The Ego's Nest (Dave Hart 5)

by David Charters

  Except that above them today hovers someone else. Me. Oh, and Happy Mboku’s here too.

  I’m waiting for little Guy to go to the men’s room. He has to before the meeting starts, because there’s no telling how long it will last – an awful lot of these little people might want to have their say about the fate of ‘their’ company – or when the key votes will take place, and he can’t afford to miss one. Eventually, he looks at his watch – we have about five minutes to go – leaves his papers on his chair to secure his seat and heads towards the men’s room. Happy leaves his own papers on the chair directly behind Guy’s, and then he and I tuck in behind our target.

  When he enters the gents we follow. There are two other men in there already and we wait until they leave, pretending to wash our hands while Guy is at the urinals. Then Happy places a No Entry sign on the outside of the door and I approach Guy just as he’s standing at the washbasin.

  ‘I don’t believe we’ve met?’

  He looks up and immediately recognises me. That’s the power of the press.

  ‘You’re Dave Hart. Everyone knows you. Mr Hart – a pleasure, sir.’

  He dries his hands and steps forward as if to shake and formally introduce himself.

  ‘No need. I know you already.’

  ‘You … know me?’

  My face is deadpan. I give no indication of any feelings or emotion, although I have a scar on my forehead where he can see a pulse racing.

  ‘That’s right. And so does my associate.’

  His eyes flicker towards the huge black man blocking the door. Happy is letting his face relax nicely into a frown.

  ‘This is Happy. Happy Mboku. He’s head of trading at my new fund.’

  Happy inclines his head obligingly.

  ‘Your … head of trading?’

  ‘He also trades. Guy … may I call you Guy?’

  He nods nervously.

  ‘Guy, you and I find ourselves on opposite sides of the table today.’

  ‘Opposite sides?’ His voice sounds a little squeaky.

  ‘That’s right.’ I put my hand on his shoulder and lean closer to him. ‘And that’s a huge shame.’

  ‘W-why is that?’

  Happy has left his station by the door to stand behind Guy and, with an instinctive touch, leans forward, places powerful hands on either side of his neck and starts to massage him. Guy flinches and glances back at him.

  ‘D-do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Happy’s voice is a deep bass growl. I’d love to hear him do ‘Old Man River’. He carries on massaging.

  ‘Mr Hart, what is going on here? What are you actually doing?’

  ‘Guy, I’m trying to be persuasive. For your own sake. I’m trying to persuade you to change your mind on voting out the management of Meier Holding – my friends – and to pack up your things and go home to Chicago.’

  ‘W-what are you talking about? I’m here representing the firm. We’ve made our position clear. This is business.’

  ‘Ah yes, business. I remember business.’ A long pause as I look wistfully around the room. ‘Guy, did you hear that I died?’

  ‘Everyone did, Mr Hart.’

  ‘That’s right, Guy. But then I came back. And since I came back, I’m … different. I used to believe in the power of persuasion. Now I just believe in … power.’

  Right on cue, Happy ups the pressure on Guy’s neck.

  ‘W-what are you doing?’

  ‘I’m telling you – not asking – telling you what you’re going to do this afternoon.’

  ‘W-what’s that?’

  I drop my voice so that I’m almost whispering, and he has to strain to hear me.

  ‘Listen carefully. You’re going to go back to your seat, sit down and reflect on just how much you enjoy your life at –’ I get a piece of paper from my jacket pocket and glance at it – ‘at Lincoln Park Avenue, in your swanky condo overlooking the park and with that amazing view towards Lake Michigan, with Lillian and your dog Skipper and, if nothing happens to you, your first child. Perhaps you’ll have a son. That would be just grand, wouldn’t it, Guy? Guy Junior. Imagine those proud grandparents.’ I refer to the paper again. ‘Imagine Doug and Lucy and how proud they’ll be of their little girl’s first child. And your mom and pop too. George and Hannah. There’s so much love surrounding you, Guy. So much that’s positive. So let’s not spoil things. You go on back to your seat. And once you’ve had a chance to reflect on all the things I’ve told you, you’re going to decide it’s a bad idea to vote the way you were thinking. Then we’ll be on the same side. You want to be on the same side as me, don’t you, Guy?’

