by Roman Klee
No drugs and no liquor made Thom a good boy, with a clear head. And it gave him an edge. Unlike some of his colleagues.
At the firm where he started his Wall Street career, on a Monday morning he used to see it in their eyes.
He knew what they had been doing at the weekend. He didn’t need to run a quick check of the stalls in the men’s room and hear the cacophony of sniffing and snorting; it was like feeding time at a zoo for drug dependent traders.
Often guys would have to shower in the basement gym before sitting down at their desks, because they still stank from the after effects of their night time activities. Somehow in the days before trading algorithms, and geeks bearing gifts in the form of financial products only they understood, these guys got by because people liked talking to them.
They were the fun guys who showed clients a good time. And luckily, there were plenty of clients more interested in being royally entertained than wanting to know the alpha, beta or delta of a stock.
What Thom never understood was why his bosses seemed to tolerate it. But they did, often for long periods. Despite Wall Street’s hire and fire culture, the brothers and sisters at Solomon were treated well—so long as they followed the company line.
Thom concluded it was what marked the firm out from the competition; it retained the paternalism of the old style Wall Street partnership.
If they found a guy with a really serious drug or drink problem, Human Resources was there to assist; the firm sponsored a rehabilitation program, run by a clinic in Switzerland.
To qualify as a suitable candidate, a trader needed to lose the Brothers mega amounts of money, or perform so badly that clients threatened to take their accounts elsewhere. During his time at Solomon, Thom had seen a handful of guys taken off the desk, and ordered to get themselves cleaned up.
He was not sure whether they were all sent to Switzerland, especially in down years, when the guys on the top-floor demanded major cut backs.
But he never saw any of the rehabilitated return to the trading desks. He always assumed they were sent to another division of the firm, the back office to handle settlements being the most likely. Certainly it was a demotion, but at least it was a job.
Tough guys like Thom were not exactly the types who hung out with the super-sized brains possessed by the nerds who occupied most of Nathan’s world.
But in spite of appearances, Nathan and Thom shared a number of things in common; they were both from New Jersey neighborhoods. And their fathers worked together on the waterfront before the out of town real estate developers and yuppies descended to gentrify the brownstones and tenements.
Their fathers were blue-collar workers who understood all too well what a hard day’s work meant—aching back muscles, blistered feet and red raw hands, came with the territory. Complain to the foreman and there was no point in turning up the next day. Workers’ rights had yet to be invented.
Both the guys’ fathers were alcoholics who passed away well before their time. Growing up without a male role model had been tough on their families, but it also acted as an incentive to get on and succeed in life. It forced them to grow up early.
And because of the age gap, Thom had promised Nathan’s father he would look out for his son, whenever the time came.
Thom had retired from Wall Street several years earlier and did the time-honored thing that former Street workers do; he set up a consulting practice. Although Nathan was never sure exactly what Thom’s clients consulted him about, he knew his friend was still in regular contact with people at Solomon.
The guys spent the evening at Strikes. They talked about the past and the good times their families had once shared. They discussed ladies and exotic types of L.A.Y.D.E.E.s. And Nathan shared some of his recent Swiss experiences.
Thom laughed at the story about a trader at a rival firm who was so obsessed with an East European escort (who recently married a wealthy middle aged man) he offered her one million dollars to get a divorce.
To impress her with his seriousness, he booked a place at a suicide clinic and said he would drink their lethal cocktail, unless she married him.
Only, the color drained from Thom’s face when Nathan told him the clinic’s location. It was next door to where the Brothers sent their wayward traders for rehab.
Δ = T –26,550,000
Nathan nearly forgot about Carla’s invite to her stepdaughter’s Super Sweet Sixteen birthday party and was close to scheduling an appointment with his personal trainer in its place. But he stopped himself just in time, because he knew he could not turn Carla down. He too wondered if an over the top birthday party was really appropriate, considering what the rest of the Wright family was going through.
Then he reflected on the matter.
He was not in any position to judge. The best thing was to attend as a silent observer; watch and listen without forming an opinion or reaching a conclusion.
It was as if he could hear a New Age guru say: Everyone handles situations in different ways. The most life affirming thing is to carry on. Living is part of the continuum. You cannot change the past, but you can shape your future. Yep, that sounded like more fortune cookie wisdom.
He really should make a New Year’s resolution and stop putting his hand in the cookie jar. He needed to focus on the Wright family.
But then some days, Nathan wished he could flee to the sanctuary of his garage, settle into his Bianco Polare leather driving seat and inhale that glorious expensive smell!
If success had a scent, surely he had discovered it. He liked to have the car regularly valeted so it looked its showroom best. But after his divorce, he could do none of these things.
Because his favorite car was somewhere else.
Maybe there was a way to forget about past injustices. Perhaps by giving up an afternoon to watch the self-absorbed antics of a teenager, he could distract himself; it seemed like a small price to pay.
