Switchback

by Matthew Klein

  ‘I’m so glad you said that.’

  ‘So how much of the twenty-four do you want to withdraw?’

  ‘All of it,’ Pinky said. He thought about it, then shook his head. ‘Well, leave one hundred thousand in, just to keep some skin in the game.’

  ‘Terrific,’ Timothy said. Pinky had just signed Osiris’ death warrant. All of the fund’s cash was riding on the second gigantic yen gamble. If Timothy returned cash to an investor now, he would first need to close down the bet, recognize the first failed trade, and admit that he would never be able to make back the money he had originally lost. It would mean certain destruction for Osiris, and professional ruin for Timothy. As soon as he reported the first staggering loss, investors would flee, withdrawing their money almost overnight. His reputation would be destroyed, and he’d never be able to manage money again. It was, in other words, one of the most ruinous things Pinky could possibly say.

  Timothy asked, ‘How soon do you need the money?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Pinky said.

  No, Timothy thought. That is the most ruinous thing Pinky could possibly say.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ He couldn’t prevent the sound of alarm creeping into his voice. ‘But Pinky, that’s impossible. The money is deployed. It’s not liquid right now.’

  Suddenly the vodka haze around Pinky vanished, and he looked at Timothy with clear blue eyes. ‘I do vaguely remember our Investor Agreement, old man. You carved out an exception for me, since I was the first investor. Money on call within twenty-four hours. Am I mistaken?’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Timothy said. Pinky was correct. Legally, Pinky had the right to redeem his cash at any time.

  ‘How are we doing this month?’ Pinky asked. ‘Problems? Why isn’t the fund liquid?’

  ‘No problems,’ Timothy said. ‘None. It’s just, I would have preferred to wind down the positions the way I planned.’

  ‘Sorry, friend,’ Pinky said. He took another swig of his gimlet. ‘That’s the nature of the beast you ride. I need to put down cash for my deal. But I’ll tell you what. What’s a legal agreement between old friends? You need a little time? Take a few days.’ He smiled, waved his hand magnanimously. ‘How about you wire me the money on … I don’t know. Wednesday? That should be plenty of time to extract yourself gracefully from whatever position you’re in. I mean, it’s not as if the whole fund is invested in one single position, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Timothy said weakly.

  ‘Then it’s settled.’ Pinky was back to being amiable and inebriated. He stared at the horses galloping downfield. ‘You have no idea how much I love this club.’ And then: ‘How about another gimlet?’

  Timothy drove Pinky to SFO to catch a six-thirty flight. After dropping Pinky at the departures level, Timothy pulled back onto 101 North and sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic. To his left, the sun was setting over the Bay, over the marsh grass and salt ponds, over the marinas and high-tech billboards. Timothy tapped his left foot against the clutch pedal. It was the only part of the car that moved during rush hour on 101.

  Timothy pondered the decisions he needed to make. First, there was Pinky and his request to withdraw money from Osiris. Of course, Timothy would allow no such thing. He would delay: Wednesday would come, and he would do nothing, and Pinky would call several times, increasingly angry, but Timothy would be unreachable. He could stretch the game out for a week or two before Pinky threatened to sue. And while surely it would be a blow to turn Pinky Dewer, his biggest supporter, into a legal adversary, even worse was the alternative: to give back the money and close down the yen trade prematurely, before making back the initial loss; to admit to all the investors – not just Pinky, but all twenty-four wealthy, powerful men who invested in Osiris – that Osiris was a bust, that Timothy had lost a large portion of their money; and that he had become a public failure for the first time in his life. A lawsuit from Pinky would be ugly and would tarnish him, but he could always talk his way around it – he was good at talking his way around inconvenient facts – and he could chalk it up to a misunderstanding, or he could roll his eyes and imply that Pinky was a great guy, but simply not all there anymore. The important thing was to be in control, to keep the money within his grasp for as long as he needed it, and not to lose his nerve. It was the one business lesson Gabriel Van Bender had bothered to explain to his son: Never lose your nerve.