  ‘Mr Hart … I … I have instructions. I could be fired.’

  ‘You could. But there are worse things, Guy. Trust me. There are worse things.’

  He’s gone very pale and says nothing, just nods.

  Happy releases him and he straightens his jacket and tries to regain his dignity as he heads for the door. Just before he leaves, I call after him. ‘Oh, Guy – I’m sitting at the back. You’ll see me with my legal team. But Happy … he’ll be sitting behind you. Right behind you.’

  IT’S THREE hours later and the Sekt is flowing. If there is a God, I never worked out why he gave the French champagne and the Germans Sekt. Maybe it’s all those small countries they invaded. Whatever the reason, Happy and I are drinking it, along with the board of Meier Holding and their friends and supporters.

  Fritz Meier, the elderly, straight-backed, patrician son of the founder, and chair of the supervisory board, slaps me on the back for about the fifth time and shakes his head.

  ‘This is the happiest day for me, Mr Hart. The day we thought we would lose the company has turned into the day we secured its future. And the Americans – those Terminators – they did nothing. Amazing. We watched him. We waited for him to raise his hand. He just sat there.’

  ‘Yes, it was amazing, wasn’t it? I think the other American, the one from Night Fury, lived up to his name in the end. He looked as if he was taken by surprise that his associate didn’t say anything. They had a plan. They were meant to be in this together. He was mad as hell.’

  ‘They had a fight at the end. Outside. The two of them were shouting and pushing each other.’

  ‘Really? That’s too bad. Some people don’t know how to behave.’

  ‘I think he was ill.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The one from the Terminator Fund. The one your colleague, Herr Mboku, sat behind. His face was white like paper. Perhaps your colleague’s presence put him off?’

  ‘Happy put someone off? Never.’

  We all laugh. Then he turns serious.

  ‘Mr Hart, your investment proposal from your new fund has saved our company. We are very grateful.’

  It’s true. The legal team are working on it while we’re drinking pretend champagne. Salvation is investing two hundred million Euros in Meier Holding in a friendly deal at a discounted price, on the understanding that they don’t change their strategy or practices at all and just keep on doing what they were doing already. Around the world, a dozen other similar companies are sitting down with teams from DLR Strummer, who are laying out proposals on our behalf. I always say, if in doubt, go large.

  Fritz taps a spoon against an empty champagne glass to get everyone’s attention. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I propose a toast. To the Salvation Fund, its founder, Mr Dave Hart, and his friends and associates.’

  They all raise their glasses and toast Columbian drug barons, Italian Mafiosi, the Triads, the Yakuza and all the rest. Though of those present only Happy and I know whose health we are really drinking.

  What Fritz also doesn’t know is that the Silver Fox has orchestrated the biggest press coverage this company has ever received.

  Meier Holding is a conglomerate, a grouping of diverse businesses across a range of industries. They have strength in depth but, more importantly, breadth, as they span so many areas of activity. And in trou
bled times that makes them both robust in adversity, because they spread risk, and well placed to bounce back with the economy when the upturn comes. At least that’s the story in tomorrow’s papers as every quoted conglomerate in the German, and every other major market, gets caught in a feeding frenzy of buyers. The Salvation Fund will lead the charge, naturally, with friends from low places hot on our heels and the rest of the market, caught out by the sudden change of sentiment, scrambling to catch up. Tomorrow will be a good day for conglomerates all around the world. They’re back in fashion. And even better for those of us who quietly accumulated holdings in those same companies ahead of today’s events.

  THERE WAS one footnote, right at the end, that’s worth recording. Happy was half pissed, having consumed more than his own bodyweight in Sekt, and pulled me to one side, where no one could hear us.

  ‘Mr Hart, sir.’

  ‘Dave. Happy, you can call me Dave.’

  He shakes his head. ‘Doesn’t feel right, sir. Mr Romanov, he likes to be called Mr Romanov.’

