THE EGO HAS LANDED
DAVID CHARTERS
First published 2009 by Elliott and Thompson Limited
27 John Street, London WC1N 2BX
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ISBN: 978-1-9040-2776-8
Copyright © David Charters 2007
This edition published in 2009
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For ‘Two Livers’, wherever you are.
Author’s Note & Acknowledgements
ONCE AGAIN I am indebted to a number of people who contributed to Dave Hart’s further adventures. Lorne Forsyth, Jane Miller, Joanna Rice, Adam Shutkever, my oldest son Mark and my sister Margaret all contributed thoughts and comments, while my family put up with me while I was working on the latest instalment. But most of all I’m grateful to the investment bankers, hedge fund managers and others from the Square Mile who provide such extraordinary inspiration. And of course ‘Two Livers’, to whom this book is dedicated.
I’M DEAD.
I know I must be dead because I’m walking slowly up a long staircase in bare feet, wearing an old-fashioned nightgown, and I’m surrounded by puffy white clouds. Sitting or standing in the clouds are groups of beautiful young women, all dressed in long white gowns, all singing heavenly arias. I recognise Ilyana from Kiev, and Breathless Beth, and Fluffy and Thumper from the Pussycat Club, and there’s a stunning redhead from Warsaw whose name I’ve forgotten. Choruses of heavenly hookers, all serenading me as I ascend the final steps to a pair of huge iron gates, and standing in front of them a very ancient man with a long beard, who is staring at a book on a lectern.
‘Name?’ He has a deep, gravelly voice, commanding and stern, the sort of voice that makes me worry in case he somehow knows my guilty secrets. All of them.
‘H – Hart. Dave Hart.’ My mouth is dry and it’s an effort to get the words out. But at least I get a reaction as he looks up from the book.
‘Dave Hart? Are you kidding? You’re a fucking investment banker. Get out of here, you wanker!’
And suddenly a great wind is blasting through the railings of the gates and I’m tumbling, falling head over heels back down the stairs, and the girls have stopped singing and are all pointing at me and laughing, and I want to scream, need to scream, desperate to scream…
‘Aaaaaaargh!’
I open my eyes. I’m lying in bed in a small room with white painted walls.
An institutional room. The bed is narrow and uncomfortable and is surrounded by medical equipment with wires running under the covers and dials and flashing lights. I know I’m in hospital, but as I scream the door of my room bursts open and a policewoman runs in followed by a nurse.
A policewoman? In a hospital? Oh, for fuck’s sake. Now it’s coming back to me. I rest my head back on the pillow and try not to laugh.
I’m an investment banker. And not just any investment banker. I’m Dave Hart. I run the investment banking operations of the Erste Frankfurter Grossbank – ‘Grossbank’ to its friends – which I’ve turned from Sleepy Hollow into one of the most happening places in the City of London in a little over twelve months.
And most of my friends are investment bankers too. I still can’t recall exactly what I’m doing in hospital, but instinct takes over and I look at the policewoman and the nurse and grin.
My voice is croaky and it’s an effort to speak. ‘Don’t tell me – Dan Harriman sent you.’ Dan runs European equities at Hardman Stoney. He’s what passes in investment banking circles for one of my closest friends – which is to say that he’s always there when he needs you. But now it’s my turn and he’s done me a favour.
‘All right, get your kit off.’ I nod to the policewoman. ‘You first. I’ll start with a blow-job.’
They look at each other, pretending to be surprised, and neither of them undoes so much as a button. I stare at them. They’re not actually that pretty.
‘Come on, I don’t have all day.’ Actually I do have all day. I’m aching all over, and can feel wires attached by sticking plaster at strategic points all over my body. What’s going on?
The one who’s dressed as a policewoman speaks first. ‘Mister Hart – I’m Police Constable Hardy, attached to the Anti-Terrorist Squad.’
Now I’m impatient. You can take role-playing too far. ‘Honey, cut the bullshit – just get your top off.’ A thought is forming in my mind. I’m starting to blame that cheapskate Dan Harriman. Probably only paid for topless hand relief.
I close my eyes and sigh, half impatient, half exhausted, and am dimly aware of murmured voices, then something wet being rubbed on my bare arm, a sharp jab, and I drift off again.
* * *
VOICES ARE talking in my head. One of them is female, deep and husky, a measured, unhurried voice, oozing sexuality, the sort of voice that could hypnotise you. She’s talking to some kind of medic, a man, who seems nervous, almost intimidated by her.
‘So how long till he wakes up?’
‘Any time now. We’re letting him rest. Sleep is a great cure. The body needs to heal itself, but so does the mind. What he went through must have been extraordinary.’
A hand rests on my shoulder and I can smell the unmistakable scent of Un Bois Vanille by Serge Lutens. ‘He’s tough. He can take a lot more than most of us.’
Before I can feel a surge of manly pride, the medic cuts in.
‘Well, he certainly has. And our guess is that although he’s been taking it for years, he really maxed out in the past twelve months. He’s tested positive for opiates and cocaine – exceptionally high readings in both cases – his liver shows massive stress from alcohol abuse, and he seems to have been taking an enormous volume of drugs normally associated with penile erectile dysfunction.’
