The Ego Has Landed (Dave Hart 3)

by David Charters

  Stunned silence, then one of the fossils has a brainwave.

  ‘But… we are the continuity of this organisation, its collective memory. That is part of the function of the board.’

  It’s true. These guys provide decades worth of continuity. In fact collectively they provide centuries worth. But I’m not going to argue the toss with them.

  ‘Gentlemen, if I don’t get the changes I want, the fair, reasonable changes that will align the composition of the board with the people and interests it represents, and the modern society – the twenty-first century society – in which it operates, I will have to resign. This will be my first and last board meeting, and I will feel obliged to share with the world my reasons why. I was appointed to lead the board forward in the twenty-first century, not backwards in the nineteenth. Change is always challenging, but we must not be afraid. I’ve said enough, now I’m going to leave you to reflect on what I’ve said. I’ll be in my office.’

  There’s an eruption of angry, puzzled, anxious voices as I leave the board room. You might think they’d be outraged by my impertinence, that they’d be vying for the opportunity to vote me off the board and fire me, but if you think that you don’t know the average major corporate board. Rather than uniting against the common foe, these guys are going to devour each other. Decades of jealousy, rivalry, real and imagined slights will erupt in a vicious frenzy of in-fighting. Thirty years compressed into a couple of hours, unexpected, unscripted, just the raw savagery that only monumental, fossilised egos are capable of achieving.

  The key is that I said they didn’t all have to go, just some of them. If I went for the lot, they’d have taken me on. But just some? That’s different.

  As I leave the room, I have a spring in my step and a smile on my face. I reckon it’ll take them at least an hour to accept the inevitable, maybe longer, which is plenty of time for me to get to know my new personal trainer who’ll be keeping me in shape when I’m in Frankfurt. Her name’s Eva and she’s blonde, well-built and athletic, as well as being very highly paid and extremely accommodating.

  * * *

  IN FACT it takes them nearly three hours, and Eva is in danger of wearing me out. But when I’m invited back into the board room they are the ones who look exhausted. They present me with a schedule of proposed retirements stretching out over the next twelve months. A few will go straight away and most of the remainder by year end. A couple of youngsters – which is to say late fifties, mere children by the standards of corporate Germany – will stay on for continuity and ‘tribal memory’ purposes. More of them could have stayed on, but I guess it got into one of those illogical and mutually destructive tit for tat debates. So much for grown men. And that’s it. They’ve raised the white flag.

  I love the taste of victory. Especially one that involves more or less total annihilation of the enemy. Within a few months I’ll have the most exotic, best-looking board in German banking history. Naturally I’ll appoint Two Livers and Paul Ryan to the board, but not Rory, and then I’ll set about putting together the new look team, at least three quarters of them stunning women. My harem. They may not know much about banking, but boy will they be hot.

  * * *

  THE BLACK dogs of boredom are circling again. I’m back in London and I’m worried that even my usual pastimes are no longer keeping me entertained. Do you know how tedious it gets, screwing beautiful women, snorting coke and chugging cocktails relentlessly, night after night? No? You’ll just have to trust me on that one.

  The highlight of my day was chairing a new internal think-tank that I’ve set up. I did it for Mike Hanlan’s librarian, whose real name is Caroline Connor. She’s six foot one, single, academically gifted, but terribly lonely. Normally I’d do something about that myself, but at that height she’s so much taller than me that I’d feel ridiculous. In case you didn’t know, we are not all the same height in bed – going head to toe with an Amazon like that would stretch even my ability.

  But I want to get her laid.

  So I’ve convened a new internal think-tank comprising junior and mid-ranking employees from all parts of the firm, to think the unthinkable. What exactly does that mean? God knows. If it was thinkable I could do it myself. So these Bright Young Things will get together regularly, including a series of off-site weekends in different locations around the world, and see what sparks fly.

  They are a highly elite group.