  ‘That’s fine, Happy, but you’re on my team now.’

  ‘Dave … sir. I want you to know how much I enjoyed today.’

  ‘Good. I’m pleased to hear that, Happy.’

  ‘No, sir, I mean I really enjoyed it. I’d like to do it again.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s the people, sir. Look around. They’re good people. Decent people. And they’re really pleased. We made a big difference today.’

  ‘I guess that’s right, Happy.’

  He looks around the room, beaming at everyone with his big, wide grin. ‘And we didn’t even have to kill anyone.’

  WHEN A man has a major triumph, he naturally wants to celebrate. Celebration might take many forms – and I tend to like all of them – but in this particular case all I can think of is that I want to see the woman I’m convinced is the love of my life. So we head to the airport and I call Two Livers.

  Frustratingly, her office says she’s not available. I try her mobile, but it goes straight to voicemail.

  ‘It’s me. I’ve had a great day. Really great. I’d love to tell you all about it. And I’m definitely in the mood to celebrate. I’m in the Fatherland, smoking into Biggin Hill around 6.30. If you’re free tonight, let me take you out. Anywhere you want.’

  When I hang up, I realise I sounded like a kid, overexcited, immature, jumping up and down for his parents’ attention. But why hide things from her? This is me. I want her to know me. On second thoughts, she knows me pretty well already, which is a troubling thought. Would anyone who really knows me ever be seriously interested in me? We reach the airport and I drown the thought in a bottle of proper champagne.

  She doesn’t call, so I try her again when we land, and again when I get to the Ritz, but without success. Damn. I’m on a high and want to do something, but I’m by myself. Once upon a time that wouldn’t have mattered. As a young investment banker in London, well heeled and searching for stimulation, I’d have contacted a few escort agencies – the kind you find these days on the internet – chosen a girl or two according to my taste, and who I’d had lately, and arranged some gratifyingly meaningless sex, probably enhanced by drugs and definitely by booze. And afterwards, they’d have left, with no comebacks or consequences, keeping everything neat, clean and simple. That, by the way, is what you pay for with professionals. You’re not paying for sex. You’re paying for them to leave afterwards. It’s the ones you don’t pay for who hang around and complicate your life. Those you pay for later.

  Further on in my career, when I was more successful and more demanding, I kept a private list of more exclusive, high-end girls not available to the internet-surfing public, and called them up for equally meaningless but much more expensive sex, definitely with drugs – which they could supply – and very fine booze.

  But now that I’m in love, that all seems so yesterday. I want a meaningful relationship now. I’ve reached a turning point in my life and there’s no looking back. I want commitment.

  That feeling lasts almost half an hour.

  In the end, feeling lonely and rather empty, I call one of the girls I used to see – Giselle, from Brazil – not for sex, just for companionship and the snappy, quick-witted banter that I used to enjoy with her.

  ‘Dave – how are you, honey?’ She sounds half asleep. ‘I thought you were dead.’

  I hate ‘honey’. She might as well call me ‘sweetie-pie’.

  ‘I’m good, babe. I was dead, but I came back.’ Why do I call her ‘babe’? No idea, I just seem to go into another mode. Perhaps it’s a two-way thing. Honey meets babe.

  ‘Uhhh … yeah … I think I heard something about that.’

  I know. She sounds doped out. Too many late nights, too many drugs. But I had her number and I need some company.

  Luckily, she’s not doing anything tonight, so we agree to meet at Mimi’s. I shower and change and find I’m quite looking forward to seeing her again.

