The Mark and the Void (6 page)

‘My point is that adventures, escapades, dramatic reversals, falling in love – these are the hackneyed tropes that Paul’s trying to get away from,’ I tell Ish, though I am perhaps trying to persuade myself as much as her. ‘He wants to depict modernity as it genuinely is.’

‘Love’s not hackneyed,’ Ish says obstinately.

‘What does love have to do with this place?’ I throw my arms up at our surroundings, great glass panopticons surveying all the other panopticons. ‘I am serious, what does love have to do with anything we do all day long?’

‘Well, that’s what he’d better work out,’ Ish says. ‘If he wants anyone to read his book.’

‘There are plenty of good stories without love.’

‘Like what?’

I think for a moment. ‘
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
.’

We have emerged on to the quay. Over the river, beneath the concrete skull of the unfinished headquarters, the zombies sleep in silence.

‘Just because you don’t have it doesn’t mean you don’t need it,’ Ish says, staring into the dark water. ‘Every story needs love. Even at the bottom of the sea.’

Over the weekend,
Forbes
publishes a long article about our new chief executive, Porter Blankly. The accompanying photographs show a man in his sixties, with the craggy, portentous good looks of the star of a Hollywood Bible epic, and white hair in a sculpted wave, like a roll of ice cream caught mid-scoop. In every picture he is shaking hands with someone, as if that’s all he does for a living; anyone in the industry will know that each of those handshakes represents a game-changing new synergy, a market stampede, and a multimillion-dollar windfall for his shareholders. The piece is titled
Blank to the future
, and it runs as follows:

Four years ago this summer, Porter Blankly achieved a dream he had cherished since childhood: He became a billionaire. Subprime mortgages were booming, and Danforth Blaue, a bank once perceived as a starchy also-ran, was thanks to his leadership right at the heart of the action. The day stock options took his wealth on paper to the magical ten figures, Blankly celebrated with a quiet dinner at home with his wife and legal team. Then he bought eight stories of the Empire State Building.

Porter Blankly has always dreamed big. Hailing from a hardscrabble town of blue-collar laborers, many of them employed on his father’s private railroad, he was spotted as a teenager by a scout for Harvard’s varsity golf team. He dropped out of ‘Old Crimson’ after only a year to play full-time, and although a shoulder injury cut short his professional career, his experiences on the courses of the 1960s were formative. This was a time of ferment in the Massachusetts golf scene. Ideas and books by the young firebrands of the new
conservative movement were being passed around – as well as other material. ‘[US Ryder Cup team captain Don] Hartford turned up one day with a sheet of blotter acid,’ Blankly recalled later, ‘and everything changed. The fairways were rainbows, the holes were mouths, speaking to you. You’ve heard about crazy golf – at that time all golf was crazy. People were showing up in sunglasses, without ties … everything was being questioned.’

The potent cocktail of fiscal conservatism and perception-altering drugs would shape an entire generation. Many of the figures Blankly encountered at that time went on to become key figures in politics, banking, and in the nascent world of computing, into which they carried the revolutionary concept they had learned on the fairways – that reality was plastic and could be molded as they saw fit.

Though he never completed his degree and had no training in finance, arriving in Wall Street Blankly found his +2 handicap much in demand. He was taken under the wing of the legendary Walter Wriston of Citibank, and, as he quickly came to dominate in interbank and pro-am tournaments, effectively given an open brief. At the time the major banks were plowing money into Latin American dictatorships, but Blankly, never one to follow the crowd, instead staked his money on a then little-known warlord in the Middle East. The bet paid off: While Wall Street lost a fortune when their dictators were deposed, Ahmed bin-Ahmed, as he was then known, went on to become the Caliph of the oil-rich state of Oran, and today remains one of Blankly’s biggest financial backers and closest personal friends.

Tragedy was to strike at the end of the 1970s, when his wife of only six months, heiress Cressida Heinz-Boeing, committed suicide, but Blankly bounced back, taking a position at Drexel Burnham as the junk bond boom began. This was the age of the so-called ‘Masters of the Universe,’ when traders made millions from peddling mountains of practically worthless bonds; Blankly soon became famous for his aggressive acquisitions strategy and his colorful private life, dating a string of models, and being photographed in New York’s hottest nightspots.