  Apart from Caroline Connor, all of them are men, hand-picked by me. All the guys are single, very bright, highly competitive, over six foot three inches tall, and by my reckoning, based on the photographs in their personnel files, good looking. If she were shorter, I’d do the job myself, but I’ve always believed that a job worth doing is worth delegating to someone competent.

  When she came into the meeting room, she almost swooned. She thought she’d died and gone to heaven. Forget dating agencies. Think Grossbank.

  Christ, I’m kind.

  But also bored. Maybe that’s why I was kind – I had time to play with. Tonight, I’m actually feeling so jaded that I haven’t yet decided who to call. I’ve been debating whether to go for Ilyana again or Breathless Beth. Or maybe both. Why choose? Compromise, as I always say, is the enemy of achievement.

  But perhaps neither – and anyway, they don’t have the same initials, and they’d probably realise when I got them mixed up.

  It’s ten o’clock, I’ve been killing time in the office, and I’m feeling so lost that I’m only now on my way out. The trading floor is relatively empty, just a few dealers on the late shift sorting out trades with New York, and the cleaning staff getting the place ready for tomorrow.

  As I pass one of the dealing desks, I see two cleaners sitting together at a workstation. They are young, black, probably late twenties or early thirties, full-bodied and large-breasted in a way that used to be called voluptuous. They look like a lot of the minimum wage migrant workers who somehow find their way into the City to perform menial tasks, their noses pressed against the glass while the rest of us are paid fortunes. They are wearing short, nylon one-piece uniforms and brightly coloured headscarves. One of them is crying.

  I really don’t care if people cry. It’s not as if I haven’t cried myself on occasion, especially in the early part of my career, normally around bonus time. But why do they have to cry in front of me? Why does everyone always feel the need to share their personal suffering? Keep it bottled up, for fuck’s sake. I pause and look at the two of them. The one who’s sobbing tries to stop, and they both stare up at me. They have beautiful brown eyes, skin that glows naturally, and perfectly pouting lips. I feel a vague stirring of unexpected interest.

  ‘What’s the problem, ladies?’

  They look at each other, uncertain what to say. The one who was crying pulls a tissue from her pocket to wipe her eyes.

  ‘Here.’ I pass her my bright yellow silk handkerchief from the breast pocket of my jacket, the one that perfectly matches my tie. She stares at it as if it’s gold, smoothing the material and looking up at me without actually using it to wipe her face. It probably cost more than she makes in a week.

  ‘I don’t mean to pry, but why were you crying?’ As I say this, I pull round a chair and sit beside them. I smile, trying to look friendly, as an interesting thought comes to me, and I imagine the three of us in bed, our bodies covered in oil, rolling over together, naked…

  ‘Please, boss…’ Perfect – a woman who knows how to address me. ‘Mary’s cousins are all dead. They all died, sir.’

  I look at the woman who was crying. I’m taken aback. ‘You lost your cousins? I’m so sorry. What happened?’

  She looks at me and her brown eyes are flashing with anger. She speaks with passion. ‘They were killed, sir. Four boys and two girls. Murdered by the gangs.’

  ‘Murdered? By the gangs? What gangs?’

  ‘The gangs come to our villages in the south of our country and do this to us. They come with guns and knives and we are so poor,
we can do nothing to defend ourselves.’

  I’m stunned. For once I don’t know what to say. Even in Brixton this doesn’t happen. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘We are from Alambo, in the East of Africa.’

  Alambo. I vaguely recall it. There’s been some heavy shit going on. The trouble is, I can’t recall exactly what. Something to do with thousands of people homeless, or dying, or starving, or whatever. Like everyone else, when it comes to Africa I have compassion fatigue. I’m good at feeling sorry for myself, just not for anyone else. And besides, whenever the African Tragedy comes on the television news, I flick over to MTV or the Adult Channel.

  I’ve generally found in investment banking, the greater my ignorance on any given subject, the safer it is to stick to the old saying, ‘Less is more’.

  ‘I understand.’ They both look at me very directly, staring deep into my eyes. I’m not used to this kind of scrutiny, and in a way I kind of enjoy it. ‘What are you going to do?’

