The Gods of Greenwich (11 page)

Hedgecock folded against the edge of the marble-and-tile pool, splashing water on her shoulders, prepping for thirty laps. In the adjacent lane a young woman glided through the water. With effortless strokes, she covered the length of the pool and executed a perfect flip turn at the far end.

The maneuver looked impressive, the fluid motion of an elite athlete. Suddenly, the woman bugged Henrietta. It was partly the intrusion. Hedgecock could not remember sharing the pool with anyone during morning laps. It was also the damn flip turn.

Hedgecock had attempted flip turns, on and off through forty years of laps, but never perfected them. Water filled her nostrils every time, either choking her lungs or making her sneeze. Even Hedgecock’s personal trainer had given up. He no longer tried to teach Henrietta the move. That was over ten years ago. And here in the Colony Club basement was a swimmer, violating Hedgecock’s one-woman, one-pool sanctuary and flipping with ease.

The woman paddled closer, her freestyle flawless and smooth, her kick powerful. She touched the side of the pool in the adjacent lane, stopped for a breather at the edge, and smiled at Henrietta. Her eyes shone a brilliant green. A nasty round scar, top of her right hand, bulged with puffy white tissue. It looked like a cigarette burn.

Henrietta averted her eyes. She fought the impulse to stare at the intruder’s damaged right hand. She never noticed what the woman was holding in her left, a curious piece of plastic that did not belong in a lap pool. For that matter, the object did not belong anywhere close to a seventy-six-year-old woman who prided herself on weighing 107 pounds dripping wet.

The green-eyed swimmer, cute and buxom in her late twenties, wore a navy blue swimsuit and white cap. Pretty, but Henrietta knew one thing for sure. The woman was not a member of the Colony Club.

“You must be a guest?”

Henrietta spoke in her most charming and winsome voice. There was no accusation to her tone whatsoever. She was earnest and friendly, a big smile for the guest.

“Yes,” replied the woman. A few ringlets of blond hair peeked through her swim cap. “And this pool is fabulous.”

Henrietta wondered how to ask, “Whose guest,” without being rude.

Rachel, who had learned much about the membership by walking through the clubhouse, read the older woman’s thoughts. “Liz said I would love it down here. She was right.”

“You mean Liz Southwick?” Henrietta immediately approved of the woman with green eyes and navy blue swimsuit.

“Are you friends?” Rachel asked with enough charm to take gloss out of a photo.

“Liz and I meet for lunch every Friday,” replied Henrietta. “Which reminds me, I need to start my laps. Otherwise, I’ll never finish in time.”

“I need to finish a few things myself.”

Henrietta started a steady breaststroke, which unlike the freestyle did not require flip turns. She loved the water. The pool invigorated her, chased the cruel aches that accompany seventy-six years and one false hip, turned her sixteen again if only for brief and glorious interludes. As she swam, however, Hedgecock decided there was something odd about the other woman.

Rachel watched Henrietta’s steady cross. When the older woman covered a third of the pool, Rachel launched in hot pursuit. Her freestyle, a casual stroke to the bystander, was lightning fast. She easily passed Henrietta, executed a perfect flip turn, and drove off the side of the pool like a shark tasting blood.

Kicking. Gliding. Hunting. Rachel rammed her syringe needle into the septuagenarian’s skinny thigh. Her thumb mashed down the plunger, and one hundred units of insulin gushed into Henrietta Hedgecock’s 107-pound, nondiabetic body.

Ever the nurse, Rachel preferred Apidra for these occasions. It worked faster, in her opinion, than the competing brands of insulin that required fifteen minutes to take effect. Some diabetics could inject Apidra with no delay whatsoever. They gauged their intake—like one unit for every ten carbohydrates or five units for a combo of sweet yogurt and a granola bar—and gave themselves a shot before eating.

Rachel did not calculate the carbs. She injected a hundred units of Apidra, which was a whopper shot by any standard. Hypoglycemia would start soon enough: rapid heartbeat, blurred vision, irritability, and the eventual loss of consciousness. She liked what the military called “redundant systems” in this hit. If Henrietta did not die from the diabetic coma, she would drown in the pool.

“Ouch,” shrieked Henrietta, screeching to a halt, grabbing her thigh, tears streaming from her eyes.

Palming the syringe, Rachel asked, “Are you okay?”

“What was that?”