Nathan didn’t need to use the sat-nav system on his hired Jeep Cherokee to find the way, because the route was familiar to him. The Bruening’s Long Island estate just outside Bridgehampton, was close to Nathan’s old house—the one he handed over to his wife on their divorce, burdened with a hundred and ten percent mortgage.
He intended to turn to his advantage an occasion that looked like nothing more than over indulging a spoiled sixteen-year-old brat.
His number one priority was to get into Carla’s good books. Their first meeting had gone well and the best part was, it looked like they had similar views on the right way to bring up children.
In the short time Nathan had worked for the Trust, he realized one of the quickest ways to strike up a rapport with a potential client was to find out if they had children. And if the answer was yes, he steered the conversation to the problem of raising kids in today’s world.
Next, he had to get on the good side of Dirk and that was not going to be easy. He was the one pushing for his daughter to spend her birthday in the way she wanted.
Dirk Bruening was on his second marriage to date. He met Carla through a mutual friend and by all accounts they enjoyed a passionate romance in the early years.
Now their lives switched to more mundane things like managing multi-million dollar estates. Dirk set up a family office, with the assets his father left him. The story he liked to tell was that Bruening senior had been a successful businessman and financial speculator, building up a bunch of dotcom companies and then selling them at the height of the tech boom for close to three billion dollars.
Dirk was left with the responsibility of looking after his inheritance, although he didn’t actively manage the assets himself. Instead he relied on the services of professional advisors to invest the family fortune. Or at least that was the version of events he told his wife. And part of it at least, seemed very similar to the way Budd Wright had added to his fortune.
So
here was the second opportunity. Nathan intended to discover Dirk’s favorite restaurant and invite him out for lunch. Once they talked, Nathan was confident he could persuade Dirk to come over and speak to the Trust.
Some of the more experienced partners would put on a presentation and show Dirk the way they managed money, how well they performed and the fact their fees were good value compared with industry averages. Nathan could already hear Cunningham say: Remember the fresh money. We need nice fresh money every month.
Nathan had discovered that when Carla married Dirk Bruening, they signed a pre-nuptial agreement so there would be no ugly fights about money—if heaven forbid, the unthinkable ever happened. It would also protect assets that came Carla’s way should she inherit anything from her father.
Because she stood to receive a large slice of what would be one of the world’s largest fortunes.
Good estate planning was essential for the Wright-Bruenings. Cunningham regretted of course, that his firm was not charged with handling it. He had already explained to Nathan how wealthy middle-aged women were walking magnets for gigolos and boyfriends with the worst of intentions.
They risked being taken for a ride in more ways than one. And the position was even more precarious if the woman in question was attractive and kept herself in great shape.
An heiress like Carla, could have the pick of any young bronzed and muscle toned Adonis, ready to satisfy her every desire, just so long as she made it financially rewarding for him to stick around.
Another common hazard were piranha like wealth managers disguised in bespoke suits. They liked nothing better than to quietly nibble away in the dark at substantial fortunes, using complex fee structures with built in overcharging as standard.
Their best customers were rich kids with inherited money, who had also acquired the gene set that made them numerically challenged.
Cunningham warned Nathan not to be distracted by appearances. For short periods, everyone mixed happily enough during family get togethers like Thanksgiving, birthdays and Christmas, but this did not mean everyone would be treated equally.
Nathan had already noted Jade Wright used the word New-Gens to talk about her children in her Christmas letter. Carla had gone further and complained about how difficult it was, bringing up children destined to inherit vast wealth.
If not addressed properly, simmering tensions, grudges and jealousies led to unpleasantness between family members at best, and long standing, inter-generation feuding at worst. Cunningham explained to Nathan how the Trust had devised its own classification system to deal with the problems created by New-Gens.
Predictably, it divided the children into three categories; gold, silver and bronze.
The golden children were the biological children from a current marriage. In most cases, they would receive the bulk of the estate. The silver children were the stepchildren from earlier marriages.
Their inheritances often created problems, especially where partners of different wealth levels married. The children of the richer partner rarely thought it fair that their inheritances should be diluted by their poorer step siblings.
And finally there was bronze—a category made up of adopted children from both current and previous marriages. They were only entitled to the leftovers from the estate, after the others had picked the choicest parts.
Frequently resented by their biological stepbrothers and sisters, they were usually the most grateful for anything they got.
Cunningham warned that the Trust’s categories did not always play out so neatly. Sometimes golden children did something to offend their parents or failed to meet unrealistically high expectations.
Then suddenly before they knew it, their inheritances were transformed into bronze or worse still, they were given nothing at all.
And it also worked in reverse. The children who carried the dreaded bronze label, could be elevated to golden status—if their new parents had a change of heart and thought they were more deserving, or if one day they inexplicably suffered a pang of conscience.