Yet behind the scenes, he was under considerable pressure. The collapse of the junk bond market following the indictment of his boss and close personal friend Michael Milken left him with personal losses of over ten million dollars. A greater loss was soon to follow with the suicide of his second wife, Caspian Dupont. Reeling from this double blow, Blankly spent some time in the financial wilderness. According to friends, he thought seriously about leaving banking and beginning a new career, possibly in restoring old boats. However, the dearth of professional-level golfers in the major houses soon had Wall Street beating a path to his door. He returned to Citi in the early 1990s, where he remained a divisive figure – beloved among employees for his inspirational memos, but attracting controversy for his refusal to indulge what he called the ‘mania’ of that time for political correctness. He drew fire for remarking to a reporter that, with regard to Wall Street management structure, ‘women on top [was his] least favorite position’; less than a week later, he found himself in hot water again after accusing African-American golfer Tiger Woods of stealing his wallet at a fundraising event.

This was a challenging time for Blankly, one which in later years he would refer to as ‘the toughest hole.’ His venture capital firm, Tourniquet, which had invested over a billion dollars in websites aimed directly at dogs, cats, and other pets, was wiped out by the Internet crash, while on the home front his third wife, Fanfarla Pinochet, survived only ‘by a miracle’ after accidentally dropping a toaster into her bath (the couple divorced later that year).

But he was to bounce back with the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Now with hedge fund Elite Capital Partnership, Blankly is widely believed to have put in a huge order for gold in the seconds after the first plane hit. By the time the second tower fell two hours later, the price of gold had already risen almost 20%. In the chaos that followed, this single transaction is believed to have resulted in almost unthinkable profits for a small number of investors, including Blankly’s long-time friend the Caliph of Oran; although no records of the trade exist, Blankly was very soon headhunted by
Danforth Blaue, where he became the most highly remunerated CEO in the world. Within a year he was delivering record profits through heavy investment in subprime mortgages. He featured on the cover of
Fortune
, and in the accompanying interview told the reporter that ‘we are in a new paradigm of growth now that cannot be stopped.’

This paradigm did stop shortly afterwards, however, and with the collapse of the subprime housing market, the subsequent ‘credit crunch,’ and worldwide losses of trillions of dollars, Danforth Blaue was saved from annihilation only by a last-second government bailout. Public anger toward industry chiefs like Blankly, who throughout his career had criticized politicians for any attempts to regulate Wall Street’s activities, was exacerbated by the discovery that Danforth had in fact been betting heavily against the toxic subprime assets they sold their clients. It then emerged that billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money handed over to rescue the firm had been used not only to pay huge bonuses to the failed bank’s executives, but also for a Hawaiian-themed ‘rescue party,’ which featured a live performance from rapper Fugly B of his 2008 hit ‘Bag It and $plit (F*** you B*****s)’ as well as a swimming pool filled with banknotes. Worse, not long after the bailout a lifesize bronze statue of himself that Blankly was having delivered by crane to his office was dropped onto a bus of special-needs students visiting Wall Street for the day. While none was injured, Blankly’s job was felt to be untenable and he stepped down, with a further ‘leaving bonus’ of $33 million and a replacement bronze statue.

Though Blankly had been pilloried by some for ‘turning reality into a fruit machine’ via complex financial instruments of which he himself had little understanding (cf. the leak of his highly embarrassing memo re ‘hoosits’ and ‘whatsits’ for collateralized debt obligations and synthetic collateralized debt obligations respectively), others took a more nuanced view. Following his departure from Danforth, Blankly – still a ‘scratch’ golfer with famously soft hands – was approached with several different job offers, including Special Advisor to the Treasury, Chair of Professional Ethics at
Harvard University, and President of the World Bank. It is no surprise, however, that the man who once said he had ‘capital allocation in his blood’ opted in the end to return to investment banking. Previously helmed by Sir Colin Shred, best known for his outspoken views on the Windsor knot, Bank of Torabundo emerged from the crisis punching above its weight and hungry for fresh ideas on loan portfolio management. A statement to shareholders said that Blankly’s brief was to radicalize the bank’s MO and leverage its sound financial fundamentals into market share. Potential joint ventures or other strategic combinations have not been ruled out, though Blankly has refused to comment on rumors that the bank will begin trading on its own account, or that he is seeking to set up a hedge fund within the firm itself.

About his own role in a financial collapse which in the US alone has cost more than the New Deal, the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the 1980s Savings and Loan Crisis, the invasion of Iraq, and the total cost of NASA including the moon landings, all added together and adjusted for inflation, Blankly is unrepentant. ‘We were wrong about a lot of things. But don’t forget about all we got right. We helped people to borrow more money than anyone ever thought possible, and with that borrowed money, they went out and bought their dreams. Yes, they fell far, but only because they had soared so high – higher than the human race had ever gone before, high enough, almost, to touch the face of God.’