“I’m blind as a bat without my glasses, Henrietta.”

“It felt like you pinched me. And how do you know my name?”

“I broke my fingernail,” replied Rachel in a soothing voice, not bothering to answer the question. “Come over to the side of the pool.”

They paddled to the edge, where Henrietta said, “That really hurt. Do I know you?”

“We’ve never met.”

“I feel funny.” Henrietta’s tongue already sounded two times too fat for her mouth. Her skin, once translucent from age, clouded to a sallow gray. Her brow beaded with moisture, either from the pool or the adrenal medulla secreting epinephrine in a desperate effort to check plummeting sugars. “How do you know my name?” she asked again, garbling her words.

“I’m so sorry,” soothed Rachel, concern in her words, demonic gleam in her eyes. “Walter will be disappointed when you miss lunch. But if you ask me, he’s a little young for you.”

“Listen,” Henrietta struggled to say. Now it sounded like there were two tongues in her mouth, struggling for space, bullying each other for room. “I feel funny.” She pulled out of the water, arms trembling from the effort, but all strength had quit her body. Hedgecock collapsed, just barely hanging on to the pool’s edging.

“Do you feel your heart racing?”

“Listen,” Henrietta garbled a second time, head bobbing, eyes twitching.

“Are you hungry?”

“Listen.”

“You know, Henrietta, sugar lows make people do the oddest things. I once heard about a guy who ran outside, jumped on the hood of his boss’s car, and peed all over the windshield.”

Rachel loved this part of her job. She felt like an alley cat toying with a trapped mouse.

“You won’t pee in the pool, will you?” Subconsciously, Rachel rubbed the puffy scar on her hand. “The Colony Club girls will pull the plug if they ever find out.”

“Listen,” Henrietta said for the final time. Her head dropped forward and banged hard against the pool’s edge. She slipped down, gray face forward, not reacting as water poured into her lungs.

For good measure Rachel pushed the old woman into the center of the pool. “Good night, Henrietta,” she whispered, checking that they were still alone in the cavernous room. “I may join Walter for lunch.”

As she pulled out of the pool, Rachel noticed Henrietta’s purse sitting on a nearby chair. She smiled and rifled through the contents, hoping to find a bottle of CoCo Chanel. “Ah, this is exactly what I need,” she said to no one in particular, surprised that Tasers came in pink.

Rachel rushed to the changing room. She dressed quickly, donned a raincoat, gargantuan sunglasses, and a floppy hat. She exited the building without inviting so much as a casual glance, savoring how good it felt to work in public. There was less mess to clean.

Outside in the April drizzle Rachel sighed audibly among the pedestrians, the hard-charging New Yorkers accustomed to grunts and ambient sound effects. The laps in the pool that morning had been a nice perk. The killer buzz, juiced by exercise endorphins, had been more potent than all the opium of Indochina. She checked her cell phone’s clock. It was time to get back to the clinic.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MONDAY
,
APRIL
21

“I’ll crush you, Leeser. I’ll punish you in public. I’ll make you beg until the world recognizes what you really are. An insipid little man with an insipid little hedge fund and an insipid little brain that would jump ten IQ points from a lobotomy performed by crowbar.”

Alone in his Reykjavik office, Ólafur was talking to himself and scanning stock prices. Hafnarbanki was not the problem. The bank was trading at 907 kronur. Not great. But at least the shares had rallied 6.7 percent since his meeting with Chairman Guðjohnsen. The Qataris were already buying, and it was good to show early results.

The problem was Bentwing. The problem was patience—his. Bentwing had also rallied, and on Friday its shares closed at their high for the year. Buoyed by soaring energy prices, the stock would probably break through $62.31 today. The gain was acceptable only because of the banker’s promise to Guðjohnsen:

“We’ll take our time shorting Bentwing. We’ll do it right.”

Ólafur wanted to attack Bentwing now. But prudence dictated otherwise. The blitzkrieg, the all-out hell and destruction, would begin once Ólafur recruited Siggi and turned the mild-mannered gallery owner into a spy. It was only a matter of time, weeks, maybe even days, before Hafnarbanki and the Qataris opened fire and bet against Bentwing. Not much longer until they shorted the company’s stock and its price dropped like a rock.

Over the weekend Ólafur’s best source told him that a new guy, Jimmy Cusack, had joined LeeWell Capital. Ivy educated. Goldman Sachs pedigree. He was starting today.