Penile erectile dysfunction? Me? Who does this guy think he is? Let him try shagging four hookers a night when he’s high on coke and plastered with cocktails and champagne. That’s it. I’ve had enough. My eyes pop open and I struggle to sit up in bed.
Standing next to me, wearing a pale grey Donna Karan trouser suit with a pashmina and huge diamond earrings, probably by Graff, is a vision of blonde loveliness. No, she’s not a hooker, though she could earn a fortune if she chose to be – film stars, Presidents and tycoons would sell their souls for an hour of her company. And Dan Harriman definitely didn’t send her. A woman this beautiful surely shouldn’t have a brain as well, but Laura ‘Two Livers’ MacKay is an investment banker, one of the most dedicated, focussed, over-achieving storm troopers in the Square Mile. We call her Two Livers because she has a biological advantage over the rest of us: she can drink for England, and frequently has done, giving her an advantage that mere intellect could never compete with. In fact, she’s not just any banker, she’s my number two running all corporate business at Grossbank, and suddenly a whole flood of memories return.
She sees my eyes open and leans close, so tha
t I can feel her breath on my cheek.
‘Hi boss. You okay?’ I love it when a woman calls me boss. Especially a beautiful one.
She’s got a sexy half smile on her face. It’s the sort of wicked, ‘come to bed’ look that makes me want to tear the covers off, pull the wires off my body and… but instead I smile weakly and a pounding takes over in my head.
‘Boss – you’re not in great shape.’
‘Wh – what do you mean?’
‘There was a bomb under your car.’
I lie back and close my eyes. I remember. I’d just had a phone call from the love of my life, Sally ‘Perfectly White Panties’ Mills, mother of Toby, Jasper and Monty and wife of Trevor the underachieving teacher, a woman who can’t be bought, who comes from a planet in a different galaxy to investment banking, and who was finally leaving her husband and children to be with me.
And I blew it. I rushed out of the house, ignoring my bodyguard, leapt into the car and turned the key in the ignition. I’m not quite sure what happened next, but I never got to see those perfectly white panties.
There were bad guys circling. Grossbank had seized the funds of a string of dodgy institutions who seemed to be a bit too close to the terrorist finance action. It wasn’t that I wanted to be a hero, just that they sort of pissed me off, and events took on a momentum of their own. I got on the wrong side of them and I suppose they wanted to make an example.
Two Livers reaches across to a bedside table and holds up a newspaper. It’s the Post, and there’s a photograph of two figures illuminated by a huge explosion in the background as a fireball engulfs a car. Shit. That was my car, my Bentley, with the personalised number plate, H1 PAY. ‘Nine Lives Hart survives bomb, saves bodyguard’. I shake my head in bewilderment.
Two Livers touches my arm, reassuring, tender. ‘It didn’t go off properly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The police have told us. When you turned the key in the ignition, you set off the detonator. There must have been a small explosion, but it didn’t set off the explosives under the fuel tank. At least not straight away. The bodyguard pulled you out and was dragging you away, when this happened.’
I look at the picture again. I vaguely recall being manhandled out of the car, leaning on someone strong, then another blast and we span around together – and were photographed. I take the newspaper and start reading despite the thumping in my head. We were photographed by a thirteen year old girl called Anna Mahaffey, who was walking along the street and just happened to have a camera on her mobile phone. She snapped what became the defining image of the Dave Hart car bombing, wired across the world to every newspaper and TV station. And she caught us spinning around with the force of the explosion in that split second when it appeared the bodyguard was on top of me, and that I was carrying him.
Damn, I’m a hero. Again.
‘You were pretty badly shaken up.’
‘Sh – shaken up? What do you mean?’ I point at the wires and the monitors. ‘Y – you mean I wasn’t injured?’
‘No. Nothing more than a few scratches. You’re in here now to deal with the drugs and the booze.’
* * *
I’VE OFTEN heard it said – mostly by me – that compromise is the enemy of achievement. When it comes to PR, the best firm in the business is Ball Taittinger. They are quite simply the most shit hot outfit there is with the best connections and the most clout. If what you are doing requires the very best, then you hire these guys. For everything else, use an ordinary firm. They’re reassuringly expensive, and I insist on paying top dollar. Or at least I insist on Grossbank paying top dollar. Naturally, I’m looked after by the super cool, sleek, grey-haired senior partner, a man in his early sixties with almost as many miles on the clock as I have myself – although I think my clock’s been round the dial once already – and whom I call the Silver Fox.
Today the Silver Fox is going to help me deal with my drug habit, my alcoholism, and my addiction to sex.
I’m staying at the Abbey, a super-expensive, ultra-chic private hospital for the rich and famous, that specialises in addiction. The Abbey doesn’t actually cure you of whatever it is you are addicted to – you have to do that yourself – but it’s great PR, and with the right spin you can turn a problem into an opportunity. You’re not weak, selfish, stupid and possibly criminal. You’re a victim. People don’t condemn you, they sympathise with you. And once you’ve done a few weeks out of the public eye, you can return once more to your normal abusive lifestyle.