  This brings back the tears. Mary’s friend, whose name I still don’t know, puts her arm around her shoulders. ‘She needs to return, sir. For the funerals. For the family.’

  ‘Sure – you have to be there for your family and be supportive…’

  ‘But she cannot.’

  ‘She can’t? What do you mean? It’s a family funeral.’

  The friend shakes her head. ‘She cannot, because the money she earns here pays for her whole family – those that are left – it pays for them to live. And if she returned she might not have a job when she came back.’

  Now even I’m shocked. ‘Are you serious? Who do you work for? Who’s your boss?’

  Mary looks at me and seems to have a kind of fear in her eyes. ‘We work for Mister Skelton.’

  Skelton. I vaguely recall the name. He’s Head of Premises, way down the food chain, somewhere in the semi-darkness with the tadpoles and the plankton.

  ‘Please, boss – do you know Mister Skelton? Can you help?’

  Can I help? Of course I can fucking help. I’m Dave Hart. I can do anything. I lean forward, close enough to smell their scent, feel their breath, and when I speak, I whisper so they have to lean close. ‘You know the guys who run this place? The bosses?’

  They shrug uncertainly. ‘We’ve seen some of them.’

  ‘Well, I’m their boss. The Boss of bosses. And there’s someone I want you to meet.’

  I get out my cell phone, scroll down the numbers until I get to ‘S’, and dial the Silver Fox.

  * * *

  I LOVE it when a woman is grateful. I love it even more when two are. It’s four in the afternoon, and I’ve just arrived for the morning meeting with Two Livers and Paul Ryan. Nothing unusual in that. The early edition of the Evening News is on the conference room table. Two Livers kicks off.

  ‘Dave, you cannot be serious.’ She has the paper open on a full page spread about Grossbank paying for two cleaners to fly to Alambo in a private jet with a team of bodyguards. They’ve had relatives murdered, and now they are returning with funds to rebuild their village. Apparently it’s all down to me. The headline reads ‘Hart of kindness’.

  I try not to sound defensive. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Cleaners? In a smoker? To Alambo?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘But Dave – the cost…’

  ‘You know what it’s costing?’

  ‘How much?’

  I smile triumphantly. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing. The bank’s paying. You didn’t think I was picking up the tab myself, did you?’

  They roll their eyes heavenwards.

  ‘And besides, we’ll cover it from what we’ll save by not having a Head of Premises.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Some guy called Skelton. Bad guy.’ I draw my forefinger symbolically across my throat. ‘He’s toast. Had him black-bagged this morning.’ They shrug indifferently. Survival Rule Number One for pond life: don’t attract the attention of a predator. Especially a great white. ‘Anyway, it’s great PR.’

  Two Livers frowns and stares out the window, leaving Paul to take up the cudgel. ‘Dave, exactly what PR benefits are you talking about?’

  ‘The PR. It shows how kind we are. Well, how kind I am. With the bank’s money.’ I grin, hoping they’ll join in, but they don’t.

  ‘But Dave, it’s Africa. No one cares. People really couldn’t give a shit.’

  He’s right. If it was something serious, like the search for drugs to cure obesity, or male-pattern hair loss, we’d throw billions at it. But Africa? That’s when some disconnected circuits in my brain spark briefly back to life.

  ‘Oh, yes – that’s the other thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’ve decided to save Africa.’

  * * *

  TO GIVE them due credit, it takes a couple of hours to bring Paul and Two Livers round. Africa is a basket case. In fact much of it is so bad it could give basket cases a bad name. But that’s the opportunity. Everyone’s written it off, yet there are hundreds of billions to be made out of vast mineral wealth, agri-business, real estate and tourism, to name but a few. The problem is that most firms that could invest in Africa consign it to the ‘too difficult’ tray – there are plenty of easier places in the world to make money, where you don’t get shot or robbed or have the local bully-boys (I mean governments) running extortion rackets (I mean seeking participation in your business).