‘One thing’s for certain,’ Jurgen says, putting down the magazine. ‘The days of thinking inside the box are over.’

‘He sounds like a nutter,’ Ish says.

‘They are not paying him to be sane,’ Jurgen says. ‘They are paying him to innovate solutions and then monetize them.’

‘He sounds like my Uncle Nick,’ Ish says.

‘Excuse me,’ Jurgen says. ‘But having heard several stories about your Uncle Nick, I am satisfied that he and Porter Blankly bear no resemblance to each other.’

‘Have I told you about the time he bought the bag of ferrets?’ Ish says.

‘Doesn’t sound like he’s a big fan of lady bosses,’ Jocelyn Lockhart says. ‘Bet Rachael’s shitting it.’

‘You’d better watch your back too, Ish,’ Gary McCrum advises.

‘I wonder if he’ll send
us
an inspirational memo,’ Kevin says. ‘It’s so exciting!’

Paul hasn’t arrived yet, but I set the Blankly article aside for him. That’s not the only thing awaiting his attention this Monday morning. Jurgen plays a song for us on his phone, which he tells us he recorded with his old reggae band, Gerhardt and the Mergers.

‘As the lyrics are in German, I will give you a synopsis. The song is called “Banking Babylon”. It tells the story of a Rastafarian who comes to the big city in order to look for a loan. However, the bank manager, who is white, turns down his application.’

‘Why?’ Ish says. ‘He’s a racist?’

‘At first it appears a straightforward case of racism. However, as the song goes on, we discover there is more to it than meets the eye. The bank manager has legitimate concerns about the Rastafarian’s ability to repay the loan. Specifically, he believes the Rasta wants to use the money to buy “ganja”, and not as start-up capital for a small business as he is claiming on his application form. So you see, it is overturning your preconceived notions.’

Ish and I agree that this is a very unusual angle.

‘That was the unique selling point of our band, the Mergers,’ Jurgen says. ‘As four white men working in highly paid private-sector jobs, we were able to give both sides of the story. This is evident in the very title of the song. In Rastafarianism, “Babylon”, which according to the Bible has enslaved the Jews for many centuries, is regarded as the site of all evil. But in fact, ancient Babylonian society was highly sophisticated. Indeed, with the Hammurabi Code, the Babylonians could be regarded as the
forefathers of modern banking. That is something few reggae songs give credit for.’

Ish, for her part, has brought in some anthropological material about the island of Torabundo. ‘Turns out to be pretty interesting,’ she says. ‘So, the Polynesians have been there for thousands of years, just minding their own business, canoeing back and forth between the other islands in the archipelago. Then, in the seventeenth century, the British arrive and start raiding the islands and carrying people off to use as slaves. The building that eventually became Bank of Torabundo, that was the headquarters of the whole operation.’

‘It was quite common for empires to station their slave trade in the New World,’ Jurgen says. ‘As it was no longer tolerated in Europe. It became a sort of offshore industry.’

‘Could be pretty good for the book, though, eh?’ Ish says. ‘Like this big fancy bank’s origins are sending slaves off to dig up pigeon shit.’

‘Scratch beneath the surface of any great power and you will find slavery,’ Jurgen says equanimously. ‘The Romans. Alexander the Great. This very city, in Viking times, was the biggest slave market in Europe. In fact, Irish slave girls became units of currency for a time.’

‘They used girls as
money
?’ Ish says, horrified.

‘Ireland did not have any precious materials – gold, silver – for export,’ Jurgen says. ‘So for international trade they used slave girls, or
cumals
. I believe one
cumal
was worth approximately three cows.’

‘That explains a lot about Irish men,’ Ish says, looking darkly at Jocelyn Lockhart, who’s taking a call on the other side of the cubicle. ‘A
lot
.’

‘My point is that slavery has always been a part of the business world,’ Jurgen says. ‘But what is to be gained by dwelling on the past, or unpleasant aspects of the present? Most people would prefer to think about happy, upbeat things that reflect our
twenty-first-century outlook, such as smartphones, or casual sex with attractive strangers.’

‘Yes, but Paul wants to show what’s beneath all that,’ Ish says. ‘Such as slaves.’

Jurgen taps his pen against his teeth. ‘Hmm, I do not think it will be necessary to bring this particular detail to Paul’s attention.’