  PHYSICALLY, GISELLE is a sex bomb. Five foot six, dark, dusky skin, long hair, size eight but totally pneumatic, she’d turn heads if she were dressed as a nun. But she isn’t. She’s wearing a bra-less halter top that leaves nothing to the imagination, with long white pants so tight that if she wasn’t shaved between the legs you could count her pubic hairs. I’m hanging around outside Mimi’s, and when she gets out of her cab she looks like exactly what she is: a thousand pounds a night of paid-for sex, offering OWO (oral sex without a condom), CIM (you can come in her mouth) and A-plus (anal sex as an extra, depending on your size). I think it was a US president who once said

  he didn’t feel he knew a woman until he’d had her three different ways. Generally I don’t go down that particular route – happy to leave back doors to politicians. Quite what inspires stunningly beautiful girls to come to London from all over the world, leaving the places they grew up in, missing their loved ones and lying down – or standing up, or kneeling – to satisfy guys like me is beyond me. It might be lucrative, but it can’t be fun.

  But as long as they do, I’m up for it.

  She squeals with mock delight and rushes forward and throws her arms around … a guy behind me with wavy grey hair, a beer belly and a double chin. He’s leaving the club with a woman I presume is his wife – she’s just about attractive enough, but not enough to earn a living on the internet – and I find the two of them pretty weird. Who takes their wife to a nightclub? Are they trying to convince people they drink and dance and have fun together, despite being married? Anyway, Giselle presses herself against him, he looks baffled, his wife looks furious and I try not to laugh.

  ‘Giselle! I’m here. It’s Dave. Here I am.’

  Brain of Brazil looks puzzled, disentangles herself from the guy with the belly and the chin, and squeals even louder and throws her arms around me.

  We head inside and I approach the maître d’, who spots some crumpled notes in my hand and comes over so that I can slip them to him. He then obligingly finds us a table beside the dance floor. A magnum of Cristal appears at our table unbidden – it’s understood that it goes with the territory if you want the best spot – and I call over a waiter and order a magnum of U’Luvka vodka as well, with a tray of mixers and a bucket of ice. We won’t finish either, in fact we may hardly touch them, but spending this much will ensure not only that we’re left alone, but if we choose to misbehave – let’s say I direct Giselle discreetly under the table – no one will take offence.

  Giselle seems to be having trouble speaking, and I wonder if she took something before she came out. Did she feel she needed to in order to get through the evening? Maybe. It has to take a toll. What these girls do is worse than investment banking. We might have to grease up, bend over, grasp our ankles and say stick it in and make it hurt – but it only happens metaphorically, with clients and bosses and board members, and we get paid millions for it. A thousand pounds a night doesn’t really cut it for me.

  Since she’s finding it hard to tal
k, and is obviously aware of the problem, she opts for a better tactic and pulls me up onto the dance floor. The pulsating lights, the noise and the relative anonymity of the semi-darkness usually ensure that I can dance with my date unnoticed by anyone else who might be there. But tonight Giselle throws herself into a routine she could only have learnt in a lap-dancing bar in Rio. She gyrates, spins, turns, runs her hands up and down first her body then mine – stopping nowhere – and by the end every head in the place has turned our way. Bring on the cabaret. I feel like I’m part of a floor show. Eventually the number comes to an end and I drag her back to the table.

  Which is when I see we’re not alone. Another couple have placed themselves at our table and are helping themselves to our champagne.

  I’m about to get very aggressive – so aggressive, in fact, that I might actually call a waiter over – when I recognise the man. It’s Vladimir Kommisarov, who runs First Siberian Bank in London. He’s early forties, fair-haired, tall and good-looking. OneSib, as his firm is known, is one of the biggest Russian banks, and he heads their London investment banking operations. Their traders are famously punchy and aggressive, and are known as the Red Army Trading Team. When he first arrived in London, I saw in Vlad someone potentially interesting – a kindred spirit – and helped him. Now that I’m back from the dead, Vlad the Impaler – named for his prowess with women, rather than anything more sinister – has spotted me and decided to make his number.

  ‘Dave – welcome back. How was it on the other side?’

  ‘Vlad, good to see you. The other side?’

  He turns to the lady with him – whom I find hard to place, because she’s a little old to be working, but looks ravishing in a Roberto Cavalli three-quarter-length dress, gathered at the side to show off her figure, and a Bulgari cocktail necklace with coloured gemstones that pick out the colours in the dress. She’s the complete package, stylish and sexy, and I decide she’s definitely edible.