  So solving the Pinky Dewer problem was not difficult at all, because Timothy had no other option. There was only one choice he could make – to keep the money riding on the yen trade, and to hold on, no matter how many phone calls Pinky made, no matter how threatening the inevitable lawsuit.

  The other decision Timothy needed to make was more difficult, because it did involve a choice. He looked at the BMW’s dashboard clock. It was a little past six o’clock in the evening. At that moment Tricia would be sitting down in the cool, dark bar called the BBC, drinking with friends, looking at the doorway occasionally to see if he had chosen to accept her invitation and join her.

  Timothy mulled it over. He tried to imagine what would happen if he did show up. Almost certainly, he could sleep with Tricia. And then what? He thought about what would happen the following day, at work. Would Tricia be overly familiar? Would she tip her hand to Jay? Would she accidentally reveal their secret if Katherine called the office? Katherine was clever and wily, and she could read people far better than he could – in fact, he relied on her to do so, to tell him when associates were lying, to see through the inconsistencies of their stories, to hear the stress in their voices. It was one of the many things he loved about her – her street-smart cleverness. It was something he never learned, something he never needed to learn, growing up in the Van Bender cocoon of Atherton and Exeter and Yale and the East Side of Manhattan. The only street-smart he possessed was knowing where to park the Beemer in the Mission District so it wouldn’t be keyed.

  The three lanes of traffic on 101 were being squeezed together by pink florescent flares, and finally merged into one. Up ahead, Timothy saw the cause of the jam: an accident, a little BMW roadster, identical to his, even down to the same black color, had been wrecked. It was overturned and crumpled against the concrete pylons that separated the highway. Ambulances and police cars, siren lights flashing, stood by. Timothy craned his neck to look inside the car, to learn the fate of the driver. He couldn’t see. But the front and rear of the BMW had been smashed like an accordion, and the windshield hung limply from the frame, snaked with silver and white cracks like crumpled Christmas wrapping paper. The EMS technicians stood lethargically beside the ambulance. Their demeanor said it all: there was no longer any reason to hurry.

  Timothy passed the wreck, and the traffic started to move. His mind snapped back to Tricia. He thought about how she looked that morning, in her red shin-high jodhpurs, her tight black turtleneck, that little silver choker around her neck. He remembered the way she had leaned backward against his desk, how her body had been so close to his, how he could look at her breasts in profile without her being aware of his stare. What had she told him? That she wouldn’t tell his wife? And how could Katherine really know?

  He pressed the button on his steering wheel marked Voice Dial and then said aloud, ‘Call home.’

  On speakerphone, his home phone rang. He expected it to keep ringing, that Katherine wouldn’t be home, that his plan – half-formed now under a cloud of testosterone and alcohol – would never be executed. But, instead, she picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Katherine,’ he said, ‘it’s me. You’re not going to believe this.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. He tried to imagine where she was at that moment: sitting on the patio, writing her diary? Unpacking groceries into the refrigerator, with the phone cradled under her neck? Cooking dinner? Upstairs in the bedroom, lying down in the dark, suffering from one of her frequent migraines?

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Timothy said. ‘Well, nothing terrible. But guess who’s in town?’
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br />   ‘Who?’

  ‘Pinky Dewer.’

  She was silent on the line. He hadn’t told her about the yen, about the devastating loss, about the fact that he was teetering on the verge of ruin. But he had told her about avoiding Pinky, about trying not to take his call. She said finally: ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘No, he just showed up.’ Now the plan grew solid and visible in his mind, like a distant shoreline as the morning fog burned off. He had known he would have a plan, even before it formed in his mind, even before he made the phone call. He said: ‘So now I’m heading over to the Circus Club, where I’m going to meet Pinky for drinks.’

  It was a good plan, because it gave him an alibi, although the time sequence was slightly off. But the alibi would work, because people had seen him at the Circus Club, and anyone who related the story to Katherine would not bother to say exactly when they had seen Timothy – only that they had indeed seen him with Pinky, having drinks on the veranda.

  And so now Timothy put in place the last piece of the plan, saying: ‘So why don’t you come by and join us for drinks? We’ll be at the pool.’