  If only the place could be developed in a fair, transparent way, without most of the upside going to line the pockets of the ruling elite or being siphoned off in some sweetheart deal by bad foreign governments, rogue businessmen or Evil Empire multi-nationals, all the good guys could get involved – like our corporate clients – and think how much a firm like Grossbank could earn out of that.

  That’s where my plan comes in. If you really want to change something, you need to start at the top, with the guys in charge. In Africa the ruling elite, like ruling elites everywhere, like to squirrel their money away. That’s where private bankers come in. Private bankers look after the money of the rich and the super-rich, politicians, businessmen, the famous and the infamous, offering discreet, private, confidential service away from the prying eyes of the great unwashed who might otherwise think they should get a slice, and certainly a long way from the regulators and the little people who make their living making sure other people pay their taxes.

  If the investment banker is the social and intellectual superior of the commercial banker, the private banker is a breed apart: socially smooth and charming, well connected, mostly from old-established families, private bankers privately ooze venality and cunning. These guys have such a total lack of ethics that they make investment bankers and hedge fund managers look like paragons of moral virtue. Naturally, Grossbank has one of the biggest private banking operations in the world.

  The US military used to say of ‘hearts and minds’ campaigns intended to win the support of indigenous peoples, forget the hearts and minds – just grab them by the balls. Grab a man’s balls and pull them wherever it is you want him to go, and he will follow, because he will always want to go everywhere his balls go. Well, I can’t squeeze these guys by the balls. I don’t have the power to do that. But I have something even more effective. I’m going to squeeze them by the wallet. And when they smile and say ‘Yes, Dave’, the Grossbank legions will pile into Africa. We’re going to finance mining projects, oil and gas, ranching, real estate, hotels, you name it, and we’re going to do it in the places that have been written off. With their support, with them actually holding the door open for us.

  We’ll make billions, and it definitely won’t be boring.

  Two hours after I start, even I’m amazed by my sheer audacity and brilliance. Two Livers isn’t so sure it will work, and we agree to our usual bet. If I win, I get a blow job. If she wins, she gets to give me a blow job. It’s the sort of bet you only get to place if you’re
the Boss of bosses.

  * * *

  I’M BACK in Frankfurt, in my office on the fifty-fourth floor of the Grossbank Tower, staring at the elephant in formaldehyde, which seems to be staring back at me, possibly a little resentfully, which given our relative situations in life is understandable.

  Whenever I visit the Fatherland, the Meat Factory get to carry real guns. It’s something to do with German firearms laws, and the fact that in the past other large German banks have had their top people murdered by whackos. So today I’m sitting at my desk playing with a Walther PPK that normally sits in an ankle holster around Scary Andy’s meaty lower leg. He doesn’t like me playing with it, and has thoughtfully removed the bullets, since he seems to have some kind of aversion to his enthusiastically amateur boss playing with real weapons.

  A low chiming sound comes from a discreetly concealed speaker, and I hit the intercom button and say ‘Enter’. Then I turn my chair around so I’m facing away from the door and looking out over the Frankfurt skyline. Behind me I hear the thick oak doors swing open and footsteps getting closer. I wait until they have covered roughly three quarters of the distance to my desk before saying, half to myself, ‘Damn, this is a good weapon. But I need to fire some live rounds. I need to shoot someone. Who the hell can I shoot?’

  Right on cue, I hear a discreet cough behind me, and spin the chair around, pointing the gun at an early fifties, fit-looking, tall guy in a conservative suit with silver grey hair and a too perfect suntan. His name is Neumann – ‘New Man’ – after his father, who was one of countless Germans who found themselves in 1945 lining up to be circumcised, prior to shipping out to Argentina with their brand new names and brand new passports, claiming their families were wiped out by the Nazis and how all they were seeking was a new start. Gerhard Neumann is head of private banking at Grossbank, and he’s meeting me today for the first time.

  When he finds himself staring at the little black hole at the end of the barrel of the Walther he jumps. I pull the trigger.