It was during a casual after lunch discussion about New-Gens in the partners’ library one day, that Nathan finally learned Liz’s true status within the Wright family.
She was Budd’s daughter from his first marriage to Mary Beth Scott, making her a stepdaughter and stepsister and placing her firmly in the silver category.
Nathan tried unsuccessfully to hide his surprise.
“Oh, I’m sure I told you,” said Cunningham, it’s all in the file.”
Except it wasn’t and he never told Nathan.
Now he began to see the Wright family in an entirely different light.
And he was also left feeling uncomfortable with the way Cunningham had communicated the news. If Nathan wasn’t mistaken, someone was deliberately withholding information from him.
And in his experience, being left in the dark rarely guaranteed a happy ending.
Δ = T –26,546,400
Unlike her husband, Carla wanted to keep control of everything and did not like relying on the services of professionals to look after her family’s money.
Carla had seen first hand how a child’s motivation to do well at school and college literally evaporated—once they knew they would inherit a trust fund of several hundred million dollars. All hope was lost, the moment the clock struck the magic hour and the child reached the milestone of twenty-one years on planet earth.
The security blanket provided by a richly endowed trust fund was luxuriously soft and infinitely deep. Carla considered it the perfect excuse for stopping a kid from ever hitting the books.
Thanks to Dirk’s tendency to indulge, Sophia’s childhood was one long constant relationship with Dior. From her dolls’ clothes to her bed clothes to her own clothes, Sophia was brought up with the reassuring knowledge that hand sewn Christian Dior labels would forever brush against her delicate skin.
Even though Carla hadn’t exactly kept a diary of the occasions or constructed a kitsch shrine to the victims who suffered from poor little rich kid syndrome, she had no difficulty recalling how children of close friends suffered from the curse of having too much money, too young.
Once, Carla attended a therapy workshop for super rich parents who had lost children ahead of their time. She listened, as one by one they revealed stories of dysfunctional families, anyone could relate to.
Jed excelled at sports. He was the school jock, popular with his buddies who admired his prowess on the football and baseball fields. And he was very popular with the girls. He could literally pick and choose from the line of pom-pom, sequin clad cheerleaders, who fell in line any which way he wanted them to, because they were so eager to go on a date with him.
At the end of the summer term, he dated his high school prom queen and they led the dancing on senior prom night.
Maybe that was the high point for him. Because once he graduated and went straight on to Stanford on a sports scholarship, drugs, alcohol and an obsession with having unprotected sex with prostitutes consumed his life. In the ranking of sin lists, it did not qualify as very original.
He was in and out of STD clinics, marking each occasion with a celebration and counting it as a badge of honor, in the same way a boy scout might collect merit badges. His attitude to risk taking could only end badly. He crashed his new Porsche 911 in an overtaking maneuver designed to impress his girlfriend. Neither survived.
Then it was time to hear about Billie.
She fell in with the emo set at school. She insisted on having bright orange and pink highlights in her hair and refused to wear any color other than black. Skinny jeans and T-shirts became her uniform. Her parents were sure it was all just a phase and she still managed to graduate from her private high school.
She was all set to attend Princeton. Although not because of the brilliance of her SAT scores. Her father made a generous endowment, pay
ing for the renovation of the university’s library. But she never became a sophomore. Instead, she spent her time locating suitable veins into which she could insert a needle.
The trip downhill started after returning from a gap year touring Asia—a time away from her bourgeois family, when she would find herself, whatever that meant.
Billie’s parents paid for rehab and EST training. They tried everything from AA to Zen, exhausting the resources of America’s self-help industry, as they valiantly reached out, hoping to reclaim the girl they had once known.
But she grew increasingly distant and was lost to them. They craved for a return to how things used to be, but the past could never be recaptured. Then one day, a policeman appeared at the door. He brought news that Billie had died from a heroin overdose in the bathroom of a motel off the Vegas Strip. As classic suicides went, it ticked all the boxes.
And then there was Carla’s sister, Liz.
They never talked about the falling out. It was a subject that sometimes Carla felt like confronting head on, but she always backed away because she saw no point in creating unnecessary family tension.
And then as the years passed, Budd refused to discuss it, period. It became impossible to raise the subject without risking his anger. Carla saw no need to do that, because it certainly would never help her achieve what she really wanted.
She wanted to reach out to Liz and tell her that everything was forgiven. No one was judging her for the lifestyle she’d chosen. Maybe it was not the path a proud parent would have wanted for their child. Then again, giving a child freedom meant allowing them to make mistakes.
She had made plenty growing up and they didn’t suddenly stop the day she became a mom. Curiously, they seemed to multiply with the passing years, because she had yet another example in front of her eyes. How had she allowed it to happen—to be dictated to by her sixteen-year-old stepdaughter?