  This served two purposes. First, he knew she hated sitting at the pool, in the heat, with the old grand dames of Atherton in their sun hats and one-piece bathing suits. He knew it was unlikely she would agree to come along. And second, the story offered one last bit of insurance, in case she decided to drop by the club and pay a surprise visit to the pool: he could always say later that evening that he and Pinky had in fact been on the veranda, and that Katherine had simply missed them – and what a charming mix-up it all was!

  He waited for her to answer, waited for her to tell him that she didn’t want to join him and Pinky Dewer for drinks at the pool.

  But instead she was silent.

  ‘Katherine?’ He didn’t want to push too hard, but he needed to make a show of it. ‘Do you want to join us?’

  Still, she was quiet. Was she testing him? Weighing the probabilities, the possible reality behind his words?

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, alarmingly. Her voice trailed off. ‘I suppose I could.’

  ‘Pinky would love to see you,’ Timothy said calmly, although now he was verging on panic. He would have to abort the plan, would have to race to the Circus Club, meet her for drinks and pretend that Pinky went AWOL, or changed his mind, or had to return to San Francisco early.

  ‘Oh, Timothy,’ she said. Her voice was soft and tired. ‘Would you mind terribly if I didn’t come?’

  ‘Mind?’ He swallowed hard. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Well …’ She sighed. ‘It’s nothing. I’m just exhausted and not feeling well.’

  ‘Do you want me to come home?’

  ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘it’s okay. It’s important that you meet with Pinky. I know he’s a big client.’

  ‘The biggest, actually,’ Timothy said.

  ‘Then you should go.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. His heart began to race as the reality of what he was about to do hit him. His pumped the clutch and shifted into fifth gear. He thought about Tricia, the way she had a habit of cocking her head and pulling a strand of dark hair behind her ear. For the first time, he tried to picture her naked: her firm, lithe thighs; her pubic hair; her buttocks.

  Katherine said: ‘I love you, Timothy. You know that, don’t you?’

  He did know that, and he appreciated her love, but – at this point – flying down Highway 101 with the sulfur smell of the Bay in his dashboard vents, and the sun on his face, her words were small and far away, and when the cell phone cut out he didn’t bother to call back.

  9

  The British Bankers Club, or BBC as it was known to people who lived on the Peninsula, was housed in an old bank building on El Camino Real. The bank had been built in an age when people still seriously considered keeping their money in a mattress, or buried in the backyard behind the juniper tree, and so bank buildings needed to make a certain statement to reassure the skeptical farm folk, which was: I am massive, and my iron and marble and stone will outlast your money by a thousand years.

  Except of course that the Pacific Bank on El Camino lasted exactly twenty-three years, until the Depression, at which point its marble columns stood guard over empty vaults, and it took another thirty years for the building to find a more suitable use: that of a brew-pub catering to Silicon Valley dot-commers and the staff that supported them, as they labored to write the software that ran the banks where the farm folk finally did keep their money after all.

  The BBC was an anachronism, an old-fashioned stone tomb, next door to a Kinko’s Copy Shop, in the middle of the most technologically advanced suburb in the world, and it was decorated to further fool time – with burnished wood and brass, and overstuffed chairs and couches, like a London drinking club from the thirties. Union Jacks hung on the walls, and dartboards and snooker tables were found where the old bank vault used to be, and at the doorway where one entered, one read an age-worn painted sign: ‘Gentlemen are kindly asked not to urinate in the umbrella stands during asparagus season.’

  When Timothy entered, the BBC was dark, with heavy green felt curtains pulled tight over the windows, and candles on the tables, flickering. He looked around the room, past the young men in chinos and white shirts – either entrepreneurs or waiters, Timothy could never tell – past the secretaries, hopelessly dressed in spandex and cheap girandoles, and past the crowd at the bar, two deep, waiting for drinks. Monday night in Silicon Valley: too much money, everywhere. Money had become democratic, so much so that people with real money had to start thinking about fleeing, as if from apocalypse, into the mountains, where the Blackberries and emails and chinos could not catch them, where they could start a new society based on caste and class, and the good days of knowing one’s place could return again.