The doctors here think I should be dead.
In a way that’s kind of flattering. They keep bringing along young interns who stare at the readings and look at me with awe. On the other hand, I see it differently. The way I see it, I’m probably not the first investment banker to have suffered from the occasional moment of stress. Naturally, we all have different ways of dealing with it. Some unwind over a glass or two of whisky. Others get into drugs, with cocaine probably still the number one choice. Some prefer the comforts they can find in the arms of a beautiful woman – or two, or sometimes more. Being a very senior investment banker, and extremely rich and powerful – not to mention both stressed and greedy – I prefer all three, preferably at the same time.
The problem is that eventually it catches up with you.
And so instead of finally getting together with the love of my life, the gorgeous Sally Mills – who has left me a tearful voicemail saying our love ‘is not to be’ (we’ll see about that) and that she has returned, distraught, to beg forgiveness from the under-achieving schoolteacher – I’m being prepped for an exclusive interview and a photo-shoot with Her Magazine.
I’m going to tell some dimwit airhead woman reporter that I wasn’t shagging hookers every night for fun, but because I needed a release; that I got into drugs out of casual curiosity and I was snared before I knew it, and now I want to share my experience with young people everywhere. That part is true. I’ve a lot of experience I’d like to share with blonde seventeen year olds, but I’ll be careful not to share that with the reporter. And finally I’ll talk about the evils of drink. I have a particularly evil fifty-year-old Scotch in my bedside cabinet, but I’ll keep it out of sight while we do the interview.
After that there’ll be more interviews, eventually a TV appearance on Dick and Julie, and once it’s all out in the open, I’ll get back to work. I’m desperate to get back to work. I need to before the board realise quite how redundant I was before all this happened.
* * *
FIVE TEDIOUS weeks have passed. Weeks that were boring beyond belief. The bastards took my whisky away. They wouldn’t let me buy drugs. And sex was out of the question.
Can you believe that? And I was actually paying to be deprived.
I ended up working out maniacally in the gym, if only to escape the boredom, lost weight, shaped up, and found after a while that the cravings started to fade – or at least that’s what I claimed with absolute sincerity in the group therapy sessions and the long conversations on a couch with my shrink. They say that addicts can be very cunning, but investment bankers are even smarter.
Yes, we’re plausible.
And now it’s over. The papers have all carried my story, the hero has sought and received redemption, and with the help of the Silver Fox, I’m going to make a triumphal return to Grossbank.
I’ve moved into an apartment in Whitehall Court, near the supposed safety of the heart of government, with well-patrolled streets and my own team of bodyguards. I still have Tom, my driver, well over six feet tall and built to impress, who drives me in an armoured S-class Mercedes. But we also have two other cars – Range Rovers – one of which drives ahead of us and one behind. In the Range Rovers are my bodyguards, whom I’ve called the Meat Factory. They are led by Scary Andy, a six-foot six-inch ex-Royal Marine weighing in at just over two hundred pounds. Arnie ‘the Terminator’ is not quite as tall, but even wider, and weighs in at two hundred and forty pounds. They are my regula
rs, but are supplemented by a whole team of human wardrobes.
Everywhere I go, I feel as if my little convoy creates its own hole in the ozone layer, three gas guzzlers complete with heavies to transport one greying, tired-looking, middle-aged man in a suit. How sad is that?
On the other hand, it works wonders for the ego, which is probably why politicians love it. On a good day it can feel totally Hollywood. Entering a room with a bunch of heavies wearing suits and dark glasses is rather like being in a scene from The Godfather. Better yet, it can feel positively Presidential. Sadly I won’t ever be President of the United States, but there are times when I feel that being Dave Hart is the next best thing. The only bit I miss is the bag man, the uniformed officer with a briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes. Imagine if I had access to the nuclear launch codes. Then we’d really have a party…
And the aphrodisiac effect on women is remarkable. When I walk into a room surrounded by my wardrobes, all of whom are taller, stronger and manlier than me, guess who the ladies look at? That’s right – the little guy in the middle, the one the heavies hold the door for.
But today is different. Today the heavies will stay in the background, as I stage-manage the final part of my rehabilitation: my triumphal return to the trading floor of the bank where I made my name.
We pull up outside the Grossbank building, and I pretend the press cameras and the TV crews aren’t there as Tom helps me out of the car, passes me my crutches – yes, crutches – and I make my way painfully and bravely to the foyer, where Two Livers and my loyal team are waiting for me.
I look around the eager, smiling faces of my heads of department. Bastards.
I know they’ll have been scheming. I’ll leave it a couple of days to make them feel safe, then have a couple taken out and shot to encourage the others.
We go up in the lift to the sixth floor, where the sales and trading teams are and where I keep my corner office, looking out towards the Bank of England.
As I emerge onto the floor there’s pandemonium, as all business stops and the traders cheer and whoop and high five each other. Isn’t it wonderful? My people love me. The fact is, they couldn’t have cared less about me, and why should they? Imagine the extra headroom in the bonus pool if I wasn’t around to take the first slice.
The Ego Has Landed (Dave Hart 3) Page 1