Ólafur recalled his first days at Hafnarbanki thirteen years ago—all the promise and expectation. He shook his head and said with only a hint of remorse, “Congratulations, Cusack. Welcome to your life as
hákarl.
”

He was referring to fermented shark. The Icelandic cuisine is not so much a delicacy as an ordeal to be endured. Traditionalists prepare
hákarl
by gutting a shark, burying the headless carcass in sand, and allowing the remains to stew in their own uric juices for twelve weeks. The meat is exhumed, sliced into ribbons, and hung out to dry. Several months later the strips are scraped of their brown crust, cubed, and served to those who dare.
Hákarl
smells like the ammonia used to clean public bathrooms and tastes about the same.

This process, Ólafur decided, was the perfect way to cure employees at LeeWell Capital and other hedge funds.

*   *   *

Five hours behind Reykjavik, Jimmy pulled into the Greenwich Plaza parking lot underneath the buildings. He parked his battered blue BMW, 250,000 miles and climbing, between a spanking-new Mercedes on one side and a two-tone Maserati on the other. He retraced his path to the entrance ramp and walked past the taxis outside the Metro North platform to his left.

The train was easier than driving—and less embarrassing. But Cusack was in sales. He needed the flexibility of a car for impromptu client meetings. He also loved to blast Roy Orbison out the windows. He decided to drive until he found his groove at LeeWell Capital or grew tired of “You Got It.”

Jimmy could already taste the sweet-and-sour backwash from day-one jitters. LeeWell Capital offered a new beginning. He was the unofficial apprentice of Cy Leeser, an emerging legend inside Hedgistan.

Sweet: If the markets cooperated, Cusack would solve his money woes by February—the month bonuses were paid. With a little luck, if he tripled LeeWell Capital’s assets under management, he would join the legends. He would lay claim to his rightful seat among the gods of Greenwich.

Sour: Cusack had no formal contract. Emi’s father knew nothing about his mortgage woes or handshake deal with Leeser. But Caleb was forever preaching, “Get it in writing.” Cusack’s mind was playing tricks, and he suddenly doubted whether Cy would keep his part of the bargain.

Litton had gone MIA since mailing their certified letter. Alex Krause, however, was a migraine with a mouthpiece. The collections agent from Chase Auto Finance called twice, each time asking the same basic question: “When are you paying us back?”

As Cusack walked into LeeWell Capital, his first time as an employee, Amanda boomed, “Good morning.”

“We’re glad to see you,” added Nikki, radiant face with a throaty voice.

Both women wore light cardigan sweaters in the office, sixty-six degrees and chilly. Nikki had replaced her diamond-chip nose stud with a blue stone, flashier than before and far less elegant, but alluring and mysterious by all measures.

“Good to see you,” he said, rolling out the twisted smile, shaking each woman’s hand. Cusack had forgotten Nikki was so short, no more than five foot three. Or maybe he hadn’t noticed during the interview haze.

“Cy’s been telling everybody how great you are,” Nikki said.

“Are you kidding? I’m thrilled to be here.”

“Come on back. Cy wants to see you first thing.”

*   *   *

Leeser rose from his chair with the easy confidence of a boxer who’d decked his opponent thirty seconds ago. His long black hair draped over his shoulders. He thrust out his hand, which was blue-collar gnarled and turned up slightly in a welcoming manner. “Welcome aboard, Jimmy.”

“Glad to be here.”

“Sit down and relax. You can work your ass off later.”

Cusack surveyed Cy’s office, again struck by all the art. There was not an inch to spare on the four walls. Paintings occupied every nook, every corner, every flat surface that could hold a hook. Jimmy would have called the style “bric-a-brac” had the artwork not looked so expensive.

“Let’s discuss your mortgage,” Leeser said.

“Right to business,” Cusack replied agreeably, hoping to disguise his angst.

“Our real estate attorney can close this morning. All we need are transfer instructions, and we’ll wire three point one million where you tell us. No problem, right?”

Cusack wanted to scream. He wanted to drain his lungs with one monster sigh of relief. Instead, he confirmed in his most nonchalant voice, “No problem from my side. What about the title work?”

“Done.”

“Terms same as we discussed?” asked Cusack, leaning back in the leather chair.

“Interest only at five and three quarters. Done.”

“That’s great, Cy.”

“There’s just one catch.”