  Timothy saw her – there – in the back, with a group of men and women surrounding her like drones around the queen bee. One of the faces was familiar: Jay Strauss, the Kid, and for the first time Timothy realized something that had escaped him until that moment: that the Kid was infatuated with Tricia. Timothy could tell from the way he was smiling at her, the near rigor mortis on his face, the forced laughter when she spoke. He was hopelessly in love.

  When Timothy strode halfway across the room, Tricia saw him. Her reaction was exactly what Timothy had hoped. She opened her mouth, smiled, and waved her hand. She said something excitedly to the kids around her. Jay looked up. His face dropped momentarily, and then he too smiled – a forced, pained smile.

  ‘Timothy!’ Tricia called.

  Timothy approached their table. ‘Hello, ladies and gents.’

  ‘Awesome! You made it!’ Tricia said. ‘Everyone, this is Timothy, my boss. Excuse me, Mr. Van Bender.’

  ‘Call me Timothy,’ he said.

  Tricia introduced her drones. ‘This is Rachel,’ she said, pointing to an overweight brunette with huge breasts, wearing a sundress. ‘And this is Jack,’ she said, pointing to a young man with curly hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Jack waved. ‘And of course you know Jay.’

  ‘Of course I know Jay,’ said Timothy.

  ‘Hi, Timothy,’ Jay said, deflated. He couldn’t hide his disappointment; his boss had arrived.

  ‘Hi, Kid,’ Timothy said, and then thought better of it. The decent thing to do, when around his peers, would be to call him by his real name. ‘Hi, Jay,’ he said again.

  Jay nodded.

  ‘We were just talking,’ Tricia said, ‘about work.’ She gestured to the table behind Timothy. ‘There,’ she said, ‘pull up a chair.’

  Timothy slid an oak armchair from the table nearby. He sat down across from Tricia, who was perched in the center of the overstuffed red felt settee, with Jack and Rachel on each side. Poor Jay could barely squeeze on the small couch; his thigh rested precariously on the edge. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘everyone was saying how they hated their jobs, and how their bosses were total loads … except for me, of course.’


  Jay said, ‘And me.’

  Timothy ignored him. To Tricia he said: ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘I was telling everyone how great my boss was. Then, who should walk in, but my boss!’ She smiled. ‘What’s the chance of that?’

  ‘Slim, I’d say.’

  ‘Slim,’ she agreed.

  A waitress came to take drink orders. Timothy ordered Dalmore on the rocks. Tricia ordered a second Cosmopolitan, though she had not finished her first. Rachel, Jack, and the Kid ordered beers.

  ‘I just happened to be driving by,’ Timothy said, continuing their game. ‘I hope I’m not intruding.’ He looked at Tricia. He tried to figure out what was different about her since he had seen her that afternoon. She wore the same tight red pants, the same snug black turtleneck. Perhaps it was that she now wore lipstick, a dark ochre, the color of blood on sand.

  Then he realized: her glasses. She was not wearing the black-framed librarian spectacles. Did she trade her glasses for contact lenses when she went out at night? Or were the glasses just a fashion accessory – a non-prescription prop? How many people, Timothy wondered, wore fake glasses if they had perfect eyesight?

  Rachel, the girl in the sundress, said, ‘So what do you do, Timothy? Tricia is always so vague about her job.’

  Tricia laughed. ‘I told these guys, I don’t even know what you do!’ She said it proudly, stupidly, and it made Timothy cringe. Why were pretty girls so dumb? What kind of society do we live in, when someone intellectually incurious can flit through life easily, simply because she has a tight body and the face of Venus?

  ‘What I do,’ Timothy said, ‘is manage money. Rich people give me one hundred dollars, and a year later, I give them back a hundred and twenty.’

  Tricia piped up, tried to help Timothy impress her friends: ‘But they give you more than a hundred dollars, right?’

  Timothy exchanged a pained look with the Kid.

  ‘Well, that’s right,’ Timothy said. ‘We’re talking about millions of dollars. A hundred million dollars, actually.’