disagrees but that she's resigned to the fact that she will not change his mind. “There may not be much of him to see after Labor Day, Jonathan.”